Broken wieners

When I was 15 I worked a construction job that was way outside of my skill set. I was a skinny weakling barely able to lift the tools we used on the job site. But I gave it my all and did a great job, however I was eventually fired for messing up an important project. If you ever go over to 255 Queen Street East in Brampton, you’ll see a building with various stores (as of the time of this writing). I used a machine called a Flaky Jake to pull up the old floors, I mixed the flooring solution for the new cement floors, and I helped to pour and level the new floors. On the outside, I held up the exterior wall material while another person attached it. At the factory in Etobicoke I built hundreds of the high quality wall materials. And I built (by hand) the crown molding that sits atop the exterior walls. Actually that’s why I got fired, I forgot to add sand into the mixture for the molding, and when the guy went to attach it, it crumbled. This happened on a Friday night and we all had to stay late and do it all over. It was for the best, I couldn’t pull my weight at this job consistently enough and this held everyone else back.

As far as I can remember this was about 12 hours per day, Monday through Friday and I was earning around $9 an hour which was a fortune to me at the time.

Any way during lunch at this job I would sit on the steps outside with my small cooler, eating my boiled eggs, peanut butter sandwiches, etc, and there was a hot dog vendor who worked nearby, who would talk to me when there was no lineup. Once in a while if I had enough money I would buy a hotdog but that was rare, because by this time in life most or all of my money would go into family expenses. He (the vendor) told me I should marry as soon as possible, because – as he said it, wieners don’t work forever, and if you wait till your old to get married then your wiener might not work by that time and you won’t have a happy marriage. He made it very clear to me that my own wiener will one day not work. He made this point every time I saw him. I’m not kidding! Now at the time I couldn’t imagine this ever happening since I was a teen and suffered the opposite problem.

Fast forward to today in 2002, close to Valentine Day I woke in a cold sweat thinking about this very early in the morning, and figured I need to get married soon just in case my wiener really does stop working one day. My friend Nathan and I listed the different girls at church I could marry and finally decided on one. It wasn’t easy because initially we had some differing opinions. I ordered the nicest bouquet of flowers I could afford and sent them off to her to break the ice. She teaches a children Sunday school class and we are both heavily involved in the lives of children and missions work so it should be a good match. And now to play the waiting game :)

And in other news, I’m watching a movie on video tape or dvd almost every day after work, this is a nice new thing for me, as usually I work until it’s time to sleep. What with all the children I don’t have a choice but to rest. Hopefully I can get some time to watch one of my favorites soon: Planet of the Apes.

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