The Idler

Maggot Brain

My parents forced me to take a summer job working at a kennels.

The sun shone all that summer: it shone on the quiet lanes of Binfield, on the birds chirping gaily in the beech trees, on children playing hide-and-seek on freshly mown lawns: it shone on the dog crap festering in the corners of the kennels.

In an ingenious ploy to avoid the most distasteful elements of kennel work I adopted the posture of an animal hater, and was rewarded with a job in customer service in the kennel shop. I cheerfully set to work lugging sacks of animal food from the warehouse, boxes of tripe and other doggy delights from the walk-in freezers, safe in the knowledge that other poor fools -
who had felt a need to display their credentials as animal lovers - were rewarded by the management with jobs shovelling dung.

But, as anyone cursed with the necessity of work can testify, the wheel of employment turns inexorably toward degradation, and so it was for me. One day I wandered into work, turning up my personal stereo in order to avoid the din of a hundred deserted pooches, when I was informed that the boss wanted to see me.

The problem, it transpired, was this. A few days before, someone had left open a door to one of the freezers containing frozen dog meat destined, in all likelihood, for a burger joint somewhere in the vicinity of Bracknell. The sun had also been shining on the now uncomfortably warm, nascent happy burgers, which had attracted the undivided attention of a surprising large local blow-fly community. The result of this happy union had been discovered by the boss early that morning: maggots, thousands upon thousands of maggots.

My mission, whether I chose to accept it or not, was to
affect the removal of the maggots, the rotten meat and
then thoroughly clean the freezer. It was without doubt
the most uncomfortable and distasteful two days of my
life and as I set to work clearing out the maggots with
my shovel I cursed the world of work and all the people
who had placed me in this invidious predicament.

Jamie Bell