Today after work I stopped by TD Banknorth to fill out a change of address form, since next week I am moving to the fifth place I will have lived since I moved to Montpelier. The bank manager was named Robert Burns and he looked almost exactly like the actor who plays The Floydster on 30 Rock, only older and fatter. I really badly wanted to ask Robert Burns if, when he tells people what he does, they ever mistake him for a baker, since people are always thinking I’m a banker. Anyway, as I was sitting there listening to him call banking headquarters or whatever to try to figure out how to change my address, I realized that I stank, and of the bakery I’d just come from. And I started wondering if there’s something general that could be said about what it means to have a job that one stinks from when coming home. Foodservice is obviously a field full of people who stink. When I worked at the pizza shop I stank, stank, stank of pizza, and so did my car, and so still do certain of my possessions (this one bag…). When Andrew gets home after a long night of baking and climbs into bed with me, he smells like toasted flour. The new bakery smell is not an obvious one… I think it sort of smells like bacon fat, although that doesn’t make any sense, since we cook bacon maybe once a week (for scones), but I smell like this every day. Photographers of old I’m sure used to come home reeking of darkroom chemicals, and I assume farmers, even modern ones, smell like livestock or hay or dirt. But I don’t think Robert Burns stinks of the bank when he gets home. I wonder if that means anything. I’ll think about it in the shower.
Love,
Susan.
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ReplyDeleteI remember reading the comment of some union leader in relation to the different responses to the bailout proposals of Wall Street and the auto industry. He said, "Congress bails out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards." That is one of the downsides of white collar work, I feel; it more often than not lacks a smell.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't come home from my current job smelling like anything, I do feel like I've been coated in something. I almost wish there was an actual smell, but it would probably be a mixture of cured ham, wine, and old lady perfume, so I suppose it's for the better.
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