Moved to Saint Cloud

It was in December of 1999 that I moved to Saint Cloud with (now ex) Mellody Kennedy. I had searched online for several jobs in the area. I had quit my job at Burger King and was working at McDonald's and County Market in the Deli. I was living in Prior Lake with my Mother at her apartment on Tower Street - the poorest area in this fairly well-off ex-urb.

I wanted the opportunity to actually live in a city. I was rather tired of the ex-urbs - and wanted to see what a more close-knit city was like.

I ended up working at Wendy's for a month - with Mellody. The supervisors there treated us like crap. They did not consider our previous years of being supervisor's at Burger King to be "good enough" to deserve a higher pay ( the lowest I had ever made per hour was there at $5.75 an hour!!).

The job was Mellody's idea. She had tried the Burger King's in town and other stores ( like I tried working at Circuit City and Best Buy). I was hired at Burger King in the Crossroads Mall after my 15 minute interview - same day hiring. The store-manager was the interviewer and he was impressed immediately. I had a starting pay of $7.50 an hour with a promotion to team-lead if I did excellent my first month - with a raise of 50 cents to $8.00 an hour. I made that promotion and worked part-time there while finishing up my High School diploma.

Mellody worked various odd jobs. She worked at BK in Crossroads. Then quit and worked at Wal-Mart in their food department. The short stints of work she did were better paying and had more hours than mine - yet she never stayed at these places long. I took care of the finances - yet Mellody never told me she had applied for several credit cards and would max them out shortly before breaking up with me. ( and she never told me this until she moved out).

You could say that I was rather immature and rash in my decisions. But I think I gained a lot from the experiences in Saint Cloud. I met some interesting people and joined the Minnesota National Guard while there also. If I had not lived there for 9 months and did what I did - I would not have met Brandy. And her life would not have changed for the better either.