Never Turn Your Back

I had a summer job once, working in the bush. We met at the sawmill at 4am and piled into a van for the hour long trip into the bush. We had to start early because of forest fire risk, we had to be out by 1pm and the heat of the day. Because of the early start, we often had a few hung-over souls who would claim the very back of the van where they could sleep on top of the equiptment on the ride into the bush. We'd be on site by 5am, have a quick coffee and head off into the bush with our saws to thin out seedlings growing too close together.

We'd drift back to the van around 8am for morning coffee and back again at about 11am for lunch and to sharpen our blades. One morning we all came back except Daryl, who had showed up looking a bit green. We couldn't hear his saw running and the foreman figured he had crawled under a log and gone to sleep. By lunchtime we still hadn't seen him and were discussing going to look for him, when he finally wandered down to the van, grabbed his water jug and drank mightily.

"Where the hell have you been?" said the foreman

"Working" said Daryl without looking up.

"The fuck you have. You been sleeping up there."

Daryl looked up, walked over to the foreman. He was about a foot shorter than the boss, but he came from a family of seven brothers renowned for fighting and general mayhem. He was the youngest and was used to being picked on. He stood toe to toe with old Ronnie Mac, looked him up and down, spat twice and said "Fuck you. I was working and I lost track of time. You got that Mr. Foreskin?" He stared the foreman down and we were all starting to think maybe it was true, maybe Daryl was being unjustly accused and I was starting to think "way to go Daryl, you tell him".

Daryl, knowing to quit while ahead, turned with purpose and strode back to the van in triumph, his head held high... his back covered in leaves and twigs. Damn! I always go for the underdog, but this dog wasn't even smart enough to brush itself off.