May 5, 2011

Dearest E.,

Happy Cinco de Mayo! We celebrated yesterday for a special reason. Very soon I will tell you more about that. When your dad read my last letter he had many points he wanted to correct me on. He finally agreed he would write the "real" version of the story. Shortly after that the phone rang. Could he make it to a job interview in 30 minutes? He raced to shave and make himself presentable. It was the first nibble of possible employment he has gotten in months. He has been out of work since last July. Well, out of temporary work. He was really laid off in September of 2008 and just been working anything he could find since then.

I handed him the last copy of his resume I had printed as he rushed out the door and wished him luck. After nearly an hour he sent me a text. "I work tomorrow at 9am..." with the rest of his schedule for the week. He did it! I am so excited for him. He was eager to get to work today. Without either of us working we suspended the policy on his car and parked it for the winter. We weren't expecting this job at all so his car wasn't running and I had to drop him off at work. "I want to be there 45 minutes early so I can do paperwork." While he was at work I made several phone calls and charged the battery in his car. But the time Taco was out of school we were able to arrange with Grandma to drop it off for him.

I am glad to see him excited to work again. He is working for a car wash. They want him to be a cashier, but they start out as a "tech" and work as a dryer and washer before moving to inside. That way he can really learn what each package means and better sell to customers. He works with a lot of teenagers. They were giving him crap at first thinking he wouldn't be able to keep up.

Since he has been out of work for a while he has put on a couple of pounds mostly in the belly. When he arrived at work there were only a couple of others there. At the detail station were two Hispanics. As he approached he heard them speaking in Spanish to each other about him. "That guy is supposed to keep up with us?" "Look at his belly," they teased. "Silly white boy." His manager was just a few steps behind him. "You need to watch out for these two they will talk behind your back," he grinned. Dad smiled a big smile and repeated in English everything they had just said about him. Their jaws dropped. "Where did you learn Spanish, White Boy?" they asked. He laughed and told them he was ESL and grew up speaking Spanish and they didn't believe him. All day they asked him questions about his family trying to decide if he was lying and testing his Spanish. He manager said it was the first time the two detail crew guys interacted with the rest of the crew like that. Your dad was super pleased with himself for making new friends.

The work is hard, but he is loving it. He came home so tired today. He was bragging about how fast he was. He said that a lot of people were surprised at how fast and efficient he could dry a car. I teased him and reminded him that he had lots of practice helping our annual Relay for Life car wash and bake sale. He went to bed happy and exhausted. I am afraid we might not ever get his "real account" of the night we met.

With love,