Ah, an honest day's work

Ok, so I spent a few hours at DD (Dunkin Donuts) talking to Tahysha who is the night-shift manager and a good acquaintance. A few weeks back I helped her put her resume on hotjobs.com, careerbuilder.com and monster.com to help her get a better job. She has 2 office job offers, hopefully they will get one she likes. Ok, now to the point. She had no idea I ha a laptop, probably because I've tried to keep a low profile on my valuables.

So when I pull it out and plug it to the wall to watch The Illusionist she gets surprised. Ok, how many homeless dudes have a laptop they paid for and know how to use properly? I'm probably the only one in the whole county, if not the state, heh.

Ok let me do the review first then I can tell you about Saturday.

It's a mix of romance, drama and a bit of science fiction. Edward Norton is a top notch actor and this movie just ratifies that. He portrays the illusionist who has a tragic story of love and loss in his childhood and teenage years turned into a great entertainer. A police inspector (Paul Giamatti) who knows where his bread is buttered begins to interfere with his act after he embarrasses Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) in front of other nobles. Things get interesting as plots within plots develop, which leads to murder, betrayal and a revelation that can bring down the monarchy. I highly recommend this film.

Now on to Saturday. I was to meet Mark (BK night-shift manager) at BK at 10-10:30AM but he didn't show up until 12:30PM!! and then tells me he had said he would be there at noon. I was going to argue, but hey, I need the money and I did spent the time reading my book "The Sunrise Lands" which I like so far. Ok so we (Mark, his wife, his little daughter and myself) get some food and eat it in the car on the way to pick up the U-Haul truck he rented.

We get the truck at 1PM and get to his old place half an hour later and begin to load. Now anyone with common sense knows that you BOX almost everything except furniture and some large items to move as fast as possible. Not Mark. He didn't buy boxes, he got most of them from BK and some didn't have the top flaps so they were open, thus can't stack other boxes on top. Add that the fact most of the boxes were unmarked. How was I to know what goes where when I unload?

I would say he was 70% ready to move, his wife was still packing as I was loading the truck. His solution? "throw everything on top". I've moved before so I know that the first thing you do, is load all the boxes and use the alcove at the back of the truck and load it tight and nice so things don't move too much, then you put the heavy or more solid furniture against the boxes and the lighter furniture at the end.

He had rented a truck much larger than needed, but the way the truck ended up being loaded, things were filled all the way to the back. By the time we arrived at the new apartment it was 7PM and I calculated with the elevator (if we loaded it real good) it would take us about 2hrs to unload and I was close. We finished at 9:30PM.

Let me tell you, Mark is not a pleasant fellow to work with or for. But he did buy chinese food and I got a plate full of food and I was quite satisfied. He paid me and then drove me back to BK.

The ride was long, so we talked a bit and I was surprised. The way he spoke to his wife during the move was also surprising to me. He always added "my amor" ("my love") since his wife is a latina. They met 5 years ago while working in the same building in New York, he asked her out to get to know her better, were boyfriend and girlfriend for a year before living together for 2 years. After that they got married and been so for 2 years.

Mark he told me how he viewed his wife, "a good wife" and that "if you love someone, you want to take care of her" and how they used to go out every weekend (before they had the baby) to restaurants and how he got her into dancing and going out to have a good time. Wanting to make her happy and fulfilled because all of his coworkers (and even his 22yrs old brother) are divorced and he doesn't want that to happen to his marriage. He wants to do everything to make her happy.

He earned a new respect from me (which of course I didn't mention). He dropped me off at BK and we said our farewells, I doubt I will ever see him again since he already transfered to another store.

As I write this Eric (a dude I met at the library) called me to have me check his place since his roommate has to move out and wants me to see it to consider renting. He will be here in an hr (I'm at a Mc Donalds near the laundrymat). Wish me luck!