"What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?"

I generally have a pretty good poker face. The Goose would know I was irritated...she knows me better than I know myself sometimes...but I doubt anyone else would know. Maybe if they were extremely perceptive...my mouth sometimes tightens just a bit.

"You got it okay?"

Since it was his second inquiry, perhaps i should answer. Problem is, I did not want to break concentration.

"Bringing in a beam," I grunted.

Back went to the forklift, turning to "dogwalk" it in.

He kind of looked at me funny. "Why?"

It seemed like a silly question. He was the one who showed me how to do it. See, the doorways at work are a shade under 17' wide but we load trucks inside the warehouse. Sometimes we have beams that are 40' long. Obviously, you can't bring them straight in so we "dog walk" them in.

The process involves numerous changes of direction...pull forward, twist the wheel left, back up while turning hard right, rinse, repeat a half dozen times.Or a dozen.

A 24' beam might take 6 gyrations to get through the door. A 35 or 40' beam might take a dozen or even two dozen.

I am extremely careful when I do this. The beams are heavy, expensive, and not always well balanced. I turn off my I-pod, pop out my headphones, and concentrate heavily on my job. I have a real fear of dropping the beams...even though at some point EVERYONE drops the beams.

Anyway, I was busy dog-walking the beam through the door when he asked what I was doing. I thought it should be obvious, but...perhaps not.

"Why?"

It was his third question. Whatever. I thought about snapping off something snide like, "because its there" but thought better of it. Good thing. I started to see why he was asking. The doors are almost 17' wide, this particular beam only 12'. I was dog-walking it from force of habit, not necessity.

It was at that point I decided it was time to come home and go to sleep. Fatigue, contrary to what you might think, does not, in fact, make you smarter...