Damn! Welfare got me a job at a butcher shop and if I don’t take it then they’re going to cut me off of food stamps. It was my own stupid fault too. I had to go and write down that I had worked as a butcher before on my work history form. Oh well, guess I’ll have to tough it out until I can figure a way out of it.
As I entered the shop and saw a middle aged couple working behind the counter. The woman asks if she can help me.
I tell her that unemployment sent me over about the job.
She tells her husband to check me out. He comes around the counter, introduces himself and his wife then tell me to come in back where we can talk. As I follow him into the back room/office I can see that his hand is all bandaged up. He motions me into a chair then he takes a seat behind the desk. He asks about my qualifications.
I tell him I worked for a farm butcher for 3 months a few years ago. Farmers would call him with a job. He’d call me then come get me. We would ride out to the farm in his pick up truck where he would slaughter the chosen animal. I would help him butcher it. We’d cut and wrap the meat then take it to the cold storage place in town. The head, hooves, tail and guts we’d put in a big washtub and later he’s sell it to some poor folks. For this I was paid $2 an hour under the table plus, I’d get a few choice cuts of the meat.
This butcher tells me that we won’t be doing any butchering. His wife runs the front counter and deals with the customers while he does the ordering and works behind it cutting the meat. Mainly my job will be to grind hamburger out of Australian bull and beef suet, and pork sausage out of pork shoulders after I’ve de-boned them. Then make patties the following day out of any of the ground meat that doesn’t sell today I package and put them in the freezer section. He asks if I can handle it.
I tell him no sweat. Then I ask him about his hand.
At first he looks embarrassed, then lifting his hand he says, “This is why we’re hiring you. You understand this is only a temporary job. You’re here to help out until this heals. Probably for 6 weeks or so.”
I tell him that’s great. I sure wasn’t looking for anything full time then I say, “So what’s with the hand?”
He shakes his head saying, “It’s not my hand, it’s my thumb. I cut it off on the band saw.”
I ask how it happened.
He looks around then says, “If you tell my wife I told you this then I am going to kill you, understand.”
I nod.
“Well,” he says, “a few days ago my wife and I were in the shop. She was talking to one of our better customers when I see this really good looking young blond babe with gigantic knockers wearing a tight red sweater walk in. I’m at the band saw cutting some steaks from a beef loin when all of a sudden the customer and the babe both scream. My wife turns, looks at me, turns red then starts bitching at me about being a macho pig who can’t keep his eyes to himself. All the while the other 2 are yelling and screaming. I don’t know what the hell is happening until I look down at my hand and see that it along with the front of my apron and the band saw table is covered in blood."
"Instead of my thumb, there’s a stump with a spray of blood spurting out of it every time my heart beats. The babe runs out of the store. My wife is yelling about what a bastard I am. The customer is hollering at her to get me to a hospital. And I just stand there like an idiot looking at my now severed thumb thinking, ‘where the hell is my fucking thumb?’"
"Finally my wife calms down and tells me to wrap my hand in a towel then find my thumb. She tells the customer to call the hospital and inform them of what’s happened and that we’re coming in. Then she tells me she’s going to get the car and when I hear the horn honk to come out and get in. She leave’s the shop. I’m still standing there bleeding because I can’t believe this is happening. The customer comes around the counter, wraps my hand in my apron then pushes me towards the door telling me that he’ll find my thumb. I get to the curb just as my wife pulls up with the car. She tells me to get in then asks if I have my thumb. I tell her no. She tells me what a dumb fuck I am then she gets out of the car, goes into the shop. A minute later comes out with a piece of butcher paper in her hand. She throws it in my lap saying, “Think you can hold on to this, asshole!”
"She drives me to the hospital bitching at me the whole time about what a thoughtless stupid son of a bitch I am. The doctors sewed it back on telling me since it was such a fresh clean cut that it’ll probably reattach itself with no problem. That was 3 days ago and she’s still pissed. She told me if anyone asked to just tell them I wasn’t paying attention and had an accident.”
I asked him how it felt.
He grimaces saying, “Man, it hurts like hell. But I sure ain’t gonna say anything about it to her.”
I got the job and worked for them for a little over a month before the bandages came off. The doc’s told the butcher it looked like he was lucky. He would get to keep his thumb with just a nice scar to remind him of that big titted blond. He told me his wife said that if she ever caught him so much as looking at another woman while working in the shop, she would personally stick something very personal of his in the band saw cutting it off, and it sure wouldn’t be his thumb.