Inflection points & used carpet padding

When I discovered my talent as a grunt worker:

Rainbow at Moose Head Ranch WY After my first layoff, I wandered over to my brother’s carpet business and began to hang out (I had nothing better to do). This was around 1997.

I’d see things laying around, and offer to clean them up or organize them. There’d be an 8ft pile of loose carpet remnants laying in a corner, so I offered to trash the small pieces, organize the 8×10 or 9×12 pieces so we could sell them (bound) as rugs. Which we began doing.

Then, he’d need someone to drive the forklift, so I jumped in & started loading 53-ft trailers. You can oddly learn how to drive a forklift in a day or so. At least the ones we had. No licenses; just jump in & push that pedal forward or backward, and raise/lower your forks. Replace the propane tank when it runs out.

While he sold supplies & remnants, his primary revenue stream was from the carpet pad recycling service he provided.

In carpet pad recycling, carpet layers would bring (used) padding to our dock door, brought from new installation sites where new product was installed. We’d weigh it on a scale, and give them around $0.10 /LB for it. Cash money. He also hung a 12-gauge shotgun on the wall behind the counter to discourage robbery.

Sometimes our dock workers would fail to show up, so I’d step in.

Carpet, Carpet Pad, and Tack StripUsed carpet padding is an interesting object, in that, it is an unholy putrid piece of foam & rubber, all rolled up. Imagine everything that occurs on the top of carpet, and then imagine that stuff seeping down into the carpet pad below, and the pad absorbing all that dank dreck. Dirt, sand, vomit, urine, feces, blood… the highlights. Carpet cleaning companies may improve the top layer of shag, but that underlying pad is rarely cleansed. How do I know? Well, because I’d hand collect this filth from our dock door, lay it on top of our scales, weigh it, and then hand-shove it into our bailers to compress into 6-ft wide 800# bricks which we’d broker & sell to carpet companies (who’d ultimately clean & recycle into new padding). We’d buy for $0.10 /LB, then hopefully sell for $0.20 /LB, all bundled up.

It’s funny, I’m smiling as I write this. Why? Cause I adored it. I discovered my admiration for foul jobs that others might avoid. I never knew that about myself. Or maybe it was because of my unusual position – laid off & abandoned. And here I was, jumping into truck-beds, stacked 6ft high with this used, offensively vile (often moist) padding, bear hugging that shit & tossing onto the scale to weigh. Lord, it was nasty. But man, it was invigorating. I was feeling somewhat useless at that point in my life, and this made me feel useful. Wretched or not, who cares.

It made me question several things. I began wondering what else I was overlooking; what aspects of myself were hiding just below the surface.

This inflection set me on the path to where I am now. You might see farming & ranching projects in my profile; I sortof see fragments of my identity that I’ve uncovered over the years.


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