Ruminari

Billy - 31 - Sandwich Shop GM
Madison, WI

I originally grew up in La Crosse, WI. I was unexpected and my family wasn’t really ready for it and my parents didn’t really have a lot of money. So I grew up a little bit in what we called “the shoe homes” in La Crosse and then we moved to Onalaska where I spent most of my life.

Onalaska, how do I put it, it’s a small town; 15,000. It’s that kind of town where you know who the black kid is.

And that’s what kind of town it is. Everyone knows who everyone else is.

Onalaska might not have a lot of famous musicians like Eau Claire, but a lot of musical, like broadway types have come from there. And supposedly there’s a UW-Madison basketball player who’ll be starting next year from there, a freshman. I don’t know his name. Probably a white kid.

A lot of people don’t know that there’s a huge Hmong population in WI in the La Crosse area. After Vietnam, they were given, what’s the word for it, it starts with an S. “political ___”. For fighting alongside us. ‘sreedom’ – Freedom with an S" That’s the word, I think. From Laos.

Anyway my family worked really hard to get where they wanted. My dad was a mechanic and my mom had a lot of different jobs. She worked as an accountant, at UW La Crosse in the culinary dept, and still, whenever I smell celery in water I think of UW La Crosse which is weird.

I went to MATC (Madison Area Technical College) because I followed a girl. I probably wouldn’t have even gone to college or left Onalaska if I didn’t follow her to Madison. I was big into playing soccer and was drawn to the school because of that. We got two games away from the national championship the year I played for them, like 13-1 record. Ranked 9th in the nation. We had to play at Breese Stevens field when it was 31 degrees outside in the winter, which is probably why we lost the quarterfinal game.

I had a ton of jobs in retail, but I then moved on to Qdoba, and worked my way up the chain over the course of a year to be a General Manager. I was also tending bar at the time and going out like 6 nights a week. I was still dating that same girl, but then she broke up with me.

I pretty much became the Charlie Sheen of the Burrito world. A functioning alcoholic who was managing my store to success.

For 3 years I was like 10% over sales, hitting all my numbers. And I got canned, pretty much because I was drunk all the time. I remember taking naps sitting on the toilet in the bathroom at the restaurant. I also gained about 40 pounds over those 4 years. So that was a rough patch in my life.

But then I got a job at a sandwich shop, which pretty much was an awesome job to take. At the sandwich shop I work for, you don’t really get a chance to move up unless someone gets promoted or fired. And there was an opportunity in Chicago, so I moved to Chicago. Best decision I’ve made in my life. It cut out my going out at night, because there was so much to do during the day, and I was working all the time. And about a year later I met Brooke. We didn’t meeton Myspace, but we became friends on Myspace because I knew who she was. Before I moved to Chicago she’d walk past my friend’s apartment on Wisconsin Avenue all the time. I’d be like “there’s the girl with the red glasses.” She always had red glasses. And when we’d be out partying on his porch, she’d walk by at some point.

Knowing her now, I can see her thinking at the time, “these fucking jerkoffs.”

Anyway I’m living in Chicago but I’m back in Madison for a weekend and I decide to go to this fun store downtown to pick out a birthday gift for my ex-girlfriend (which I always did because I’m a nice guy). And I go to this store specifically because I know they have all this fun stuff and I’m in there, and Brooke works there and she keeps bugging me while I’m looking which I normally hate. But then I go up to the counter to pay and she asks me where she knows me from but can’t remember. I was planning on messaging her on Myspace when I got home, but it turns out that she’d already messaged me because she remembered. I went up to see a show the next weekend and we started dating. About 6 months later, she moved down to Chicago and we lived in Chicago for about two years.

We actually planned to move to Austin, TX for a while just to go and see/live somewhere new and when I went to ask about transferring there, they offered me a move back to Madison to manage a store there. So that brought us back to Madison. And then we had Charlie, our daughter.  We’re pretty nontraditional, and weren’t married but we weren’t using protection and were really okay with whatever happened. It’s weird because when we were planning our wedding her family/friends were all “are you sure you want to do this? Are you ready for this? To make this commitment?” And it’s like, I put it this way.

It’s like I leased a car and I’m at the 33,000 mile mark and now I want to buy it. It’s not perfect but I love it. I think I want to make the full commitment to 250,000 miles and I’ll continue to repair it.

Brooke laughed sarcastically, but we kind of already sealed the deal already.

Having a kid and getting married isn’t really keeping us tied down. Being in management for the company I work for is great, because there are always opportunities to move and ply my trade wherever they open a store.

I’m totally content as long as Brooke and Charlie are along for the ride, which I know they are. And I love Madison, but I’d love just about anywhere as long as they’re with me.

And I’m happy doing what I do, I love my job which might sound weird to most people; working at a sandwich shop, but I do. We’re pretty much in Madison because our families are here in Wisconsin. If we didn’t have a child, we’d also likely live somewhere else, but we like to have her around family. And it’s going to get harder to move as she gets older and is in school, but that’s okay. I’d love to get out and explore, but I can always do that on vacation.