Monday, June 30, 2014

Prompt: Write a passage that illustrates what you think a "Dinglefloffer" does.

PROMPT:
Write a passage that illustrates what you think a "Dinglefloffer" does.

RESPONSE:

"Being a Dinglefloffer?  Interesting?  Nah.  Same damn thing, every day.  I come in to work, change into my coveralls, grab some coffee before I head for the floor.  I work for two hours, then I get a break so I can pee and get more coffee.  Another two hours, then I get to eat lunch.  The cafeteria food is decent, even if they put fish in everything.  Damn Norwegians.
"So after lunch it's another two hours on the line, then a break.  By then my dogs are really barking, so I sit down for a few minutes in the break room and amuse myself trying to read the newspapers other people left behind.  I've been here for four years, and I still don't know what all those extra circles and dots over the letters mean, or how to say them.  Being functionally illiterate kinda sucks, know what I mean?
"Anyway, after that I got to get myself back to my station and put in my last two hours.  I'm really dragging by then, and generally my productivity is crap for those last two hours.  It's a good thing I don't work on the part of the line that's on a continuous feed ... it would look like that old I Love Lucy bit, only with stupid ski hats instead of chocolates.  I can just about keep up with the supply during the main part of the day, but by 4 or 5 o'clock, it just isn't happening.
"By the end of the day my coveralls are covered in trimmings from the line.  That stuff gets everywhere - in my hair, up my nose, in my mouth.  It just clings to everything, and you can't brush it off.  I'm going to come down with Acrylic Lung Disease or something if the plant managers don't give me a face mask or something.  I've complained a bunch of time, but I'm not sure they understand me.  I get lots of nods and smiles, and someone hands me a fish, and we all go on exactly like I never brought it up.
"So at the end of my shift I strip off the coveralls and leave them here.  I don't know how they get the fuzz off - maybe they just burn the suckers and give me new ones every day, I've never asked.  I try to get as much of the stuff off of me as I can, but I still end up dragging it out the door.  My car is coated in the stuff.  It's in layers, you know, because we work with a whole bunch of one color for a few days, then switch to something else.  After all this time, I could probably peel that layer of fuzz off my seats in one piece and turn it into a poncho or something.
"So no, dinglefloffing isn't exciting ... it's barely even interesting.  Still, I'm lucky to have a job.  I don't read the language or even speak it very well, and I never worked in a factory before I moved to Flekkefjord a few years ago.  I met the plant manager in a bar, and after a few glasses of aquavit he offered me a job fluffing up the pom-poms on the tops of the ski hats.  I figured it would be a good way to make a few bucks, meet a few people, and keep myself busy until I moved on to someplace more exciting.  That was four years ago, and I've been a Dinglefloffer ever since."

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