Working on a Job

Greetings from the suburbs, where on this merry weekend the correspondent lazes, pondering Labor Day. Much to be thankful for on this holiday commemorating, well, she’s not sure what she’s commemorating but she thinks it involves her paycheck. Which bought her grill. She likes her grill. Ample stove space makes the correspondent feel secure.

Security means a lot to the correspondent, suffering as she does the slings and arrows that go with correspondentness. Pondering this, she is grateful not only for the grill but also the paycheck. Not so grateful that she stops lazing, but enough that she has a brainstorm. Which hurts! Still, she thinks: If times are so merry, why does everything feel so insecure?

Insecure stock market. Insecure Oval Office. Insecure yen. Who’s to say that, come next Labor Day, the lazing correspondent will even have a job? She should talk to an unemployed person, just for a preview, but so far, almost nobody’s jobless. This economy’s so strange you couldn’t make it up.

Another brainstorm! Popping an Advil, the correspondent dials her pal Dave. Dave lives in the suburb of Santa Barbara, where he draws a paycheck for, well, the correspondent isn’t sure what he’s getting paid for, but she believes it involves sitting in front of his home computer in a Hawaiian shirt. Screenwriter, that’s it. The correspondent likes screenwriters. Knowing that someone gets to make things up and put them on paper without some editor yelping, “Mike Barnicle!” and smacking them with a rolled-up pink slip--knowing this makes the correspondent feel secure.

“How’s Fred Grimes?” the correspondent asks.

“Fred?” Dave merrily replies. “Well, you know, he’s still outta work. And Fred wants desperately to be a workin’ man. Labor Day is his favorite holiday of the year. Or it would be. If he were laboring.”

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Fred is the star of the recent book “Dear Ernest and Julio,” a collection of correspondence between “an ordinary out-of-work guy” and prospective employers to which Fred allegedly wrote, with help from Dave. The book tells how Fred once shared the American dream, in which “a guy would get a job, work his way up, raise The Kids, pay off the house, then buy himself a Winnebago, go fishing whenever he wanted and watch ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ reruns the rest of his life.”

“I had a job like that. Down at the plant. Then one day I did not have a job,” Fred writes. “The Boss said he was sorry. Said it had to do with something he called ‘corporate downsizing.’ To which I said, ‘Hey, Boss, downsize this.’ ”

At the urging of his wife, who says to Fred, “Fred, get yourself out of that recliner and go get a regular job with a regular paycheck because The Kids need new socks and the only food we have in the house is instant Cream of Wheat,” Fred fires off numerous letters. For example, “Dear Cardinal [Roger M. Mahony]: I am exploring several job possibilities right now and would like to know whether I should consider being a priest.” And, “Dear Tommy [Lasorda]: Do you have any openings for a bullpen catcher, base coach, warm-up pitcher or radar gun operator? If so, I would like to apply for the job.”

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Incredibly, scores of employers actually wrote back, but Fred didn’t get hired. This saddens the correspondent. “I Dream of Jeannie” is one of her favorite shows. Skeptics claim that Dave made Fred up, but moments after Dave hangs up, Fred sends her an e-mail!

“Dave said you were wanting to know how I have been since the book came out. Pretty good, I guess,” Fred writes. “I still got a roof over my head and a La-Z-Boy under my butt, and there is a lot to be said for that, for sure.

“No job though. Not that I haven’t tried. My last application was to a Major Paint Manufacturer. I applied for the job of Paint Namer. You know how when you go into the paint store, the paints are never called red or blue? They are always Cinnamon Sunset or Topaz Thursday. Names that make no sense to the average guy who just wants to repaint his mudroom. Hell, I even sent them some sample ideas for free. Like instead of calling it Chestnut Brown, you could call it Dog Stain on Shag Carpet. I am still waiting to hear from them.”

The letter mourns the demise of the American Dream in these strange times, and the correspondent ponders the fickle machinery of economics, so equally buffeted by imagination and reality. “If you know anybody at the Dodgers, maybe you can talk to them for me,” the correspondent’s favorite non-workin’ non-man hopefully signs off. Will do, Fred. Merry Labor Day.

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com