"Job WANTED"

After we dropped Ian off at his preschool and were on the way to Jersey City, Julian spotted this on the sidewalk: A man in a dark suit and tie, crisp pressed white shirt and shined shoes was standing near the stoplight. He was wearing a sandwich board on his chest on which he had carefully printed the words, in orange, "Job WANTED".

"What's that man?" asked Julian.

"Well, Juli, he's just standing there, waiting for someone," I sort of lied.

"What are those letters he has?"

"Um, those letters are because he wants to tell people something."

"What he wants to tell people?"

How do you explain to a 3-year-old about having a job, and then losing that job, and then trying desperately to get another one? How desperate must things have gotten for this guy that he's resorted to a blitzkrieg, an untargeted shout-out to all the passersby on their way from Jersey, into the PATH train, and on to their own jobs in Manhattan. But I couldn't figure out a non-anxiety-producing way to explain the whole this-guy-has-no-job-and-is-probably-on-his-last-dime situation of the sandwich board. So I did what most of us do in those situations (at least I hope most of us do, not just me). I wimped out and completely made something up.

"He wants to tell people about a cool new toy."

But I should have known better than to go that route.

"A toy? But I want that toy! Mommy, I WANT IT!!"

I dug myself in deeper. "Well, I don't know where to buy it."

"Mommy, but I WANT it. Mommy, buy it!!"

Juli has a short fuse. When something distresses him, he goes off the deep end pretty fast. Soon, he's crying and thrashing about wanting a toy that doesn't exist, based on my lie. I deserve this, I'm thinking.

"OK, Jul, we'll find it." Where I was going with this lie I had no idea, but he starts to calm down.

We drive on and I think about the sandwich board guy. I wish I ran a company so I could give him a job. Anybody who had decided they could stand in broad daylight and advertise to strangers that they were out of a job, dressed in a suit and ready to work, is obviously somebody who doesn't give up. Ever. That would be a good person to hire. I hope somebody walking past him to their job in Manhattan would be thinking the same thing. I hope I don't see him there tomorrow, unless it's because he's commuting. Good luck to him.