Is that a crackhead in your Soup Kitchen or are you just glad to see me?

Before I began working in my own personal Disney World, the library, I worked for many, many years in Social Service. I worked with the homeless, the HIV infected, the impoverished, and the developmentally disabled and believe me it was incredibly rewarding. Every night, for 18 years, when I left work I felt like I had truly made a difference in someone's life. At the library, I still feel like I make a difference just at a "less basic" level. But it was time for me to leave Social Services. After years of witnessing the suffering of HIV infected clients, battered women living in automobiles with their small children, and people with disabilities fighting for the most basic of rights, I was BURNT-OUT! Completely and totally burnt-out and I needed a break. However not all of my time in Social Service was painful and tragic, over the years I had many (many) funny moments. For example...

The first day of work as a social worker at our local "soup kitchen" should have held the general discomfort and excitement of starting a new job, arranging your new desk, meeting new people, etc... And for the most part it did. I set-up my new desk. I met all of my new co-workers, one of which would eventually become my husband (yea!). And I was also introduced to the loyal volunteers who took time out of their days to stop and feed the less fortunate. There were housewives, local business men and women, two nuns, one parolee - who apparently wanted to repay his debt to society, and a retired army guy. I tried my best to make a good impression and despite my nervousness made it through the first few hours without falling, tripping, burning myself (or anybody else, for that matter), or randomly tourette-ing any verbal vomit. When the doors finally opened for the 10:45 morning meal, I had successfully conned everyone into believing that I was indeed an entirely capable, respectable woman who, because of her incredibly blessed past had decided to devote her life to those in need.

As the men, women, and families came through the line, I was touched as I watched the volunteers greeting and serving our guests with such respect. I mean, most of the people in line were filthy, a lot of them seemed to be wrestling with mental illness, some were obviously drug addicted, and few were actually high at that moment but the volunteers just smiled and asked what each one of them wanted. This was it! I was finally in my element. I was in a new environment, doing what I loved, with people who had no idea that I had gotten pregnant at 16. People who had never seen me with toilet paper streaming out of the back of my pants. People who had never heard me accidently fart when I sneezed during a meeting. At this new place I could be anybody. I could recreate my self into a fully functioning, normal human being. (I had never been that before.) And then it happened...

Just as I had stepped into the kitchen and was poised between the nuns, I heard someone call (more like SCREAM) my name... repeatedly! I looked across the steam table and standing in line (just after the guy in the Naru jacket who was arguing with his hand and before the lady with the turban who was wearing Lipton tea bags as earrings) was Donnie, the boy I went steady with for 2 whole weeks in the 7th grade. Back then he played the drums in the middle school talent show and won, which made him soooo cool in my eyes... but it seemed as though 7th grade is when he peaked. He was standing in the line, incredibly high, in what appeared to be the same jeans he had worn in the talent show. What happened next? Well, let me tell you. He very excitedly and loudly declared to everyone that would listen, that I was his ex-girlfriend (never once mentioning that we were 12 and I think I only held his hand once). Now I am in no way a snob, but damn!!! The nuns were staring at me, my new boss began eyeing curiously, and the "guests" smiled at me in this welcoming sort of fashion, like they were going to start making room for me under the viaduct! I had been "Olived and Underpantsed" at my new job. But you know me. Chin up! Chest out! I was determined to make the best of it.

I said, "Donnie, How are you? I haven't seen you since the 8th grade." (Pretty crafty, huh?)

"Girl you look all right but you look different but alright, " he countered. "How's your son?"

I smiled politely, "Robbie?"

"Yeah, the one you had in high school!" he said way to exuberantly! (Well, I guess everyone would know I got knocked up in high school but maybe I could salvage some self respect.)

"He is fantastic, doing VERY well in school." I answered in my most professional, NON-crackhead, NON-homeless voice. (I was still trying to come out of this with even a sliver of dignity.)

"How 'bout the rest of your kids. They doin' good?", he continued. "You ain't with none of their dad's is you?" (Well there went that sliver of dignity.)

Before I could answer he motioned for me to come out to the dining room. (Here it goes I thought. He is going to ask me out. Right here in front of everyone. I panicked, trying to think of a nice way to say "No thank you. My divorce is not final and I do not date crackheads... anymore." I needed to let all of my new co-workers and friends know that although I was NOT a snob I had both social and professional boundaries.) As I made my way around the corner, I took a deep breath. Here it goes, I thought.

He stepped up and gave me a big and awkward hug and said, "Damn, you got big!" (Wow! A crackhead eating at a Soup Kitchen just called me fat!) He circled me and asked "Can I borrow 35 cents?"

In three minutes flat, a crackhead found me so unattractive that he didn't want to ask out, two nuns found out that I had lived an "unpious" life, my new boss was assuming that I date the homeless, and one of my co-workers (now, my husband) was standing at the back of the kitchen laughing his ass off. Just another day in the life of Davis!