Look for the Union Label

I remember my first union job. It was at Jewel Food Stores and I was forced to join the United Grocery Workers Union. I was very pissed off at first. They took a dollar out of my paycheck every week and I couldn't figure out just what the hell I got for that dollar. As far as I could see, nothing. What I did know, was that I was a sixteen year old kid who made a handsome dollar twenty five per hour, and I got a required thirty minute lunch break. I'm sure there were other benefits, but I was sixteen and all I needed was that thirty minute lunch. It wasn't the only union I ever belonged to. I also belonged to the United Steel Workers Union. Very butch sounding, but the job consisted of packing steel cans in railroad boxcars, and semi-truck trailers. There were no steel mills belching fire and smoke. That job paid an astounding three dollars an hour. Flash forward to the nineteen eighties and the union busting Ronald Reagan. Luckily, by that time I had a good job repairing computers. As the years rolled on the unions became weaker and weaker thanks to the republican party and the dumbass idiots who constantly vote against their own self interests. So now, right now, the jobs that are available suck. They don't pay well and they have no security. People who would have been making enough to support a family of thirteen, now have to scratch to barely support themselves. In this day and age, in the United States of America, people take jobs that are demeaning and pay for shit.

Yesterday afternoon, around two, the telephone rang. I did not have my glasses on and I could not read the caller ID, so I picked up the phone cold.

"Hello sir, I'm calling from the Natural Gas and Oil.....   "

I didn't even give her a chance to finish her pitch. I didn't care what she was selling, or who she was shilling for. I had my own smart ass comeback ready for her.

"Hey, I produce my own natural gas. Lots and lots of natural gas right out of my.. "

I thought I was being so clever and so funny. Until I heard her screaming at me over my hilarious natural gas out of my butt bit.

"SHUT UP! YOU SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

I shut up. This poor woman was obviously having a horrible day, so I just shut the fuck up.