“… now I’m older than him.” I didn’t write that … Amanda McBroom did. Lyrics to a song about her father. I love that song. Days like today.

The air smells like mud. It brings me back to the time … almost 26 years to the day … that my father died. It was an early spring in Montana. Those were rare 26 years ago. Now, thanks to the hole in the ozone layer, they probably happen more frequently.

Anyway, the air today … smells like mud. Just like it did the morning I drove my dad’s run-down car back to Anaconda from Missoula. I hadn’t spoken to my mom since my sister had called me (at a dress rehearsal) and told me my dad had died. And suddenly I felt that sensation. It’s a total cliche, but completely true. When my sister told me the news, I fell down on the ground … because it felt like the ground had fallen out from under me. I felt as though I had nothing left to stand on. Amazing how metaphors can actually happen, right?

I’ve now been alive longer without my dad than I was with. And it’s a sad funny feeling. The other day I confessed to Alana why I don’t like sharing food. It’s because my dad used to beg tastes and swallows of whatever I was eating or drinking. He’d say, “Give me just a swallow of that, would ya?” or “Let’s have a taste of that.” Drove. Me. Nuts.

But whenever I grunt a little when I bend down now to pick something up, or whenever I bounce my hand on a table top — from a fist to a flat hand and back — well … it’s a little uncanny. And a little unsettling. My dad.

My poor old dad.

Writing a memoir gives me a odd kind of self-reflection. There are people and there are memories of people and there are memories that flash through your mind everytime you see those people. This chapter is for my girl friend, Mary Sue. I recently saw her on-stage, after a number of years. She’s captivating.

You all know I have a dishwashing fetish. This is how it all began:

_______________________________________

Hideaway

June, 1978

Dinner was over, and I’d put in my requisite hour on the piano, while Mom did the dishes. It was a weeknight, school was out, and I had the car. That could only mean one thing.

“Is Mary Sue there?” I asked. Her grandmother had answered the phone.

“Hold on,” she said. Then I heard her say, “It’s for you dear.”

“This is Mary Sue,” she sang into the phone, putting an extra ew on Sue.

“Coke and smoke?” I asked just loud enough for her to hear, but for my folks to ignore.

“Sure! There’s a party at John Tracey’s tonight, but it doesn’t start until late,” she said.

“I’ll come get you,” I said.

“I will be waiting,” she sang.

This was, by far, my favorite thing to do. I’d head out, pick up Mary Sue and we’d drive down Fourth Street, around Ben Goodman Park, out to the turnaround at the Armory and up commercial to either Main Street or up as far as Cedar Street, where we’d loop back onto Fourth. The entire loop around Anaconda would take about fifteen minutes. Twenty if we hit the light at Fourth and Main. We’d cruise the drag and smoke and talk and sing to the radio.

I always described Mary Sue as my girl friend, whenever anyone asked about our relationship. Then I’d say, “In the truest sense of the word. She’s a girl. And she’s my friend. She’s my girl friend,” I’d say. We were completely platonic. A tall, red-haired vixen, Mary Sue and I were interested in the same things. She had tons of soundtracks to movies and Broadway shows. We were in band together (Mary Sue was the drum major), and we had been in plays together at school and at the Anaconda Community Theatre.

We thought so much alike, we’d often finish each other’s sentences.

Mary Sue had one thing I didn’t have, though. She had friends. Tons of friends. She was the type of person who made friends easily. I think she actually liked people. I was quite the opposite. We were a pretty odd couple, but I loved being with her. We’d stop at Lu’s Drive In and get fountain Cokes. Then we’d drive around and around town.

“Oh! Listen to this song. I love this song. It’s country, I know, but I just love the lyrics,” she said when she climbed into the front seat of the Hornet.

Eddie Rabbit was singing I Love a Rainy Night. It wasn’t my favorite song. I didn’t like many of the songs on the radio. But Mary Sue had a really great ear for music, so I pretended to think the song was good.

“We have to pick up Mary Shaun at the Hideaway before we head to John’s,” Mary Sue said.

“Did she go out to eat?” I asked. The Hideaway was the new restaurant in the remodeled Marcus Daly Hotel. The history of the hotel was a paradox. An interesting mix of fact and folklore in Anaconda.

