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driving with a muddy sock and other misadventures

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Posted by Zonie on May 20, 2020 at 22:23:58

My job heat-treating steel was considered essential during the quasi-lockdown, but ironically not so essential that the whole place couldn't shut down just as the quasi-lockdown was ending. ABS Metallurgical Processors, which had been in business since 1965 shut down last week, thus ending my 11½ year career with them.

I don't think COVID-19 or society's reaction to it had anything to do with it. It's probably just a bizarre coincidence. The disease barely touched our staff. Just one co-worker was down for a week with what may have been COVID-19, but he made a full recovery without being tested, seeing a doctor or going to hospital. Nobody else had symptoms. We certainly weren't going without business. The day we were ordered to stop accepting new loads was quite a busy one. Apparently a crisis within management had been brewing for quite a while, and ordinary employees like me had been kept in the dark about it. The straw that broke the camel's back was probably when furnace 13 broke and my boss gave the owner an ultimatum that it was either replaced with a modern furnace or she could get a new manager. Furnace 13 dated from 1955 and was getting increasingly difficult to repair. The owner wouldn't invest in modern furnaces, and she couldn't find another manager for the money she was paying my boss, so she ordered the whole company shut down.

Since the whole company shut down, I don't get my severance until the next regular payday, and until I know what my severance will be, there's no point filing for unemployment compensation, since the law requires that to be disclosed. Thus for the time being I don't have to account for whether I was available for work each regular work day. Another plus side is that Governor Ducey's "stay at home" order expired Saturday, so it's no longer a class one misdemeanor to go to a job interview, and I had one Monday.

Today, however, I was planning to have some fun. I had earlier thought that 2020 would be known here as the year without a spring, as wintry weather was followed without much of a transition by afternoon temperatures above 100°F in late April and early and mid May, but a late season Pacific cold front moved through yesterday. It didn't give us any rain, but I thought it might be cool enough this morning to go hiking in the desert and see if there was still any remnant mud from the winter rains at coyote central on the state trust land.

I had been going through my room cleaning out some old things and noticed I had a pair of athletic shoes. I didn't quite remember how I got them, as I almost always wear boots, but I also had torn socks, torn underwear, and torn overalls from work, and I figured that would be something good to trash in the mud, so I wore those athletic shoes.

I decided to do the serious hiking while it was reasonably cool and seek out the mud near the end of my hike as refuge from the midday heat. If it wasn't there, it was no matter, as coyote central was only a mile away from where I parked, and I could bear the heat for that long.

Most of the hike was routine and uneventful. I saw two bicyclists and nobody else. It was a weekday, after all. The trails, as I expected, were all dry dirt and sand and no mud. As I was approaching coyote central, however, I noticed that both the right and left soles of these athletic shoes were starting to separate. What was with these shoddy shoes that they couldn't take more than a few miles of hiking in the desert? I hadn't even gotten them muddy yet.

Then I remembered where I had purchased them. I had bought them from commissary when I was in prison. My work assignment had been as programs clerk, so I had never been issued work boots. Then it clicked that they may have been deliberately designed to be low quality. After all, the authorities wouldn't have wanted us to have shoes that could stand the pounding of hiking in the desert. That would make escape easier. Well, they were toast anyway, so I figured I would at least get them muddy before they broke apart completely.

I crested the ridge above coyote central and saw that of the large water hole the winter rains had made there were still three small mud pits. I went to one of them and found that it was generously deep and creamy. I slid down into it, covering my overalls and found that it was also pleasantly cool. I had a nice midday wallow. As it was sunny, I made sure to daub some mud on my face for protection. It being daylight, there were no coyotes, but I did see a roadrunner pass. It didn't say beep beep. It was so thick and sticky that I had to preferred to crawl out of it rather than trying to stand right away. I did eventually find my footing and made my way to a more watery hole. I wasn't going to get clean, but it would be easier going being covered with thin mud than being covered with thick mud. I then decided to make the journey back to my car.

The dry breeze helped the watery mud soaking my overalls keep me cool. Shortly after I began the return, the insole fell out of the right shoe. I don't like to litter, so I picked it up and held it in my left hand, as I held my walking stick in my right hand.

About halfway back to my car I was alarmed to encounter a swarm of bees. I couldn't have outrun them even if I had been wearing good shoes, but it soon occurred to me that they were merely migrating, not defending a colony. I deviated from the trail for a short while, and sure enough they weren't the least bit interested in me, and I soon rejoined the trail.

I finally got to my car, but when I started to drive away, it quickly became clear that toggling between the accelerator and the brake with what was left of my right shoe was definitely not safe. I put the car in park, took off what was left of the shoe, and proceeded to drive home with a foot wearing only a muddy sock toggling between the accelerator and the brake. It was easier than I thought it would be, and I made the journey safely.

In the back yard, most of the clothing came off without a thorough cleaning. The one good item of clothing I had worn was my blue Carhartt button-down work shirt. I hosed that thoroughly, intending to launder it. The rest had a good muddy sendoff.


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