Condom Mint Factory Worker (2016)

It’s really a condiment factory but apparently everyone’s a comedian.

I'm working a 3-month contract on the night shift where we make and package condiments and drink additives for fast-food restaurants. Pizza dipping sauce has been ruined for me. A person can only be sauced by malfunctioning machinery so many times.

It’s like working in the Bizarro World version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Only, the machines barely work, the product becomes less edible the longer you stare at it, and happiness is like a cruel, fading memory. Even the chocolate river (the result of the syrup machine exploding all over the damn place) does nothing but crush childhood dreams. Two hours of arduous mopping and another chocsplosion later, I’ll never surrender to guileless wonder again.

It’s not all chocolate rivers and crushed dreams though. Some nights I sit in the hottest, most remote corner of the factory tapping on salsa cup lids. About 1 for every 50 cups is made improperly and hot salsa scalds my hands. 100 cups per box. 50 boxes per skid. 4 skids per shift. 5 shifts in a row. By the time I’ve tested the integrity of some 100,000 safety seals, my fingerprints have all but burned away by the unforgiving heat of subpar salsa.  

One night not a single cup, packet, pouch, or jug assaults me with its contents. It’s a goddamn Christmas freaking miracle in the middle of July and I have to keep myself from getting too excited or else face how sad that makes my life. As I get ready to leave work, I spy a box of hot sauce in the break room; free to take. I think, oh what the hell! Sauces aren’t really the physical embodiment of all evil! I take three.

Halfway home, my eyes begin to sting. The streetcar I’m riding fills with the unmistakable burn of jalapeños. Commuters cough and grumble as I sigh mournfully for the contents of my backpack.

It is 2016, I haven't slept in three months and my favourite book is now a distressingly fragrant shade of orange. I have learned the valuable workplace skill of never working in a factory ever again.