AUBURN – Julie Newton can take the bugs, the layers of tacky soda left on her arms after reaching in to unclog a crowded machine and even the customer who sometimes launches into unprovoked swearing jags.

The seemingly innocuous is what really gets her.

Those lemon and lime wedges abandoned in empty beer bottles?

Little slices of citrus torture. They almost ruined her honeymoon.

Occupational hazards all, for a redemption clerk.

Julie has worked at Roopers redemption centers nearly seven years, first on Sabattus Street in Lewiston, now on Minot Avenue. It took about a week to master the redemption throw – from her station there are 20 different collection bags to toss bottles and cans into – and a little longer to perfect the silent count.

“People get mad, ‘Don’t talk to her, she’s counting!'” Julie said. But that really doesn’t throw her off. “I can count to 2,000, 3,000 and not have it even bother me. I think my highest count was 4,000.” (Bottle drive.)

Soda splatter is par for the course, with head-to-toe dousings a rarity. Her summertime uniform is a gray Roopers’ T-shirt with cut-off sleeves and black sweat pants that accommodate her pregnant, growing belly.

“I asked my doctor, should I start working less or slowing down? He said, ‘Nah, you’re a tough old lady,'” she said, laughing. Julie’s 40.

She considers herself kind of a neatnik, often giving the bin in front of her window a bleach and water spray between customers, but it’s definitely a dirty job.

The worst things occasionally found in bottles: chewing tobacco and dead mice. Worst ever: a pair of decomposing bats that rode in with a customer’s bag of bottles. It smelled awful.

“My first year at Sabattus Street I used to get a lot of shrimp tails, you know, Bates College kids,” she said. Tails, tossed in amongst bottles, got pretty ripe.

“I’ve had people have shaving cream on their bottles. You know how hard that is to grab on to?” said Julie’s coworker, Steve Hughes.

Julie’s short on pet peeves, but one of them is the lemons and limes left inside bottles. She developed “contact fruit dermatitis,” a really painful rash with blisters on her hands, after handling a large return of those without gloves. It happened right before her honeymoon; she had to keep her hands out of the pool, it hurt too much.

She’s getting used to wearing gloves all the time now. They get sticky and affect her throw.

Julie worked at L.L.Bean for several seasons and said she found working at a desk harder on her body, and less rewarding.

“It’s like a sense of accomplishment when you do actually get caught up. I feel like I can go home and say, ‘I feel like I did something today.’ Whereas at L.L.Bean it was like, ‘My name is Julie, how may I help you?'” she said. “This way I don’t have to get out of work and go to the gym or anything. I go home and sit down.”

Well, after she takes a shower.