On Wednesday, Bear, my oldest dog woke up, well... just wrong. He was walking around with his head cocked at a weird angle, leaning up against walls. He was walking slowly and barely able to navigate stairs or anything other than simple walking. We've kept a close eye on him since, checking everything we can ourselves, but really reluctant to take him to the vet because we simply do not have the money.
Today, I finally decided to take him in. Our guesses range from the severe - like stroke or seizure - to the markedly minor - like an ear infection. Bear is quickly approaching ten. Not super-old for a sheltie, but certainly no spring chicken, either. Our dogs get short shrift around here, progressively notching downward on the family hierarchy with the arrival of the girls. But we still love them. Mostly. Except when they do something messy. Or annoying.
Bear is clearly my favorite. He's been an "old man" in temperament from about two months old on - which is rare in such a hyper breed. Before Todd and I were married, when Bear was a tiny pup, I'd wake up in the mornings and hold him on my lap for 15 mintutes or so, just lovin' on his belly and snuggling before I showered and left for work. I miss that.
I dropped Bear off this morning and now I'm waiting for word. They were really packed today with the holiday weekend coming up, so he's got to wait until the vet can see him. So, while I wait for a phone call, I thought I'd ask for some distraction.
Tell me about your most interesting/heinous/wierd job. Give me all the gory details.
To get the ball rolling, I'll tell you about mine:
(There may actually be a tie here between the job I'm going to describe, and my first [paid] job as a cook and cashier at Whataburger. But since nearly everyone has had to work fast food at some point, I'm choosing the more rare of the two.)
When I was sixteen, I was a parts-runner for an auto repair shop. My friend, Em, got the better of the two gigs at this family-run shop, as the secretary. She worked indoors with a boom box and air conditioning. I spent my days with my thighs stuck to the vinyl seats of a mini-truck with a hinky gear shift and minimally functional air conditioning. My job was to pick up necessary parts from shops, manufacturers, and junk yards and ferry them back to the shop. I also took customers back to work or home when they dropped off their vehicles for repair.
Now, the thing you have to realize about the auto repair industry is that it's all male. All greasy, dust-covered, nudie-calendar male. So when a sixteen-year-old blonde walks in and saunters up to the counter, the reactions were often, well, priceless. Men of every age would stutter, mumble, and offer me sodas while lamely trying to dust off the only chair and hide their chewin' tabaccy spit cups. I swear, some actually genuflected as they backed out of the room to get the requested part.
I realize this sounds like bragging, but believe me, it's not. I think any female under the age 65 and in possession of all her teeth would have received the same treatment. Invariably, there was flirting, and even what could have qualified as outright harrassment by my "manager" at the shop. But since my parents owned a company in another male-dominated industry, I was familiar with "good ol' boys", and their innappropriate behavior really didn't bother me. It was primarily entertainment in a job that offered few, few perks.
I will say, thought, that the other big perk was a chance to learn my way around town. I drove around every sector of the city, picking people and parts up, with directions that weren't always spot-on. For better or worse, I had to find my way, and I still remember short-cuts that I gathered along the way.
Okay, your turn. What have you done to pay the bills?
