Buddy Capers, One of Many

Summer Sometime in the 80’s

One of my best friends and I were lucky enough to work together. We used to choose our shifts based on the season. It was hard to believe we got paid to have so much fun.

She had scored a ‘two for one’ membership at a local gym, thus began my bodybuilding era. I actually got into it, and went three years without eating chocolate. If nothing else, the experience taught me how to be healthy. But that’s not what this story is all about.

It’s about having one of those ‘want to get away’ moments. Forget about shoving a bunch of Twix into our mouths – we were chocolate abstainers, remember?

We worked the Graveyard shift, which was great but for the creepy janitor that would leer at us and take way too long to perform his duties whenever he came into the area where we were working.

“How long does it take to sweep the floor?” She asked, irritated.

I had an idea. “He can’t sweep if he doesn’t have a broom!” I said, smiling. She was always on my wavelength. It’s great when two blonds don’t have to explain anything to each other.

We waited, knowing that he would conveniently leave his broom propped up against a nearby wall so that he would have to come back for it, he always did this.

We saw our break and went for the broom. But now what? We ran through the warehouse and to the loading doors.. It was fun and a little scary, we had no idea where he was.

Thinking we heard a sound we decided to ditch the broom immediately – I lifted up on the door and it went up just enough for it to squeeze through. Done. Broom heist executed.

It was harder than I can ever explain not to burst out laughing as we watched him look for his broom. The down side is that he spent even longer in our area, punishing us with his lingering body odor.

“We need to move that broom?” My friend insisted. “Pick it up and take it away with us?”

She was right. Taking it was one thing, but letting him take the blame for ‘leaving’ it on the loading dock was another.

“OK, we’ll grab it on our way out. I’ll drive over there and you can chuck it into the car.” We usually car pooled on our workout days. We were heading for the gym after work.

Payback number one – the loading dock was really high and she had to climb up on top to retrieve the broom. We didn’t count on that as we kept our eyes out for the security guards that patrolled the premises. She threw the broom into my backseat and brushed the dirt off onto her pants. By her scowl I could tell the fun was wearing off.

We took it with us to the gym and left it near the dumpster, laughing at our little caper. We were still laughing when we got to the front desk. We had gotten to know the woman working there and smiling, she asked what we were up to.

We were laughing to the point of tears as we gave her some background information on the creep and how we had fixed him real good.

Payback number two came when she informed us that the janitor was her brother.