Working on the vactor

Just when I believed I was doomed to a summer of interminable flagging, God (through my supervisor, but I picked up on it) broke the monotony. I worked on the vactor crew on the last day of work this week.

A vactor, for all of you ill-informed civilians, is basically a giant (about as big as a semi truck) vacuum machine that is driven around like a tractor (hence the name. Ingenious, I know). It is used to suck all of the slime and muck out of the storm drains so that they don't over flow.

It's a bit of a messy job, but not terribly complex. You take the vactor hose and put extensions on it (so that you can reach down man holes). Then you pry the storm grate open, lower the hose, and suck all the crap out of the drain. It's pretty necessary in the summertime because so much of the water evaporates. So all the dirt that it washes down the drain stays down there and blocks it up. One really fun part of being on the crew is using a water gun to loosen all the mud.

Eventually you take the full tank to a dump and unload it all. The entire process is muddy and sticky, and it's pretty much a guarantee that you will get slimed, and then really wet. But it's totally worth it, especially on hot days. And it's so much more fun than flagging.

Is it sad that this is all I have to report from my life? No one told me that making a decent living would come at the expense of really interesting anecdotes...