by vulcanjedi

Created on: December 10, 2008

February 1980, I was 18 and in college and had no money and decided that needed to change. I had noticed a Help Wanted sign in the window of the Roy Rodgers on City Line Avenueso I bit the bullet and went and filled out an application. The place was loaded with 16 and 17 year old kids working there. I got a job immediately because technically you needed to be 18 to work the deep pressure fryer. $3.18 an hour was what it paid, only 8 cents above minimum wage. My dad had promised he would buy me a case of beer if I got a job and I remember that Molson Golden well.

It was a part time thing mostly nights, and Saturday. I recall sitting in my basement after my first couple of days working there, staring into the deep golden beer in front of me while pondering life. Things were not working out with my girlfriend Suzanne and we had just broken up. The work was a bit boring. Most of my time was spent cleaning internal organs off the chicken breasts and making sure the legs didn't have too many feathers still stuck on them. At the end of the week when I found myself once again drinking that beautiful golden brew I couldn't help but wonder if the $60 paycheck was worth it.

I was making friends with all the high school girls working there. Two in particular were Jeanne and Linda both from Overbrook. They used to stop in often on the way home from after school and they looked like your typical catholic schoolgirls in their uniforms. Linda was the one I had my eye on but somehow I ended up dating Jeanne, probably because Linda had a boyfriend. I wasn't cut out for the fast food business. I worked at one speed, slow and steady. There wasn't any way to really speed up the prep work on the stupid chicken but the manager always wanted things done faster.

Spring break came around and Jeanne went to Paris France on a school trip. I was being my usual idiot self trying to impress Linda and I came up with a scheme to win her heart. A friend of mine from the farm school told me they were selling roses for $10 as a fund raiser. It was 25 roses for $10 so I spent some of my hard earned minimum wage to get some. So here I was with 25 white roses and not a clue what to do with them. Since I didn't have a car I was relying on my mom letting me drive hers so I decided to give my mother a dozen. Then I heard Linda was going to a school dance or a prom with her boyfriend and I hear about her expensive dress.

How I came up with the idea of giving Linda a dozen roses I'll never know. I had also gotten in touch with my muse and found out she was going to a dance the same night. Ok so I take the extra rose and give it to Lisa then. Over the years I have often wondered how things would have turned out differently if I would have given Lisa the dozen instead of Linda, who by the way was not impressed. I did not spend as much time with Lisa as I should have because I was rushing to get to see Linda.

Anyway, Jeanne came back and because of the roses she told me she never wanted to see me again. I felt like everything was just going totally crazy so I quit working the Roy Rodgers. My social security record says I made $253 dollars that year. That's 79 hours over a period of almost 3 months. I knew I could never work a fast food joint again. I knew I had to get an education so I would not have to take orders from a junior manager not much older than myself. So what did I do? I decided to take a semester off from college so I could figure out what I was going to do with my life

The following year I had a pregnant girlfriend with two kids already. But that is another story.

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