Sometimes I don’t know what people are thinking when they speak. I suspect some people have no thoughts at all before they open their mouths and let words come out.

One Saturday we were busy at the Mercantile where I worked for two camping seasons. My sweet co-worker and I were standing behind the counter when another group of tourists streamed through the door. One of the new arrivals, a middle age woman with curly hair, looked right at the other clerk and asked, Is this your only job?

My co-worker and I were both like What? and the tourist woman specified, Do you work anywhere else?

I don’t remember what exactly my coworker said. She probably explained working in the store was a fulltime job. I can’t imagine what the tourist lady was thinking. I wonder if she interrogates cashiers at Wal-Mart and Target about their other employment. Maybe she wondered if my coworker had to hold a couple of jobs to make ends meet. Maybe she was just trying to make conversation and was awkward about it.

In honor of my sweet coworker, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, I’ll list the jobs I know she had last summer.

• Before the store opened, she helped get a 36 site campground ready for campers.
• She worked 40+ hours each week at the Mercantile.
• Every night she cooked dinner and served it to her husband.
• She used one of her days off to clean the firth wherel where she and her husband (and their dog and cat) lived.
• She also did all the laundry for her and her husband on one of her days off.
• Whenever the Mercantile needed more merchandise, she pulled back stock from the box truck parked at the campground where she lived, then delivered the merchandise to the store.
• She kept a list of items that needed to be reordered and communicated that information to the buyer for the company we worked for.
• When the camp host left the campground where she lived and before a replacement was hired, my coworker checked in campers on busy weekends.
• On more than one occasion, she hemmed the pants of camp hosts on her day off.
• Every week she did all the paperwork pertaining to occupancy for the six campgrounds her husband managed.

Isn’t that enough? I would have asked the tourist lady if my coworker had detailed all the work she did in a regular weeks. Isn’t that enough?