I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up some bread and milk and to get a package of the thick sliced cheese Jake cuts. I parked next to Willard Smith’s beat up old pickup truck and went inside. Jake looked up as I came through the front door. Since I had not parked in front of the gas pumps, he had not come out to see if I wanted a tank of gasoline. He was over by the pot belly wood stove holding court with Willard and Mister Johnson. I walked over to join them and see what was the topic of conversation for the day.
Willard was complaining about job conditions where he works. He has a factory job over in Savannah and he has worked for several years out on the road doing maintenance and construction work, but recently he has been working on the factory floor. Willard was saying it was not so long passed that he was having to put in a lot of time over to keep up with the work. The factory floor was crowded with people and equipment and partially finished work in progress. Now that he is back in the building full time he has noticed there are not near so many people on the floor and there are large vacant spaced where there is nothing going on. On the other hand, they seem to have hired half a dozen new employees to work in the front offices. For example there is a new employee relations lady who sits in one of the offices and appears to pass her time talking with her daughter over the phone about school boy friend problems. Willard seems to believe the company has a doubtful future if they don’t round up more work for the employees on the floor to do.
Mister Johnson was advising that many companies go through business cycles in which work tapers off and then work picks back up and everybody is working long hours again just to keep up the production schedule. When that happens, the employees begin to complain about work overload. Mister Johnson seems to believe most folks are not happy unless they have something to complain about. Willard did not much appreciate Mister Johnson’s philosophical take on the situation. He had started looking in the daily paper for any sign companies that needed workers. The conversation was likely to continue in the same direction except that Hurshel Ledbedder’s wife, Dolly, came into the store with her mouth running. She had one of those cell phones you see almost everywhere these days plastered to the side of her head and she was in serious conversation with someone about Hurshel’s job performance on her kitchen cabinet.
Dolly was explaining in detail what she had told Hurshel to do and how he had failed to properly follow her instructions and how he had made what should have been a simple job all that much more complicated and involved because of his pig headed refusal to take her advice. Dolly selected one of the wire frame shopping carts Jake keeps at the front of the store and began making her way down the aisle selecting the things she wanted without missing a beat in her conversation. We could hear her side of the conversation as she continued shopping toward the other side of the store.
Mister Johnson looked at me and grinned. “Guess we are getting the latest report on how life is going in the Ledbedder household,” he said.
It was about then we heard Dolly say she had to end the conversation with whoever was on the other end of the phone because there was someone else ringing her up. Immediately Dolly was deep in conversation with her new caller and she was making no effort to keep her voice down. Someone by the name of Ellen was planning to file for divorce because her husband, a man named Jack, had been staying over at the office of late with his secretary and this Ellen had received reliable reports there was not that much extra work around the office. There were also rumors that Jack had been seen out at a local restaurant a few nights back with his secretary on a night they were supposed to be working. Ellen had about had enough with her husband’s flirtations and she was going to put an end to it.
None of us around the stove knew anyone named Jack who had a suspicious wife named Ellen and we were not much interested in the details of their domestic difficulties, but we were getting the full story by courtesy of Dolly Ledbedder and her cell phone. By the time Dolly came up to check out, she was talking with her mother about an upcoming surgery she was expecting. We learned the most recent symptoms along with the medication that was recommended. We discovered the name of her doctor and learned that the doctor’s nurse assistant was headstrong and difficult to get along with. No one could understand why the doctor kept a nurse like that around except it was common knowledge the doctor and his wife did not get on well and would have separated years ago except for their two small daughters. Since the doctor and his wife did not get on, it seemed likely the doctor was getting emotional support from the nurse.
Dolly was still deep into the fancied personal life of the doctor and his family as she paid for her purchases. Jake and Mister Johnson helped carry her bags out to the car. When Jake and Mister Johnson came back in, Jake said it was getting so he knew most of the gossip in Soagie from the folks that come into the store with their cell phones. They carry on conversations about everything and everybody with no thought that someone is within ear shot who has no particular interest in what they are saying. Jake has the thought that Big Brother doesn’t need a court order any longer to hook up to phone conversations. All government agents need do is stand around and listen to folks blab over their cell phones and they can learn all anyone would ever want to know about anybody.
END