Marcus Daly built the Montana Hotel in 1889 as a premiere European-style hotel. It was a place for visiting dignitaries and mining executives. In its day, the Montana Hotel was one of the most oppulant, civilized places west of the Mississippi River. On the corner of Park and Main Streets, it was four stories tall, had a huge dining room, a coffee shop and a big, ornate bar, carved out of a single piece of solid oak. The Tammany Lounge was named for Marcus Daly’s favorite racehorse, the face of which was in-laid into the bar floor, using tiny wooden tiles. Depending on who you talked to, it was either good luck or back luck to step on Tammany’s portrait.

In the sixties and seventies, the hotel had fallen into decline. The dining room closed. The hotel rooms were rarely rented, and a motel was built in the back parking lot. The succession of owners renamed it the Marcus Daly Hotel long before I was born. In the late seventies, a developer bought the hotel and started ripping it apart. This was looked on with both favor (as a sign of progress) and disdain (so much history gone to waste). The original shell of the building remained, but the main floor was split between retail shops and the Hideaway Restaurant—a brand new, state-of-the-art kitchen, dining room and bar, built in the far corner of the ground floor, where the banquet facilities had once hosted elegant balls and lavish dinners.

“What?” Mary Sue was busy listening to the radio.

“Did she go there to eat?” I said. “I hear the food’s pretty good.”

“No! She works there,” Mary Sue said.

“What?”

“Yeah. She got a job there washing dishes,” Mary Sue said.

“Wow. Cool. OK,” I said. “What time do they close?”

“You know, I don’t know. I think she said we should stop by around 9:00,” Mary Sue said. “This song reminds me of a beatnik kinda song. I mean I can just snap my fingers to it, you know?”

She really loved that song.

We drove around for about an hour before stopping in at the Hideaway. The place was really nice. The furniture was new, and the developer had taken all the interior walls of the hotel down and sand-blasted the brick. There were huge, arched windows in the dining room with long sheer curtains covering them. The kitchen was all new. All the appliances were stainless steel. The big Hobart dishwasher had a levered door you could pull down with one hand. It looked like you loaded the dirty dishes on blue grates, slid the grates into the Hobart, pulled down the doors and waited for the cycle to end. I’d never seen anything like it.

Mary Shaun O’Leary was fairly buried in bus tubs of dirty dishes. The cook was gone, having closed the restaurant at 8:00. There was a single bartender on duty in the lounge. Apparently Mary Shaun was supposed to finish the dishes, haul out the garbage, sweep and mop the floor. Then she was supposed to tell the bartender she was done for the night. But from the looks of it, she was far from ready to do that.

The deep sinks were filled with hotel pans and dirty pots. There were five or six bus tubs stacked with dirty dishes … filled to overflowing. Mary Shaun pulled down the Hobart doors, the water whooshed into the machine and she spun around to face us. A lock of curly brown hair had fallen across her forehead.

“This totally bites,” she said. “I’m not going to be ready to go for at least another hour, maybe two.”

“Wow. You must have been busy, huh?” Mary Sue said.

Mary Shaun looked around the kitchen and squinted. “Not really. It’s always kind of like this at closing. The bus boys just keep coming with the dirty dishes and the cooks just keep piling dirty pots and pans in the sink!” She was clearly overwhelmed.

I looked over at the gleaming, flat-top grill. The make table and deep fryers were pristine, compared to the dish area. The whole room wafted fried chicken. Like someone had make dinner and turned the volume on smell up to high. I squinted like Mary Shaun. I could easily see how two people had stood between the grill and the make table all night. I could see how the bus boys had brought their loads of dishes in one door and left by the other door which led to the wait station. This is so cool, I thought.

“This job sucks,” Mary Shaun said. “I’m not going to be able to go to Tracey’s. I probably won’t be home until midnight at this rate.”

“What do I do?” I asked.

“What?”

“Tell me how you do this?” I asked.

“Do what?” Mary Sue asked.

“This. All this. Tell me what you do,” I said to Mary Shaun. I gestured out over the field of dirty dishes. “Show me how to wash these dishes,” I said. I pointed to the tub of soaking silverware. “Do you sort that before you wash it, or after?” I asked.

Mary Shaun turned her head slightly to one side, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. “What?”

“Before or after? They seem to just be thrown into that tub every which way. There’s a sorter, right? Do the bus boys not sort the silver when they put it in there? Or do you leave it soak unsorted, then wash, then sort, or do you sort, then wash?”

“You’re putting me on, right?” Mary Shaun said.

“No! I want to know! In fact, why don’t you let me clean these up and you go to the party,” I said.

