Have you ever taken a job you didn’t want? Did you regret it, or did you make the best of your circumstances?

 

In tough times, you may have few choices. This becomes apparent

in . . .

 

 

The Cleaning Lady’s Dilemma

 

     Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Elisa and I had good jobs until the economy began to take a turn for the worse. Then we found ourselves unemployed. Not knowing where to turn, we searched the web and the only thing that jumped out at us was, “Cleaning People Wanted.”

     When we called the phone number, we discovered the openings were at a senior community called “Ocean Park Villa.” To our amazement, they asked us only one question, “When can you report?”

     A week later Elisa and I began our new careers, as maids to the elderly. It was then we realized what we had gotten ourselves into.

     We were assigned to assist the community’s theater group in putting on its shows. Well, not exactly putting them on, but cleaning up before, during, and after each performance. This is when we found out old-timers could be congenial, but also our worst nightmare.

     It was Sunday, the second week in July—our first performance. We’d had a brief orientation and were told we were ready to go.

     When we arrived at the theater, we discovered this was what they referred to as an “open performance”—no curtains to hide behind. The cast members stayed in the green room, a place to wait until they came on stage. Once they made their appearance, they never left.

     And we had to do our entire cleanup in front of the audience. What we didn’t know was that they used hanging microphones, so if we talked to one another, everything could be heard.

     “Okay ladies, it’s your cue. Go make sure that everything is ready for us to begin the show. And don’t be afraid to converse with each other, as you work,” the director stated.

     I looked at Elisa. She was shaking. And I was trembling. We left the green room and entered the stage. All the seats were full in the house. The lights were on, but low, and the stage lights were bright and scary.

     Not wanting to look at the audience, we began to talk to one another about what we’d experienced in helping the cast get ready for the performance.

     Elisa looked at me and said, “Sally, cleaning up after old people is a grueling task.”

     “You can say that again, Elisa,” I replied.

     “Cleaning up after old people . . .”

     “Oh, stop it! Just tell me why it’s so grueling.”

     “Well, one old codger in the green room had half the toilet paper from the bathroom coming out of his pants,” Elisa moaned.

     “So, did you help him clean up?” I asked.

     “Yeah, but there was poop all over the paper. I almost threw up my lunch,” Elisa groaned.

     “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, in amazement.

     “Nope. And that was just the beginning.”

     “Just the beginning of what?” I queried.

     “Another old fogy lost his hearing aids. Said he was part of a duet and he couldn’t hear his partner,” Elisa stated, as though I’d care.

     “So, how’s that your problem?”

     “Well, he made me crawl around on the floor until I found them.”

     “Did you tape them to his ears after that?” I asked, with a laugh.

     “How’d you know?” Elisa said, surprised.

     “Just a wild guess.”

     “Then, as I started mopping up a spill on the floor, one of the aged gals leaned over and whispered in my ear.”

     “That’s strange.”

     “Well, she wanted to know if I knew the words to the song, ‘Summertime,’ that she was going to sing, as she’d forgotten them,” Elisa said.

     “Did you?”

     “Hell, no. But then another crotchety guy asked me to tie his shoelaces because he couldn’t bend over.”

     “So what did you do?”

     “Nothing. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. . . .What about you, Sally?”

     “Well, an old biddy asked me what part of the show I was in. I looked at her and said I was a cleaning lady and she started laughing out of control.”

     “Amazing.”

     “Yes, it was. But we better get started cleaning the stage,” I groaned.

     “Hey, look at that!” Elisa yelled. “It’s a quarter. Should I get it?”

     “Is it face up or face down?” I asked.

     “Why does that matter?” Elisa inquired.

     “Face up—its lucky, so get it. Face down, just leave it there.”

     “It’s face down.”

     “Then leave it.”

     “But if I don’t pick it up, one of the old folks might slip on it.”

     “Don’t worry. They all have insurance,” I said, giggling.

     “Okay, I won’t.”

