Silas has begun working at Poor Red's Station in New River, AZ.
                            
He'd taken a job at Taco Bell, down in Tramonto, but after his second week, suddenly there weren't any hours available - it seems that an In-N-Out burger joint opened up next door, and suddenly nobody wanted burritos anymore.

In-N-Out is, to me, one of those great mysteries, like why does water get lighter when you freeze it (when everything else gets heavier) or, if we're evolved from monkeys, why don't they have beards? (we have hair on our face, but not on our bodies - they have hair on their bodies, not on their faces.)?) I know that there are a lot of folks out there who really, really like In-N-Out - they even pay extra to wear In-N-Out t-shirts. I know that there is no accounting for taste, and "different stroke for different folks".

But I simply cannot abide In-N-Out french fries.

I tried - I really did. The first time I went to In-N-Out, I said "Gee, I must have gotten a bad batch of fries..." - see, they tasted sorta like Styrofoam, except that they had less salt. The burger was okay, but the french fry experience completely overshadowed it. But I was sure that it was just a bad night at a bad store, so the next time that I had the opportunity to try an In-N-Out, I did so - on a weekend day rather than a weekday night, and in a small town 70 miles away from the big-city store that I tried the first time.

Nope. The fries still tasted like somebody had tried to cook cotton - without any grease.

So I'm grateful that other folks are going to In-N-Out, because that means that they won't be going wherever I'm going, which is often Poor Red's - at least, it has been since we moved to New River.

Poor Red's is the kind of place that you go to eat when you are hungry. You won't find fancy dishes that are all about "presentation"; and I don't think that anything on the menu comes garnished with capers. For $9.99, you can get a Chicken Fried Steak that is the size of your head; it comes on a huge platter. The rest of the platter is fried potatoes (that taste like potatoes, that have been fried) - and the whole thing is covered in gravy. Eat some, take some home for supper tomorrow, or just feed a family of six in Tunisia.

For a good while, they gave you a bucket of peanuts when you got there, and you ate the peanuts and threw the shells on the floor; after some time, they stopped doing that (I wonder if somebody slipped on some peanut shells?) but they will still give you the peanuts if you ask 'em.

The last time I went was when Mom was visiting, earlier this month; while we were there, Silas was bemoaning his reduced (well, nonexistent) hours at Taco Bell. As we walked out, he spoke to the manager and asked her if she was hiring; she told him to come back in on Thursday to discuss that.

Then, haVing set up for a discussion four days later, she decided to open said discussion right away by saying "What are you wanting to do?"

Silas said "Anything".

She said "Don't say 'anything', because that leaves it wide open."

Silas:""Anything. If you'll pay me to do it, I'll do it."

She told him to come to talk to her the next day; he did, and started work the day after that.

I felt good about this from the moment that he spoke to the boss lady; there's something about Silas and Poor Red's that just seems to fit.

A week later he called me from work; he said that he was washing dishes. "I"ve got my hands in warm soapy water and I'm listening to the Gin Blossoms. It's good work if you can get it."