Alternatives

 There are vast and significant alternative universes in which things turned out differently for Dave. Here in this reality, he is a public school teacher who began that career because the time/space continuum shuttle dropped him at that stop. 

At another juncture, it was possible that I had managed to snag the job that I had applied for when I first moved to Oakland. I wanted to work at the video store up the street. The commute would have been amazing, in that it was stumbling distance from the apartment I first moved into with my girlfriend, and even the one a little further down the lane once we got married. I had been a video store manager way back in those Colorado days that preceded my voyage to the left side of the country. I missed doing that job, since it was the vocation to which I felt I was most suited after having spent such a very long time studying film both in and out of classroom. Not to mention all those years I spent working in a video store. 

I filled out an application. I waited for an interview. But no one ever called. Not in this universe. In a neighboring universe, however, I was brought in as help on the weekends. Steadily earning trust and picking up more hours as I became a customer favorite for my incisive suggestions and encyclopedic knowledge of movies and their stories. I would eventually have risen to the rank of manager, a lofty spot where I would be in charge of the monthly newsletter and the ordering of new and additional titles for our library. The owner would thank me for my flexibility and dedication, to which I would respond, "Hey, it just happens that I was in the neighborhood." Because I was. 

Meanwhile, back at home I would imagine that I still got married, but maybe didn't have the same rise up the fiscal ladder I enjoyed in another plane of existence where I ran a book warehouse. I never got to be in charge of a newsletter there, but I did do a great many personnel reviews and helped supervise yearly inventories. No matter what reality I find myself in, I can't seem to shake this responsible thing. Had I stayed at the book warehouse instead of leaving to get my intern teaching credential, I might have been swallowed up by the demise of the wholesale book business which would have put me back out on the street, looking for a job. 

Where I still might have found my way to that video clerk job. Maybe not a career, but a name-tag job that could have filled the void until something better came along. Is being a teacher better than being a video store manager? In terms of giving back to my community? I know what the answer should be, but I ask that you don't press me on the issue, because I still might get it wrong. Are there days when I am standing on a playground full of kids that I pine for the relative solitude of a video store? I won't lie: Yes, there are. Would I trade that reality for the one I am in currently? I suppose the fact that the video store up the street has stayed in business all this time without my help suggests that they truly didn't need my help after all. 

I wonder if there is an Arby's in an alternate universe that needs a closing manager?