They don't teach common sense in college...

So I got this big job painting clouds in the entry of a "destination gas station," which promises to be the Buckees for the Corpus bound. Basically the jobsite included me, some electricians and about 30 guys we'll presume are Newcomers from South of the Border all busy pouring concrete, setting tile & installing rock on some pretty serious deadlines, all taking our turn at the porta-potties and water-hose wash station.

For the first three days of the job, I wondered to myself, what am I going to pack for lunch? Here's how my inner conversation with myself went, as I stood in front of the refrigerator each morning: "What can I take for lunch? These yummy beans? They're my favorite meal, afer all. This Lean Cuisine? No, I can't take that, they need to be heated. Where would I heat it up? The competitors next door aren't going to let me use their microwave. There's no love lost there, especially since their sign says they're 'American-owned' just because the owner of my station was from some other country at some point. Whatever. I suppose I could drive across the freeway and use the micro at the owner's other station across the way. That's a hassle. ... Oh screw it, I'll take a sandwich."

So day after day, I ate a cold sandwich. It was tasty: on my fancy Ezekial bread, turkey, lettuce, mayo, mustard and horseradish. And then one day, while I was eating my ok, but not mind-blowing cold sandwich purely for sustenance and not enjoyment, one of the Newcomers on my jobsite came walking up carrying something large and white. I initially thought it was a box.

No, it was a microwave.

What the hell! The Newcomer carrying the microwave unplugged something important they were using like a drill and plugged in the microwave! And then he and all his Newcomer friends proceeded to gather round and heat up tasty lunches of carne guisada and tacos. All while I sat there eating a cold sandwich, wishing I had my beans.

In case you're wondering, the moral of the story is yet to come. And here it is: Any time you or anyone you know feels compelled to think you are smarter than a Newcomer just because you can speak English and you were fortunate enough to be born on the right side of the Rio Grande, please take a moment to recall Miss Smarty Pants Sami with the college education, sitting there in her high-dollar SUV, wasting gas with the air conditioner on, eating a cold sandwich while the Newcomers ate tasty warm lunches they heated up in their portable microwave.

And that's all I have to say about that.