Workin’ Too Hard for Minimum Wage

Last night in all that rain I was on my way to pick up my three youngest kids for the weekend. It was a nasty evening. Heading up 23 toward Dundee I could hardly see enough to stay in the lane, barely moving over 55 mph on the freeway. As on a normal day, I’d already driven from Luna Pier through Toledo to Perrysburg to drop Mary off in the morning, then up to Ann Arbor for a normal workday at UofM. I’d then gone back to Perrysburg to get Mary, and as she always does when I ask, she was kind enough to drive home. The commute is about 170 miles per day, but on days like yesterday when I get the kids from their mom’s house west of Tecumseh I add another 80 miles. Approaching Dundee I was partway into that.

I bought some gas at the Shell station and then realized I was hungry. I headed to the Tubby’s counter and sarcastically asked what was good.

Dallas. The nametag said Dallas. And he’s a piece of work. Really. A piece of work, but in a good way.

He’s a big guy with hair cut so short he’s almost bald, maybe 25 years old. Ever see Down Periscope with Kelsey Grammer? The cook on the sub, Buckman, played by Ken Hudson Campbell? Yup, that could be Dallas’s brother.

He went right into a sales routine, like he was selling used cars, or maybe, oh, I don’t know, snake oil elixir. “I’ll tell you what’s good, what’s my personal favorite, the portabella steak sandwich”, he said, head popping like he’s on TV making a sales pitch where the catch-phrase is “Sale, sale, sale!!” “Man, I really like that one, it’s so good …” and on and on he went, … I think you’d like it too, it really fills me up …”

Ok, cool, so I ordered an 8 incher, then went to get some Sobé Lizz Blizz to wash it down with.

I came back to the Tubby’s counter … and there’s Dallas, cooking the meat and onions for my sandwich. Now most folks working for minimum wage at a grill in a gas station would be bored, just kinda standing there. Not our man Dallas, oh no. Every movement had a flourish, again with the head bopping, acting as though he was just having too much fun.

I mentioned the fun Dallas was having to his co-hort running the register (whose name I didn’t catch … umm, the co-hort, not the cash register), saying, “He’s having way too much fun for minimum wage.” The co-hort then explained that the only reason he himself was working there was that he’d worked the Denny’s on the other side of the freeway that had closed in December, and that he’d needed the work. We talked about how the eastern side of that freeway exchange has probably suffered because of the build-up on the western side. The co-hort said it seemed to him business at the Denny’s had picked up just before they’d abruptly shut the place down.

I paid for the sandwich, basically thanked the guys for the entertainment, started the car and headed west into the rain and the dark. It took a while to unwrap the sandwich in the pitch-black evening traveling through standing pools of water at about 45 mph with all kinds of oncoming lights blinding me every couple seconds. I felt warm juices dripping on my pants as I fought the thing out of the wrapper Dallas had so carefully assembled. It took quite a while to get it arranged in my stack of extra napkins before I could take a bite.

Ummm … ok, that was one delicious sandwich. We used to make steak sandwiches up at Haloburger in the Flint area when I was there in 1980 – 81. But there are better steak shops in Flint.

Still, this one was even better. Really, it was. Steak nice and tender, onions still having a bit of a crunch, the portabella pieces hot and moist. I seriously enjoyed every last bite.

Thanks, guys, for helping me through the latter part of a very long week. I appreciate it.