Late-morning kitteh. Frank and I had a little extra sleeps ... it WAS cold!
Posted on 02/26/2011 1:38:34 PM PST by Squawk 8888
I’m not the wiener peeler, I’m the wiener peeler’s son, And I’m only peeling wieners, ‘Til the wiener peeler comes.
I apologize to pheasant pluckers’ sons everywhere for stealing their tongue-twister.
But who can resist when my Internet fairy, Irene, drops this job ad on my desk? “Get out your resume,” she purrs.
I pause in processing Moonlight Lady submissions, and take a boo.
“Full-time Wiener Peeler,” says the ad.
Wazzat? I ask. A red-hot stripper?
“No. As in weenie. It’s got you written all over it, ” says Irene, and she flutters off.
Well, I’m getting sick of grinding out daily columns like hamburger. So I read on.
“Opportunity. Excitement. Teamwork. Respect.
“At Maple Leaf Foods we are committed to attracting, rewarding and retaining talented people who are passionate about making a positive impact in their professional and personal lives every day.”
A noble mission. What better way to pursue it than as a bona fide full-time professional wiener peeler. The opening is at Maple Leafs’ hotdog plant in Hamilton.
Imagine the awe when you tell fellow partiers your occupation.
Picture the lineup of schools recruiting for career days.
The teachers may giggle, but the kids will scream for free samples.
You’re on Price Is Right and Drew Carey says, “What d’ya do for a living up in Canada, Mikey?”
I peel wieners, Drew.
“Good for you. Wiener peeler. Hmmm. reminds me, folks, get your pets spayed or neutered.”
Anyway, I check around and find yet another job opening at Maple Leaf. Wiener stuffer. Hit it ...
I’m not the wiener stuffer
I’m the wiener stuffer’s son
I’m only stuffing ...
(Ed. note: Stop that, you hotdogger, or we’ll make you pose for a picture like Gilles Duceppe in the silly hairnet.)
NO! Not that! I’ll do anything, boss.
The photo of Duceppe in a cheese factory was a body blow to the Bloc. He looked like a weenie. Un chien chaud. Un hotdog.
I wonder. How do wiener peelers and stuffers look? All dressed?
I call Linda Smith at Maple Leaf Foods and ask: What company wit came up with those job titles?
“They’re in the union contract,” she says. “They’re really a kind of food-processing operator.”
So machines do the actual stuffing and peeling. Thank God. I can’t imagine sitting there all day, fingers numb, going, “hundred thousand and one weenies, hundred thousand and two weenies, hundred thousand and ...”
The wiener stuffer fills the tubular collagen casings with hot dog sludge. Since you asked, the ooze typically comprises mechanically separated chicken, pork, beef, water, wheat gluten, salt, sodium phosphate, spice, dextrose, corn syrup solids, sodium erythorbate, garlic powder, onion powder, sodium nitrite and smoke.
If you need to ask what mechanically separated chicken is, don’t.
Or go eat a veggie burger.
Once the dogs have been divided and smoked and solidified, the wiener peeler removes the casings.
The stuffer and peeler look like hazmat officials or Apollo astronauts.
They wear blue rubber and plastic head to toe, with hairnet, hardhats and mask. Plus earmuffs. Yes. All those dogs barking.
The hirings, says Smith, are to gear up for summer, when 60% of wieners are sold.
What a great job, eh?
I assume you get to take home any bent, twisted or otherwise defective wieners.
And you’d be in the pantheon of careers with chicken sexer, pet food tester, bounty hunter, odor reader, fortune cookie writer, golf ball diver and newspaper hack.
Plus, you’re wrapped in a soft, warm union. The Brotherhood of Bun Fillers (BBF), or whatever it’s called.
I can picture the negotiations:
“We want a raise, a longer lunch, three weeks holiday, dental coverage and pension improvements.
“But hold the mustard.”
That's disgusting!
What is it? The tree pollen??
I’ve lived in earthquake zones all my life, and even been in many quakes. My son lives close to the New Madrid fault, and while he was here, there was a small quake in AR.
Pets are often more aware of shifts than we are, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can tell you an earthquake is imminent. Still, don’t ignore them completely.
Mulberry trees have worm-like “blossoms” that are about 3” long. They shed massive amounts of green pollen, and it coats everything because it is sticky.
Ick.
A high level of electromagnetism, or something, flowing through everything.
Like Marty said to Doc: "This is Heavy!"
Doesn’t look like I’ll be out your way this fall, ‘Face. The fall conference I speak at there is scheduled at the same time as my meetings in Rome. It’s a pity, because I was thinking about presenting TWO talks this year, and now I have to find another conference just to make my quota (minimum) this year.
Oh, yes! The last "big" one here (rocked the region) was the Ash Wednesday earthquake in 2001.
We're overdue for a 9+ here. But "overdue" can mean it might not happen for a few centuries yet.
I did not grow up in earthquake country and found them unsettling, but then I've sat through more than a few tornado watches/alerts.
Ugh.
LoM notes that a friend of ours has a son who might well have been in the Sendai region -- he is over there studying organic farming or some such. And we've sent an inquiry to a Japanese (Christian) couple in Tokyo we know; several years ago they visited us here and came to church with us.
Apparently I’m allergic to lobster. Would’ve been nice to know that before I ate it.
Noteable lack of tsunamis here, despite the fact that everyone on base was panicking about it. They closed down deliveries to the base all morning, due to the imminent destruction of the Seattle waterfront.
Sigh.
A better attitude than the individual in California who died of a surfeit of stupidity.
Too bad about lobster. I always considered them too much work to eat anyway.
Oh, dear. We’ll keep that in mind. It’s hard to believe you’d never had a bite of lobster in 20 years. Maybe it was a bad one.
Did you get your package yet? Should have arrived Thursday or Friday, barring a tsunami panic.
I’m far away from any earthquake areas ... about 150 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. We don’t get much of any disasters here ... too far from the coast for most (although not all) hurricane problems, too far south for the worst winter storms, in the wrong place for tornado-type activity.
Late-morning kitteh. Frank and I had a little extra sleeps ... it WAS cold!
You poor dear! It must be boring where you are.
Well, I should have said “natural disasters,” because we have Tom, Pat, and James.
Shannon is having a happy Sunbeam Time on top of the snake cage, and some of us are off to race Cub Scouts. They don’t roll very well, but they make interesting engine noises ...
According to Beverly Cleary's "The Mouse and the Motorcycle", those engine noises are an essential part of the motorvation.
Not feeling well this AM. Nausea has been with me going into the third day, now, and food has been very low on my list of priorities.
I’ll post when I feel up to it.
*groan*
“..but, that's not the wost of it! The man, he...he... HE TOOK OFF HIS FACE! He has no face!!” the deliriac struggled against the medications and the restraints with superhuman effort in his efforts to inform those in attendance of the dangers he had witnessed.
There is a buried supposedly inactive fault a little over three fourths of a mile to my west.
Before I moved, it was four hundred foot from my front porch.
In 2002 there was an earthquake in Plattesburg NY.
We felt it here in Orange County due to the supposedly inactive fault.
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