“But this is my job,” Mary Shaun said to Mary Sue.

“Oh, yeah. I know that, but I don’t want to go to the party, and you do. And you don’t want to wash these dishes and I do,” I said.

“But I’m getting paid to do this,” she said.

“I know! You can keep the money. I just want to wash the dishes.”

“OK, you’re clearly shittin’ me, right? No one wants to wash dishes,” Mary Shaun pushed her hands into the front pockets of her smock.

“I do,” I said.

“Grant …,” Mary Sue started to say something, and stopped herself.

“You can’t do it for me,” Mary Shaun said.

“Well, what can I do to help you?” I asked.

Mary Shaun looked at me sideways again. “You want to help me?” she asked.

“Sure! I’ll help you. We’ll help you.” I pointed between Mary Sue and myself.

We all thought about it for a few seconds.

“Well, if you sent through the tubs and sorted the plates by size and stacked them there, that would be great. Also, once the silver-sorter gets full it’s time to drain the machine and refill it with new water. You’re not supposed to wash the silverware in used water. If I can get you started on the dishes, I can take a whack at the pots and pans. Mary Sue, you can dry, I guess,” Mary Shaun said.

“Let’s go!” I said. Try as I might, I couldn’t hide the fact that I was thrilled at the thought. Within a half-hour I’d broken into a sweat and the three of us were working in perfect, synchronized rhythm. By the time 10:00 rolled around, the dish area sparkled and I was an expert.

The next night, Mary Shaun continued training us on how to close the restaurant. We had to sneak past Kevin, the bartender, who was likely to tell Ruthie, the owner, that Mary Shaun had help closing the kitchen.

After three more shifts, Mary Shaun had almost a week off. I found myself getting antsy around 8:00. I’d drive by the Hideaway and slow the Hornet to a crawl, stalking the place. I checked whose car was in the parking lot, who was bartending. Who could possibly be using my Hobart? I asked myself.

Two more days passed with no dishwashing. That afternoon, a Thursday, the phone in the kitchen rang just before General Hospital started on the TV. My entire circle of friends were completely absorbed by Luke and Laura, and it was one of the few things B.J. and I didn’t argue about. We knew where we’d be at 1:00 on the weekdays. Since B.J. had her own line in her bedroom, I knew the phone was probably Mom calling to tell me what to do to start dinner. I was surprised when Mary Shaun said hello.

“Hey! What’s going on?” I asked.

“Can you do me a big favor?” she asked. She skipped the niceties and got right down to business.

“What do you need?” I asked. Mary Shaun hardly ever needed a ride anywhere.

“I need you to work for me tonight,” she said.

“Excuse me?” I asked. My heart started racing a bit.

“I’m stuck at the lake and my shift starts at 4:00. I can’t come in. It’s the only shift I have this week and I can’t get fired from this job. Please work for me. Please.”

“I can’t just work for you. I mean, I can do the work, but I can’t just show up and start working there like I have a job or anything,” I said.

“Look. I already called Ruthie and explained the situation. I told her you knew what you were doing and let her know that you knew how to close. The cook tonight is Robin. She’s really nice. I think you’ll like her.” I heard a car honk somewhere behind Mary Shaun. “Look, I gotta go,” she said. And the line went dead.

“Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable,” I said.

“What’s that?” B.J. said.

“I think I just got a job at the Hideaway,” I said.

“Waiting tables?”

“No. I don’t want to be a waiter. I think Mary O’Leary just gave me her job washing dishes,” I said.

“Eeew,” B.J. said.

“I couldn’t be happier,” I said.

***

Ruth Perinni looked up from the four-top she had set up between the kitchen and the salad bar. I had nothing but respect for her. She’d been a fixture at the hotel, working there for as long as I could remember. Mom and I used to go to breakfast after church at the hotel with Margaret Bubash and her daughter Cynthia. If Ruthie didn’t wait on us, she was in the kitchen making our breakfast. When the hotel closed and started getting ripped apart, we stopped going there for Sunday breakfast. Eventually, I stopped going to church altogether.

“I’m Grant. Grant Byington,” I said.

“Oh I know who you are,” Ruth said. She smoked the same kind of cigarettes as Mom. She spoke slowly and deliberately. It was clear I would have to choose my words wisely around her.

“My dad is Bob Byington,” I said.

“I said I know who you are,” she repeated.

“Mary Shaun said she talked to you about my working for her tonight,” I said.

