I prayed this was one of my smaller mistakes.

"RICO! YOU'RE FIRED!" came the booming voice of the factory foreman known as Dennis. He walked up to my machine in a huff, slamming down his yellow hardhat in a display of anger.

I guess it wasnt such a small mistake after all. "Something wrong?" was the response I gave, although looking back I probably should have chosen better words.

"Wrong!? WRONG!? RICO YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO STAND HERE AND PRESS THIS RED BUTTON EVERY TIME YOUR MACHINE IS FILLED WITH BOTTLES! SO WHY THE HELL DID 20,000 BOTTLES GO THROUGH THIS PLANT WITHOUT CAPS ON THEM!?" Dennis was turning three shades of red now.

"Oh." I tried to play the ignorance card, even though it was becoming clear that I was just going to have to take this verbal beatdown no matter what came out of my mouth. "And that's bad right?"

"Bad!? You ruined an entire batch of bottles you moron! There's a huge mess down at the other end! My god Rico, we have to shut this factory down and clean it top to bottom now! We are going to lose two days profit now thanks to your screw up! How could you NOT push the button!? What the HELL is going on at your station!?"

"The uh... Red button? I was supposed to push the RED button?" Again I tried ignorance. "Oh ive been pushing the Green button."

"THE GR-!!!!" Dennis nearly erupted like krakatoa but grunted in frustration and held it in, to maintain composure. "No. You Push the RED button to cap them. You push the GREEN button to send them. We went over this FIVE FREAKIN TIMES during orinentation!"

"Ohhh!" I said pretending that I finally understood. "I thought Green meant go and red meant stop."

The truth was that I had understood all along. I was not a complete moron, I just got distracted for an hour or two watching the cute girl work the machine across from mine. Paying attention to my own machine had taken a back seat. I hadnt even realized I had been pushing the green button exclusively the entire time. It certainly was my own fault, but if I could pretend to be dumb, just maybe Id get to keep my job here.

Dennis was not having any of it, however. "If your station was a traffic light perhaps, but we are a BOTTLING PLANT! HERE RED MEANS CAP, GREEN MEANS SEND! My god, Rico, all you had to do was push two buttons!"

"Well I'm sorry, its only my first day!" I pleaded desperately.

"And your last! Go on get out of my sight! I dont ever want to see you here again!" Dennis huffed. He collected his hardhat and stomped off.

I was left standing by my machine, stopped dead, bottles ahead, and bottles behind. I suppose it was a fitting metaphor for how my life was.