Some summer job stories you never tell people

Some summer job stories you never tell people

Columns

By: Bernie O'Neill

When I was 16, I broke my wrist at the roller-skating rink, specifically the scaphoid bone (“Ah yes, the scaphoid bone,” you’re saying), which is a slow healer, the doctor told me.

And then I helped push my friend’s car out of a snowbank (it was March; he got stuck) — all the while not admitting something was seriously wrong with my wrist, which, at this point, looked more like a watermelon and had the same green tinge to it.

Apparently, pushing the car out was a mistake and made a bad break worse.

So the doctor put a cast on my wrist and then April and May rolled into June and X-rays showed the bone still hadn’t healed.

By that time, what had been a “really neat cast” back in March had become an object of derision.

“Your arm’s still in a cast? That’s weird!” people would say, especially girls, which is a bummer when you’re 16.

You try to explain that it’s the scaphoid bone, one of 16 bones in the carpus and it doesn’t heal very fast because not much blood goes to it.

And they’re thinking, “Oooh, that’s gross!” or “Maybe he has some kind of bone disease or something.”

In the end, you wish you did have some kind of bone disease or something, so they might show more sympathy.

A broken scaphoid? Sixteen-year-old girls don’t want to know anyone who even has a scaphoid, let alone a broken one.

So, instead of playing baseball or jumping off Whiskey Rock at a local swimming spot, I was sitting in the basement watching a lot of TV and looking at my cast thinking, “This is what it must have been like for the Elephant Man”.

I was an outcast, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Until, one day, my father said, “Maybe you should get a job and stop lying around the house all day.”

He was right. It was a couple of weeks into July and I was having a terrible summer.

When you’re 16 you think of glamorous jobs, such as lifeguard or fashion photographer’s assistant.

If you’re going to stoop to working, of all things, you want to do something you can be proud of.

Pizza delivery driver was not mentioned in those magazine articles with titles such as Top 10 Summer Jobs and How to Get Them.

It ranked right up there with busted scaphoid in terms of level of attractiveness.

In fact, pizza delivery driver was about the last job I wanted in the world except that it was one of the few jobs I could do with a broken wrist, so I finally applied and got it.

As it turned out, I did not have to wear a pizza delivery guy uniform. And I worked at night, so no one could see it was me driving around.

I believe I was the youngest pizza delivery driver in the area, which is good for tips.

So is a cast. People feel sorry for you. “Keep the change,” they’d say.

They didn’t have to know you’d fractured your scaphoid at the roller rink and then pushed out a stuck Oldsmobile and made it worse.

They’d think it was an on-the-job pizza delivery injury but you didn’t let it stop you because you knew the important role pizza played in their lives. They loved you for that.

At the end of the night, I’d have dimes and quarters and folded bills jammed into my right pocket (left hand was in a cast) and it would all come out to $60 or $70, which was on top of my wage.

And even though you wouldn’t care if you never saw another pizza again in your life, you finally realize you’re having a blast and learning as much as you ever did at school.

Even though I had a summer job at 16, I’m alarmed today how early we push young people into working — even before 16. Maybe it’s the quest for material goods or the idea that it’s a tough world and kids have to grow up. Or that they mature early and almost look like adults, so maybe they should start working, too.

Part of me wants to encourage my sons to go ahead and get a summer or after-school job as soon as they can.  The other part of me says, “Why rush them into it?” I think deep down, I’d like them to remain kids for as long as they can.

 I know by the end of my summer as a pizza delivery driver, I knew every back alley and shortcut and street name.

I could drive a 5-speed standard shift pretty well for a 16-year-old with one hand.

I drank coffee like an old pro.

I’d been invited in to parties I was too young to go to.

I’d resisted the early morning advances of an older woman, who wasn’t wearing much, even though she’d ordered an “all dressed”.

And I’d make a heck of a lot of money.

All in all, it was one of the best summers, even though I’ve hardly told a soul since that I once worked as a pizza delivery driver.

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