My Dad Had a Dam Job

                                                

(This is from 2005 being a preacher's daughter, this was a fun write while traveling 65 mph in a semi.)

  The view from the passenger seat of a semi-truck is mostly highway and horizons, but today, it’s all about the river. Seeing the massive concrete walls along the Columbia in Washington always brings back the memories of when my dad had a dam job. 

 He was a dam worker who made a lot of dam money on a dangerous dam job. It was a good dam construction company, too--solid dam insurance benefits, solid dam supervisors, and a whole crew of hardworking dam men who took their dam responsibilities seriously.

The dam workers had some heavy-duty dam tasks.

They had to make sure there weren’t any dam cracks in the dam cement, because one tiny dam crack could turn into a big dam problem. One time a dam crack turned out to be just a dam shadow, but they still called a dam meeting about it.

They once taped a dam crack with dam duct tape just until the dam engineers arrived, which caused a dam argument.

They measured the dam water flow constantly, making sure it didn’t cause any dam leaks where they didn’t want dam leaks to be.

Some dam worker had to inspect the dam spillways to make sure it didn’t cause a dam jam.

And if the dam bolts weren’t tightened, that could cause a major dam disaster. One dam worker insisted on tightening every dam bolt twice, which annoyed the other dam workers who only tightened their dam bolts once.

They checked those dam bolts every single day they were on the dam job.

One day someone lost the dam blueprints.

That caused all kinds of dam chaos.

They had to call out the dam engineers, who always acted like the dam workers didn’t do their dam jobs.

The dam engineers stood around with their dam clipboards, shaking their heads.

It took several concrete mixer trucks to fix that dam mess.

And after that, the dam management decided they needed more dam safety drills.

That caused the dam workers to shake their heads and moan about the entire dam job — especially the dam safety videos they were required to watch.

Then someone mislabeled the dam control panel switches. 

 When the dam operator tried to open the dam spillway gates, he accidentally turned off the dam break room lights. 

When he tried to turn on the dam lights, he activated the dam emergency siren.

The dam foreman walked in, coffee in hand, looked at the dam chaos, and asked: “Who touched my dam switches?”

Everyone pointed at the dam intern.

And if a dam worker ever lost his dam nerve to do his dam job — being lowered over the side of the dam on a skinny little dam harness to check for dam leaks — the dam foreman would strap on his dam gear, grab his dam clipboard, and do the dam inspection himself.

And after all that dam chaos, the dam workers still showed up the next dam day… because that’s just how dam life goes. Now, back to the highway—we've got a lot of dam miles left to go today.