Now with More Room in the Garbage Bag

I stink of onions.

One washes, as one does, but if you make enough sandwiches, the smell gets in your pores, into the very whorls and striations of the hands.

Clark’s Submarine Sandwiches:  a brown polyester uniform with an elastic waistband and a free sandwich every time you worked.

Plus:  onion stank. 

A gal could do worse.

Brandi was in her late 20s, maybe even 30 years old, an impossibly old woman in my 17-year-old estimation.  A simple woman with a good work ethic and the ability to spin a broom like a color guard with a coke habit, Brandi worked all the hours she could get.

We are in the back, late on a Thursday night. 

I am slicing my way through a 20-pound bag of onions.  Wheeesh.   Wheeesh.  Wheeesh.  I’ve been working the mandolin slicer for a while now; and despite holding a piece of bread in my mouth, my eyes are burning, tears running down my face.

Brandi grins at me.  “You got any other jobs?”

I stick my tongue out, show her the bread.

“Oh, yeah,” she says.  “Anyway,” she says, “I got other jobs.”

Wheeesh.  Wheeesh.  Wheesh. 

I raise my eyebrows at her.

“Oh, over at the Kutz and Kurlz,” she says.  “I been there for a while now, sweepin’ up hair, folding towels.”

I purse my lips, nod sympathetically.  I don’t feel much like talking, what with the onion fumes and all.

My other job is bussing tables at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Brandi pulls the garbage bag out of the 20-gallon can.  Full of rusty lettuce, onion ends and tomato butts, it’s a heavy, wet mess.

“Hey,” she says.  “I know a trick for getting more garbage into a garbage bag.”

Wheeesh.  Wheeesh.  Wheesh. 

I raise my eyebrows again.

“You spray it,” she says, nodding.  “You spray it down with water and then it gets heavier and sinks to the bottom.”

She smiles.  “Yep,” she says.  “Learned that over at the Kutz and Kurlz.”

I smile, show her the piece of bread again, and she laughs. 

Wheeesh.  Wheeesh.  Wheesh. 

I’ve Been Selling My Words Lately. I Thought You Should Know.

You’ll probably want to sit down for this.

You comfy?

I’ve been writing on the side.

Cheating on you.

It’s not the same, of course. They want to hear about things to do in Daytona Beach, nutritious root-vegetable recipes for those frosty-aired days in January, and the reason your commitment to quit smoking in the new year is really going to work this time. 

Frankly, I feel cheap.

Until the money transfers, that is.

Hey, I see you there, imaging all the zeroes.  Hot and cold running peppermint schnapps, heated electric couches, fur-lined moustache cups.  I’m thinking of having my elbows polished Tuesday, just because I can.

Look.  The offer came up, polite conversation, yah-de-yah.  Certain questions were posed, certain answers proffered, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a 24-hour deadline in front of you and you’re staring blankly out a window scrubbing your mind for different ways to describe vacation settings.

Honestly, it’s fabulous work.

Paid to write!  You may not know this to look at me, but I can sling the old word song.  I write just for fun.  I make notes in cookbooks (Willie eats this by the handful!) and leave notes for myself in my pockets (Do you know why six is afraid of seven?)

I write for my own amusement.

But when called upon to write about 12 Healthful Tips for the Dog Park, I, sir, answer the call.

People ask me, “What do you do?” and I always tell them that I’m a writer.  

And what does a writer do? 

She writes, even if it means 24-hour turnaround times.

You Should Hear My Plans for the Socks with the Holes in Them

When things get tough, as the saying goes, the tough get going. What we need, with wages staying the same and prices going up, are ways of making what we have last longer. With that thought in mind, let’s think outside of the box, shift the paradigm, move our cheese and engage in a host of other clichés and see if we can't cut back on our waste.

This is just off the top of my head, of course, but it’s a start:

• Washing clothes.  Frankly, this is over-rated and a silly use of water. My idea?  Eat naked to avoid stains, thus prolonging the socially acceptable length of time you can wear the same pair of pants.

If stains are not your problem, but, rather, perspiration, rub yourself with those free perfume samples and see if anyone notices. Set a goal for yourself -- how many days can I wear this before I am forced by the authorities to wash them?  Once this has been established, see if you can beat that goal. Perhaps a friendly competition amongst your friends?

• Consider using the things you normally throw away.

- The water you use to boil potatoes, for instance, could be used to water your plants, wash your windows (although not well) or, for the truly eco-minded, bathe in. Add a squeeze of lemon for a fresh smell!

- Fliers, mailers, and the envelopes your bills came in can be used in a number of ways including one-of-a-kind wrapping paper, stationery, and as an extra layer of weather protection between your shirt and your jacket when you discover that you can’t afford a winter coat. 

- Consider the cooking implications of used hot-dog water. Wienie Water Soup is economical and has been overlooked for too long! Frozen in cubes, it makes an excellent soup stock.

