Tasks : one

This week, I'll be blogging about specific tasks I want to accomplish in 2010. Sure, I've got a whole list of resolutions, but these are a little different than the usual broad, get wealthier, get wiser, get taller plans I typically make.

1- Help fill the food drive can at my kid's daycare next Christmas.

Three years ago, it was the worst. My family had been 'asked' to leave our apartment. My wife was working as a temp, which was on again/off again, while I was trying to keep things going with essentially three jobs. We were having trouble with vehicles. The holidays were looming and every dime I'd saved had gone to pay for the move.

It was pretty depressing, plus I was sick. I had a bad case of bronchitis I couldn't get rid of and felt like the walking dead.

Anyway, word of our circumstances filtered down to the daycare center where I take my son and we were gifted with their food drive collection --a 50 gallon utility trash can filled with boxes and canned goods. We also got a turkey, I think, and maybe a ham --plus canned imitation shrimp. Easily, it was a couple hundred bucks worth of food and better than how we were eating and would probably would have eaten through the rest of the winter.

I remember resenting getting it. If I'd been the one to pick up my son the evening they presented it, I'd have turned it down. I remember sitting up a few nights after we got it. I'd just come home late from the bookstore and I was tired. I ate corn chex straight from the box and cried about how fucking pathetic I felt.

Looking back, it still stings a little, but the food was life. It tided us over. It helped get my family to the next foothold where things got better.

My son has only a year and a half left before he starts kindergarten. My, how the time flies... So, next Christmas I'm going to do what I can to help fill the can for someone else, for another family who needs it with the hope it will carry them into the next year.

But one thing: no canned artificial shrimp. That stuff sucked.