Down and Out

A few weeks ago, after another large dump of snow when the kid that's supposed to show up to shovel (because I pay him to) failed to show up (yet again) there came a knock on the door.  There stood a scruffy looking sort of guy packing a couple of bags of emptys who asked me if he could shovel my walk.  Of course I said "Sure, how much?".  "Six bucks."  Which is less than I pay No-Show-Joe.  "Ok, go nuts."
Chris was done in less than 1/2 hour (NSJ takes at least an hour), collected his money and a garbage bag of empty beer cans ($10 here in Calgary) and I told him to just show up whenever it snowed, I'd make sure that he got paid.  A couple of weeks later we got it again.  I went to work in the morning and on my way home I got a call asking if I wanted to go to the local pub to watch the hockey game and I said sure!  I got home and Chris had been here; the walks were cleared right down to the concrete.  Ok, now what?  I had promised Chris that if he just showed up, I'd make sure that he got paid.  It was quite the dilemma.  Go watch hockey?  Sit around and wait for Chris?  I finally found an envelope, put ten bucks in it and hooked it over the edge of the mail box and went to watch the game.  When I got home, the envelope was gone and there were a couple of flyers in my mailbox.  You know.  The one with the 'NO FLYERS' sign on it?  Yup, that one.  Now I was all concerned that whoever had delivered the flyers had made off with Chris's money and he wouldn't show up again.  CRAP!

Sunday it snowed another 4-6" as I've mentioned before and when I left I had serious thughts that because Chris's money had disappeared the last time, he wouldn't show up.  I was so pleasantly surprised when I got home to find everything cleared, you could have knocked me over.  I sat and had a beer or two and 'round about 6:30 or 7, who comes walking up the sidewalk?  Chris.  Yes.  I asked him if he had gotten the envelope for the last time and he could have lied to me and told me no, but he said that he sure had, and thank you very much.  I told him that he was a good man, to which he replied "No, you're a great lady."  I don't, as a rule, blush easy, but that sure made me color-up.  What honesty.  You know, he could have lied to me and said no and I'd have paid him twice, but he didn't.
NSJ called between the time I got home and when Chris showed up and I let thim know what the situation was.  If I'm counting on you to be here, you'd best be here.  You messed me up last summer when you told me you'd be here every week to mow the lawn and you didn't show up and now you're messing me up by not showing up to shovel (the City of Calgary issues fines for not shovelling if there's a complaint).  He was pretty crestfallen, but that's life.  Ya wanna work, it's here; just come and do it!
My thoughts on Chris are that he's going through a 'rough patch'.  Hair on 'im, he's out looking for something to do to put some food on the table instead of pan-handling or living on government hand outs and I respect that.