• Turn the thermostat down in the winter and invest in cats. Free kittens are everywhere – and warm! A pile of cats on your bed is the antidote to a chilly room and far more money-saving than heating the whole house.  Feed them Wienie Water Soup and whatever may have moved into the basement.

• Do you really need a phone? Do you really need cable television? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are “yes”. There’s nothing to be done here.  I suggest you continue to afford these things by selling some of those kittens you moved in over the winter.

• Mix your own prescription drugs. Holistic healers tell us that many remedies can be found in nature. Explore this possibility. A little tree bark, a handful of dandelions, a pinch of ants mixed with potato water and applied internally? You’ll be saying “what headache?” and “I’m comin’, ‘Lizabeth!’ in no time!

• The cost of gas just keeps going up. Ride shares, motorcycles, buses? Is this enough? Telecommuting has become more and more popular. Consider a home business, perhaps something involving the trading of leftover wienie water.

The going gets tough, and the tough get creative.

Operators are Standing By!

My brain has found itself in a rut lately. Initially, I was horrified, but, three beers in, I’m actually feeling kinda comfy.

My rut? I’m consumed with thoughts of poverty, with images of myself in line at a food shelf or making my lousy winter boots last another season.

But Pearl, my inner pioneer woman says, them boots done lasted you for eight years now! They’re fine boots!

And this is true. Them boots have lasted a good long time.

But what if they develop a hole, say, in October; and I can’t replace them? I can already picture myself at the bus stop, my feet wrapped in towels and stuffed into bread bags.

I need additional income. But I don’t actually want to work any more than I do now – between corporate work, writing, cleaning, serving, and yoga, who has time for toiling?

I’m tired of working the old-fashioned way. Working is for suckers.

I need a scam.

What do you think of this? You ready?

Dark-B-Gone.

That’s right! Dark-B-Gone! Are you tired of inadequate lighting? Are you confused by twilight? Looking for a dusk remedy? For only $19.99 I will share with you the secret of shadow removal, the techniques that the people in charge – do we need to use names?! – don’t want you to know!

But wait! There’s more!

For an additional $19.99 I will also send to you the many processes and procedures available for light eradication! Tired of squinting? The sun, fluorescent lights, even candles can wreak havoc with the eyes! Why use your pupils more than you need to? Try my tried and proven methods to eliminate this problem!

And just to show you how serious I am, here’s one technique for light reduction absolutely free! You ready?

Blinking! That’s right. Blinking. That one’s for free. And I have several – several! – other ways of beating illumination issues right here, right in my hot little hand, and they’re all yours for only $19.99.

E-mail now* and receive both these offers, both Dark-B-Gone and Dark Now, for just $39.98! Imagine the looks on friends’ faces when you possess the answers to questions like “Does it seem dark to you?” and “It seems awfully bright in here, doesn’t it?”

Contact me within the next 24 hours and receive, my gift to you, a genuine Certificate of Illumination, complete with hand-lettering and a naugahyde carrying case.

Hurry! Call now!



*Offer not available where people are using their brains.

She Works Hard for the Money; or, So Far, Aging Has Been Lucrative

She is drunk.  Not outrageously, and perfectly within reason, seeing as how we are standing outside a bar.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but do you have a light?”

We do, and Diana hands it to her.

“Thanks”, she says, exhaling toward the stars.  “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” I say.

“We’ve just come out for a smoke,” Diana says. “You can join us if you want.”

And she does, because if there’s one thing Northeast Minneapolis is, it’s friendly.  Inside the 1029, a boisterous gaggle of talented drunks are singing karaoke, one of whom who encourages the crowd, to its roaring approval, to “holla, mah ninjas”.

“My favorite part of Nordeast,” the new girl says, “is the age range in the bars.  Twenty-one?  Seventy?  They’re sitting next to each other.”  The streetlamps spill on to the sidewalk, pools of light at intermittent intervals that continue up the block and past two- and three-story houses.

Diana and I nod in agreement.

The girl ashes on the sidewalk.  “I mean, us, we’re all the same age.”

I laugh.  She is clearly younger than I am.

“What,” she says.  “I’ll bet you money that we’re the same age.  I’ll bet you $10.”

I smile at her.  “I’m definitely older.”

“You want to bet?  Within three years, okay?  ”

Along with the admonition to sit up straight, suck in my gut, and straighten the house before company arrives, my parents also instilled a strict money-is-not-for-playing-with policy.  I take a look in my wallet.  I have two dollars. 

“I’ll bet you two bucks,” I say.

We shake on it.  “You’re on.  So how old are you?”

“Fifty,” I say.

Her mouth drops.  She looks at Diana, who is smiling. 

“It’s true,” Diana says, shrugging.  “And yet she lives a remarkably depraved life.”

The girl squints at me.  “Well, I’ll be danged.”

I smile at her.  “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” she says, digging in her purse.

I hold up my hands, shake them at her in a gesture of refusal.  “You don’t have to pay me.  I don’t want your money.”

