SCRINCHING
CARICATURE #030
Drawn 1998-04-01-253
I
had gone to High School with Linda. We hardly knew each other, barely spoke.
After High School however, we both went to work at Big Yank, Incorporated. It
employed about 600 people, most of whom were women. The women sewed the
material together to make blue jeans. It was my job to see to it they had
thread, material, and anything else they might need in the production of pants.
I was the “Bundle Boy.”
There
were two main lines: the “Blue Jean line”, and the “Dress Line”. Charles
Chaddick, my best friend at the time, worked the Dress Line, and I worked the
other. I took care of about three hundred and fifty women and Charles took care
of about two hundred and fifty. Nita, my floor manager, placed Linda under my
care.
On
her very first day I told Linda, if she needed anything at all to just scream.
About thirty minutes later, I was startled to hear a blood curdling cry.
“LAAA.........RREEEY.”
I
thought someone had died a horrible death. I came running, breathlessly “What’s
the matter?”
“Nothing.
I just need some thread.” She laughed as she scrinched her nose at me.
“Why
did you scream like that?”
“You
told me to.”
We
became fast friends after that. We began scrinching our noses at each other. It
was something I’ve never done with anyone before or since. She said the same.
We came to be special friends, with a special way of greeting each other. I
found she was a happily married woman with a baby girl. But our scrinching was
harmless. We kept saying we were going to run away with each other. We told
each other the secrets no one else knew. We were friends.
One
day, I had about a thousand pair of pants stacked up almost to the ceiling. As
I put the last stack of five dozen on the pile, the entire stack came sliding
down to the floor. I was upset. I’d worked on it for hours. Now it had to be
done over. It would take the rest of the day to put back.
“LAAA.........RREEEY.” Linda needed something. I ran to see what she
needed.
“What
do you need?” I asked.
She
answered slowly and deliberately, “You dropped something,” and grinned broadly
and scrinched.
I
wanted to kill her. But it was funny.
We
agreed that we probably would have had a good time dating in High School, if we
had discovered each other sooner. We probably would not have married each
other, but we would have had a good time.
I
really looked forward to going to work each day. She was always a bright spot
in my day. One day she wasn’t there. Word spread that she had run off with one
of the sewing machine mechanics.
I
was devastated. She had left her husband and her baby. It bothered me that even
in jest I had talked to her about running away together. It was harmless,
wasn’t it?
She
had never spoken to me about being unhappy at home. I became jealous in a way.
My
friend I loved so dearly had apparently been scrinching someone else.
✥
the wordmaster says:
She really was a sweet person. I had been scrinched
for sure.
✥✥✥
