I knew something was up when the delivery van returned to the airport warehouse just a few minutes after departing. A screech of brakes, a puff of smoke, the driver fleeing the vehicle with his hand over his mouth.

A crew of a dozen-or-so freight handlers in the Sydney depot where we emptied the planes, stored the freight until it was released by customs and sent it out for delivery in a fleet of vans, gathered around the Toyota Hiace to see what had caused the driver to abort his mission.

When we opened the rear door, it was immediately clear. Twenty litres of horse sperm – “equine ejaculate”, according to customs documents – was sloshing around the back of the van, a tidal wave of stallion squirt that retreated when the driver accelerated and advanced when he hit the brake.

Some hopeful horse breeder had used a refrigerated canister to import the makings of a thoroughly good thoroughbred, but the canister had broken, meaning its foul and fetid contents would never even make the knackers’ yard let alone the starting gates.

Despite the smell, I found the situation funny – until I was asked to clean it up. As the most-recent arrival in the team, I was the most expendable. To this day, when I see health workers in full PPE treating COVID-19 patients, I think they’re underdressed compared with what I was wearing when I hosed out that van.

I was 18, had just finished high school and the job at a major international freight company meant I could afford to put myself through flying academy. With penalty rates, one 12-hour shift lugging freight on a Sunday or public holiday was another hour in the logbook.

For one hour in the sky, I would do almost anything on the ground. Like The Goodies, no job was turned down. I even worked at my high school the week after graduating, where, again, I was the most expendable when the stench of death filled the staff room one morning and the caretaker instructed me to find the source. I had always wanted to kill my maths teacher and wondered if someone had beaten me to it. Like the horse, removing the rotting rodent was a rude awakening to the rigours of work.

Despite the freak show, the only live animal I ever worked with was a crazy bloke from Tamworth who sat next to me and sorted mail at Australia Post’s headquarters on George Street, Sydney, 2000. (I once knew almost every postcode in Australia — a talent that never proved transferable.) Frank would come down from Tamworth (2340) and spend the week sorting mail in Sydney, then return to his family for the weekend.