You Mean I Need To Pay Rent?

I was very, very lucky.  My parents paid for me to go to university.  They paid tuition and for my rent.  Somehow, after dreaming for the entire time I was in high school about moving to Ottawa to go to Journalism school, it never actually occurred to me that this would entail moving away from home.  It also never occurred to me that perhaps some savings would be a good idea, so I had managed to blow all my big library coin on things like burgers and movies.  

September of 1988 came around, and I was personally penniless.  Not a dime to my name other than the money my parents had given me to pay my rent for the first semester.  Because I had never been a budgeter or saver, it will be no surprise to hear that a full semester’s worth of rent was gone in the first few weeks of living on my own.  Shit.

To understand the gravity of this situation, you’d need to know my father.  He is a meticulous budgeter.  He can tell you where every dime of his money is at anytime.  He’s a saver, and he’s a worrier.  If I wouldn’t have inherited his good looks I’d be sure that I was adopted.  After a couple of calls home to top up the bank account, it became clear that the only thing to do was to get a job.

In 1988 I was introduced to the world of fast food.  To be sure, I had experienced it, but always from the other side of the counter.  I got a job selling french fries at a store that only sells french fries.  I may be the only person who has worked in fast food that has never had to ask the dreaded question, ‘Do you want fries with that?’  

In the previous four years of my sheltered library existence I didn’t have to do any heavy lifting, cleaning, stocking, or dealing with customers.  Customers add a whole new dimension to the world of work. 

I had some interesting customers at the fry store.  I remember one day, early in my tenure I was working an afternoon shift, and an older man and his wife who were regulars came up to the counter and we were chatting as I prepared his order.  I was complaining that I was always working (excellent form, I might add, bitching about my job to a customer) and didn’t have an opportunity to experience nice days like we were having that day in Ottawa.  He launched into a tirade about how if I only would have stayed in school that I wouldn’t have to work such a shit job and that maybe I’d be able to enjoy life, and that I should be prepared to miss lots of nice days because I’ll be working in low paying jobs for the rest of my life.

To this day I don’t know why I didn’t jump over the counter to kill him where he stood (imagine a chubby fast food guy trying to pull a Dukes of Hazzard move like that anyway).   I guess the amount of nerve that you possess is directly proportional to the side of the counter you're standing on.