Work was interesting. Very interesting.

Upon turning 21, I became eligible for driver status at my work. Drivers get to pick up clients, take them to their day programs or work programs, take them to medical appointments, stuff like that. (By the way, I work at a group home for people with developmental disabilities. I work directly with two adult males that have schizophrenia, mental retardation, and a smattering of other disorders. We call them clients. I understand that other people call them tards.) Drivers also get to do fun stuff, like take the clients out to movies, and dinner, bowling, or whatever. Oh yeah, and one more thing...

The guys I work with have been known to do really interesting stuff, like try to get out of the car while it's moving, or suddenly grab the wheel. They might not want to get in at all and you can spend hours (yes, four, I think it was) at a gas station that you didn't want to stop at but the car was running on fumes. And let's not forget that even if you put them in the back seat that has the child safety locks so they can't just get out, you are completely vulnerable to be scratched, grabbed, or worse from behind.

I turned 21 on May 12, and have managed to weasel out of being certified to drive for almost two months. But they got me in the end. Lousy work, making me do my job. I was finally certified on the group home's vehicle, a Chevy Caprice, like the police car. It's not a bad ride. It has air conditioning and picks up 103.9, neither of which are qualities shared by my little Toyota Tercel. Heh, and even after being certified, everyone at the home was so used to me not being a driver that I was able to stave off my duties for another week and a half.

Today I picked up the clients from their day programs. My first pick-up in downtown Phoenix was uneventful. He was the one I was worried about too, because he had drank the cleaner before. My spirits were a bit higher as I drove all the way to Gilbert to pick up my second client. I enter a sort of office building lobby at the end of which is a small table. A woman instructs me to sign my client out. I do so, and then she goes about her business. I stand there awkardly for a moment, then decide to be assertive and go find the client.

I march off determinedly. I boldly round a corner and find myself almost face-to-face with a very attractive young lady. I stop short. She is standing and talking to someone but at that exact moment she looks over at me and our eyes meet. I hear her last sentence trail off as I stand there looking into her eyes and I can only wonder just how low my jaw is hanging and if there is any hope of playing it off somehow.

Just an instant longer and there would have been no hope.

Fortunately, at that very moment my other client comes crashing through a doorway bellowing at an unseen staff (myself and others like me are "staff." With some of the people I work with though, I swear "staff" must also mean "un-diagnosed". But that's another story.) This client is oh, about 300 pounds, and he is very good at crashing and bellowing. Just the distraction I needed. My client is apparently after some female staff who he later tells me accused him of breaking wind. (I was tempted to suggest responding with "He who smelt it, dealt it," in the future as opposed to launching a physical assault. But I've long since learned that my more subtle humor is lost on him.) The client is blocked by a male staff which he then turns on. It was pandemonium. Every staff I could see was yelling at my client to calm down. Normally a good suggestion, but I've noticed that "calm down" becomes less effective when it is shouted from all sides. My client grabs the arm of one of the staff and threatens to strike him. The staff immediately grabs him and puts him in one of the restraints that all staff are trained in. This whole time I have just been trying to stay in my clients line of sight so that he sees only me and not whoever it is he is mad at. I guess it didn't work but I wasn't about to scream at him to relax.

He calms down a bit and is helped to his feet. I tell him that we should just all get out of there and he says "Okay" but he is still looking around with fire in his eyes. He then spits in the face of another staff as I lead him to the car so that we can head back to the group home. It's funny, it took a long time but I can usually get him to listen to me even when he's spittin' mad. But then again, I'm the only person that works with him that hasn't put him in a physical restraint. And I know that isn't lost on him.

Somewhere on the ride home between Tempe and Ahwatukee I realize why I'm in a good mood and not worrying at all about how the rest of the day of work will go. I had felt really foolish standing there looking at that girl like that. Really, I had been waiting for her to just look away and (hopefully) pretend she didn't notice me. But I couldn't shake the impression that she had been waiting for me to do the same thing and that when neither of us did, we were both caught incredibly off our guard. And even though I usually find it funny when I am dumb around girls, this was a much more pleasant kind of stupid.

I know, of course, that I could be wrong.

I should ask her what she thinks the next time I pick up the guys.