On books and covers and a wad of cash, forgive the typos and/or shit in Normal entries

So I watched the pilot to Secrets and Lies the other night. They’ve been advertising it for weeks and I had nothing better to do. No spoiler alert; I’m not going to spoil anything. I’m not even sure I have an opinion on the show yet. However it reminded me of a story, a true story I’m sure, and even if the story wasn’t true I’ve seen it happen enough where it might as well have been.

When I was first hired at circum cision they still had training classes; one on each coast. After working with them for about four weeks I was sent down to — aw, shit, I forget the name of the place, it was near Pomona, Wood something or other CA, real close to the LA county fairgrounds. I think I was the last, I mean I think they quit sending people from out of state to be trained there, it was 1996 and Circum cision had less than decade before going bankrupt.

Our trainer was a latino guy, slick, handsome, LA sales kind of trainer latino guy. When he was like seventeen, the story goes, he was working for his uncle. Oh, yeah, before telling the sotry, about ten minutes into the pilot the dude comes to his nice house in the suburbs in his nice truck; he’s a painter and he’s in his work clothes looking scruffy in the painted splattered whites that painters wear.

So dude was seventeen and working with his uncle who was a house painter in LA. He owned the business, the uncle did, and pulled a high six figures a year. It’s around Christmas time and the kid (the future trainer) and his uncle are taking a break to do some Christmas shopping. The uncle is unattractive to begin with, wearing smeared painters paints and a t-shirt, and the kid looks the same and like a kid. The uncle had like five grand in cash with him, according to the kid (trainer) he always had at least that much in cash plus whatever the highest color AMX was at the time (I want to say black but this would have been mid seventies and I think gold was AMX shit at the time).

All the sales-people stayed away in droves. Dirty working class latinos. This new hire not much older than the kid (trainer) doesn’t run and hide. The uncle says to him “Will you sell us some shit?” and new sales guy says “Yes sir, what would you like?” And the guy goes on a spree buying big TV’s and major appliances and high end sound systems for nephews, nieces, aunts and uncles. In each department a salesman pops up when he sees the guy has cash and the Uncle tells them to fuck off, he doesn’t need help, he knows what he wants and the kid didn’t run away from him. When he’s checking out he asks to talk to the manager and bitchs about every sales-person in the store except the kid. The manager trys closing him on warranties. The uncle said the kid already did that on the stuff the uncle wanted warrenties on and respected his decision not to get warrenties on the other stuff and the manager almost tried to close anyhow but the uncle flashed his wad and insisted the new hire ring him up.

In general it’s true and new hires should always be told that. It’s not just that guys in business suits are cheap bastards and looking for a bargain, but guys that are working class are always there to buy stuff. It’s not just ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ so much as ‘learn what the cover of books mean’. Because honestly, if a book has a picture of Fabio ripping a bodice, I don’t care how well it’s written, it’s not my cup of tea.

Oh, and the not spoiler alert? As far as I can tell dudes income and profession has nothing to do with the story. I mean the TV show. At least in the TV show there not only doesn’t seem to be a shrinking middle class, but there being a middle class doesn’t surprise anyone. Again, I don’t think that’s apropos to the plot. I think you should either watch the show or not, what the fuck do I care?