“She said no such thing,” Ruth said. She stuck a match and touched the end of her Virginia Slim.

“She called me around noon and asked if I could work for her. She told me she’s squared it with you, or I never would have come here,” I said.

“Are you the man who’s been closing for her?” Ruth asked.

“I haven’t been closing for her, but I have showed up a few times at the end of her shift and helped her take out the garbage and stuff like that,” I said.

“You know know how to run the machinery?” Ruth asked.

“Oh the Hobart? Yes. I know how to do that. I know how to stack the dishes and use the rubber ring. I rinse before I load. I find the dishes are cleaner that way. I am a bit rusty on how long to soak the pans, though. Mary Shaun usually does that part. And I know about the oil in the broaster and the solution to mop the floor. I guess I know how to close, but I’ve never closed for her. She’s a good friend of mine. She’s the secretary of the band, did you know that? She’s really a responsible person. I don’t think she would have called me if she wasn’t in some kind of jam,” I said.

“She didn’t tell me she was in trouble,” Ruth said.

“Oh? I don’t think she’s in trouble. I just think she’s stuck out at the lake. Her car is probably stalled or something. He’s really a responsible person,” I said again.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ruth said. She looked around the dining room. Ron Cron, the bus boy, was setting up the salad bar. I could hear Robin the cook talking about the specials to Ron’s mom, who was the waitress for the night shift. Ruth looked up at me again.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t like it one bit.” She ashed her cigarette. “I make the schedule and she’s supposed to follow the schedule. There’s twenty girls I could call to take her place tonight, but instead she sends you. I haven’t even hired you,” Ruth said. She inhaled deeply and rolled her eyes a bit when she said, “I don’t suppose you’re a member of the union?”

“Me? Union? No. Not me. I mean, I’ve never worked in a restaurant. Except, that is, to help out Mary. No. I don’t think I need to be in the union do I? I mean, I have a pretty strong anti-union background, so I can’t really see joining something I don’t believe in. Well, it’s not that I don’t believe in unions, it’s just that I don’t see the future of labor as a union situation. I think it’s more of a free agent society we’re working with, I mean … .” It was one of those times when I could hear myself talking, but I had no idea what I was saying.

“Hon. Stop. No. Hon. Grant. It’s OK. You know, it’s OK. Dishwashers don’t have to be union. Especially if it’s part-time. I only have one full-time dishwasher, that’s Barbara. She’s in the union. But you don’t have to be,” Ruthie shut me up.

“So I can work tonight?” I asked. I tried not to sound too hopeful.

Ruthie looked around the room another time. She looked out the window and inhaled. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Seventeen. A year older than Mary Shaun,” I said.

“Well, I have no choice, do I? OK. I’m going home and changing out of my work clothes. I’ll be back to open the dining room. Until then, go back and help Robin get ready. I’m going to stay here tonight and pay attention to how you’re doing. If at any time you think you are in the weeds, you have to let me know,” she said.

“Weeds?” I asked.

“You’ve got a lot to learn. Aside from what you think you know, this is the shittiest job in restaurant work. But you must remember, if there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean. You should never find yourself not doing something. And ‘in the weeds’ is what we say when we’re overwhelmed with work and can’t seem to get ahead. Your friend Mary was probably in the weeds when she called you today,” Ruth said.

“Thank you,” I said, “you won’t regret this, I promise.”

Ruth looked me up and down. “Takes all kinds, Grant. Takes all kinds of people to make the world go around,” she said.

Since I’ve been laid off, I’ve been trying to catch JJ (I call her JJ … it’s an endearment … really!) whenever the opportunity arises. If I’m home from an interview or writing a cover letter, some of what she says floats into my head. She is the queen of the slow-burn, that one. About a week ago, she said “This story is so old I can’t even hear myself when I tell it.”

Brilliant.

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of folks abandoning our legal system to be shouted at by a retired family court judge makes my teeth hurt just as much as yours. But JJ is more than a guilty pleasure. She’s what Richard Hugo would call a Triggering Town. She’s the spark. She sets stuff in motion. Stuff like this:

1. “We all get what we deserve.”

