He delivers pizzas for a living - has been off and on since 1986. He also delivers for a Chinese restaurant. Between the two jobs, he usually works about 60 hours per week. Being a delivery person doesn't carry a lot of prestige, but it's a good living if you can handle the hours, which Daddy can. He's 62 years old and has the stamina of a 40 year old.
This certainly isn't the first time he's been robbed, but every time, it leaves me a little more shaken, a little more afraid that next time will be the last time. It leaves me wishing he could find another line of work but he's trapped doing what he's doing now. He's been out of the white-collar work force for so long. He used to be in finance but left that shortly after I was born. (hmmm...I just realized I don't know why he left)
Before getting into the delivery industy, he worked in a factory for several years (fifteen if I had to guess, but I'm not sure). I remember walking a picket line with him one year when the union was on strike. I also remember the hysterical stories he used to tell my brother and I about his boss, Mr Poopy.
He started working for Domino's Pizza when the factory shut down, and he immediately realized he had found his niche. He loved it. He used to say he'd always wanted to be a cabbie, but he couldn't get licensed to carry human cargo because he's blind in one eye (my Uncle Peter shot him in the eye with an arrow while trying to recreate the William Tell legend).
So now, even though, I - and my mother - wish he would find a safer line of work, he's kinda stuck doing what he's doing. Besides the fact he loves it, there's nowhere else he can make the kind of money he's making.
And he's been so lucky. Other drivers, working from that same store, have been shot. Up until tonight, Dad had never been the victim of violence, just intimidation. But this time, he was accosted by three men who beat him up, took his money and his car keys (although they didn't take his car or his cell phone...go figure...well, the cell phone is connected via a bungee-cord-like-thing to his belt and would have been difficult to disentangle, and Dad had a spare car key so he was able to drive off in his car before they came back for it).
::sigh::
I was going to come on here and tell a light hearted story about how I came to be known as "Molly"...but I've lost the spirit so that, along with the bacon cheeseburger story, will have to wait for another time
