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Monday, May 1, 2006
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how folding underwear saved my life.Last year, right around this time, I was up to my neck in bills and turmoil. I was also about a week away from getting the job I have now, but I didn't know that then.
Rather, life stretched out before me as a series of debts and sacrifices and cardboard box-beds under some of the more sketchy bridges in town.
I was a freelancer.
A baby freelancer (no, not someone who freelances babies... how does one freelance a baby?) I had contracts here and there -- including one with an absolute TROLL who refused to pay me a dime -- but not enough to keep me in any sort of reasonable financial shape.
I'd quit my non-profit job to reach for my dream of becoming a writer, but I'd done it without a speck of real writing experience (besides the writing I did for friends and my work, and some rudimentary blogging.) That was a dangerous choice for someone without a nest egg of any kind, but I knew I needed to make some sort of a leap if I was ever going to do what I really wanted to do.
But the leap had me at the edge of a cliff.
On March 31, 2005, I got an email from someone named Scott, telling me that there might be a technical writer job opening up with his project team. He'd been reading my blog from the beginning. He thought I could make it happen.
Eeek! Wow! Seriously? But... wait. How do I prove this guy is who he says he is? How do I know he's not just some odd CRETIN trying to lure me into his lair of despair?
Because, you know... he could be!
Well, after a lengthy email correspondence and a few hours of MSN conversation, I agreed to meet him in a well-lit place (with friends nearby) and see what he had to say.
We were both nervous as heck. Still, it was kind of fun, though, discussing opportunities and looking into the future. Scott was lovely and affable and had very large curly hair that grew in height every time he ran his fingers through it, which was approximately fifty-nine times an hour. We talked about the opportunity, and then we talked about bands and movies and coffee and tragic dating relationships.
We hit it off. I liked him. Not LIKED him, liked him, but just... like.
But I'll tell you right now, to save you the suspense: the job didn't work out. The funding fell through, as funding often does with jobs involving words.
Scott and I stayed in touch, though. He was (is!) one of the kindest, most selflessly generous people I've ever met. And he felt horrible about getting my hopes up, especially since he knew how difficult things had become for me.
That's when he made a very weird suggestion:
Would I be opposed for helping him out 'personally'?
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Ew! Meg! What does that mean, 'personally'? 'Help him out?' Sick! Have you no shame?"
It wasn't like that, though.
Scott was working an insane amount of hours at his job, and spending weeks on the road travelling between offices. In the midst of all this commuting and packing and unpacking, his apartment and his life had taken a serious beating. He needed some organizational help and some practical help (i.e. cleaning.)
And since I needed funds and he needed support, well... maybe we could help each other out?
Whoa.
The questions came bubbling into my head like... bubbles.
Would I be safe at this guy's house, doing stuff? What kind of stuff would I be doing? What would be pay me? How would we work out hours and times and all those details?
I discussed it with my friends and my family, and they were strangely supportive of me doing some work for Scott. This blew my mind. These are people who want me to take mace and a cell phone and throwing stars on a trip to the corner market.
How could they suddenly be okay with me going to some dude's house to do who knows what? There had to be some sort of issue with the time-space continuum.
Either that or it was meant to be.
So I said I'd do it.
Scott and I met once more, at which point we worked out my wage for approximately sixteen hours of work. He handed me keys.
KEYS THAT HAD HIS OTHER SET OF CAR KEYS ON THEM. TO HIS CAR.
A CAR, MIND YOU. A THING I COULD STEAL.
I asked him how the heck he could be so trusting of a stranger. But he said I wasn't a stranger at all. After all, he'd been reading about my life for months. I don't think it occurred to him that I could have misrepresented myself. He just had faith.
One day later, I was standing in his 8th-floor apartment, staring at a pile of laundry the size of Paraguay, a stack of mismatched CDs, a large, wooly white carpet from which lint and fibres had made their floaty way in all directions, and dishes that hadn't been done since the first season of Survivor.
And those were just the first things I noticed. Wow. There was much, much more.
My first act was to get some laundry going, and Scott had graciously left me with a giant bucket of change to plug the coin-op machines in the basement. It was sitting next to my cheque for the full amount of work. Was he nuts? He was just LEAVING CASH OUT FOR ME.
I filled three machines with his clothes. An old woman washing her guest bathroom towels watched me load them up, and asked politely whether my husband had been away somewhere?
It occurred to me to say, "No, he's not my husband. He's just some guy I met online." But instead, I said, "Oh, I'm doing some cleaning for a friend."
She affirmed my generosity and I lent her a quarter. Then I headed back upstairs to tackle the CDs.
Now, I couldn't tell you why Scott never put the right CD back in the right case, but I could tell you that Scott has killer taste in music. He possesses just the right balance of indie cred-rock and populist crap to keep him from being either a snob or a twit. I popped one of the CDs in once I was done sorting to keep me company while I tackled the dishes.
Scott? The dishes were gross. I told you they weren't that bad, but THEY WERE.
There was a couple of broken glasses in there, even, and at least one plate that was growing a small spore village. I spent almost an hour wading through all the housewares, and then I turned to the fridge.
Scott? The fridge was gross. I recall telling you I was somewhat horrified by the age of some of the things in the freezer, but I don't think I mentioned that I GAGGED when I opened the container of "yogurt."
Then I decided to vaccuum, after a visit to the laundry room to flip all the loads into the dryer, and start another three in the washing machines.
(I did eleven loads that day.)
The vaccuum was not in fact a vaccuum, but a carpet shampoo-er thingy. Scott wanted me to shampoo his carpets, and though I'd never used anything like that, I was up for anything. Before I could shampoo, however, I had to go crawl around in the bushes just outside his neighbour's window.
