Thursday, August 03, 2006

Dear Evil Discussor... Did you know there are people out there whose job it is to scrape gum off of the sidewalk?


It's true. Just recently, in the heart of horrible Midtown, at the corner of Lexington and 50th, there were these two guys in office building maintenance uniforms. You know, with that assortment of meaningless letters sewn above their breast pockets. ABM, or LCB, or BBDD or FUQ. They were standing outside of an office building, looking miserable and defeated, with these plastic sticks in their hands that looked like long ice scrapers. And they were hunched over, scraping away at old hard gum stuck on the sidewalk. And not having much luck with it either. It looked fucking backbreaking. Honestly. Can you imagine the persistence, the determination, the strength you'd have to summon, not to mention the self-repsect you'd have to to surrender, in order to firmly wedge some stupid plastic scraper under a year-old piece of hardened, stepped on, flatter than flat piece of gum, and really go at it?

Now, what kind of boss calls his two employees into his office, looks them squarely in the eyes, and says, "Now that you're done cleaning the boiler room, pulling clogged sanitary napkins out of the ladies toilets, and rinsing wet crap stains off of all the stall walls, I've got something else for you to do. You know when people chew gum? And they chew and they chew, and then when they're done chewing, when the flavor runs out, or they just get tired of chewing it, they spit it out? And you know when they spit that old piece of chewed gum right out onto the sidewalk? And how it sticks right onto the cement? And how, over time, the sun dries and bakes that piece of gum until it cakes onto the concrete, almost becoming a part of the sidewalk itself? Well, here. I want you to take these two plastic sticks and spend the next four hours or so righting that wrong." That's an evil kind of boss. Eviler than even I, Evil Discussor. No one should be made to scrape other people's chewed up, spit out, hardened gum. It's demeaning. And degrading. I mean, at that point, once you've ordered them to start scraping gum off of the sidewalk, you might as well add, "While you're at it, get me something to eat, you total fucking fuck. Then go pick up my dry cleaning. After that, wipe my ass with a moist towelette. Then, give me fifty dollars, just because. Next, put any two of your fingers in this blender. Once that's through, sharpen a razor with this leather strop, lather up my balls with a shaving brush, and shave then squeaky clean. Afterwards, bring me your wife and your first born daughter. And then the three of you can each blow me. Twice. From each day forward."

I know what you're thinking. Somebody's got to do it right? Someone's got to remove all that gum once in a while or else one day there will be no sidewalk. There'll be just a gumwalk. I agree. I just don't think that somebody should be a couple of maintenance guys who probably bust their asses all day already doing any number of ridiculously craptastic tasks, and don't need to be utterly shamed and humiliated by being forced to go peel gum by hand or stick off of the sidewalk, whilst the entire rush hour crowd is making its way home to the subway. Maybe at least have them do it midday, so I don't have to feel so damn guilty. Or better yet, why not hire these motherfuckers? GumBusters NY. They're called Gumbusters for fuck sakes. They do it for a motherfucking living. They bust gum. And look, they've got "NY" in their name. Which means they're fucking in New York fuck. It's perfect. They've got a special treatment. And a Power Washing Gum Cart that "devours gum." And uniforms and caps. Plus, they say things on their website like, "It seems like Magic, but it is research." Clearly, they know shit about shit about gum removal. I mean, they capped "Magic" after all. Bring in the professionals. And leave the maintenance guys with some dignity, dickhead boss. Or one of these days when you tell them to go scrape some gum, you might find yourself instead with a plastic-gum-scraping-ice-scraper-stick scraping the inside of your icy asshole, asshole.








I just got angry there. I'm sorry. It's because I am a champion of the downtrodden. The little people. The average, hard-working individual. Because before my meteoric ascent, my world-renowned popularity and acclaim, before all of this overwhelming fame and fortune, I was a little, average, hard-working person too, you know.

Yours,
E.D.

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As Judge Shmails says in Caddie Shack "Well, the world needs ditch diggers too..."

Somewhere down the line these gum cleaners made a mistake in their career choice and ended up cleaning our ABC gum. Sucks for them.

- Loyal Anon

12:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're not giving any credit to the service these maintenance workers are providing. They're doing a good thing for New York City by keeping the sidewalks clean, paying attention to the details. Have you ever talked to these guys? Ask them how they feel about the work they do? If you did you'd discover that most take great pride in what they do. By you over-reacting to the situation in the extreme and completely ignorant way you do, you in fact effect the opposite result of what you preach--which is your championing for the downtrodden.

1:33 PM  
Blogger concha said...

oh fucking eat it, anon. find something else to take seriously.

1:39 PM  
Blogger Maulleigh said...

I know that sneaky thing that employers do: you get hired to do a specific job and then they're like, "Oh, by the way: did I mention that part of your job is to clean the mens room once a week? Sorry I didn't mention that during the interview." Yup. That was me: bagging groceries at the Jewel food store and cleaning urinals. And I had all my first paycheck eaten up by union fees.

Sucks to be me. :(

1:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Concha, you rock! I love how you stick up for your fellow bloggers. I should really start my own blog for all the fucking commenting I do on ED's, Larry's and your blogs. Plus I'm probably more edgy, witty and funny than all of you combined. (plus conceited)

- Loyal Anon

2:04 PM  
Blogger concha said...

bring it.

2:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For a measly 150 bucks, the employer of these poor sods could buy a pressure washer at Home Depot, do his civic duty, and be the hero of the day.

12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was visiting NYC and was amazed at all the black spots on the sidewalk. Initially, I didn't realize what it was, but then YUCK!

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Evil Discussor,
Why is my boss a douchebag?
Thanks,
dingbat

4:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The paragraph that you ended with "From each day foward," is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read.

8:51 PM  
Blogger EVIL DISCUSSOR said...

And you, are quite possibly the greatest anonymous speaker to ever walk this great planet.

10:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Evil,

Why don't you have an email address on your profile page? You might be missing out on on a lot of invitations, I'm just saying.

P.C.

12:54 PM  
Blogger EVIL DISCUSSOR said...

Like invitations to where? A party?

It's up there now if any one has any questions, comments, concerns, or invitations to a party.

1:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

www.gumspots.com

6:48 PM  
Blogger Danny said...

AT THE SIT ANSWERBAG Someone asked "what are those black spots on the sidewalk?"

2 ANSWERED GUM, BUT THEN THERE WERE THESE TWO...

"that's tar. It's used like glue to fill gaps and cracks in concrete. You see it on roads and sidewalks. It's cheaper than replacing the whole thing. Sort of like a quick patch."


"the black spots your seeing is the stone that is in the concrete. over time the top of the finished concrete wears away and you see the stone it just happens that some of the stone is black and that is what I think you are seeing"

ON MY BLOCK THERE ARE SO MANY BLACK SPOTS THAT I HAVE A HARD TIME BELIEVING ITS GUM. THATS A LOT OF GUM ON A QUIET RESIDENTIAL STREET. IS IT POSSIBLE ITS MORE THEN JUST GUM?

5:17 PM  

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