The Night of the Living Black Goo

I work at a dry cleaners. I am the dry cleaner. That means that in certain parts of the day I get to spot out stains by hand on a thing called a spotting board, using a steam/air gun and various chemicals.

The board has had leak in the back of it for oh, about a year and a half. All the crud, lint, checmical, and crap leaks out the rear and spills onto the floor and splashes onto the wall. It had to some degree actually come to life and had gained a slight intelligence resulting in a black goo similar to motor oil. Only thicker. And grosser. Much grosser.

You cannot clean the black goo. You must not disturb the black goo. The black goo might retailiate in such a way as to never allow you back there ever again.

And plus, there's no point in cleaning it--it just comes back like an angry fungus.

So last Monday my boss must have been in a bad mood and I must have just so happen to be in his way. He wanted the black goo cleaned up.

Sigh

So on Tuesday, I donned a pair of coveralls not belonging to me. The crotch hung to my knees and the hem was rolled up about 12 inches. But at least I was able to put something of a barrier between me and the infamous black goo.

Fortunately for me (ha ha) the entire backside of the board is steam pipes. And look! Next to it a dryer! Also covered with steam pipes. Yeah me! Not yet knowing exactly which pipes were hot, I made a thorough yet careful examination of each pipe by accidentally my arms into them. Nine times.

Well, one coworker says 12. I have a cluster of burns on my left arm that I count as one. It's more of a colony, really.

Of course, once I got back there--I could see why my boss wanted me to do it. See, I am 5 feet tall and weigh approximately 116 pounds fully clothed (with shoes on, even!). The space behind the board is approximately 12 inches wide. Ok, that and I am a certified lackey. However I tried to reason with myself that since my boss is over 6 feet tall, that I was the perfect one for the job. Hey, you gotta psyche yourself out into delusional periods for this kind of work now and then.

So after a 12 long hours (at least it felt like 12 hours) I had the entire area spotless (or as close as one gets to spotless). I had lost 12 pounds in water weight from sweating and felt pretty darn proud of myself. I gotta go wash the owner's coveralls now. They're starting to walk around by themselves. Oh GOD! Here they come! The black goo has taken shape!! NOOOOOOO!!!! Tell my family I lo-------

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