“A unique retail delivery chore that UPS drivers from the 1950s and 1960s remember was the “Fur Call,” known as the “F/C.” Major up-scale department stores, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and I. Magnin in California, kept their customers’ furs under refrigeration each summer. So each spring, drivers in affluent residential neighborhoods would pick up furs that they would later redeliver in the fall. Each Fur Call required a large box the size of a suitcase made of heavy steamer-trunk material secured by buckles. Drivers were trained in handling “m’lady’s fur.” We carefully folded the garment fur side in, attached the stub to the buttonhole (never the button), and wrapped the item in the tissue paper supplied in each box, provided a receipt, tipped our hat, and left leaving the customer the feeling that her valuable fur was in good hands.”
― Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
― Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
“Military biohazard specialists have ways of describing this occurrence. They say that the victim has “crashed and bled out.” Or more politely they say that the victim has “gone down.” He becomes dizzy and utterly weak, and his spine goes limp and nerveless and he loses all sense of balance. The room is turning around and around. He is going into shock. He leans over, head on his knees, and brings up an incredible quantity of blood from his stomach and spills it onto the floor with a gasping groan. He loses consciousness and pitches forward onto the floor. The only sound is a choking in his throat as he continues to vomit blood and black matter while unconscious. Then comes a sound like a bedsheet being torn in half, which is the sound of his bowels opening and venting blood from the anus. The blood is mixed with intestinal lining. He has sloughed his gut. The linings of his intestines have come off and are being expelled along with huge amounts of blood. Monet has crashed and is bleeding out.”
― The Hot Zone
― The Hot Zone
Colin’s 2025 Year in Books
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