No, this wasn't some sort of a weird, sicko fantasy assignment.
The night before, Scott had nudged the bottle of shampoo solution out the window while he was doing something in the kitchen. He'd left money for me to get a new one, but it seemed like such a waste of cash to just let the thing lie down there. He might not want to crawl around outside anyone's window, but I didn't have any qualms.
And he said I could keep that money if I rescued the bottle.
So there I was, rolling around in the bushes at the bottom of his apartment building, searching for a small green bottle, and trying not to arouse suspicions. The little old woman who'd been in the laundry room happened to leave the front doors right as I was doing this, and she walked over to see what I was up to. She looked a touch concerned, and justifiably so.
"He's not making you garden, is he? We have a caretaker!"
Just as she asked that, I found the bottle and held it triumphantly aloft.
"Oh, no no. I dropped this out the window." She took it from my hand, read the label, and looked totally incredulous.
"You're cleaning his carpets? Do you owe him money or something? Trying to date him? Is this the only work you can get?" Gosh! The questions!
"No, no. Just doing a favour." With that, I took the bottle back and crawled past her to walk back in the front door.
The carpet. Did I mention it was white and fuzzy and nightmarish? It didn't cover the whole room, but the fluff from it floated in the air like volcanic ash. I cleaned the rest of the carpets first, including patches damaged by ferrets he'd owned with his ex-girlfriend.
FERRETS?
Just as I was pondering the ferrets, Scott called to check in on me. I told him what I'd gotten done so far, and he seemed rather amazed at the list. That made me feel good. I loved knowing that I was finally being useful to someone, even if my usefulness didn't involve a keyboard.
And when he came home that night, he found:
- his laundry done, put away
- his shirts and pants pressed
- his carpets cleaned
- his kitchen bleached
- his bathroom scrubbed down
- his bed aired-out, remade
- his deck swept
- his CDs reorganized
- his recycling done
- his fridge... exterminated
- his life in SHAPE, finally.
I don't think he asked me to do all of that. I was just so happy to be DOING SOMETHING.
That night, after I'd returned home to my relieved roommates, Scott emailed and phoned me to convey his total and complete delight. He couldn't believe how clean and fresh and organized and wonderful things were. I responded by mocking the fact that he owned a pink t-shirt, and offering my unabashed approval of his underwear choices.
The next time I went over -- the second-to-last time -- I scrubbed his deck, did his laundry again, and washed his walls and windows. He called again in the midst of my day, and this time, I felt like the perfect, stereotypical housewife: watching "chat shows" and folding whites while I detailed the events of my day on the phone.
As of that visit, I had met all my contractual obligations. And I was able to pay my rent. I can't tell you how much satisfaction that of those realities gave me. So much, in fact, that I went back to do some tidying and ironing on a pro bono basis the following week as a favour.
After all, throughout this process, we'd actually grown into friends, Scott and I.
That was probably the best part of the whole thing.
Scott is a ridiculously funny person with an odd set of interests and experiences behind him:
- He punched Todd Bertuzzi once. Until his mom intervened.
- He was a pro-snowboarder for two years, alongside Canada's own pot-puffing gold-medalist, Ross Regabliati.
- He goes to live music shows like most people go to the grocery store.
- He is the king of product. I swear, he smells better than I do.
- His hair? Taking over Canada, as we speak.
- He wears odd, silky pants. Or okay, just the one pair. And they are HELL to iron.
- He has the same taste in most things that I do.
- He can cook. He just never does.
- He always calls me 'Megfowler'. Not just 'Meg'.
- He will work ridiculous hours, but remain perfectly cheerful in the face of ongoing stress.
We've only hung out again five times since my cleaning dates, but one of those times involved throwing chunks of banana at raccoons and taking pictures of his neighbour's deck and watching horribly embarassing programs on the Discovery channel.
He also showed up to the twins' birthday party last year at 11 pm and hung out with me on our deck until 2 am, thus setting in motion a serious level of conversational buzz around such topics as who is that guy? where does Meg know him from? is he single? is that really his HAIR?
Let me save you the suspense again: Scott is very happily involved with a wonderful woman that he met three weeks after we hung out that night. She made him get his keys back from me. And every time I've seen him since, he glows when he talks about her. In fact, they just bought a place together.
So much has changed for both of us in the last year!
Hell, I'm EMPLOYED. Things are still tight, but I am no longer terrified of ending up in a van down by the river.
And Scott? Well, he still works like a DEMON, but now he's in love and has someone to help him put his CDs away.
So what is the point of all of this?
There are few people on earth who have done more for me, knowing as little about who I was as Scott did. There are few people on earth who have been so willing to offer me a chance to get a leg up, at such a risk to their own personal security. And granted, he got a ton of good stuff done for him.
I'm perfectly aware how great a job I did. :-)
But his trust, his humour, his openness, his generosity?
They were worth much more to my broken, stressed-out heart than any amount of rent money.
So here's to you, Scott. We're both moving up in the world, to new places and spaces. We don't see each other much, but you helped me survive one of the toughest periods of my life.
You -- and your frickin' carpet -- will never be forgotten.
And to the rest of you: if you get the chance to help someone out in the next little while, either with your handiwork, your support on a task that needs doing, or with a bit of cash...
DO IT.
Really.
Our two lives converged in the weirdest possible way. Scott reached out to change mine, and I reached out to change his.
And that has made all the difference.
1:35:29 AM 
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© Copyright
2006
Meg Fowler.
Last update:
6/1/06; 11:12:06 PM. |
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