It's a 'Burgh Thing!

February 1996...

I’ve finally discovered a remarkable job-hunting strategy — don’t want the job. This has actually led to two job offers for things that would’ve been the death of me inside of three weeks. I’m not even sure why I answer the ads at this point. There’s such a glut of writer/designer/artist types out here that hiring someone with a decade of experience doesn’t make much sense.

And yet I go through the drill, put on my good suit, stiff shoes and spit-polished smile in order to answer more questions about why I moved to Pittsburgh in the first place. The market is so tough — and there are so many flakes out there — that prospective employers almost immediately put me on the spot and ask why I moved here.

Hell, a couple of them just give me that look and I end up feeling sheepish about moving here to be with the person I love. In fact, what seemed like the best thing for our life together starts to look odd when you realize they’re thinking: “Oh god, what if we hire him, they break up and he quits?!”

So, I’ve taken to stressing the length of our relationship (3 years) or by simply calling Kak my “fiance.” That usually eases the situation but it makes me feel weird. I immediately start thinking, “What if my working relationship with this person starts on the basis of a lie?” And saying we’re “engaged to be engaged” is weird and too much like something my mother would say.

The vicious circle continues and I trot out my stock answers to their stock questions — although I was asked what kind of animal I would be and why. (I answered “dog,” largely because they’re my favorite animals, the people interviewing me were dopes and I figured they’d buy my bullshit explanation of dogs being ‘loyal’ and ‘lovable.’ Naturally, I was offered the job.)

Then I go home and hope someone will throw me some freelance so I can pay the rent. Luckily, the jobs have been fairly plentiful — though not without their master/servant relationships. Clients lie to the agencies, giving the impression that the assignment will be long-term, or at least longer than one night. Then, when that night’s over and I’ve pulled their asses out of the deadline-stoked fire, they tell me to “call tomorrow” to see when they’ll need me again. My first night for this particular client (the in-house “ad agency” of a major Pittsburgh employer, cough, Westinghouse, cough) started at 4 pm and was supposed to run till 1 am. It actually ended about 4:30 am, and this was a Friday into a Saturday.

It’s a typically cold, overcast and rainy Pittsburgh day. With not much going on work-wise I decided to run out to one of the city’s many malls and get myself a new pair of glasses. I returned to the house and pulled up on our side street. As I walked up the back steps I could tell something was missing, but couldn’t figure out what.

I went in the house to make a cup of coffee and started staring out the kitchen window at the back porch and our small, but perfect for a vegetable garden, yard. What the hell was wrong? Something had to be missing...

Was it the bucket and mop that’d been sitting out there since we cleaned the house for our Christmas party? Nope. How ‘bout the garden tools I’d purchased in order to work the vegetable patch Bonney was going to till for us? Uh-uh, still there. Maybe it was, HOLY SHIT! OUR GRILL’S MISSING!

For seasoned THG readers you can understand the need for expletives and all caps, this was my grill after all. A big, propane-fueled gas grill that’d cooked many a steak and singed many an armhair back in Jersey. It was just sitting, awaiting the chance to show what it could do with some fresh filet mignon from House of Meats.

Wait, maybe Bonney moved it to do some yardwork. That was it, he’d put it in the basement for safekeeping. A quick check proved me WRONG and now I was starting to panic. Not only did I love my grill, but it was a gift from my folks. Like a mother whose child has toddled off in a crowded mall I started getting frantic. I searched the basement again, wondering if I’d missed it in my frenzy. I even placed a call to Bonney, even though I already knew the answer. “No,” he told me, “I haven’t moved the grill. Do you think someone took it?”

Oh, I knew alright, and I even had a sneaking suspicion who had done such a thing. I even hated to suggest it, so I just kept my mouth shut. Bonney, you see, was about one of the nicest people I’d ever met. Yeah, he was pissed when the cable guy drilled into the recently restored 110-year old wood paneling. And no, he probably didn’t understand my fascination with 8-track players and depictions of the Last Supper, but he never said a peep. However, I thought, if I start accusing one of his workers of stealing my grill, things might change. A few weeks later I wouldn’t have to make the accusation.

It seems that someone had broken into the second floor apartment Bonney was restoring and stole some of his most valuable tools. Heavily in denial, he suggested that someone used a ladder to get to the second floor, gained entry through a window and made off with the tools. A few days later, he let me know that the tools had been taken by one of his workers, a drug addict he was giving a second chance to. Maybe, he suggested, the worker was the inside man on the grill theft and the theft of other lawn and patio goods from neighborhood yards. Hmmm, do ya think?

And don’t let it be said that grill theft won’t get you some bad ass karma. Shortly before we departed for our trip to Oklahoma, Bonney informed me that the worker in question had been shot and killed in neighboring Garfield during a drug deal gone bad. I continue to assert that there’s a special place in hell for people that steal grills.

Later that year...