Being a tour actor with the Missoula Children’s Theatre is fairly grueling. You drive into a small town with a tour partner, audition local kids on Monday night, cast 50 of them, rehearse after school for a couple of hours throughout the week, and at the end of the week you and those 50 kids perform a full-fledged musical, come hell or highwater. In every town, you work with a different accompanist. One of the last things you do in dress rehearsal is to teach the kids (and the accompanist) the curtain call. Very simple: the chorus bows, the leads bow, you (and your tour partner) throw a bow to the accompanist who bows. You (and your as-exhasted-as-you-are partner) don’t bow. You bow with the company. Usually, the accompanist would demur in some way. Accompanists are generally shy people. Especially in small towns. But one of my wiser tour partners would always say, “No! You bow! You must bow! We all get what we deserve.” I struggle with this one a bit, frankly. Recently that same man had brain surgery. He’s okay now, but he certainly didn’t deserve that.

2. ”I’m not stupid.”

Working at Brush Ranch Camp was one of those magical jobs. Every day I woke up not knowing what type of day I was going to have. I was constantly surprised. Most of the surprises were delightful. In my late twenties I found myself snuggled in the middle of some of the most breathtaking country, breathing really fresh air, being fed three meals a day (and a snack) and every six days I spent a day in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sign me up, right? My various duties included being a designated driver for the entire outfit. Thanks to my spotless record, and my extensive experience with MCT, I was one of the few staff members who drove the campers, the trucks, the vans and the buses. I also co-ordinated the airport trips. The camp was two hours from the Albuquerque Airport, so every term we’d have a day where we met kids at the airport, packed their bags onto a flatbed truck and transported the campers, sans baggage, to the camp. Their luggage would usually arrive a half-hour later, just in time for them to swim and unpack and settle down for their first night away from home. I usually drove the campers, my friend Mikey usually drove the luggage truck. Except for the time I left the airport with about 20 kids and didn’t realize the key to the luggage truck was in my pocket until I was almost home. This was before the days of cell phones. Two hours back to the airport, two hours back to the camp. The campers were really cool about it. But when I saw my boss, I said, “I feel so stupid, and I hate that.” She said, “If you don’t want to feel stupid, you should stop doing stupid things.” Whenever my self-esteem takes a hit, ”I’m not stupid,” becomes a bit of a mantra.

3. “Don’t talk when I’m talking.”

For seven years I taught English at Thomas A. Edison High School—another amazing job. Edison is a small, private school devoted to teaching students with learning differences. Many of the students have auditory processing issues. Some have Attention Deficit Disorder. Edison was the first place I ever encountered Asperger’s Syndrome. I spent hours with kids that had been hit with the double whammy of adolescence and autism. It was one of the more inspirational things I’ve done in my life. The first few days of every school year were the hardest. There’s that awkward first day thing hanging in the air. There’s that awkward “Gee you’ve grown so much I didn’t recognize you,” thing with returning students. But mostly, there’s a lot of ground rule making and breaking. In retrospect, I wish I had a dollar for every time I explained to someone that, if they were talking when I was talking, neither of us would be able to hear the other person.

4. “Don’t lie to me. You’re changing the story.”

Every person who appears on JJ has to write something. She frequently refers to it as the “statement” or “answer.” She’ll say, “That’s not what you wrote in your answer.” She does this when she is trying to trap people in what she calls a lie. And she’s a pretty good lie detector. In fact, she frequently calls herself a “truth machine.” But in these cases, I find myself empathising with the litigants. For the past dozen or so years, my primary challenge in crafting creative non-fiction is to try to justify the story I have in my head with the story I see on the page. Sometimes I get it right. But sometimes I have to change the story. I understand I’m given license to do that. It’s an agreement I enter into with anyone that reads my work. They want a story. I want … well, I want a good story. One that won’t bore them. The problem with the litigants on Judge Judy (and frankly, this gets JJ a little hot under her lacey collar) is that the untruths they tell are patently transparent. And most of them are harmful to either their case or their defense. They are so wrapped up in their story that they can’t see the harm it’s causing. My first rule of thumb … do no harm. We’ve covered this before.

5. “You want this to be fair. Let me tell you something: life’s not fair.”

I’ve been dealing with fairness for a long time—this recent flirtation with unemployment not withstanding. Working in the theater is not conducive to the notion of fairness. Neither is writing, in my humble opinion. And neither is being laid off. No matter how you slice it, being on the receiving end of rejection is just unfair. There is no easy place to lay any blame. It’s just there. It is, in effect, what it is. For the past six weeks I’ve been dealing with a lot of folks who want to tell me how wrong my situation is. How angry they are. How they (they!) feel betrayed. And I suppose if I was a vindictive person I’d be inclined to agree. I’d be angry. I’d be looking for justice. But there isn’t any justice to be found here in rejectionville. It’s just … well, it is what it is. I’m okay with that.