“Nope,” she says, handing me two bucks.  “I always pay my debts.”

And that, my friends, is how I doubled my money Friday night.

Why Am I Thinking of the Guillotine?

“You look hot,” says a woman. 

Hey, I think, the sweat beading on my upper lip, a trickle of sweat running down my back, who doesn’t look hot in the garb of the serving class?

Several inappropriate answers apply near the front of my brain for release, and I riffle through them before landing on something work-suitable.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Polite chuckles all around, and I return to clearing the plates from a table of wealthy graduation-party attendees.  Dressed in linens and sandals, they sit under open-sided tents, drinking iced beverages and eating fruits and kabobs from the buffet.

As they should.

I move amongst the tables, out into the 94-degree sunlight to the chef on the other side of the lawn, where the heat and smoke of the six-foot grill parked under an enormous tree intermittently blind him.

Service runs from 3:00 to 8:00.  It is around 6:30 when I first notice that the heat has begun to melt my facial features.  I anxiously reach for my ear lobes, which I discover lying on my shoulders.  My brain begins laughing, then divorces itself from me on grounds of cruelty and leaves the party for the swampy lake at the bottom of the lush, expansive yard, where it lies, squelched in the cool mud and humming from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

I had liked my brain up to that point.

My body, having absorbed four large bottles of water since 4:00, trudges onward.

I am casually considering the words “swamp butt”, thinking of cool showers and talcum powder, when I realize that one of the plates I’ve just cleared belongs to a man I used to work with, a VP of Finance with whom I was friendly just three years ago.

Sweat streaming from my hairline, my starched shirt showing sweat-bleed-through in the crooks of my arms, I smile at him. 

“Hey, Mark!” I say.

He looks at me blankly, then dons a thin-lipped dismissal of a smile, and I realize that right now, he doesn't recognize me.  I am a humidity-afflicted, red-faced woman with a stack of dirty plates in her arms; and he can't place me because he doesn’t know anyone for whom that would be an apt description. 

He turns away from me without returning the smile, stabs a chunk of pineapple on his plate and swallows it after two quick chews.

And in the dreadful heat, the sweat pooling at my collarbones, I am able to hang on to my smile.

Because Mr. Finance has just eaten a mosquito.

Pearl: Dish Fairy

Part III of III.  Parts I and II are on the previous days.  Go ahead.  Read them.  We’ll wait.

“What’s going on?”

I look up, and there in the broken kitchen window is Mikey.

Mikey, Ace, Towhead and I had all met some months back in a gasoline-will-take-care-of-those-speed-bumps incident.

Towhead’s head appears alongside Mikey’s.  In contrast to Mikey’s scowling demeanor, Towhead is a meaty blond in constant, happy motion.  He beams down at me.

“Hey!” he says, looking at the cart.  “What are you, the dish fairy?”

“What happened to your plates?”

At this, they both smile.  “Ace!” Mikey bellows.  “Someone here to see you!”

And in a moment, Ace appears at the door.  “Why Miss Pearl!” he exclaims. “You’ve come by to view the damage?”

I look at the broken dishes at my feet.  “What happened here?”

He smiles, shrugs.  “A disagreement."

I smile back, my father’s teachings that a salesman is always pleasant and upbeat.  “That’s a messy disagreement.”

“You didn’t hear anything the other night?”

I shake my head.  “My mom says I sleep like a drunken log.”

Ace nods, rubs the side of his jaw with the back of his hand.  “You got a boyfriend, Pearl?”

I wrinkle my nose.  “Boys are dumb,” I scoff.  And then remembering that this may not be construed as “pleasant”, I smile again.

He laughs.  “So you have a bunch of dishes, I see.  Someone send you here?”

“Nope.  I’m just trying to – “ The words “unload his merchandise” come to my mind, but that doesn’t seem right.  Remembering my father’s advice that adults are always looking for ways of getting children out of the house, I improvise.  “I’m saving to go to camp.”

“Uh-huh,” he says.

“So let me ask you this,” I say, further channeling my father.  “What do I have to do to get you a kitchen full of dishes again?”

Ace erupts into laughter, and I blush furiously.

“How many plates you have left there?”

Ah.  Something I know.  “I’ve got 30 plates, 12 cups and 12 saucers.”

“I tell you what,” he says, “I’ll give you $8 for the whole lot.”

Eight dollars!  I frown, count feverishly on my fingers.  If I sold four plates for a dollar, then 30 of them were worth seven-fifty.  The cups and saucers – well, I didn’t think anyone would really be interested in them.

“Sold,” I say. 

He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket, lights one.  “And,” he says, blowing the smoke toward the sky, “you sweep up this mess and get it into the garbage and I’ll throw in another $2.”

My smile was becoming more genuine by the minute.  “Deal,” I say.

“Towhead!” Ace shouts.  “Bring Pearl here a shovel!”

It was a mess, but it was all on the patio.  I shoveled the broken plates, bowls, glasses, into a large pile.  Towhead met me with another shovel and we dumped it all into a garbage can he pulled from out behind the trailer. 

