Listening Between the Lines

Hick has been working in Massachusetts this week. His company bought out a factory there, so he is coordinating the move of a multitude of machines. Hick is good with that stuff. He knows how to take it apart and put it back together. With a minimum of leftover parts.

Tonight he called to report that he spent $20 on a coat. "I had to," Hick said. "It's snowing here. And I have to load the truck all day tomorrow." Lest you think I begrudge him $20 for a coat, a HEAVY coat, as he informed me, I do not. It's just that he has a penchant for using the debit card and neglecting to show me receipts. So each week when I call the bank's automated number to keep track of checking account expenditures, I am left with several mystery purchases. All of which mystify Hick. Making me think we're being scammed by some minimum-wage Lowe's clerk after Hick uses the card. Just last week there were three unknown charges. Upon a severe poking with a sharp stick--I mean, a round of questioning under a bare lightbulb, Hick remembered that he had used the debit card at the pharmacy for extra medication to take on his trip, at a sporting goods store to purchase ammunition, and for a fifty-dollar charge for something to do with the airport. My hair is thinning. Not from old age, but from tearing it out by the fistfuls.

I was shocked to hear that Hick was loading a truck. "You mean you and your helpers have to carry stuff out? You'll have a heart attack in that weather!"

"We don't CARRY it. I run the forklift. I've been doing it all week. Today, the guy here who does what I do back at the plant asked to see my license! He said, 'I just figured you had one, so I let you run the forklift. But now I need to see it.' I told him of course I HAVE a license to operate the forklift. I am the one who trains people at work, to certify them for the forklift. He said, 'Well, you DID drive it forwards down the aisle, when you should have been going backwards.' And I told him, yeah, but I turned it around as soon as you asked me to. He agreed that I did. But he STILL wanted to see my license. Can you believe that? I had to call work and have them fax a copy. So I can still drive the forklift."

Something tells me there's more to that story.