For the last 15 weeks, I’ve been participating in a project called Mommy’s Piggy Tales where I wrote stories about my childhood each week, starting with birth and ending with graduation in the hopes that my children, and possibly my children’s children, will one day appreciate it.
This is the last installment. I made it (late, of course)!
I got my first job the summer after High School. I never had one before for several reasons: 1) we lived relatively far outside of town and it would have been a lot of driving to and fro, 2) I was not so confident and the thought of interviewing for any job freaked me out, and 3) I didn’t need one because I had a boyfriend with a job. :-)
When I graduated, though, I knew I needed to figure out how to earn my own money, so a friend of my mom’s helped me get set up with a job at the airport gift shop. Not a bad job really. It was full time during the summer and I got free lunch at the (one and only) airport restaurant every day. At least, it wasn’t so bad when I actually worked in the gift shop. Unfortunately, many days I was the one who “got” to push a car up to the concourse and sell sundries there. It was boring, since there were long stretches where no planes were coming or going and we weren’t allowed to do anything but wait (or tidy the cart). We weren’t even allowed to sit down. So, I’d stand there for 8 hours – alternating between standing and waiting for a customer and listening to customers complain about the price of cigarettes. Still, I got paid and I learned how to fold a t-shirt – a skill that has come in handy in my career as a domestic goddess.
In the Fall, I moved across the state for college. My mom and my ex-(soon-to-be-on-again-)boyfriend drove me over and helped me move into the dorm. I met the roommate who would become my best friend for the next two years. I learned so much from her about allowing yourself to be goofy and to let other’s see the real you.
She and I both loved musicals, so we never walked anywhere without singing an appropriate song. We would stand on the side of the street singing about the Wells Fargo Wagon coming, sing to each other about the rain in Spain, and there was even one memorable night where we sang in the rain – complete with puddle stomping and light pole swinging. She and I lived together our Freshman and Sophomore year, so we also learned important life skills (like how to find an apartment, how to get to and from the grocery store by bus, and how to hide your cat in the no-pets apartment) together. Although we ended up losing touch, I think of her often and I will be forever grateful for her presence in my life. In fact, without her, I probably would never have met my husband, so thank heavens for little roommates!
(Look, you don’t even need to cross your eyes!)
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