About Face? Maybe Not.

The military. Yes the military that is where boys become men. At the time my brother-in-law was a staff sergeant in the Army as an intelligence analyst. He seemed pretty cool and so did the fellow soldiers he worked with who were always at the house. There was only one barrier and that was my weight. You see I've been rather "fluffy" for quite some time and it was now prohibiting me from becoming a "man."
I wasted no time. I began working out many hours a day and joined Weight Watchers with my sister. Those two weeks of determination were invigorating. Then my dad called.
He said "How's work?" I said "Oh, I'm working out full-time now to join the military." He said "You don't have a job?" I said " Not right now, I will when I finish losing weight." And in a firm tone he uttered the words which I dreaded so much. "Come home now."
I began telling him why couldn't come home. No gas money, no purpose, etc.,etc.. The next day UPS showed up with an envelope that had $200 in it and a note that said "Come home now."
Once again, I packed my bags, loaded up "Ole Blue" and headed back across the barren Kansas prairie.
I arrived back home on Hallow's Eve and hadn't made it completely through the door when my dad said " You need to get a job."
The next day I went into town to buy some groceries for the homestead and ran into my old manager at the grocery store I had worked at in high school. We started talking and he asked what I was doing at the present. I told him I was currently unemployed and he offered me my old job. I thought "why not?"
I donned my apron and went back to work the next day as a stocker/cashier/bag boy. As the holidays came round I began running into old high school friends and teachers. People who were going to community college 30 minutes down the road were going further in life than I was both literally and philisophically.
I carried their bags to their cars in shame. After 3 months, I was adrift in self-pity. I wanted something better, some new scenery, a new skill. Anything.
One wednesday night I was at church and one of the elderly members came up to talk to me. I hadn't seen him in a while and asked him what he'd been up to? He said "Same old, same old." I asked him "What is it you do exactly?" He said "I'm a captain on a towboat in Louisiana."
I talked to him for a half an hour about what a towboat was and where it goes. And then he asked me where I was working. I told him how I was working at the same supermarket I had worked at in high school. It was then he said something that would get me out of my mental atrophy. "They're always looking for deckhands." I asked how much it paid and he said "$100 per day."
The old man then handed me a business card with his outfit's number on it. The next day I called to inquire about the job, the voice on the other end of the line asked me if I could come in the following day for an interview. I in turn asked him where his office was and he informed me that they were located in Houston. "Houston! There's no way I could be there tomorrow but I could be there on Monday." And so it was agreed upon that I'd meet him in his office on Monday.
That afternoon I went and pawned everything I could for gas money and prepared myself for the 14 hour drive to Houston.