But I have my moments. Even a relatively calm person is allowed a few of those.

The week before I was laid off I had the honor of taking a rather long car trip with an actress friend of mine who also happens to be a marriage counselor. I told her about my fascination with JJ. She was amused, but not enough to watch the show. At any rate, she told me that a very wise colleague has told her that the majority of a counselor’s clients are really looking for judgement of some kind. And her number one job was to not provide any judgement whatsoever. But to listen, offer suggestions, and get the couple (or the person) to move on.

I try not to wallow. I try not to blame. I take the information that is given to me, however slight it may be, and I move on. I think that’s what’s important, actually. To move on. No matter how hard it is.

And I think Judge Judy would agree.

A couple of years ago, I took advantage of a depressed economy and went to eBay, looking for one of those fancy push-button espresso machines. You know the ones, they hold a tank of water, a hopper of beans and have steam at the ready. All you have to do is care and feed them, and you get a great cup of coffee just by pushing a button. Having one of these machines is an extravagance. An indulgence. When you see them in the Sur La Table catalog, you think “Oh no! Not for me! I’m never going to need such a thing. Way too fancy. Who needs a cup of coffee at the push of a button?!” Then, of course, you experience it … you see one at a friend’s house, or an employer installs one, and you think “Huh. Gotta have me one of these!”

They are outrageously expensive. (Unless you go on eBay and find a lovely little retailer in, let’s say, Las Vegas, who bought a bunch of them and then went belly up. I think this poor soul had a garage full of the machines, because he let me have it for … well … a song.) At any rate, there you are with your fancy machine and you come to realize it needs to be cared for. There’s an occasional bean restock. There’s a more-than-occasional water tank refresh, and tray dump of grounds (and collected caffeinated sludge). And … if you live where I do … there’s a need to change a water filter after every 250 cups of coffee.

My machine has an LED screen that tells you what the machine is up to or what you need to do. You know, short phrases like — 2 coffees xstrong. 1 coffee powder. Press rinse. Draw steam. Fill beans. Fill tank. Empty tray. Clean machine. Change filter.

If you’re like me (and I know you are) you probably read the Change filter warning, but wait until you’ve gotten every bit of life out of that filter. (The little fucker is expensive. And hard to find.) The machine knows you. It can sense you are this type of person. The machine probably knows you ignore the low-ink alert on your printer, or leave for the coast with a quarter tank of gas. Because the machine knows you so well. (It’s seen you at your best and your worst, after all), this clever little machine … this kitchen marvel … this what-would-I-do-without-it device … has the audacity to switch it’s message from the kindly Change filter to the more demanding Change Now. (Note the use of capitalization.)

Change Now, it tells you. It beeps three times for the next several cups of coffee. Change Now it reads, instead of the time of day, or the ever-comforting 2 coffees xstrong. It then beeps five times and changes to all caps:

CHANGE NOW

It means business this time. It’s not fooling around. Eventually, it withholds your cup of coffee. Bastard machine.

There you are in your favorite comfy t-shirt and boxers. Hugging off the bleary cold of the morning. Waiting as patiently as you can for your 2 coffees xstrong. Surprised. Shocked. Dismayed. Crestfallen.

So, being this type of guy (and I just know you are exactly like me) you get over the initial shock of not having your wishes fulfilled and you … make the change. You CHANGE NOW. And, regardless of how comfortable you are with your own insecurities, you admonish yourself for becoming reliant on something that is inherently unreliable. Something you have endowed with the ability to make decisions on your behalf, even if they are decisions which do not work in your favor.

You get over yourself. You soldier on. You learn a little something about loyalty and trust. And, after a brief period of uncomfortability, you get your reward. But, in the future, when the universe is sending you messages so strong that even your coffee machine is offering advice and counsel, well … you Change filter. I mean, why wait?

So, since we are so alike, you and I, you can imagine my surprise when … almost a month ago … I was laid off from my (really great) job of eleven years. Despite the warnings. The capitalization. The beeps. You find me (or return to me) in the process of CHANGE NOW. And no matter how much I cross my fingers, cross my toes, pull on my ears or wiggle my nose, I approach the simple act of pushing the buttons of opportunity with caution.

I’m a little shocky. I’m a little bleary. But I’m still pretty grateful the coffee has been so good for more than a decade.