"Yes, Toxic, but You’ll be Fine."

So Scott and I got a job working five weeks at the Governor’s House…sweet. Or was it? Dun dun dun... A few days prior we signed up with Trade Staff Temping Agency…I should have known it wasn’t great idea after filling out a book of paperwork and taking a 60 question quiz consisting of questions like: If your arm gets cut off from a steel beam falling off a crane should you----

a. Don’t worry about it, you have another one

b. Ask one of your work mates to give you theirs

c. Fill out a complaint and get back to work

d. Call the hospital and get picked up immediately

Absurd. Anyway, they call us the night before and tell us to be at the Governor’s House at 7:30 am the next morning. Oh yea and they didn’t give us many details. We show up and go through some more paperwork. They take us into a trailer and I seriously thought we were going into chemical warfare. John, our headman said, “Here, you’ll need this, this and this…” I glanced at Scott trying to keep a smile crept back. We walked out of that trailer in full body suits with hood, hardhat, eye gear, rubber gloves that came up past our elbows, reflective vests, and steel toed boots 2 sizes too big. I couldn’t look at Scott while we took the tour of the place, afraid I was going to bust into full giggle as we marshmallowed along behind our supervisor trying to pay attention. Our job was basically stripping paint using a highly toxic paint stripper that cost 200 dollars a half barrel. I looked at the barrel, which stared back at me through the empty eyes sockets of a large skull and crossbones plastered on the side---POISON. It echoed off the empty rafters above me…I thought, I’m in a cartoon. It was really making me laugh. I looked at Scott and said, “This is going to be an interesting day.” If you got this stuff on your skin it burned like lava, and with all the gear they gave us we didn’t even have respirators, Needless to say we only worked there one day. I’m so glad I had that experience though and since that job I have been able to fly. (I wanted a picture of us so bad, it was ridiculous)