Welcome to the world of work.

Michael finally had his first day of work yesterday. Due to some misunderstandings and problems here and there it took him almost three weeks to pull his first shift. It was a doozy, too. 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. 10 hours.

Needless to say, he was dead on his feet when I picked him up. The only reason he was still awake, I figure, is because he was floating on who know how many gallons of free Mountain Dew. Caffeine and exhaustion have the effect of making him giddy, it seems, which was fortunate. It made it very easy to get information out of him. By the time he'd got up this morning he'd already shut back down, so it was good I questioned him while the opportunity was there.

He told me that he really doesn't want to have to do closing anymore. He was rather horrified to find out that he was expected to wash all the utensils, pans and dishes. He also had to take out the garbage, another unthinkable requirement!

I have to admit, when relaying this to the husband later on, I laughed so hard I started snorting.

He learned how to put toppings on, though, and how to wrap a taco, although he says he's not very good at that yet.

Today when I asked him how he was feeling he said that it was all worth it, because of the money. Evidently whenever he started to feel too tired he'd remind himself how much he was making per hour. (A useful technique - I remember one particularly boring and miserable job I had where I had figured out how much I was making per second and when things were really bad I'd count off the time by reciting, "Two tenths of a cent, four tenths of a cent, six tenths of a cent ...")

His next shift is after the weekend. Closing again. I praised him for what he was doing, let him know how proud I was of him, and promised him that after about a week of this he wouldn't be nearly so tired.

We've agreed to let him spend of all his first paycheck. He'll start saving with the second one. He's already planning how he's going to spend all that money. I'm bracing myself for the howls of anguish when he sees how much gets taken out by the government.