Christmas cheesecake

My family went to Santa Fe to see my Dad and siblings for Thanksgiving.  While we were there my boys had much fun with their cousins.  They helped my dad replace the swings on the swing set in the yard and took turns pushing the little ones on the swings.  They really love their cousins.  At dinner Keenan and Naomi were asking me if I was going to tell them stories about their mom.  I have shared a few already on the blog.  There was this one, about when my sister Jenni had her own Christmas tree.  There was this one too, about a red velvet skirt.  Also there was the time Jenni and my Mom surprised me for Christmas, (I'd post a link, but I can't find the entry)

I have another one I am going to share tonight.  I hope Jenni reads this to them.  Even though I don’t get to see Keenan, Naomi, and Christian very often I love them fiercely and they benefit from all the practice I have had being an uncle to Elisa Gail, Scott, Rachel, & Julia Beth.  I hope they remember that when I wind up in a home and need someone to sneak me in alcohol.

When my sister Jenni was 17 (the same age as my Paul is now) she had her first job that wasn’t babysitting, or helping out at Desert Spring Children’s Center.  Jenni was “the phone girl” at Pizza 2 Go near the University of Arizona in Tucson AZ.  She had filled out an application and never heard back, so she would go in and ask the manager if he had hired anyone yet. He would tell her no, and she would remind him she had turned in an application and that she was ready to work.  She kept up with this weekly until she wore him down and they hired here to answer the phones and take orders.  She made whatever crappy pay they could get away with paying her, and the drivers were supposed to share tips with her but they did not.  Also, the college age boys that worked there with her called her “phone girl” and refused to call her by her name.  But Jenni did not quit, she kept going to work, and she worked hard and was good at her job, and she did not let the teasing of the pizza guys bother her.  When they gave her a nametag, she put “phone girl” on the nametag.

There was one other female working at Pizza 2 Go, and that was the young woman who made the cheesecake.  In addition to late night pizza cravings, sometimes college students want something sweet, and P2G offered cheesecake.  The pizza guys teased her too, and called her “cheesecake” and, predictably, the cheesecake chef got tired of it and quit in December.  My sister thought about, and asked the manager if she could have the job as cheesecake chef, because it paid better.  The manager, and the other employees said ”oh no, what do you know about making cheesecake, you are just the phone girl.”  My sister said, “I may just be the phone girl, but you will run out of cheesecake in a day or two and I don’t think you have any other options.”  They told her that they needed her on the phone, taking orders, not making cheesecake.  My sister Jenni told them about this new invention called a headset where she could talk on the phone and use her hands for something else.  Although this did take place in the 1990’s it wasn’t really a “new” invention.

So, right before Christmas the manager agreed to give Jenni a chance to be the cheesecake chef.  Everyone was pretty sure she would screw it up, after all she was just the phone girl and had never made cheesecake before.  What those arrogant jerks didn’t realize was that the recipes were all written down and left where Jenni could read them.  Pretty soon she was making cheesecakes and answering the phone and making twice the money.  So the boys decided to change her nickname to “cheesecake girl”, but my sister Jenni wasn’t having it.  She told them to call her “Cheesecake Chick”.

The moral to this little Christmas story for my niece and nephews is to know your worth.  It is easy to get discouraged and feel run down, especially when arrogant pizza boys make fun of you, but when you know how wonderful and precious that you are, you have the strength to make other people see it too.