Ten minutes later, Ace comes out of the house with a ten-dollar bill.  He hands it to me.  “Tell your mom,” he says, “that if she heard the ruckus the other night that I apologize.”

“I’ll do that,” I say. 

I turn to watch Mikey and Towhead take arm loads of crockery into the house.

“Thirty plates is a lot of plates,” I say.

Ace smiles at me.  “Love is funny,” he says.  “Maybe she’ll be back.”

I nod solemnly.  “And if she comes back and makes dinner, she’ll have something to serve it on.”

Ace shakes his head, laughing.  “Yeah,” he says.  “Maybe she’ll make dinner.”

"Or you could give some of them to her."

Ace looks at me strangely.

The cart now empty, I take a step toward him, hold out my hand.  “Thank you, sir,” I say, once again channeling my father.  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

We shake, and I leave, dragging the cart behind me.

“Pearl!”

I turn.

Ace holds a hand up.  The streetlight has just come on, and he looks like a statue.  “Take your time growing up,” he calls.

I hold my own hand up.  “OK,” I say.

Hi! My Name is Pearl! or Might I Interest You in Our Truck-Stop Line of Dishes?

Today’s episode is Part II of III, Part I being yesterday's post.  

Go ahead.  Go read it.  We’ll wait.

My dad and I stare down at the clean piles of dishes.

“Once a mold-covered threat to health,” he says, smiling, “now gleaming stacks of salable goods.”  He takes a drag from his cigarette.  “How much you thinking of asking?”

I look at him, surprised.  “You don’t want a cut?”

“I want my $4.50 back,” he says, smiling, ashing carefully, away from the crockery.  “This is all you, though.  You give me $4.50 back and we’ll consider these babies yours.  Anything you make, you keep.”

Think and Grow Rich, my dad likes to say, and already I’m thinking and growing rich.  Why, I’ll just load these in the big yellow cart that my brother uses for his Sunday route…

That night, after dinner, and after my father’s interference regarding whose night it was to dry the dishes (mine), I set out with a cartload of sparkly, genuine truck-stop plates, cups, and saucers.

It is small-time stuff, really, and these are the words I repeat to myself as I pull the cart.  “The cartload of dishes?” I say, grinning into an imaginary microphone. “Oh, that was small-time stuff, really.  But the sale of those dishes?  That's how I made my first million – and that’s the hardest million, you know.  The first.”

Surprisingly, the first trailer isn’t interested in used dishes.

Nor is the second or the third.

My dad's words ring in my ears: There are nine "no's" for every "yes", Pearl.  Selling is no time to get sensitive.

At the fourth, I sell four plates for a quarter apiece.  I stuff the dollar bill into my pants pocket and smile.  I am a dollar closer to being debt-free.

It is at the fifth trailer that the clouds part and the setting sun sprays me with prisms of pearly, truck-stop potential.

The One Percent.

The One Percent live one lot down from us.  They aren’t our neighbors – they are our neighbors’ neighbors; and while there are three people and one dog living there, you'd never know it by the traffic they generate. 

The One Percent are not subscribers to Better Homes and Gardens.  The aluminum steps that lead to the front door wobble in a drunken manner when climbed; and the screen door is missing both its screen and the spring that will keep it from being grabbed by the wind and slammed against the side of the trailer.  The trailer itself is rust-streaked, giving a world-weary impression.  I stare at it, let my eyes un-focus, imagine it heading toward California, a family of Okies inside, worldly goods piled on top and strapped down with baling twine, a biker chick in a rocking chair perched at the top, ala The Beverly Hillbillies.

In contrast to all this?  Three spotless, dust-free Harleys, lovingly parked atop carpet remnants on a pristine, re-surfaced driveway.

I look up.  This particular model of mobile home has the kitchen at the front.  The windows have been broken out, shards of glass on the sidewalk.  

On the sidewalk leading up to the front door are the broken pieces of what just may be every dish this trailer  has ever housed. 

I smile.

Already, I am Thinking and Growing Rich.  

Come On! Let's Hear You Count It Back To Me!

Mary, my wee, red-headed Mary, threw me a surprise party for my 50th birthday Saturday. Having spent the day on the edge of tears (for several reasons, and no, don’t think you’re going to get away without hearing about it later), I found out the reason for the callous indifference of my so-called friends was that they were all gathered at The Spring and awaiting my arrival.

We closed the joint down.

Sunday Mary and I drove two hours north to have lunch with my parents. After we returned, I went on to a three-hour proofreading job.

I told that to tell you this: I didn’t write.

But I will! Of course, I will. Until I get the opportunity, however, a little re-worked post from almost three years ago now.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s nap time.


No one counts back your change anymore.

Remember that first job, probably in 9th or 10th grade? Someone handed you a ten for a $2.50 item and you counted their change back to them: 50 makes it three, four, five, and another five makes it ten. Thank you! Come again!

