doing my part

Today I did my part for the underground economy. No, it did not involve drugs or sex. Not that underground, goodness I thought you all knew me better than that.

I needed all the big furniture moved between two bedrooms in my house. I'm tired and just one person so I didn't want to take 5 hours doing it myself. How to solve the problem?

Get in my truck and drive down to the nearest Home Depot parking lot. If you ever wanna relieve the scene in any disaster movie where the last survivor with any food or gasoline or whatever is discovered this is a good way to reenact it. As soon as I stopped with the windows rolled down I was totally surrounded and bombarded with pleas, looks, questions and out stretched hands.

Yelling out what I wanted in a mixture of english and spanish and setting some rough terms I then had to pick people based on just looks and what they could say to me. So I picked two younger bigger guys and fought everyone else off. One guy actually just tried jumping in my truck.

After Mario, Jose and I got a better feel for each other and nailed down the firm terms of the contract I drove them to my house, they did the work I wanted in about the time I expected, I paid them and then took them back to Home Depot.

I learned from my last day labor adventure you don't give anyone food or water until they ask for it, or else they take like a 30 minute break right then. I also asked them to take off their shoes while doing the work in my house too, which they did.

I've had a gardener, a house keeper, hired day labor and such things before. I have no "white man's burden" as it were. I don't feel guilty or superior. I just feel like a cog in a really huge machine. Simply that. I want to get stuff done as quickly and efficiently and cheaply as possible. And if that means hiring an illegal or undocumented worker for a few hours, then so be it. (sorry to my friends in the CBP)