Rejected

Nobody grows up dreaming to become a product inspector. It's just one of those things you fall into, like love or the Gap. You don't know you're falling until Splat! You're P.I. number 172.

Fabric was my specialty. For nine hours a day I'd sit on my certified stool, nestled between number 171 and 173, watching endless heaps of polyester cotton blends crank past. Picking up pink pokadot boxers, I'd go through the checklist. Elasticity, check. Thread count, check. Stitching, Tag, Pee hole? Check, check, and check. Everything checks out. All that's left is to send 'em over to the 700s for the lead check, now mandatory on all Chinese goods. But none of this matters, I fail the whole lot. I very well can't endorse any man wearing pink underwear.

This P.I. number system we've got over here isn't about ranking or anything like that. It works like a hotel. The first number, the prefix, is your floor, or department. While the second set is your ID. So us 100s deal with fabrics, 400s handle chairs, and 700s look for lead. There's like 50 more prefixes in this complex. Each with its own mundane product rolling on conveyor belts just waiting to fail or get bribed on through.

Fabric isn't so bad. Not when you're standing in a DMV style line every Friday for pay. All those kids who grew up that weren't lucky enough to fall in love or the Gap just spiraling out from the central desk. A mess of flesh covered in khaki and cotton, we drift down our own conveyer belt, inspecting one another, deciding who fails or passes as a friend.

So I'm waiting for my weekly dough talking to some 900 chick from hair products. Today she's blond wearing a green tank top with her black bra straps poking out. From what Ican see it's some Victoria Secret knock off number 139 was bouncing watermelons in three weeks ago. It's tensile strength clearly up to the task of holding back those C's. I take a quick glance around the room to see how far I am from my weekend and poof! That hairhead's vanished. I wonder where she went but I must say it out loud because this slimy little shit's already answering me.

"Number 694," he proclaims.

Damnit! Those 69ers were some cocky pricks. Condom testers. The old high school quarterbacks who never could chuck it in college. They'd always get the glamour girls to assist with their inspections. Us flannel failers never can compete. Frankly no number can.

I look back at this kid. He's still staring at me with his coffee bean eyes, slowly gliding his slimy tongue over his chapped lips. His hair is greased over his clammy yellowing forehead. The twig he calls a neck retreats into a "New England Patriots 19 and Oh" T-shirt, failed by number 110 for false presumptions.

He darts out his hand. I instinctively grab it and nearly lose my grip as we shake.

"The name's 332." Lotion inspector. That explains the goo. "My friends call me Jaundice." I tell him my number and explain I have no friends.

Now I normally try to avoid these slimy freaks, but the next thing this Jaundice fellowsays hooks me.

"I've got a way to get even with them rubber jockey's. You ever hear of floor 51?"

Floor 51 is actually three levels below ground. It's where the big boys get to play. Lasers, tractor beams, HDer TVs. Slappin stickers on all sorts of shit I can't even imagine. The double O's we call 'em.

Well anyway, he starts babbling about some sorta pussy magnet. He says one burst from this thing and we'll be in chick heaven. It sends them into a frenzy. Forget candy and flowers,this is 21st century living. Pure pimp.

I thank him for the cock tease but tell him he'd better forget about it. A 100 and 300 can't get past the second step to the sub second floor without setting off all the bio readers. Then it's all flashing red and pitbulls. Red gives me a headache and I'm allergic to dogs so he can count me out.

But he says if I have a will then he's got the way.

The line's dwindling down. All the 69ers and hairheads have skipped out for someovertime testing. It's just enough time for him to tell me the plan.

I'm back at my stool next to number 171. 173 came down with a case of scurvy and 174 is concerned it's contagious. I don't care, in a few hours I'll be in hooter heaven. I'm so excited, everything's getting the good ole One Seven Two tattoo of success. A three-breasted bra could roll of here for all I care.

The lunch horn blows and I'm off. Down the stairs, through the hall, to the lobby. I slam into the second restroom, third stall to the left. He's already standing there in his boxers, those pink pokadot rejects I canned the other day.

"Right on time."

He extends his arm, handing me a bottle of China Soft Lotion. It's slick, but the five rejection labels make for a nice grip. I start slopping it on his back.

"This is some primo stuff," he explains. "Just two liberal applications a day and you'll be smooth as silk." I hand him the bottle and we switch. "Of course it's also laced with enough lead to give Superman a sense of imagination. Forget the bio scanners."

A second horn blows. We suit up and dash to the stairs. I take the first step hearing the tap of my foot against the hollow steal. No lights. Another step, another tap. No dogs.

"See I told ya," 332 says. "All we gotta worry about is that scurvy goin round."

He races by me. Tapping down the stairs like a machine gun. Then 3 floors down, Bingo. Staring me in the face is the biggest HDest TV I've ever seen. More real than real, I'm being pulled in by it's light. Its more effective than the tractor beam five feet away.

"Imagine how many chicks we can get with this."

"Um hello. We came for a pussy magnet. Imagine how many more we will get with that."

Jaundice is right. I shake my head, breaking the spell. I join him in the corner as he's picking up a big U shaped hunk of iron, its tips painted that familiar pokadot pink. The words Pussy Magnet are inscribed across the bend separated by a red switch.

"What I tell ya," he laughs slipping it between his pants and shirt. "The real deal."

After hightailing it outta there we drive to Lover's Lake in a red Sebring, failed for a faulty roof. There's a girl fishing with some dude and a cat. Strange, I'll admit, but the perfect test.

We raise the magnet together. Jaundice hits the switch, but nothing happens.

"Maybe we have to be closer," I offer.

We take several paces forward, aim, and flip the switch again.
She laughs. Hope. Another step, another step, another step, but the only attention we're attracting is that of her stupid cat.

"What if we try holding the switch?"

Upon that suggestion the cat comes charging full force. Its tiger instinct kicking in, claws kicking out. "Aieeee!" screams Jaundice as the feline comes crashing down snapping the switch on the magnet. He kicks and screams as the crazed cat tears his pants to shreds. I kick at the cat. I kick at Jaundice. "Tuck and roll! Now run!" We reach the car.

"What the fuck!" he screams slamming the door. "That thing have rabies?"

That's when I notice the reject sticker on the underside of the pussy magnet.

"Shit!" I yell as I look out the car to see a small infantry of crazed cats closing in. "Pussy Cat Magnet!" I scream at the lubed up loser. "And boy does it send them into a frenzy."

We try to close the roof but of course it fails. The hissing grows louder. What I wouldn't kill for some of those flashing red lights and pitbulls right now.

"Any last words?" I ask my clawed up coworker clutching the magnet, which in hindsight was a bad idea.

"Do you think it's too late to go back and grab that HDer TV?"

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