Surprisingly enough, it occurred to me yesterday, as the clerks handed me back lumps of cash, change, and receipts that I'd not had change counted back to me in years.

I shared this with my friend Mary.

"Ha!" she says. "I think it's because they can't add."

"You do realize," I say, "that we are of the generation that checks our calculators by working it out on paper."

She laughs. "I had an argument with someone just the other day that there was no way that six 39-cent cookies came to four dollars."

"What? That's stupid. Where did she come up with that?"

"It was what the cash register kept ringing up! I'd tell her that it was wrong, she'd zero it out, ring it up again and there it was! Four dollars! So I told her, look, let's say the cookies are 40 cents apiece. There're six of them. Six times forty is what?"

There is a slight pause as Mary and I multiply six times forty in our heads.

"So,” I say, “what'd she say?"

"She didn't say anything. She just kept ringing it up and re-ringing it up and the damn thing kept telling her that the total was four dollars.” Mary shakes her head sadly. “I finally had to leave."

"Without the cookies?"

"Do you believe it?!"

Initially, you know, I didn't believe it, but Miz Marybeth Campbell, of the Tight-Fisted Campbells, is not one to squander her money.

Nor is she one to abandon cookies.

What’s the world coming to?

Three Servers On a Bed of Arugula with an Exhausted but Rather Amusing Dipping Sauce

When the opportunity arises to serve, one, of course, serves. Black pants, legs creased sharply; white shirt starched to an exactitude rarely seen outside of the military; sturdy black shoes that say “I shall remain on my feet until called upon to do otherwise, madam.”

Hello. My name is Pearl. May I refresh your drink?

I take you back to last Saturday night, where you are to picture me smiling and deferential.

Paulie was there.

Paulie’s a star, you know.

“We filmed for a week,” he says, arranging the shrimp-wrapped scallops on a tray. “It’s going to be on TV this spring.”

King of the grill, maker of spoon-licking-good dressings and sauces, drinker of vodka and one snappy dresser, Paulie will represent Nye’s Polonaise on an upcoming episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

“Not that it will affect how I treat you,” he says, casually, a regal wave of his hand encompassing us all. “Hey, which one of you wants to rub my temples whilst I whisk?”

We laugh. Because that’s what you do when your chef makes demands. You laugh.

Being in the presence of a budding celebrity, however, does not affect the job at hand. Gol’ dang it, people, we have jobs to do! We can’t just stand around, feeding Paulie peeled grapes and massaging his various roasts and loins!

Saturday evening’s job was a private party in a home large enough to comfortably hold a dinner party of 17.

We served, and we served well, Mary, Min, and I being the very face of cheerful diligence. We served, filled, delivered, removed, scraped, stacked, and hauled.

And then we wiped and swept our way out the front door and into the brittle expanse of stars wheeling overhead. It was shortly before midnight when we stepped out the front door. We had been on our smiling, running feet for seven hours.

“I think my spine has been compressed. Do I look shorter to you?”

I look over at Mary, who is sitting under the pile of blankets I keep in the car for those awkward moments before the heater kicks in – roughly from November to April.

“Yes,” I say.

She moans softly. “Do your feet hurt?”

“They hurt so bad that I think they might be your feet.”

She sighs. “Still,” she says, looking up through the windshield, “it’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

I lean forward, gaze up through the windshield. We are far enough away from the city that the stars are a brilliantly winking sea of bright white and blue lights.

She’s right.

It’s a beautiful night.

Would You Believe I Have a Whole Section of my Blog Devoted to “Pants”?

It’s a flurry of excitement, here at Casa de Pearl, as I ready myself for another foray into black-pantsed-and-white-shirted encounters of the catering kind. My shirt has been starched into crisp yet bland submission; my practical shoes have been located; my favorite underwear, a trusted pair with a strict no-ride policy, have been set aside.

And my black pants are ready.

Funny thing about those black pants, though: they’re actually Mary’s. We’ve decided, in that quirky, kinda endearing but kinda weird way that women have, that I look better in her pants and she looks better in mine.

There’s a joke in there somewhere, but we’ll let it ride for a bit.

I don’t think men trade pants. Then again, I’m not sure.

I text T. “Have you ever traded pants with a friend?”

“Why,” he writes. “What have you heard?”

So that’s probably the answer right there.

Serving jobs are a fertile land of stress, hustle, and humor. It is a world of shouted jokes, often in Spanish; of carefully balanced plates and mysteriously crusted and rejected forks. There will be glasses to fill with ice and water, place settings to be set, napkins to be napped. I don’t want to get too detailed here – it’s all very technical – but suffice it to say that at the end of the night, I will be several inches shorter and several twenties richer.

Hey. Who has more fun than me?

Something About an Ol' Ban-Joe

I live in a city. I work in a city.

Everybody knows that’s where the money is.

Right?

I’ve been crowd-guilted into leaving change for a person who poured me a coffee and walked it the three steps between the pot and the cash register.

