Juggling

Friday, just by saying the word, you would go boom. Workers everywhere at Nordic Ware were dying to go home for the weekend so they could relax from all that packing, recycling, and shipping houseware items. So, you can imagine that everyone was dying to get out of the warehouse. Everyone that is except for Jesse Green, who had been working in the Nordic Ware building for nine years and had been operating on forklift shipping for three.

 

Normally Jesse would love to go home and spend some time with his girlfriend, Meg. But tonight just wouldn’t be the night, for she had recently dumped him after she found out that he had been forgetting to do the chores he was expected to do, like feed the goldfish, clear out all those record tapes that were taking up so much room, and paying the water bills. So, Jesse felt pretty bad about his life right now, and operating on one of those forklifts did not help keep in the present, he was just deep in thought that he was not paying attention to the world around him. 

Jesse thought and thought all that mid afternoon. He thought back to getting done with high school and he thought about the time he and Meg first encountered each other. It was on a bright sunny Saturday in June four years ago. Jesse was walking his pug, don around Lake Harriet and stopped by the café to get an ice cream sandwich. He was standing in line, about to order, when he saw a girl in front of him trying to order a hot dog and an ice cream, but she didn’t have enough money to pay for the entire meal, so Jesse was nice enough to pay for her and himself. Meg was so thrilled that a stranger was generous enough to pay for the rest of her meal and his. So pleased that she even invited him over to her apartment the following night to watch football. That night after watching the game, the two started to connect more. In fact, one could even say that they were becoming closer than ever. As after that fun night of watching the game, Jesse went home since he had work the next day. But he offered to take Meg out to dinner sometime that week, to which she replied Thursday.

 

When Thursday night came, Jesse and Meg dined in at an Italian restaurant called Caffe Biaggio after having dinner and sharing some wine, the check came, and both of their hands met on the bill. Each of them offered to pay for dinner, but neither of them would let the other one pay. It was at this moment that a new felling was coming between the two a feeling of love.

For four years, the two lovebirds remained close together in Meg’s apartment but as time went by, Jesse started getting better job offerings at Nordic Ware, which meant that he would have to work more hours. So many that he started to forget the jobs he had at home. As time went by, Meg started to become disgusted with Jesse so much that she was forced to dump him.

 

Jesse was so heartbroken that all he could think about every time he rolled on those forklifts at work was the good times he had with Meg and how he wished he could be more devoted to her and not his job. Jesse was so deep in thought that he didn’t realize he bumped into shelf containing crates of bacon plates. For a moment, nothing happened, but as he tried backing away from the shelf, he bumped into the shelf right behind him, causing the crates of muffin bakers to fall right on top of him, causing an alarm amongst his fellow co-workers.

Judging by how messy the place was, Jesse knew his boss would want to see him in his office, and would probably get demoted or worse, fired. Whatever the case would be, Jesse learned one important thing that day, to always stay in the present, no matter what.