An Honest Day's Work

Vero Beach (wikimap)
27 39.646N 080 22.224

At times we work very hard to maintain our cruiser life of leisure. The weeks of the repowering project come to mind. However, working for yourself on projects of your own choosing and without pay doesn't count as real work. This weekend, Libby and I both signed up to do real work at the Stuart Boat show.

Libby worked one day and I worked two days. We got paid $12/hour. It gave us the chance to earn a few bucks and also to get a change of pace and a new experience.

Our primary job was to be parking lot buddies. There were three impromptu parking lots that the show had borrowed. Our job was to figure out how to pack as many cars as possible in to the limited space, to direct the drives, and to greet visitors with smiling faces. I liked it. It was fun and I considered the people in my lot as "my clients." I had extra fun by whispering in the ear of all the small boys who came with their parents. I whispered, "Tell your dad to buy you your own boat."

I also worked the boat show grounds with a broom and dustpan, policing the area to keep it clean.

Upon arrival on the first day I immediately recognized the carny culture of the show arrangers and felt fight at home. My very first full time job was when I was 14 years old. I worked at an amusement park. I learned the carnival culture there and I soon became an enthusiastic carny myself. Now 50 years later, I've come full circle.

At the end of the second day, I realized the big irony underlying the whole reality. You see, all the workers at the show (there were 50 to 100 of us) were cruising boaters like myself. The clients to the power boat show tended to be men who arrived in BMWs, Corvettes, Mercedes, and even Bentleys. On their necks were heavy gold chains and on their arms were glamorous and nubile women. All those women had 100% natural nubility (if you know what I mean.) I always presume 100% natural unless I get direct sensory evidence to the contrary (if you know what I mean). Alas, the evidence never comes my way so as far as I can vouch for, they are all 100% natural.

Anyhow, almost all these women also (through sheer coincidence) had 100% natural blond hair.

Now for the irony part. The people acting as servants at the show were cruisers like myself. We parked the cars and swept up the cigarette butts of the clients. However, many of those clients were at the show to dream about becoming cruisers. If their dreams were realized then they would have the honor and privilege of parking the cars and sweeping up the butts for those who haven't made it yet. :)