I’ve been approached by a man who asked me for $45. For his prescriptions, he said. Said he’d take a check.

I’ve been followed by an extremely drunk woman who, if I wouldn’t give her cab fare – cab fare! – wanted me to at least give her the decorative pin off my jacket.

My favorite beggar so far, though, has to be the man I saw standing at the Dowling exit, just off 94.

There he is. No sign, nothing but him and the howling wind: him, what I would guess to be an inadequate jacket for the weather conditions, and a banjo.

I turn down my radio, lower my car window. Strangely, I can’t hear him; and yet, there’s this man, just two car lengths ahead of me, a’pickin’ and a’grinnin’. His face completely expressionless, he hops from one foot to the other, his left hand running up and down the neck of the instrument, his right hand strumming madly.

He looks, as my dad likes to say, like a heckuva player.

But there’s no sound.

He certainly looks like he’s making sound.

And that’s when I see it. The banjo is made out of cardboard boxes, shaped in a very good imitation of a banjo. No strings, no frets. Everything has been drawn on. I smile as he continues to hop around at the quiet intersection.

The light changes, and as I pull up I yell at him. “Hey!”

He looks at me.

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all day. That’s gotta be worth something, don’t you think?”

He comes over to the car and I hand him two dollars.

“Thanks for brightening my day,” I yell.

The light changes, and I pull away.

But he doesn’t hear me. He is back at the banjo, hopping from foot to foot, strumming manically.

.. Starring Yvonne DeCarlo as Homeless Woman #1

The homeless are leaving Minneapolis.

And I am both relieved and sorry to see them go. 

They’re on the street, on the bus, belongings stuffed into duffel bags, garbage bags, lashed to dollies and carts with bungee cords and hope. 

I wonder about the homeless.  I want to ask them, “What happened?  Did you lose your home in a fire?  To the economy?  To addiction?  Did you burn your bridges?  For cryin’ out loud, what happened to your bridges?”

Could the same thing happen to my bridges? 

And that’s what the homeless do:  they make you think, about frailties, about sleep, about safety.  They’re the ones whose pain is visible, but many of us walk the line between being able to contribute to a food shelf and requiring the assistance of one.  Add that knowledge to the dwindling heat/light/color of the rapidly approaching winter and the realization that you need to get away, away from the eye-ball freezing temperatures inexorably creeping in, and we’ve got a Cecil B. DeMille-style exodus.

To paraphrase the bartenders, you may not have a home to go to, but you’re not going to want to stay here.

In some ways, I’ll miss the color an outdoor population provides. 

I’ll miss the toothless, spacey grin of the man on the corner, a man who does not seem upset by his lot in life.

I’ll miss the man with the long black hair, the man who took his shirt off and laid in the grass, the sun bouncing off a golden, hairless chest who exclaimed with a wink, “Ever been with a bum?”

And hopefully I’ll miss the man who insists on playing the recorder, empty hat at his feet, the recorder, known in my childhood as a “flutophone”, being played by a man who believes that the trill covers a multitude of sins, including an utter lack of musical talent.  His rendition of “Three Blind Mice”, able to stun you tone deaf from a block away, is his go-to piece.  That one, plus, so help me, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Jingle Bells”, covered with flowery notes not always found in the key of the song, slide into one ear, eat a number of brain cells, and slide out the other, leaving a ring around the inside of the skull akin to the one left around a bathtub after washing something particularly filthy.

I would like to miss him, but how can I miss him if he won’t go away?

First the geese.  Now the homeless. 

Soon Minnesota will be full of nothing but Minnesotans.

Suicidal Behavior in the Workplace

Burnie had always appeared to be an idiot.

But he proved it the night of Ricky’s wedding.

I wasn’t there when it happened, but T was.

It all happened at the catering company’s owner’s wedding.

Ricky and Johnny own the catering company. It was Ricky’s wedding.

Ricky and Johnny have a very tight-knit extended family: religious, community-minded, and fierce. The family is of such size that there are several catered events a year: weddings, anniversaries, memorial services, holidays. If you work these events, you come, through reputation or by actually witnessing something, to know them.

A catering kitchen is a machine. Everything is a matter of timing; for the machine to run properly, it must fire on all cylinders, in order. One bad cylinder and the whole thing seizes up.

Burnie was a bad cylinder.

“Burnie,” said T, “had an inflated sense of his own abilities.”

Ricky’s wedding wasn’t a buffet but a banquet, that is, the tables did not line up to serve themselves at the buffet table but were served, family style. Ice water, bread rolls, butter and antipasto trays were already at the table.

On the menu tonight? Large bowls and platters of a classic Greek salad, mashed potatoes, grilled vegetables, beef tenderloin and salmon on cedar planks freshly prepared on mammoth portable grills just outside the kitchen door.

Burnie was in charge of the salads.

In hindsight, of course, Burnie should never have been in charge of the salads. When you’re backed up on salads, you’re backed up for real.

