Sometimes, One In A Million Hits The Jackpot

I am one of millions of people who grew up with a single mom. She did her best but her best wasn't enough. We lived on the edge of poverty, paycheck to paycheck, coupons, pennies, doing without. I started babysitting at 14, cashier at McDonalds at 16, doubled up and worked retail from the Friday after Thanksgiving till Christmas. If I needed underwear I had to work and buy it. Same with tampons and makeup. I learned to live cheap, I bought my underwear at Target by the six pack and my clothes at the rethreads store. At 17 I bought an old car for $300 dollars, uninsured and broken down it sat in the parking lot at the apartment complex where we lived. The only thing going for me is that I was white and I wasn't fat.

I was 17 that summer, I walked out of a store and the sun was bright and this man asked me if I wanted to be in a 'shoot', he needed a bystander. He told me where to stand, not look at the camera, look in my purse. He took my name and address down in case he found a commercial use he would send me a check. The next 'shoot' was downtown and my 'look' was a secretary coming out the building for lunch. I made three hundred dollars that summer as an 'extra' in commercial 'shoots'.

I went to secretary school, one of those that rips you off. I finished owing money and needing a job. I worked tables, sometimes two jobs, lived with my mother in that run down apartment and my 'car' in the parking lot. Then one day, I was working the lunch shift at PF Chang's, a man asked me a bunch of personal questions. I was in the mood to dump on someone and I went down the whole 'you don't know me, so don't criticize me' routine. He told me to 'shut up'. He was looking for a receptionist for his office, it paid $10.50 an hour with benefits, insurance, and I could work overtime. If I was interested call him at this number and he gave me his business card. When he got up to leave he told me to 'ditch the attitude'.

It's a long, long story of how I ended up cooking and cleaning in his house. But I did. I don't work, not outside the home, I'm a soccer mom, suburban housewife, the one that plays tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't drink, that's a big thing with him, so I don't drink. I don't smoke either and I don't mess around. I'm home when he comes home, and I have dinner ready and the kids are dressed for bed and clean. I keep house, I don't have a maid, I do the cooking and cleaning. And the car in the garage works and my mother lives with us, in the mother-in-law apartment. She doesn't work either, not outside the home, she helps with the senior center and plays cards which she always loved.