     “Elisa, what’s that on the floor over there? It’s fuzzy and stringy.”

     “I think it’s a hairpiece,” Elisa said. I believe it belongs to the old lady with the big bald spot.”

     “Well, put it in your pocket. Don’t give it to her unless she asks if you’ve seen it.”

     “That doesn’t sound right,” Elisa moaned.

     “But the audience will think its funny, when a bald woman comes out to sing.”

     “Sally, are those somebody’s teeth in the corner by the wall?” Elisa queried.

     “It’s called a partial, I think. Put it in your pocket, too.”

     “Huh. Why? Won’t they need it? If they don’t have it, won’t their words come out funny?” Elisa said, somewhat bewildered.

     “Yeah, and the audience will have a great laugh—especially if she’s a singer.”

     “How do you know it belongs to a woman?”

     “Because old men don’t lose them. They just forget to wear them.”

     “Guess you’re right,” Elisa muttered. “But why is the audience laughing at us?”

     “They must be bored and have nothing else to do. Smile and wave at them. It’ll make them feel good.”

     “They’re still staring. Why’s that?” Elisa asked.

     “Beats me. Maybe they like younger women who bend over and pick up stuff. Show ‘em what you got, Elisa.”

     “What’re you talking about?”

     “Follow me. The show is about to start. Let’s give ‘em what they came for.”

     We grabbed our cleaning supplies, showed our butts to the audience, and wiggled uncontrollably. The applause was overwhelming, as we left the stage. Maybe . . . we’d found our new calling.

 

 

Copyright © 2023 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.

How you deal with food can affect who you become. So be careful how you handle it.

 

What you experience in a restaurant can change your life. Let me share with you some . . .

 

 

Food For Thought

 

     As a very active boy, living on Long Island, I thought a lot about food. My parents believed I’d eat them out of house and home. Midnight snacks became my passion. My mother threatened to put a lock on the refrigerator.

     I was about ten, when restaurants became a family thing. At least twice a month, we’d visit the local Italian restaurant, Luna’s. The food was amazing.

     One evening, we sat at the restaurant table, and Dad looked at me and asked, “What would you like for dinner tonight?”

     I’d reply, “Everything.”

     “You can’t have everything,” he’d say, with a twinkle in his eye. “For one, even you couldn’t eat it all. And second, you’d have to stay, after we finish eating, to wash dishes so we could pay for your meal.”

     “You’re kidding, aren’t you?” I’d inquire, with a quiver in my voice.

     He’d look at the waiter, who’d become a “personal family friend,” since he’d served us over twenty times, and say, “Am I?”

     This was all probably a set-up, but I was too young to realize it. The waiter would smile, pull an apron out from behind his back, drape it over me, and say, “See you in the kitchen after dinner.”

     “No way!” I’d yell. This little show took place more than once, and the other restaurant patrons would giggle and smile.

     My parents went to other restaurants with friends and developed a taste for Chinese food. I was eleven, and on a Saturday evening in April, when we‘d usually go to Luna’s, Dad told my sister and me to get ready to go to a new restaurant. I looked at him and asked, “What kind of pasta do they have?”

     “Chow mein,” he said.

     “I never saw that on Luna’s menu,” I stated, somewhat confused.

     “That’s because this is a Chinese restaurant. It’ll be good to try something different.”

     “Nooooo,” my sister and I said in unison.

     Well, we had no choice. We entered China Palace and were ushered to a table. Both of us held our nose, because the smell was awful. After we were seated, the waiter placed a children’s menu in front of my sister and me. We ignored it.

     Mom looked across the table at us and said, “If you want to eat, you have to make a decision about what you would like to order.”

     My sister and I seemed to be on the same page. We knew we couldn’t have Italian, so, without opening the menu, we both stated, emphatically, “A hamburger and fries.”

     Mom laughed. “I guess you’re going to go home hungry tonight,” she said.

     The waiter approached and asked, “Are you ready to order?”