And that’s what happened.

Despite Paulie’s repeated shouts of “You got them salads?” and “How you comin’ on those salads?” they were not ready when the call came to move on the salads.

Paulie’s mouth dropped in incredulity. Late delivery of the salads meant the sauces were off, that the meat had to wait, that the potatoes and grilled vegetables, nearing completion and ready for the warmer, would sit longer than optimal.

This was not cheap food.

Paulie roared. “What the hell have you been doing? Get on it. GET ON IT!”

Burnie, humiliated, threw a towel to the floor. “You can’t talk to me like that!” He stormed out of the kitchen and, in a move that caught T's eye and bode ill for the immediate future, into the reception hall.

Think of the loveliest wedding receptions you’ve been to: the extravagant floral arrangements; the sparkling crystal; the crisp linens; the beautifully dressed men and women; the children holding hands as they run, laughing, through the crowds. Everyone’s had a couple of drinks, partaken of the tables of fruits and cheeses. The hall is filled to the ceiling with happy voices.

Burnie charges into the reception in his kitchen whites.

He sees Johnny, owner of the catering firm and brother of the groom, standing on the dance floor talking to what appears to be a number of his aunts. Burnie interrupts their conversation, placing a hand on Johnny’s arm.

“I gotta talk to you,” he shouts at him.

From the window in the kitchen door, T watches, horrified.

Burnie is about to die.

In describing Johnny’s face later to a rapt kitchen crowd, T said: “You could see Johnny’s blood pressure rise. He went purple.”

Johnny removes Burnie’s hand from his arm, spins him around, and with a hand on his back, pushes him quickly back through the swinging doors, through the kitchen, and out the back door.

The cooks back on the grills watch as Burnie begins to gabble about how he has a right, dammit, and he demands to know – Johnny, dark red and glowering, whirls him around, grabs him by the collar.

Lifting Burnie off his feet, Johnny slams his body against the brick wall of the reception hall. He begins to shout, the F word liberally lacing his speech, a monologue that is as brief as it is explosive.

“You interrupt my @#$! brother’s wedding for this, you @#$-for-brains son of a whore? You step in a celebration dressed like that, !@#$ing complaining about your !@#ing working conditions?! Whatsammater? Paulie being mean to you? Have you lost your !@ing mind?!  PAULIE! Get your !@#$ out here and bring Genius’s coat with you! You’re down one @#ing cook for the night!”


And we never saw Burnie again.

The End.

Well They Don’t Just Make ANYone Wood Tick Inspector, You Know

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I am both a mixture of appearing to be gullible and actually being gullible.  That is, while possessing a look that causes some men to apologize after swearing, I also, apparently, have the kind of face that says “See if she’ll make change for a $24 bill.”

Change for a $24?  Sure!  Now all we have to do is decide if you’d rather have four sixes or two twelves…

Seems I’ve always been gullible.  Take, for example, the weekend after my brother and I saw ”Jaws” seven times.  Nothing like a relaxing weekend at the lake!  Nothing like it until one hears one's brother screamed insistence to “Swim, Pearl!  Swim!  Killer Muskie!  Killer Muuuuuuuuuuskie!”, causing me to swim like something out of a Keystone Kops reel, complete with rolling eyes and double-takes.  Convinced that a seven-foot Muskellunge was preparing to strip the flesh from my lower legs, I swam as if I were being paid to do so.

Kevin laughed until he took on water.

Being gullible is what also led me, at the age of 16, to boast that my boyfriend was a “bikini inspector”.

What could I do?  The card he presented clearly said “Licensed Bikini Inspector”.

And for those of you keeping score at home, yes, my swimsuit passed with flying colors. 

So when the man in the dirty tee-shirt showed up at the bus stop Tuesday morning, I was skeptical.  Sure, he presented all the proper identification you’d expect to see in a North American Wood Tick Inspector, but something about his lurching, hiccupping appearance just prior to the 6:24 bus made me uneasy.

Still.  North American Wood Tick Inspector.  You gotta respect a working man, am I right? 

I hand his credentials back to him.  “So you’re just in the neighborhood?”

“Thazz righ’,” he says, his heavily lidded eyes closing for disturbing lengths of time.  “I wuz over at – hic! – Mayslack’s lazz nigh’ an’ sure enough diddin I fin’ wood ticks?”  He pauses.  “You been up to Mayslack’s?”

“Of course,” I say.  “This is my neighborhood.”

“So then you know Debbie?”

“No.”

“Patti?”

“No.”

“Gina?”

“No.”

“Lori?”

I play along.  “I know Lori,” I say.  “Everyone knows Lori.”

“Well there ya go,” he says.  “You as’ Lori ‘bou’ me.  As’ her ‘bou’ the Wood Tick man.  I check her last night an’ pronounce her wood-tick free.  Now wha’ ‘bou’ you?  Don’ you wanna be pornoun – pronann – declared wood-tick free?”

Man but I love this guy.

