My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Go in and out of supply companies all day long. U-Save Discount Affordable Plumbing Lumber. Seems to be a lot of Chinese running these run down cement floor shops in San Francisco. So the Irish guy is repeating himself in some county brogue no one else can decipher about presha-trited two-be-fars to a wee little Chinese fellah who is thinking in his mind, “Speak English, dammit.”

Pressure treated two by fours? Oh. I get it. It was a Russian guy who finally acted as interpreter. Here among racks of pipe fittings and electric outlets are the working class louts of many nations. The last to lose their accent, the first to throw a punch. We stand in line and size each other up. The short guys in t-shirts from south of the border built like bulls, the taller Russians with dark hair on their arms peeking out below the cuff of their button-up shirts, the Irish guy with a futball jersey on, you look at these people and wonder where the Pharoah is that has enslaved so many races to build his pyramid.

These shops lack the feminine touch. Tradesmen with dirty hands buff a brown lacquer across shelf fronts. Hand written signs about return policies are missing key prepositions. And there is always a pathetic coffee station. This is what depresses me the most. In a nation in the throes of coffee fetishism, the minions are offered stale crystals of Columbia’s coffee factory dumpsters set to boil for hours on a warming plate. There is never cream or milk, let alone a non dairy option like soy. Oh, bite my tongue, there is a non dairy option…this powder made from cholesterol scraped out of heart surgery patient’s veins. Top that with a few packets of processed sugar, throw it in a styrofoam cup and give it a daring stir with that plastic stir stick and enjoy, while you and the environment careen towards systemic failure.

The trades can be an exciting place with opportunities to earn a fair living and feel a connection to your work. But whenever I walk into U-Save A 1 Heating and Roofing and see that coffee station, I feel a true sense of failure.