Have you ever met a smart rig pig? I personally haven’t, even at the height of Alberta’s oil booms. All the ones I’ve met are dumber than posts, profane - and make me look like the very model of cultured sophistication. Their stories are mostly the same: they work like dawgs under the harshest conditions, they make enough money to make a Texan envious - and then they piss it all away on fancy vehicles, drugs, booze and floozies. And when the boom goes bust… they’re thumbing rides back Newfoundland and go on pogie with nothing to show for it.
But - there are legends and myths. The one I hear is the guy that worked three or four years, round the clock, -40C or +35C, in camp, never out boozing or drinking or raising hell of any kind. Day in, day out. But as is the way of The Patch… the boom gives way to bust, almost overnight. Then the layoffs start. The Pigs are all caught with their pants down around their ankles. The money spigot is OFF. Their cars and big 4x4s get repossessed. Their skanks start divorcing them. Banks foreclose and now they have no homes either.
Except for our buddy. What a legend! He has a large hockey duffel FULL of cash. He gets his final pay, but instead of thumbing a ride back east… he buys a ticket on a plane… flies right over Newfoundland and keeps going! He lands in Singapore or some other occidental or celestial second world country where a man can live like a king on $30,000.00 a year… and he buys two cute clipper girls to clean his house and laundry and satisfy his other filthy needs… and lives happily ever after! Lore has it he’s still there, with every need taken care of by the polite and respectful local clippers whom he pays out of chump change.
😊👍
I think Tiny was kinda-sorta thinking about relocating to sunnier climes? Where the cost of living is low, and escaping lunacy is affordable and practical? He’s MIA so maybe he did it? For me… I’m too old and miserable to appreciate one female domestic servant, never mind two! Can you imagine getting bitched at - in stereo? Or…horrors…one has a fry pan and the other has the rolling pin? Even my skull isn’t thick enough for that! I dunno if I could learn their language either… I just don’t have the patience for stuff like that anymore…
But I’d bet wealthier, more charismatic men like you would do just fine. Such escapism plays well to the psyche this time of year. It warmed up to -23C so at least it’s bearable. -30 starts getting cold enough that ya gotta take it seriously… and life is far too serious as it is.
I worked with a man that had an uncle that joined the service, avoided carousing, never owned a car, never lived off base, ate what was at the chow hall, only visited base doctors, and saved his money for twenty years. He retired, and now lives a large life.
ReplyDeleteMy wife likes watching the Sister Wives show.
ReplyDeleteI've said polygamy and having multiple wives is a cool fantasy but REALITY ? Oh HELL NO !
Imagine instead of 1 wife you have 3 busting your balls and they either get in cahoots against you or are fighting and want to take sides.
Besides the bedroom fun that sound like a nightmare.
The old boy driller probably ended up with a butcher knife in his chest.
HA HA! It's 9c here in Lotusland! I'll take it even though I'm surrounded by Commie horse fisters.
ReplyDeleteChutes Magoo
I was listening to Jimmy a lot 20 to 30 years ago. From a tree accident in 95', broken back that should have 86'd me until 2002, when I started real estate appraisal work. Those were some days, I termed it "accelerated learning". There was something about working smarter, not harder.
ReplyDeleteA Pirate looks at 40, Come Monday, Son of a Son..., Margaritaville, bring back some good memories.
2 stories -
ReplyDeleteFirst, working off-shore in the Gulf consisted of 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. They'd fly you out and you were stuck in the rig dorms for two weeks working your ass off. A second crew came and then you'd fly home for two weeks. Pay was enough for that to be good money. One woman figured out to romance 2 different men, one on the A shift and one on the B shift. She was the recipient of two good incomes and only had 2 days a month in which she'd have to be careful that the 2 men didn't bump into each other.
Second - crane operator working straight shutdown stuff. He'd work the day shift at one plant, 10 hrs or so, then go work the night shift at another plant. Since 90% of his time was just sitting in the cab of the crane doing nothing until the safety group okayed the lift, he basically received 24 hours of pay a day while doing maybe 2 hrs of work. Took several weeks before a supervisor caught on.
-43 here this mornin.... Thought about warmer places a few times but I've had to live in those kinds of places, not by choice, and I gotta tell ya, 300 days of sunshine & hot in a row is BORING. Then there's the nightmare of all the people...traffic, noise, concrete, on and on.. No thanks. I'll keep my cold & dark.
ReplyDelete