All in a days work

I stayed after working hours completing recent welfare application determinations. As a caseworker for The State of Pennsylvania, in the city of Philadelphia, the volume of work could not be completed in the course of a 7.5 hour day. The phones never stopped ringing with stories of the husband being arrested, the daughter had her baby, the boyfriend moved in, and there was no food in the house. Applicants walked into the office five minutes before closing time and had to be serviced, and people with active cases were loaded into a waiting area with crying children, and not enough chairs to accommodate the crowds of desperate clients. Finally, I was by myself in the office at five o'clock and had pumped-out computer authorizations for nearly an hour. As six o'clock approached, the computers were programed to shut down. I left as usual through a rear door in the building that locked itself behind me. It was a bitter day in December, it was already starting to be dark outside, and the parking lot surface contained a thin layer of ice. The office was located on a narrow street full of mom and pop restaurants, small grocery stores, and convenience stores. Walking carefully with my radar up looking for potential trouble, I made it to my car safely. I drove a 1974 Dodge Polaris. It was a big boat; Philadelphians would have called it a "Hoopty". The Urban Dictionary defines "Hoopty" as a 1970's era car that may be missing side panels and is generally considered to be a hunk of junk. I turned the ignition key and thankfully the engine cranked on. Being about zero degrees outside this evening and the Dodge having a carburetor, I knew that the car would need to idle for about ten minutes before I could take-off without the engine stalling.

I had been idling for about 3 minutes when I heard a tapping on the driver's window. I looked up to see a large man dressed in a yellow colored parka. He looked like he was at least 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds. Who was he? What did he want from me? These were my initial thoughts. Suddenly the tapping on my window resumed. It was time for me take some action. Knowing that the car would clunk-out if I tried to take-off, I decided to roll the window down no more than one inch. In my strongest tone of voice I asked, "Yes, what do you want?" With that question, the large man reached deep down into the front of his trousers. I just knew that he was pulling a gun on me and that I could be robbed and maybe even murdered. To my astonishment, the man's hands reappeared from inside his pants with an object that he proudly displayed for me to view. No, it was not a gun. This man had apparently shop-lifted a pound of bacon from one of the stores, hid it deep in his underwear, and was trying to sell it to me for one dollar. I reached into my pocket and gave the man a dollar bill. I instructed him to keep the bacon as I did not need it. I wasted no time in bidding him farewell. That was my last evening of working after hours. I had learned an important lesson about choosing work over safety. Oh well, just another routine day in the life of a welfare caseworker.