Are You Thankful Enough?

I Need Work In That Area.

As my husband was preparing to go to work, I whined, "Aww, I wish you didn't have to go, this sucks." He said, "I know." And almost immediately I ate my words. "Gosh, listen to me honey, I have nothing to complain about, we have more time together than anyone we know, and still I have the nerve to whine, I should be more thankful for what I have." He agreed, and we laughed about it.

The thing is, we do have it pretty darn good. He works two weeks a month, and I work 3 days a week, and the rest of the time we have each other. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. I know I should be so thankful for what I have, and I truly am. We have come a long long way. Back in 2004 after he left the military, we claimed just a little over 10 thousand dollars as our income that year. Just 10 thousand dollars for a whole year, and yet, we were happy. We were driving really old cars, and renting out his father's house, but we were all right.

We did have the foresight to realize that we could not go on like that forever, that old cars break down and we were one financial crisis away from completely going down the tubes. We were looking for jobs, and he took a job at a factory nearby putting little bitty ball bearings in pad locks. He worked long hours and made squat for money, but he did it. I applied for job after job, and for the first time in my life had difficulty finding employment. Then he got a job at a hospital as the laundry supervisor. The man who hired him was particularly interested in his background in the Marine Corps, we later realized that what the man wanted was a drill sergeant to whip that slovenly crew into shape.

My husband did his best, but had never worked in the "civilian" world, and soon found that people did not respond to Marine Corps leadership tactics. That people did not just follow orders, and did not accept being yelled at. It was a learning experience for him. He applied for a different position, one that did not involve managing people who refused to be managed, and he seemed much more happy. He had a little desk job, we had health insurance, and all seemed well with the world. The desk job didn't pay much, but it was steady, and decent employment.

I was still struggling to find employment, and eventually got a job at a grocery store at the customer service desk. It paid 7.00/hour, and sucked. This was the time that I made the revelation that grocery store customers are the rudest customers in all land. I had worked fast food as a youngster, and even there was treated more politely than at the customer "service" desk. Perhaps people were less inclined to mouth off to someone fixing their food than someone behind a desk, or maybe in the almost 20 years since I worked in that type of job people had just become total assholes. I can't say which is for sure.

It was working at the customer service desk that I realized that being called a stupid idiot by senior citizens wearing too much rouge was just not my bag, and so I started imagining myself working elsewhere. I had no idea that so many drunk people frequented the customer service desk, but it was there that I discovered that people will return a half eaten loaf of moldy bread, and expect a refund, which they will then take to the nearest liquor store and buy the biggest bottle of Night Train they can get their hands on. Well, we sold the cigarettes, and drunks like cigarettes, and lottos too for that matter.

Oh the lotto players. I still get in line behind them at the 7-11 and want to shoot myself. What a process. These people are hard core, and they are always out in droves on Sunday mornings when I am trying to get to work. What possesses people to get up so early just to exchange their losing scratch tickets is beyond me, but I have seen a pattern. I always feel for the clerks because the lottery ticket people used to drive me nuts. They come in with handfuls of the things, and it can get really confusing.

The day that the old lady stood there and asked me if I was some sort of idiot or something, and my boss stood right next to me and said nothing was the day that I knew I was not humble enough to work there. Luckily there was another plan for me, and an old friend helped me get back to a place that I had loved working before, and after a fairly simple process of jumping through hoops and giving a lock of my dead grandmother's hair, I was hired on some where much nicer where the customers have some manners. I have been there ever since.

I have never so much as set foot in the grocery store I worked at, no matter what they have on sale, and I probably never will. It was not just the customers who were beyond rude, but the management at that store was particularly hateful. I just have no desire to shop there now.

Well, I had the good job, hubby had a good job, and we were doing fine, but really my husband was underemployed, and we knew he could do better. We didn't know how, or what, but we knew he could find a better job. He says he was quite content and that I told him to look for a better job, and that is the truth of the matter. I knew that I had a decent income that could carry us in the interim, and when my dad mentioned that the oil and gas industry was looking for a few good men, my husband looked into it, and being the go getter that he is, he landed himself a job on a rig, and started making 3 times the amount of money he was making sitting at the desk.

And here we are. We've got every reason to be thankful. We both work very hard in physical jobs, but we are happy. I wanted to go to school, but that is not happening right now, and I can live with that for the time being. I may never go back to school, I just don't know. I just know that right now I have to give my daughter that chance. I had my chance when I was younger, I made my choices, and have to live with them.

My dad always says, "People make a series of choices that get them to the place they are." I think he is right. We made a series of choices, but we also took calculated risks as well, and in our case that worked out for the better. We both agree that God had a hand in the whole thing, and that he knows where he wants us to be. We could not have planned this better. Now, we are in a position to homeschool our daughter, and that is something we never planned for, but we are able to do. It is funny how things work out sometimes.

We know from experience things can change at any time. We know we must remain flexible, and be able to make it through the hard times. I think at times we both wonder when the other shoe is going to drop, but we're trying to enjoy things while we can. We sure do have a lot to be thankful for.