I work for a lawn mowing company. We have many types of roughneck characters, but I believe I met the most terrible of them, on one of the hardest days of the year. I will from here on out, refer to him as gorilla man, due to the bulging biceps covering his body, pitch-black hair and cannon voice. He is one of the “men” who works in the yard while the rest of us boys work out in the field.

As long as my dad has worked amongst the blue collar folks, I have heard of such men, beastly, willing to slave away in the heat of the day while others drop out and go home. In fact I have been raised with the understanding that I would go far if I could attain such driving work ethic in my own life, so I was curious to see the working class hero striding through the work yard, muscles rolling easily with his movements.

I was on a separate work agenda so I didn’t see the man until I got back to the shop, finished for the day. As I was strolling to the office, I heard a dialogue that made me pinch myself, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It went something like this:

“hey wittle giwl, how are you honey? You hungry? Want some food? Aw yeah, your a swe.. AWW yeah!! come out and play lil guy!!! Yea!! lil baby you!!”

I now know what it is to stop dead in my tracks. Glancing over, I saw Gorilla man, crouched over a junk pile and reaching into a heap of trash while using a little girl voice that I would never have credited him with in a million years. I was almost afraid for the reactions he would draw from lesser co-workers after seeing such an unmanly display.

In a daze I continued on my way, nearly losing track of what I was doing. It took about a minute to finish my chore at the office and I was headed back. To my amazement, I saw not only Gorilla man, but about 5 more guys that had joined him, crowded around the same heap, using a variety of cooing noises that I can only describe as impressive. Giving into my curiosity, I trudged over and asked what the commotion was all about. As we exit the scene, I’ll admit I joined the crouching, cooing huddle of “men”. After all, as put so aptly by one them… “its kittens, man!”