Mr James

A friend of mine, who's gotten into an education gig, posted to Facebook that she learned they still use that cherry scented sawdust to clean up when a kid pukes.

I thought of Mr. James, the costodian of South Park Elementary where I did grade school. I'm betting James was his first name, written in Brody Script in a patch on his chest. I don't know for sure, but we all called him Mr. James.

Mr. James had a huge ring of keys. He pushed a broom, he scrubbed the toilets. And I don't think any of us knew what social class his job assigned him. School janitor isn't on the list of jobs kids might say they want to be someday. But kids have such limited knowledge of adult jobs that they only go for obvious ones like cop, firefighter, teacher.

Maybe it was just me, but I thought Mr. James was cool. Cool in a I'd-like-to-be-that-someday sense. He sang a karaoke version of You Light Up My Life for the talent show.

I remember the cherry sawdust, I bet Mr. James questioned his place in the cosmic order when he had to use that stuff.

Though he did the tasks his job required cheerfully. Maybe he's like my friend Robert the Psychic who is still Robert the janitor Monday through Friday even though he's well past retirement age. Robert shrugs it off, says it's work but it's not that hard.

And that's probably true, there's nothing physically demanding or requiring advanced training about cleaning up puke, it's just gross.

I wonder at what age the adults made sure all us kids knew that we were supposed to aim higher than a job as school custodian. By high school for sure, but somewhere in there I got the message that while necessary, those aren't the jobs to aspire to. Aspire to for what reason? If you can do the tasks cheerfully like Mr. James did, what's wrong with it? Then again, Robert the Psychic would be retired if that career path was more remunerative than it is. It's a job that pays survival wages, you'd have to be incredibly frugal and disciplined to put a retirement nest egg together on janitorial pay.

Maybe I'm a little color blind or tone deaf to status. I don't look at what I do as a graphic designer as being all that elevated from cleaning up puke, it's different sure but better? In terms of importance, the urgency with which the job gets done, the puke on the floor is a much higher priority than a tastefully designed business card. And I was proud to call myself an Uber driver when I did that for a living. I knew it was a low status job, but I enjoyed the people mostly, and I took pride in both providing a good rider experience and being smart enough to make a living out of a system as predatory as rideshare is. I almost succeeded, I paid my bills for five years and was able to repair and replace vehicles along the way. But when you really factor in vehicle expenses, my hourly wage was shit.

I used hydrogen peroxide on the vomit I had to clean up as an Uber driver, no cherry sawdust.