My New Career

Virginia, Route 81 South to Tennessee

Now here’s a job I could do: Coner. This is the person who removes the red cones from a construction site after the job is finished. You get to sit on the back step of one of those golf-cart-type vehicles, feet barely brushing the new asphalt, and grab each cone as your driver approaches it, then let the stacker take it from your hand and put it on the pile of retrieved cones. Then you simply wait for the next cone to present itself. The way I see it, the job involves no walking, no lifting, except for a minimal lift at the point of grab, and no thinking. Now that’s a job I could do.

Plus you get a nifty orange shirt to wear, and a matching orange helmet, presumably to protect your hair from UV damage. A job with a style ethic, now that’s the job for me.

I considered for a time becoming a flag person, but I realized I don’t have the arms for it. My muscles atrophied a long time ago, so I’d get tired too fast. And I also don’t relish the idea of exhbiting my wattles for all the drivers of the highway to see. Arm flab is not something you are normally proud of, Jamie Curtis notwithstanding. Of course, she has no flab anywhere, so who is she to role model me?

Oh yes, coner is the job for me. You get a decent wage, you’re in a union (appealing to me, since I’ve always been a joiner – sorority, singing group, ladies nite out, that sort of thing), and because it’s construction, there are always six people assigned to do something one person could easily manage. It’s nice to have backup. And let’s not forget the coffee breaks and the early quitting time.

The next construction site we pass, I’m jumping out and putting in my papers. It might be nice to tarry a while in this area and make some money while I do. Plus it’s a job with a beginning and an end, and if I am right about this, you get to take home the shirt and hat when you retire. Sweet.

Betty