She was surprised. “Really, because in the morning I woke you up and asked if you had called, you said you did.” Surprised, I didn’t remember calling work or getting up, I must have lied to her. Mom on the other hand though that what I had done was a terrible idea. “That isn’t very respectful, Sandy.” I didn’t care, that bridge was already burnt.

I knew I had to start getting things done, like applying for OSAP; otherwise I was screwed. Going online, I found some information and filled out the online application.

The next day I got an email that said I would receive OSAP, a good chunk too. In fact, enough so that the school year would be very comfortable. I even got a bursary so I wouldn’t have to pay all of it back. I was surprised and pleased, this ended any stress I had left.

With no job I now had lots of free time to dedicate to the things I wanted to do, like dreaming and reading. Now I could get to all the things I had hoped and planed for; I was free for the first time in my life. Well, I wasn’t really free, I just didn’t have to work anymore. My summer was about to begin.

I Decided to watch ‘Vanilla Sky’ as I had rented it the week before, but hadn’t watched it yet. I contemplated that if I watched it, it would be a late night and hard to get up in the morning; I decided to watch it anyways. The movie was awesome and seemed ironic now that I was taking control of my life.

I went to bed and set my alarm so that when I woke up I’d have enough time to call into work and say I wasn’t coming in. I ended up staying in bed and not opening my eyes until 10, many hours after I was supposed to call into work. When I eventually called in, I asked for the manager and said, “I’m sorry that I was late but I wouldn’t be coming in today… I quit.” Twice in a row.

My now ex-manager was pissed and said, “Best you don’t come in after being so late.” Good thing I called, I probably would have been fired if I went in.

Later that day I told mom that I quit; she was not pleased even though it seemed like she had said it was alright the day before. She asked, “When did you call?” Not thinking too much I said, “Just now, I must have slept through my alarm.”

While driving home, I thought about what I had said only a few minutes earlier and wondered what I was going to do. There was no way I was going back to the factory; I was done with it and it was imperative that I quit. Turning down my street, I contemplated my money situation. Money would be tight but I could handle it; where there is a will there is a way. And a student loan, that would help.

Walking into the house, mom was watching TV; heading into the TV room I told her about my plan by saying, “I really need a break and time to recuperate before going back to school.” Then I asked if she would stop paying my rent if I quit; dad had made that threat before but she hadn’t jumped to that conclusion yet.

She was concerned and said, “You should keep your job, you need the money… But regardless I’ll still pay your rent because that was the original deal.” In some odd way this seemed like approval, I had convinced the person I needed to convince most.

I decided to call dad and tell him about my ‘great’ idea; I already knew he would disapprove, but I had to make this decision on my own. I had to do what felt right and not worry about what my parents or other people thought. Calling dad, I told him I was going to quit; he wasn’t pleased and said, “If you quit your job, I won’t help you pay for school this year.” I already knew this was going to happen.

Listening to what dad had to say I figured it would suck without his help, but I had to make up my own mind and do what had to be done. I was confident I’d get an OSAP loan anyways so I said, “I don’t care! I’m going to quit.” Dad tried to convince me otherwise by saying, “It’s a bad idea, you’ll regret it.” But I didn’t care I wanted out and could not be convinced otherwise. “Talk to you later, dad.”

One of my new friends was waiting in the lobby and talking on a pay phone. She mentioned needing to get somewhere and not having a drive, so I asked, “Would you like me to drop you off somewhere?” We didn’t know each other very well but she must have trusted me and said, “Sure.” We headed out of the lobby and into the parking lot, then walked towards the car.

Her brother was at the mall, so she could meet him there. We talked about school and I mentioned that I was a scientist. She was in the arts, a lot of people get arts degrees at university, no science for these minds. Art can be fun and there’s lots to do, but none for me, I needed solid answers.

I bought up our job and suggested my dislike for it by telling her, “I want to quit very soon.”

We talked a little more about out occupation and arrived at the mall. Pulling into the parking lot and up to the doors near Sears, I stopped the car. She got out and said, “Good night, thanks for the drive and see you tomorrow.” Thoughts flowing though my head, I didn’t focus on what I was saying, “Oh yeah, you too… I’m probably not going to come in again, so have a good life.” She didn’t really take me seriously and started to walk away. I’d found her cute before, and now my only chance was slipping away. She said, “Good bye” one last time and I said nothing more, she was gone.

Car rolling, I headed home.

I was awestruck; this guy’s job consisted of throwing frozen cow hearts and blood into a grinding machine. For some reason this made me hate my job even more, it was disgusting! But then I remembered, it’s better than throwing these parts into the garbage; life is lost, we might as well use all of it. Interestingly, it wasn’t as bad as some of the things I’d seen in my life - power to the internet - bringing all of life’s experiences to you.

It’s a good thing I didn’t eat hot dogs; that’s where these entrails were going. Later I mentioned this experience to my new friends; they were just as apathetic. We went on - attaching marinated meat to millions of racks - menial and useless. To my generation idols I was a waste of skin and education.

I wanted to leave, the day was almost over. One more break and then the home stretch. As the horn gusted the entire factory headed to the change rooms. Changing quickly, I walked into the lobby.

All day I thought about quitting, wondering what I got out of this job. There was now only one benefit, that being I was in contact with the other summer students. I’d never talked to them before so I figured I’d use this as an opportunity to say something. Not saying too much, just the usual. ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ ‘What do you think of the job?’ You know small talk, the easy stuff.

Around the corner I could hear a loud lugging sound followed by mechanical shaking, then grinding. Curiously I took a look to see what was going on; what I saw would scar me for life. Standing there was a worker and a bunch of boxes; there was text but it was unreadable, it must have been the label from the slaughter house. The worker opened a box, then pulled out a plastic bag filled with frozen red liquid and solid white chunks.

He removed the bag and poured the frozen blood into the grinding machine; a cornucopia of red and white guts jumped up into the sky and then fell back into the grinder. The ground up stew was poured into a bin and rolled to the ‘meat’ mixer, where it would become part of a recipe. Interested in what I was seeing, I decided to get a little closer and figure out what was in the boxes.

The boxes were very vague and didn’t say much about their contents. There was a Canadian food producers stamp and the name of a farm; most likely a factory farm. Mmmm, my favourite. I decided to ask the worker about the blood and guts, but then realized I didn’t need to as I got a closer look. The white chunks were hearts, the white was actually fat surrounding the hearts, hum unhealthy cows, the red was blood, but I knew that part already.