story time with uncle al

so one of the guys i work with is a gent named al.  al is hysterical.  a fifty-something ex-marine who has been around and is able to make me appreciate the simple things in life.  every so often there will be downtime where we will all be hanging out and we will spontaneously have 'story time with with uncle al' as steve likes to call it.  one particular day al was talking about some of the, how shall i say, chemical indulgences that were prevalent in the '70's.  we are a young company; nobody is over 40 and needless to say not many of us were imbibing in the '70's, much less alive.  some of the anecdotes go something like this:

"in my day we did a lot of flakes.  whatchu boys know 'bout flakes?  why, flakes ain't nothin' but PCP and embalming fluid.'

al was telling us about when he was in jump school in the marines and on his first jump he landed in a tree and "busted my balls so bad they had to send my ass to the infirmary.  ain't that a bitch"

al's business suggestions usually go something to the effect of "put it on the damn company card."

al is a bit of a zen master.  when pieces of equipment need to be cleaned, dustin tells al to 'make them sexy'.  al does his wax-on, wax-off for hours and damned if they don't come out looking brand new.  no words, just silent, meditative, loving life breathed into these neglected pieces of equipment.  afterwards he names them.  there was sara jane the pizza oven,  molly mae the deep fryer and others i can't remember.  al's current project is fixing his car, betty boop.

and lastly an oldie but a goodie.  ordering ice cream from a forklift.  we do things a little differently around here...