Another one slips past QC.

You don't know an honest day's work
until you've done some plumbing
in a three-foot-high crawl-space.
When you finish your piping and get to emerge
walking erect like the rest of the race
there's an instant flashback to whatever
ignited the sequence of events
that got you into such a fine mess.
You slap your dirty jeans
creating a cloud of dust
that makes you cough
and rub your hands on your sweaty shirt
knowing the grime under the fingernails
will have to be scrubbed out later
in the shower you can't wait to take.
It's a humbling experience that some of us
get to experience on a daily basis
the few fortunate ones receiving a benefit package.

Today, like so many others
I was the lucky winner on The Price is Wrong
though what I'm still paying for is debatable.
My partner and I were moving our tools
and material for the next day's mission
when I noticed a small white sticker
on the box of pipe fittings I was carrying:
"Proudly packed by C. Daly."

No, it couldn't be.
A mind like his wasn't being wasted
in a factory somewhere, not at this stage
in the game that we both chose to play separately.
My one-time best friend and I had our fair share
of fallings out, the last one enduring a few years
but I still wonder what he's up to once in awhile.
I know enough to resist dialing his number
that I still know by heart, unless he's changed it.

We shared our highs and lows, our songs and swigs
sometimes our women, but we differed in opinion on where
to draw the line when it came time to cash in
our karma chips. Our ends couldn't justify his means
for me so I did the hardest thing to do and said
goodbye to my one true peer at the time.
It wasn't me and him against the World
like he'd have everyone believe;
it was him and him against the World, against us all.
That's the way it is in everyone's case
and anyone who can't admit that
still has a long way to go.
But then again, so did he
when I last heard about his state of affairs.
Yeah, maybe that really was him
packing boxes in some dimly lit warehouse.
I did it once. Maybe by some twist of fate
he was serving the same sentence.

Once my co-worker and I reached our destination
I set the cardboard box down
ripping the sticker off and rolling it into a ball.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Wasted talent," I said as I threw
the crumpled sticker into a nearby trash can
pretending to take a shot from the foul line.
"I didn't know you played basketball in school."
"I didn't," I said as he gave me a puzzled look
that I let go unanswered.

We finished moving our stuff and headed
to our cars and long-awaited respective showers
though he often smells like he waits longer than I do.
Before getting into my car the foreman cornered me
and asked me to initial the building we had just completed
on his blueprint of the jobsite so he knew who did what.
The blood red ink of the marker screamed from
the bright white paper reflecting the sunlight:
"M.V."

and then this hypocrite drove home.