Work Stories: Episode 15: A Rose By Any Other Name

Previously on Work Stories, I gave the details aboutvacuuming outside.  I know that doesn’t sound exciting at all, and I know it wasn’t exciting at all.  I wanted to share it anyway.  It lets you understand me more as a person, as much as my habit of watching bad movies does.  I’m that kind of person.  I let you get to know me.  This week will be no different.  I’m going to write about another story of a time when I was at work.

This story is once again at the hotel at which I worked for three years.  I almost said five right there.  That would have been a mistake.  I wanted to get out of there when I did.  Anyway, I worked there for three years.  I don’t remember when this story took place.  Mind you, this isn’t really a story.  This is more of an observation, but I’ve shared enough of those.  One more observation won’t hurt.

One of the jobs I did within the hotel was as parking lot attendant, as you already know.  You also know that the parking lot attendant portion of my time at the hotel could be quite boring and I would spend a lot of time staring out into nothingness or watching traffic.  This is a watching traffic sort of story, similar to the time when I wrote about seeing the multicoloured car.  In fact, this is very close to that story.

One day I was sitting there in the parking lot.  I was either reading a book, most likely Stephen King, or listening to music.  I read a few books out there, but the ones that stand out are the Stephen King ones because I spent a good amount of time reading It and The Stand while working that job.  The music came between the various periods of reading.  I like to read a chapter, take a small break, then move onto the next chapter.  That’s my way.  That’s probably also part of the reason that it takes me so long to get through a book.

This must have been during a period between chapters.  Obviously, if I were reading a book, I wouldn’t be looking at the traffic.  I would be invested in my book.  But I was looking at the street and watching cars drive by.  It must have been while I was listening to music.  I don’t know why I am writing any of these details down though.  Almost none of them are important to what the observation is.  They just sort of build an atmosphere, without building it at all.  Let me get to stuff that actually matters.

The parking lot was located on one corner of an intersection.  One direction of the intersection led onto a highway.  This meant that a lot of vehicles came by intending to enter into the highway traffic.  There were stoplights at the intersection, so often times, multiple cars would line up waiting for the light to turn green.  This was one of those instances, where multiple cars were lined up at a red light.  They would wait for it to switch to green so that they could go onto the highway and leave our city.

I was sitting in my chair at the entrance booth of the parking lot listening to music on this day.  A van pulled up to the corner.  It was a red light, so the van had to wait before it could turn onto the highway.  Then I saw it.  Another van pulled up behind it.  The lineup had started.  Only, this was not a normal lineup.  The two vans were the same exact van.  The only difference between them was the colour.  I think one was red and one was black.  But that was not the end.  Mere seconds later, another van pulled up to the corner.  It was the same van again!  This time it was a taxi, but it was the exact same van otherwise.  Three vans right in a row, on the road, for a short amount of time, that were the same make and model.  This was a sight to behold.

For whatever reason, this has stuck with me.  I know that you can see different coloured versions of the same van if you go to a car lot.  But I have not seen anything like this on a road.  There is something about seeing this on the street that makes it special.  It isn’t like a car lot where the vans sit there waiting to be bought.  These vans are being driven around.  They aren’t special.  It’s just three of the same van being in the same place at the same time by coincidence.  Life is like that sometimes.  Beautiful, beautiful life.

That’s it for this week’s work story.  Most of that had nothing to do with the actual story.  I just went on a tangent.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that.  At least, I hope you liked it a little bit.  If not, I’m sorry that I wasted your time.  It’s not like I’m Indiana Jones.  I wish I was, but I’m not.  Until next time, stay cool.