“I sure do!” I enthuse.  I look down the street and see the bus is turning the corner.  I pause in my search for my wallet.  I mean, come on, right?  Wood tick inspections aren’t free!  And even if they are, I’m going to want to tip him.  Now what do you suppose one normally tips the Wood Tick Inspector…

The bus pulls up and the doors open.  I step up onto my regular bus, where the driver greets me as he does every morning.  “Beautiful day!”

I smile at him and turn to watch the North American Wood Tick Inspector weave his way away from the bus stop and down Broadway. 

It is a beautiful day.

When I See the Newbies, I Feel the Urge to Stock Up on Ones…

Welcome everyone, and thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join us. Today’s topic comes from HR, so let’s quickly just turn this over to our Vice President of Human Resources, a man whose door is always open and whose attorney is on retainer, Dirk Hardly.

Dirk?

Thanks, Randolph.

You know, we here at Acme Grommets and Napkins take pride in the leading global role we have taken in the grommet and napkin solutions arena, and like it or not, the impression we make with our physical appearance matters.

The relaxed nature of our work, and of our office attire, can lead to misunderstandings in the work place.

We ask, as we have in the past, that you exercise good judgment in work attire. Look at yourself in the mirror before you leave for work, and ask the question: “Am I business appropriate?”

I refer, of course, to the newest members of our happy corporate family.

Bless their hearts, it appears that some of them have not heard the word “no” yet.

While I and so many of my generation appreciate the eagerness with which our fledgling employees approach the work place, the see-through nature of some of the tops, the shortness of the skirts, and the flip-flop-flip-flop-ness of their footwear has reached the point where we must now talk about it.

So let’s talk about what some of you are wearing to work.

I, for one, appreciate a little skin in the work place – if I’m in the front row and you are a pole dancer. And while some of you appear to be ill-equipped and entirely oblivious to both the state of your body and the clothing with which you’ve chosen to drape it, please believe me when I tell you: It don’t look so good. The chest/arm/neck tattoos? You were poorly advised and it pains me to tell you so. The mini-skirt? Not only do you not have the thighs for that particular spotlight but the cleaning crew is complaining about the state of your chair. And the cleavage? Let us not speak of your overly exposed cleavage. I don’t have the stomach for it.

The same could be said about the number of sweat pants, shorts, and strapless tops that have made their distracting way into the work place. I, too, was once young and understand the allure of the all-night parties and the effort that must be put into the odd blurred and hung-over workday. Word to the wise: a fresh change of clothes kept in your car or your locker at work, a traveling toothbrush, and no one’s the wiser.

That one’s a freebie.

So! In short, if what you’ve worn to work is also suitable for wearing at a beach, a night club, or to clean out the garage, do us a favor and re-think your career strategy.

Questions? Retorts? Threats of legal action?

Human Resources is here for you.

Wherein Pearl Gains Cats in Her Belfry

Those who know me know that I’m always looking for ways to make an extra buck. I wouldn’t say that I’m driven, but the grinning visage of my eternally optimistic and hardworking father has taken up permanent residence in my mind’s eye.

“There’s always ways to make a buck,” my father likes to say. “You go where the need is, then all you have to do is convince them that you’re their man.”

Well, there are needs and there are needs, so when I found myself with an empty attic and an all-cat band with no where to practice…

They promise me that their legal matters have been cleared, that their battle with the Internal Revenue Service has been exaggerated, and that the smell that seems to cling to the piano player will dissipate with time.

I do hope renting to a band doesn’t turn out to be a mistake.

The band – Squeak Toy – has been practicing for weeks, after all, in the basement (or, as the drummer calls it "the abasement"). I’m tired of squeezing by them to do the laundry, and I’m sick to death of giving it away for free.

This is not high school, after all.

But where are my manners? You’ve met Squeak Toy, haven’t you? There’s Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) on electric violin; Stumpy “Lucky” Strykes on drums; Ignatz D. Katz on upright bass; and on piano a large long-hair with yellow eyes introduced to me, less than cryptically, I thought, as “Hairball” .

I met them with the keys, at their request, at the back steps on August 1st, just moments after the clock struck midnight.

I suspect they may have been drunk at the time.

Why else would Lucky have said, “You look very – hic! – lovely this evening, Miz Pearl”?

Since then, of course, there have been small issues. The continual disappearance of ice from my freezer suggests that copies of my personal keys have been made. The lavender-on-lavender striped curtain in the back hall has been replaced with a pattern that can only be described as “kitty pin-up”.

The apres-bar last night included what sounded to be both bagpipes and a bow drawn across a saw.

Of course, I woke them early this morning with the dulcet marching tones of John Phillips Sousa and the smell of frying bacon.

Cats hate marching bands.

“Thtill,” Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers) said, sipping her coffee and blowing cigarette smoke out the window, “it’th rather nithe having Bohemianth in the attic. Lendth the plathe an air of thophithticathun, don’t you think?”

Sophistication?

Sophistication and rent money!