Today is Memorial Day. I usually find out every year at the
same time that this isn’t Labor Day, and the same thing happens on Labor Day
when I’m told it isn’t Memorial Day. I don’t know too many people who have
served our country with a weapon, but hey, thanks if you did. I hope you
accomplished something.
Me, I served my employer today for the first busy
morning/afternoon of the season (that I’ve worked.) I could have used a gun. I’m
only kidding, I promise. I would never kill people for ordering food, even in
heavy volume. I actually rather enjoyed the busy rush, and it was a good time
to iron out all of the potential wrinkles on the line before this level of
business becomes the standard.
Here in Minnesota, temperatures soared into the high 90s,
and even touched 100 in spots. I am fortunate to work in one of the very few
kitchens in existence with functional air conditioning. Even though I work next
to equipment on my part of the line that reaches temperatures around 350°, I am
able to utilize my skillset without dripping sweat or fearing heat exhaustion.
I recall a time about a year before I went to prison when I
worked the outdoor grill station at a restaurant down in southeast Minnesota. I
was positioned next to two gas grills that temped out at about 600° and I was
exposed to the humid, stagnant, mosquito-infested air that floated up from the
slow moving Root River. I was constantly high on meth back then, and my uniform
included a heavy black chef’s coat that was unforgiving at best. Sweat poured
steadily from my shaky brow as I danced and twirled about wasting nearly every
move in a confusing tornado of spatulas, tongs, and overcooked meat. By the end of that summer I had wasted away
and was unable to see properly because I had lost all of my contact lenses and
had no glasses. I was useless as a cook and questionable as a person. They only kept me on because they needed bodies. Bodies are an important,
if not occasionally useless implement in every professional kitchen. If I were
in that condition now in this current employ, I would be banished to some redundant
location.
But I am not. This summer, like my coworkers, I will get
kicked down all day long and keep going back for more because we are the few
that are capable. Unless you already do this for a living, you shouldn’t try to
get into this industry. You probably can’t do this.
I’m not trying to brag, I probably can’t do whatever it is
that you do. I definitely don’t want to be a soldier, or a garbage man, or a
person that has to suck out the contents of a port-o-potty.
Transition.
I have many jobs as a property proprietor. Amanda and I have
already explored several new professions in our short time as homeowners, none
of which do I think I would want to do full time. Today we did something for
the first time that we will surely do time, and time again: we paid our first
mortgage payment; one down, 359 to go. We added a little on to the payment for the
principle which we will try to do on a consistent basis to eliminate a few years’
worth of payments at the end.
This has been an incredibly long, tiring weekend. I am ready
for bed, all day. But the work is never done. This post, however…
Afterthought: how do we turn this walk-in tub back into a normal tub? I need real answers.
Afterthought: how do we turn this walk-in tub back into a normal tub? I need real answers.
