When I was a kid, I had a special job.

When my parents were at a meeting at my elementary school — they went to PTO meetings, but this must’ve been a Cub Scout or Boy Scout thing — I helped clean out the lost and found.

I don’t have any memory of what this entailed, except that there were a lot of socks. How do people lose so many socks, I’d wonder. At school?

As my reward, Steve the janitor would treat me to a soda from the machine, which I’d enjoy with him in the teachers’ lounge.

A soda AND hanging out in the teachers’ lounge. Told you it was a special job.

Steve couldn’t read, or couldn’t read well, but he liked the “funnies.” So we’d chat a bit about the comics we liked best.

There was a rumor later that one of the janitors had a side job sharpening Tonya Harding’s ice skates.

I wonder what happened to Steve.