Sometime or other while working in the dipping room I was asked if I wanted to do some other work one of two nights a week. It would mean I would get more pay because I would be working a double shift on those nights and third shift got paid more than second. I said sure. Money was money and all I was doing at this time was my weekend singing stuff.
My new job had to do with this huge Hobart dough mixer. I had to mix up the liquid plastic. I would measure out certain amounts of chemicals depending on what kind of plastic was needed. I had a white bucket I would put liquid from those black and yellow drums next to me. I also had to take a fifty pound bale of powder and pour into the mixer. I added the liquid a bit at time. There was a small cardboard round box of ultramarine color powder. If I was making the liquid for the pilot balloons I'd measure out an amount of this to add to the mix.
When it was all mixed smooth, I'd bail it out into fresh white buckets, label it and stick a lid on it. Some times I mixed other plastics in here too.
There was man who worked in this same part of the factory. He was about twenty I think. He married a very pretty woman who was older than him and worked in the office. He was very nice. He was a jerk and a stupid one at that but he still got paid more than me. He had quit school early and didn't even have a GED at the time he was working here. He told me once he was working on it.
The reason he even told me that much was because he would have to fill out forms for his job. He couldn't spell good or even read all that well. Once he asked me how to spell "stop". I laughed over it for days. I'm sure I told Mim and Robin about it. The other dipper was nasty with me for laughing at him.
Some times if I had spare time and my jobs were finished, I get a box of pilot balloons and blow air in them. You did this because powder was added to the box so they wouldn't stick together and sometimes you had to blow the excess out. It wasn't my job but I would do it if I was bored. At least when someone asked me what I did for a living I could truthfully say I blew pilots.
One evening although I was tired I took a box down and started across the ware house floor with them. I didn't notice a pallet lying in my pathway until I tripped and crashed into it. Balloons went everywhere. I was in an enormous amount of pain. I did clean the mess up and the dumb guy filled out an accident report. I was in pain but I drove home.
The skin wasn't broke but I had a lot of bruising. It got worse and the blood was draining into the rest of the leg. I had broken something blood related below my knee. I went to the doc who sent me to the ER for x-rays. My leg swelled up. I was off work for about a week. I was lucky. It didn't get any worse. I got hell for doing a job I wasn't assigned to do.