Never Be Ashamed to Buy Your Own Lube.

Saturday night at work was the busiest night I've worked since before Christmas.  There was a great combination of circumstances that lead to this, but mostly I think it was just that time to get fucking wasted.

January is usually pretty slow, everyone's bogged down with bills or has drank their fill through the holiday season and hasn't quite yet forsaken their resolutions to not drink ever again.  Considering that most people's resolutions, particularly those to never drink ever again, usually come across like a 16-year-old's protestations of future sobriety an hour after downing their first micky of white rum and then puking in five different places that night, I don't really have any respect for them.  Empty threats, things that will be said and never done.  I totally respect people when they do decide to stop drinking, forever or for a certain time period, but the vow usually has a different level of sincerity when it's spat out between mouthfuls of vomit and tears as you cry into the shrub by the front door.


February.  The first weekend in the month, right after the end of January, was pretty busy.  It all has to do with payday coordination.  Either a Friday itself, or on the 15th or last day of the month, those are the days it gets busiest, because those are the most common paydays.  There's usually a little V-Day rush, but most people are more concerned with making sure they get laid that day than with making sure they get drunk, and since getting super drunk usually inhibits getting laid, the shenanigans are somewhat subdued.  I imagine the lube and condom sails go through the roof, though.  I should ask Kyle, the Lord of Porn.

Speaking of Kyle.  So, this past Saturday.  Busy.  As.  Fuck.  There was a UFC fight, and a lot of places were having St. Paddy's Day celebrations.  Also, it was just after the 15th, and just after a Friday.  A confluence of circumstances.  The Perfect Storm, if you will.

It's some late hour of the clock that I can't remember, something like 1030 or whatever, and I get a phone call.  I'm at the liquor store, by the way, and we take phone calls for deliveries.  Deliveries can be a shit-show sometimes (don't phone up and ask me what kind of beer I have, what kind of vodka we carry, ask me to deliver 'a bottle of merlot' without specifying a brand, or ask me to list every-god-damned-thing that's on sale. Phone up and ask for a specific thing. Also, know your address and phone number.  And don't be too drunk and noisy to answer the door when the delivery guy finally gets there, or I will hate you, and so will he or she), but I happened to recognize the name on the call display this time.  It was the same last name as the Lord of Porn, and I recognized the voice.

I didn't say anything, just proceeded to take down the necessary details, and all of a sudden I hear, 'AH-HA! IT'S YOU!' on the other end of the phone.  I started laughing, because I knew who it was, and I'd had a good day, despite how busy it was and despite working at helping open a brand new restaurant for the last two weeks, I was still in a decent mood.  Kyle'd probably already had a few, which is probably why he wasn't in-store himself, but that's what delivery is for, amiright?

Kyle: You know, despite how often I've been coming in, I've never asked your name.  It got to the point where it was just far too awkward and I couldn't do it.
Me: So now you're on the phone, you've got that one-step remove to make it less awkward.
Kyle: Yes, so now you can't see how red my face is going and I'm just going to ask.
Me: Hahahah, my name's The Fat Ho.
Kyle: Is that The Fat Ho with an F or a PH?
Me: With an F.
Kyle: Ah, right.
Me: Yep.  What can I get you for delivery?

I get his beer order and we laugh at the situation a bit more, and then he hangs up and I call the delivery guy.  We have a good relationship with our current delivery company.  It's run by a younger guy, probably late 20s, early 30s, named Brian, and his drivers are usually pretty good.  Brian himself came to pick this one up.

Brian: Hmmm, I don't recognize this order.  [We have our delivery regulars as well, and often he can tell where it's going by what time of day and what it is.]
Me: Oh, it's going to Kyle, he usually comes in all the time.  He works at the porn store.
Brian: Huh.
Me: Yeah, you'll recognize him, he said once you did deliveries for him before.
Brian: ...
Me: Kyle was in here once when you came to pick up a delivery and he asked about you, so I said you were the delivery guy, and then he said he remembered you coming in and picking up a big bottle of lube to deliver for some dude who didn't want to go get it himself.
Brian: Oh.  Well.  I've been there before, but it was probably to buy lube for my own personal use.
Me: Oh.  Well.  smirk.
Brian: Yeah, my buddy was singing in this kinky karaoke thing and he got dared to shove three golf balls up his ass, so he did.  I don't even think he used the lube.
Me:  Bahahahaha!!

Sometimes, man.  Sometimes I love my job so much it makes up for all the other really shitty times, and the low pay, and the stress.  Some of the people I've met are just the best.

This reminds me of my other lube story.  Well, one of my other lube stories, which I hope you will indulge me and let me tell, even though it's not related to alcohol, except that I sometimes used denatured ethanol as a solvent.

Back in 2006 I got a job working at a lab that manufactures personal care products.  This job was totally unrelated to alcohol or liquor in any way, as I was a year out of university where I'd gotten myself a shmancy degree in chemistry.  Sometimes, I think that what I do now is peripherally related to chemistry, in the same way that it's peripherally related to cooking, of which I have done a lot of as well.  Anyways.

So I made all kinds of hand lotion, body scrubs, shampoo, soaps, body butters, and even toothpaste.  Hauling around 20kg bags of calcium carbonate (a.k.a. limestone, chalk, or the gritty stuff in toothpaste that scrubs away the plaque and stains) really prepared me for hauling around kegs of beer and huge boxes of bottles or cans.  We even made lube.  It was a very nice, classy type, too, all natural and organic, nothing strange.  It was unscented, unflavoured and delightfully slippy, but not too tacky.

Our first big order of this stuff was 1300kg.  One thousand, three hundred kilograms.  Of lube.  We made it in a tank that was 3 - 4 times the size of your average hot tub.  Sanitized and sterilized, of course.  Only problem was, the cellulose we used didn't all dissolve properly.  Some of it settled to the bottom of the tank and plugged up the valve we needed to open to pump it into the bottling machine.  The boss and I get down on our knees underneath this huge tank of lube and prepare ourselves...  this is sounding dirty already.

Boss: I'll undo the seal, take off the valve, and give it to you.  Then, I'll pull out the plug of cellulose, and you slap the valve back on the hole and I'll help you reseal it, okay?
Me: Yep, sounds good.
Boss: Ready?  One... Two... Three!
Lube: FFFPPSHHHHTTTTTTTTTT!!

The lube went everywhere.  It only took about 15 - 20 seconds to get the valve back in place and the seal closed, but the O-ring had gotten carried away in the torrential out-spraying of lube, and so the valve was leaking a bit.  No matter.  The bigger problem on my hands, quite literally, was that I was now covered, chin to ankles, in a thick coating of lube.  I couldn't stand up.  I couldn't steady myself with my hands and push myself up.  I couldn't grasp the legs of the tank and pull myself up.  Every attempt only resulted in me gaining an inch of lift, and then slipping and falling back down to the floor, and then slipping off my knees and landing on my ass.  My boss was in similar circumstances.  I think I laughed so hard I actually peed myself a little.

I had to roll myself along the floor out from under the tank like some enormous slug, and then make it to a non-lubed part of the floor and scrape the lube off myself enough so that I could stand up and carefully make my way to the bathroom.  There, I gave myself a sponge bath and changed clothes, but I was sticky for the rest of the day, until I got home.

I really miss getting free samples from that place.