Someone has to do it

Sometimes when I don't have anything to do, I sit and think. (Scarrrrry because it isn't often that I don't have anything to do and even scarier that I actually think!)

I sometimes think about the people who have the job of folding up men's shirts, those who stick the pieces of rigid cardboard and plastic tabs into the collars and those that stick the 50 pins into the shirts to make them stay neatly folded. I hate taking out all those pins, by the way, and what are you supposed to do with them? I don't sew, and usually poke myself at least once while removing them. I'll bet those pinners have poked themselves more than a few times, too, while doing their job. Yikes! How many times have they had to grab the Tide stick to get rid of the blood drops!

Have you ever watched the television show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe who gets down and dirty with some of the people that truly have some of the filthiest work. He has given the world a view of some of the jobs we totally don't even think about.

I'm betting that it wouldn't take me long to lose my lunch if I had to go into the sewer line each day and get it unplugged - somebody has to do it. In this show, rats and cockroaches as big as dogs who called the sewer home, were running across the workers' feet as they cleaned. Yikes!

He once helped out this woman who has a monkey haven, for rescued monkeys. The monkeys' diets were so varied that she literally spent all day preparing food and feeding them. It appeared it would be "fun" job with cute little monkeys but some of them were just as scary as the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. They attacked while the show was filming there and caused some damage.

He once went out in a boat on a Minnesota lake with guys who have made their job collecting leeches in little traps for fishermen to purchase and use for bait. Some of those leeches attached to them when being taken from their traps. Yucky! He has worked on ostrich farms, helped determine the sex of chicks, cleaned attics of rats and the list continues on and on.

The show gives me an appreciation for these people who do have to get out and get dirty doing their jobs - it makes me appreciate my job even more.

Maybe someone should start another TV show "Sweet Jobs." I'd like to host that one. We could do things like sample ice cream at Wells Blue Bunny, fresh donuts and rolls at Page's Bakery, cheesecake at Boz Wellz...

(Can you imagine how much I would weigh if I did this job? But what fun!)

I guess I better stick to my job here - no dirty jobs, no sweet jobs, but a job just right.

* Lorri Glawe is a member of the Pilot news staff. Reach the columnist at lglawe@stormlakepilottribune.com