Getting Chummy

I was going to post some first-week-on-the-job photos with this post, but they'd get an R rating for graphic violence. I am using gifs to supplement. Yes, that's right, I started my new job at the cannery. It's a fish processing plant which, handily, is right across the street from where I'm living. (Remember the different kinds of salmon I wrote about last time? The kind we're processing is "chum," though you may know it as "dog salmon" or "keta.")

I'm not exactly sure what my position title is, but something Assyrian would be fitting. "She-That-Rips-Out-the-Hearts-of-the-Helpless."(I never wanted to be a heartbreaker, but in the fish processing business, it's kind of unavoidable.) I feel a new kinship with the Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time.

THE POWER

Since Sasha and I started on Monday, we've mostly been working the "slime line." This is a misnomer and an understatement. It is a fish holocaust. I am reminded of that scene in Chicken Run where the chickens go in clucking and come out pot-pied. A truckload of slippy, slimy salmon slide onto a conveyor belt, through a chop-choppy machine from the French Revolution, and down a gauntlet of Mexican guys (and me) to be "cleaned." If you don't like ketchup because it reminds you of blood, this would not be the job for you.

Today, a lone eyeball gazed dolefully up at me as it slid on past, perhaps judging me for my wicked deeds, perhaps simply thrilled to be free from the confines of a fish's head. It was one of the great tragedies of our time that we will never know.

At the cannery, we're either up to our elbows in fish goo or we're cleaning fish goo out of the machinery's every crick, cranny, and crevice. Head-to-toe rain gear is the most important part of the work uniform. Some toughies manage with a t-shirt and a rain bib. My goal is cover as much bare skin as I possibly can.

On the plus side, we get to listen to music. It plays from loud speakers overhead, so whoever gets to the music first decides what we all listen to. We listen to Mexican music until first break and then the most determined among us sneaks back early from break to plug their phone into the speakers and assert their musical dominance. And so it goes. Sometimes we get Imagine Dragons. Sometimes Ke$ha. I'm waiting until I get some more street cred to make a move. Then it's a 10-hour loop of this bad boy.

The other plus of working slime line is I get lots of time to talk with God. We're told to pray without ceasing and since I'm already cleaning fish without ceasing, the two seem to go together. I have a mental list of people I'm praying for, but they shouldn't get to hog all of God's attention, so if you'd like to go on Ruth's Slime Line Prayer List, please let me know. I'd be happy to pray for you as I eviscerate fish.

Oh, also, I think that fish eyeball conveyed supernatural powers on me. It's not the most exciting origin story, but at least now I have a title for my position.