How I met [Redacted] Part VI

So you recall earlier in the summer I was telling you about how I met [Redacted]. Through a confluence of physical ineptitude, bad luck mixed with good luck and muleishness I had come into posession of a multi-level marketing painting franchise. Probably I should refrain from calling it a scam or using its proper business name. Over the course of the summer I've noticed that a number of youngsters and their parents have wound up at my website after googling "college pro painting scam." Maybe they take what they read here as gospel and it sways them from buying into a painting franchise. Maybe they look at the header on the page and then work themselves into a philosophical knot as they try to parse what's true and what's not. Oh well. Now they know how I face the day when I wake up in the morning.

So here is an indisputable fact that I feel at liberty to write. [Redacted] rides a pink bicycle. It was that pink bicycle that he stood astride on the day we met. And after mocking my inability to keep paint off my fresh fiberglass cast he said something so remarkably old world it will remain in my mind until the day I die.

He said, "Ya hirin'?"

Keep in mind that this was in the early 1990s, not the middle of the great depression. The practice of wandering onto building and painting sites looking for work had long gone by the wayside. Or so I thought. I said, "Who the fuck are you? Tom Joad?"

"Naw man. I'm [Redacted]. Good to meet yah!" He extended his hand and I shook it. Then he went on, "You look like you could use some help. I'm pretty good at painting you know."

I did not know that he was good at painting, but it was after noon and he didn't stink of malt liquor. I asked him what he expected to be paid. He said, "Twelve bucks an hour to start'll be fine." And we shook hands again.