Guest Post: Sheila Lagrand, “The Unexpected Paycheck”

Our ongoing series of posts titled, “What I Learned from My First Job,” takes a turn toward Sheila Lagrand today. She blogs at Godspotting and is a regular visitor to this site. She has the ability to find great truth in the everyday, looking for God in all the right spaces. Visit her site here. It’s not too late if you have an idea! Send me an email today to reserve your spot.

The Unexpected “Paycheck”

I was 11 the summer our Neighbor Lady asked me to help her out around her home. She was babysitting two grandchildren and wanted me to supervise the children while she was out attending meetings or going to the bank or whatever it is Neighbor Ladies do. Her husband, she said, would be around, but the children would be my responsibility. I was only to call on him in an emergency.

When I was a kid, “Neighbor Lady” defined a real person. Everyone had one.

Who gave you that apple?

The Neighbor Lady.

Whose dog is that you’re walking?

It’s the Neighbor Lady’s.

Nobody had a “Neighbor Man.” But I digress.

She said the pay was fifty cents an hour. I reckoned this was a pretty good deal, as that was the going rate for full-on babysitting, so I accepted.

The children, a small boy and a slightly bigger girl, were not troublesome children. They didn’t ask for snacks. He liked to ride his Big Wheel in the driveway; she colored pictures of horses. Frankly, they were rather bland children, without mischief or spark, and therefore easy to supervise.

The very first week, she called on me to watch the children for a total of seven hours. I was thrilled. The next week she needed me to supervise them for another five hours. In only two weeks’ time, I had worked 12 hours, earning, by my reckoning, six dollars. Six dollars was enough money to buy Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Waters.

(On vinyl. Go ask your grandmother about “record albums.”)

Everyone I knew had, or wanted, a copy of Bridge over Troubled Waters. This little summer job was going to make me Somebody.

But to become Somebody, I first needed to collect a paycheck. “Don’t be shy!” my dad counseled. “You’ve done the work, you’ve earned the pay. Ask her when she plans to pay you.”

Midway through my third week of service, when I’d worked another few hours, I meekly followed my dad’s advice. “I’ll pay you on Friday,” she promised.

Thursday, as I was preparing to leave her home, Neighbor Lady said, “I won’t be needing your help tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said. I took a deep, deep breath. “I’ll just come by to collect my pay, then.”

“I’ll bring it over tomorrow afternoon,” she promised.

Friday came and went. No Neighbor Lady came to our door.

I asked my dad for his advice and saw a little twitch in his cheek. “Well,” he told me. “She owes it to you. You need to stand up for yourself.”

I wasn’t skilled at standing up for myself, but I didn’t want to disappoint my dad. I didn’t want to forego my pay, either. So on Saturday, I went to the Neighbor Lady’s house and knocked on her door, strains of Simon and Garfunkel playing in my mind.

“Yes?” she said, her brow knitting itself in annoyance.

“I came to get my pay,” I told her.

“I told you I would bring it to you!”

A voice said, “You said you’d bring it yesterday.” Startled, I realized the voice was mine. Something in her attitude stiffened my spine.

“Oh, for pity’s sake! Just a minute,” she snapped.

I stood at the front door, embarrassed that I’d been left waiting outside. I should have been patient. Maybe she was busy. She’s an adult, after all. Adults don’t lie—

Her return to the door interrupted my inner tirade. “Here,” she said. She thrust a bag through the screen at me. Reflexively, I took the bag. Before I could speak, the door had slammed.

I opened the bag and looked inside. I found seven or eight small cardboard canisters, each elegantly decorated, each with a name: Occur! Rapture. Brocade. Unforgettable. Topaze. Here’s my Heart.

Neighbor Lady had “paid” me, not in cash money, but in Avon perfumed talc. Too flummoxed by this development to react, I went home.

The details of the aftermath are hazy, after all these years. I didn’t work for Neighbor Lady any more. My mother and my auntie bought the perfumed talc from me, converting it into cash. Dad drove me to the record store, where I purchased the coveted record album.

The Neighbor Lady taught me valuable lessons that summer of 1970. I learned that adults did lie to children sometimes. I learned that not everyone’s word is reliable. I learned that it’s okay to leave a job if your employer is unfair. And I learned that my mom and my auntie were really swell ladies. Okay—I already knew that.

What were you working for at your first job?