employment

I'm back at home, sleeping in my old bedroom, eating cereal with my dad in the morning, working in the same grocery store deli I worked at when I was in high school, lying to my mom about going on dates, spying on a guy named Randy who waits tables and tends bar at Applebee's.

It's not necessarily a step forward, I know, but it was the only option I had. Teaching jobs are scarce out east, the men I fall in love with turn out to be weak, not to mention asses, and I'm not good with money, or cooking, or teaching, or much of anything, to be honest.

Dad was the one who suggested I come back home.

"Save some money," he said. "Get back on your feet. Build your resume."

Mom was also encouraging, but in a differnet sort of way.

"It will be fun," she said. "We can run errands together. We can exercise."

I've been doing a little bit of tutoring, which is fun. Luckily, though, there is Randy at Applebee's. He works weeknights, and it is usually on those nights, after getting off from the deli, I stop into Applebee's for a drink.

Usually I sit close to Randy and act like I'm ignoring him and that I'm just there enjoying a drink. Sometimes he might make small talk about the weather or whatever is on the televisions that hang everywhere.

The longest conversation we've ever had happened last week when he asked me about work.

I told him all about the deli at Kroger's and then all about how I was a teacher and then how I was tutoring twice a week at the elementary school in Childs, the town west of us. I talking a million miles a minute.

"That's cool," he said. He was standing behind the bar and I was sitting at it. He was rinsing margarita glasses. "I used to work at a deli."

"Wow," I said.

"What's the name of that white cheese without the holes in it?" Randy asked, while rinsing. "It's the one that's at all the sandwich shops."

"Provolone," I said.

"Yeah, provolone. I used to love that stuff."

Randy kept rinsing the margarita glasses and when he was finished he hung them from a rack that hung from a ceiling. He had to stand on his tip toes to get the glasses to hang on the rack. It isn't that Randy is short, he's at least six feet tall, but the rack is hung very high. There is not a chance I could reach it if I tended bar. I would have to jump.