Janitor Jeff Gets an Assistant

My dear friend C misses my posts when I'm gone.  (What a lovely thing to say! )  So here I am.

First, the Hubby news.  He has a job!  I'm not sure how long it's going to last and it doesn't pay as much as the IRS, but any extra income for any length of time is cause for celebration. He's working with his good friend, Janitor Jeff.  We've known Jeff for a little over three decades.  As a matter of fact, our first impromptu "date" included a visit to Jeff's and (his future wife) Kathleen's house.

Janitor Jeff is a trip.  He's a very bright man (I think) and a poet, but he's completely incomprehensible.  The Janitor is like a walking psychedelic experience (no doubt from his extensive use of something when he was much, much younger).  I stopped trying to talk to him twenty years ago.    Janitor Jeff and Kathleen built a business that has locations here and in Houston.  They've been quite successful entrepreneurs, but I'm certain Kathleen was the brains of the operation. Jeff is now working at our local university, after getting taken to the cleaners in his divorce.  (I'm sure whatever Jeff did, he deserved it.) For a while, he was making a living by sponging off his elderly parents' Social Security.  Finally, he took up his new, exciting career as a janitor.

Whenever Hubby considered applying somewhere, he always checked it out with Janitor Jeff and Stepson.  Yeah.  I'd check in with two of the most egregious underachievers I've ever known before I submitted an application, too.  I guess at some point Hubby decided it would be totally cool to work with his good friend, Janitor Jeff.  When the opportunity presented itself last week, Hubby rushed right out and grabbed that fabulous job.

He now rides around all day on shuttle buses, trying to get the little MP3 and cellphone addicted college students to fill out surveys about the bus service.  Sounds like fun to me, too.  When I looked puzzled, Hubby seemed to think it was a great job prospect.  I was just thrilled about any income-producing activity so I smiled encouragingly at him.

On Monday, during the orientation, Hubby discovered that Janitor Jeff is incomprehensible.  I was comforted that the communication hitch wasn't solely because I'm somehow lacking.  Hubby has to take direction from Jeff, so there's definitely a major snafu in the offing.

He came home from his first full day exhausted and grumpy.  Try to imagine how sympathetic I was.  I chose not to respond as I prepared dinner.  I have chosen not to respond when he does his Lawrence Olivier-inspired hunched over hurt back walk.  Things could only go downhill from there.

So  there you have it, the big exciting Hubby news.  After all, it's always been my position that all work is honorable.  It's just as honorable to be a janitor as to be Donald Trump (well, maybe a little more honorable to be a janitor).

On the Crazy Land front, the Information Superhighway is back from sick leave!  Crazy Employee is wearing a shirt that shows 3 inches of her stomach.  The woman has had two kids and gained about 20 pounds over the past year.  It's not good.  Loathsome stopped by for a visit, which was the occasion for my third and final official good deed of the day.  Whew.  Glad that's over.