It has been some weeks back, but my wife told me that her drunken male friend for some years had called her 'from the road'. He had managed finally to find some part time employment, that of driving some door to door knocking youths from town to town while they performed some undisclosed task. As some readers of QCI might recall, I have previously written some blog posts about traveling sales crews, so news that this fellow has found work behind the wheel of one of these traveling vans made me think, how appropriate and frightening!
My wife's friend, which I will call Denny (not his real name), had been hired by me and my wife to paint our house. My wife felt sorry for him, as he had told her he needed money to make his child support payments or they would toss him into the county jail. I was dead set against hiring him to do the work, preferring to do the painting myself. From experience, there has rarely been an occasion when I've seen Denny without a beer in his hand and a 30 pack of Busch close by. Anyway, the house only got partially painted, as Denny never stayed sober long enough to navigate the ladders for more than an hour or two a day before drunkenness made it impossible to work at height. It did not surprise me that he didn't manage to complete the work, and I have since had to finish the painting myself, all after my wife mistakenly, and without my knowledge paid him in advance for the work. I was so mad about the entire affair that I told my wife I never wanted to see this Denny fellow here at the house again.
So, when Denny called my wife from the road recently to tell her he was working ferrying around youths door to door while they were performing sales or 'deliveries', I thought: how appropriate--a fellow who has had more than a hand full of driving under the influence charges against him (but somehow miraculously still has a drivers license and is the town drunk) can find employment behind the wheel of a traveling crew van full of youths?
I guess a simple background check might have revealed the past drunk driving red flags and prevented another potential traveling sales crew disaster much like that which happened near Janeseville Wisconsin ten years ago.
To Denny's credit, he hasn't wrecked the van, yet? Support the passage of Malinda's Law in the State of Wisconsin, potentially the state leader in protecting its own citizens; the life you save may very well be your own!
Many people are asleep to the danger that lurks in their own state. Word up friends, and follow this link to discover a dirty little secret of their little traveling sales crew.
As an update to this story, my wife told me that this Denny called to tell her he had been let go--basically fired--while he was in New Jersey, hundreds of miles from where Denny usually calls home? Seems these drunken desperadoes like Denny, who in the end are left somehow in the lurch, possibly without all their pay, and then just dropped like so much trash by the side of the road, all because there always are more willing desperados ready to take Denny's place behind the wheel on these van rides, all which potentially could result in additional rides, that in long black limousines on the way to the eternal rest.
***About the picture near the title of post above, click here. You do not have to be from Wisconsin to understand that this disaster did not have to happen!
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