Chapter 25

It was my freshman year in college. While I had a father that paid most of my school expenses, if I wanted to have a social life or even a Big Mac, I had to get a job. As in any other college town, good jobs are hard to come by, so I took what I could get. In this case, I worked with the maintenance department at the local mall.

One week, the mall had this arts and crafts promotion. Numerous vendors set up kiosks all about the center portion of the mall. One of the vendors was this guy named Robert who made little glass figurines out of Pyrex with a blowtorch. I found myself interested not only in the artwork, but also the fact that the guy told me that he was pulling down good money.

Like anyone who enjoys his craft, Robert was more than happy to tell me about the business. After all, like he said, his permanent shop was about 1000 miles away, and it was not like I was going to be competing with him. During my breaks that week,