     “As ready as we can be,” Mom stated. “I’d like the Chicken Chow Mein.”

     “And I’ll have the Shrimp Chow Mein with a side of the House Special Fried Rice,” Dad declared, enthusiastically.

     The waiter turned to my sister and me. We didn’t say anything, at first. But then, with a smirk on my face, I blurted, “I’ll have a hamburger and fries.”

     “Me, too,” my sister shouted.    

     If looks could kill, my mother would have been arrested for committing a double homicide. But what happened next amazed all of us.

     The waiter asked, “How many packets of ketchup would you like with your burger and fries?”

     Mom stared at him in total shock. ”Do you have to go across the street to Sam’s Diner to get the meals?” she queried.

     “Huh. No. Children’s Menu—top of the second page.”

     Apparently we weren’t the only kids who didn’t want Chinese food.

     When I was fifteen, I got my first job, as a waiter in the restaurant at a summer, overnight camp in the Catskill Mountains in New York. I waited on the two senior girls tables, composed of thirteen and fourteen year old young ladies. This was an amazing job, and I went out of my way to impress my “customers.”

     I took my time getting their orders from the kitchen, wanting to make sure each was correct. As such, I always was the last waiter to bring the meals out, but they always were right.

     Sally would yell, “Hey, waiter boy,” are we going to have lunch or do we call it dinner?”

     “And will dinner be our midnight snack?” Marlene would shout.

     Well, I took this punishment for the first four weeks of camp. Then something totally unexpected happened. At lunchtime, the beginning of the fifth week, I came out of the kitchen, into an arena of dead silence.

     What I saw bewildered me. Patty, a girl from one of my tables, sat at the piano in the corner of the room. She began to play the music for the song “Tall Paul,” made famous by Walt Disney Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello.

     Carrying my food tray, I started to approach my tables. What happened next blew me away. All the girls stood and began to sing a song to the music, but it wasn’t “Tall Paul.” It was one they’d written about me, called “Slolowe.” It went like this—

 

"Dishes on the table,

food on the floor,

Alan’s our waiter,

we adore.

Slolowe, slolowe,

oh, no,

he don’t go.”

 

     At the time, I didn’t know if this was a good thing or a monstrous put down. I knew I was slow, but I did it to make sure I brought them exactly what they wanted. Why did they have to make a big deal of it, I thought.

     Something like this usually disappears at summer’s end. It doesn’t go home with you, unless you want it to. However, my sister sat at the twelve-year-old girls table, and she’s never let me forget it. And so, I became “slolowe” forever.

     Today, I embrace it and share it with the world, as slolowe@icloud.com.

I also am a pasta freak and eat Chinese food, on occasion, but have stepped away from hamburgers and fries—just some food for thought.

 

 

Copyright © 2023 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.

Decorative cards, candy, and flowers are an integral part of Valentine’s Day—gifts given to show our love for others close to us.

 

But is there more that needs to be known? You will find out in the poem below, titled . . .

 

 

Understanding . . .

 

V iewing a world full of love may not be an easy thing to do.

A ll you ask, is for people to care, not everybody, but at least a few.

L ive, love, and respect those who you become close to.

E njoy their company, share their dreams, and be honest and true.

N othing is better than being with those who understand your feelings

    and can be depended on to come through.

T o find amongst them that one person to make your life whole

    is like seeing the sky in beautiful blue.

I  n a way that sends chills through your body; it is your cue

N ot to fade into the background, but to come forward, hold hands,

    and dance to the music, too.

E ngage in the fascination of a relationship meant to last and behold

    a wonderful future in view.

‘S mile, as day enters night, then bask in the warmth of a new day—

    one calm and alluring, with little ado.

 

D are to take chances—reach for the sky and embrace each day

    and each other, with love anew.

A dventures are yet to come, with new paths to take and fortunes

    to discover, as life unfolds before you.

Y ears pass and some memories fade, while others remain crystal clear;

    such is the beauty of a love that grew.

 

Copyright © 2023 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.