Projecting a Better Future

My good friend Evan has had a very trying and long road to recovery that has included several stops in rehab, a job as a debt collector in Kansas, and a stint in at an outpatient facility in Tampa Bay where he worked as a paralegal for an attorney that worked on Tampa Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases. He was very much a troublemaker when we were in high school and did a lot of things that to harm himself and others. He was sent away during our second semester of our senior year of high school. Many of us did not see or talk to him for almost a full year after that. Then he came home and got into trouble all over again, this time with worse problems than the last. His parents decided to send him to a more intensive rehab facility in Louisiana. He lived there for almost two years, but never really did get any better. In fact his problems may have gotten even worse. Finally his dad went down there and helped him move to Kansas where he would live with his uncle and work for his uncle’s collection agency. When he got fired from that he moved to Tampa to work for a friend’s father’s law firm. He lives there now and is doing much better.

I worked for a Chicago SEO company for a while, in an office for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, in customer service out in Arlington Heights, at a small bookstore at O’Hare Airport, and when I was really young I changed oil filters on cars one summer at an auto shop. No, for your information, I don’t know how to change a car’s oil today and, no, I won’t do it for you. Anyway, now I drive a shuttle cart at the airport. This is that cart you see darting in-between the different planes out on the airstrip with everyone’s luggage piled onto the back. It’s not the most glamorous job and it’s not always the safest either, but it is a job. A few of my friends can’t say that they have one. I’m not a millionaire, not yet, but I’m working on it. When the colonel went around offering up his recipe for Kentucky fried chicken, over a thousand people rejected him before one said yes. Now today I can’t honestly say that that’s chicken you’re buying from KFC, but it all started with the colonel and his refusal to give up. That’s how fortunes are made.

My father is one of those stereotypical men who doesn’t like asking for directions. He used to work in Uptown and actually kept an Uptown Chicago neighborhood directory in his car in case he got lost driving around the neighborhood. Eventually, he lost this neighborhood directory in his glove compartment, which didn’t shock me. He shoves so much up there that I can’t believe it. I’m convinced that you’d find both Jimmy Hoffa and the Holy Grail if you ever bothered to look inside there. Then my father would do that always annoying thing of pulling over to the side of the road and asking people for directions or asking someone while they were waiting at a stop light. My father isn’t always the most intelligible of gentlemen either I should point out. He gets streets and names confused all the time. He thinks Office Max is Office Mac, America Online is American Online, and that Costco is Cosco. As you can imagine, he often gets upset with the people he’s asking directions from. Mostly because they have no idea what he’s talking about and then he has no idea what they’re talking about and he naturally always blames them.

I got the best surprise in the mail today! My parents sent me a care package and they also sent along a card with NCAA football tickets inside! I couldn’t believe it! I really needed this right about now. I’ve been so lonely since I started classes. I think next semester I’m going to look into having some roommates. I thought I would really enjoy living on my own, but it’s just too quiet. It feels really good to know that I’m missed and that someone is thinking about me. I’m relieved they put some money in the care package too. I had to buy a ton of supplies and books for my classes that wound up costing me way more money than I expected. By the time I was done with all the buying I realized that I practically had no money leftover for food! Ha! Anyways, I’m so excited about the tickets they got. I’m going to really look forward to attending this game. I have no idea who I’m going to take with me, though. So far, I really haven’t made that many friends. I guess, if anything, there is one really nice guy that I sort of befriended. He’s in a few of my classes. I’d really like to get to know him better!