The Funny People We Meet...

Over at Squawk Radio Elizabeth Beverly was talking about different jobs she had before she started writing full time. I think many people have had odd jobs, but the people we meet and get to know are much more interesting.

My husband is one of those people who can find humor in just about everything. He tells great stories about some of the people he's worked with over the years.

• There was the man who asked my husband if the Lincoln Tunnel was there before the Hudson River. The same man's last name was "Taylor" and his wife shot him during an argument (she was a cop and only wounded him), but the headlines in the paper were "Elizabeth Taylor Shoots Husband". Someone at the paper had a sense of humor.
• He worked with a man who used to give truck drivers directions like "turn left at my cousin Tom's old house" as if the drivers knew his cousin and where he used to live. Of course, at the time my husband was a driver and didn't find it all that funny.
• When he was first out of high school, he worked for a man who re-used tea bags, I guess it's not really surprising he paid minimum wage.
• He worked with a man who used wax his hot water heater and put headlights on his ride on lawn mower (he would wax the lawn mower too.) The same man put a hole in the gas tank of the same lawn mower when he was installing the brake lights on the back.
• He also worked for an Hasidic man who sent him to the "Jewish" bus station to pick up his father with the description "He's an old Jewish man with gray hair, black coat and hat, you can't miss him." This description fit every man getting off the bus.

But, I think I worked with the funniest woman who had no idea she was funny. We worked for a Ministry--an interdenominational bible teacher, who would visit different denominational churches all over the country to preach and sell his teaching books and audio and video tapes. "Lori" was the bookkeeper.

We were in a staff meeting when she started talking about a TV evangelist who had a huge pipe organ playing during his broadcast. The problem was she was going on and on about the minister's "organ," how big it was and how beautiful and how she wished her minister had an "organ" like that. We were all dying and finally another woman (real grandmotherly type) reached over and patted her knee and said maybe she should be quiet. Ah, then a light bulb went on and she ran out of the room, completely red faced and laughing hysterically.

Some jobs are strange and odd, but the people we meet along the way are stranger than fiction.

Have a great day, happy reading.