Last week at that Mentoring Conference I mentioned in an earlier bloggerific entry (It was called Where's My Mentor? if you want to read it. If you do read it, thanks. But, the fact that you would actually take time to find it and then make your way through the blog-oney, means you may need a mentor to help you better use your time and brain-power.) there was a speaker who said that, in the thousands of job interviews he has conducted, he's found that his opening request of the applicant is a good one: "Tell me about your first job." Not the first job out of college or first job in a particular career. But the real FIRST JOB! Mowing lawns. Shoveling walks. Grocery store box boy...or girl. It took me back to my first capitalistic venture. It also got me thinking about job interviews but that's nothing new since my boss here at KMBC leaves e-mails all the time urging me to "Hone your job interviewing skills! You never know when you'll need them!"

My dad was not a big believer in allowances. He felt you did the jobs around the house because you lived in the house and were part of the family and that was that. So, for a kid, that meant you had limited opportunities for income. You could save the $5 you got for your birthday from your grandma or go through the sofa cushions or ransack your older brother's room while he was at school or asleep. (I found many interesting things going through my teenage brother's room. In those days before cable, it was pretty eye-opening.) I did all of those things. But, I also got a job! I had done little announcing things for my dad's radio station at age three but there was no pay for that. He felt it was good experience and much less expensive for him than hiring real professionals. Also, I sounded a little bit like Sylvester The Cat after helium at that age so there was the entertainment value, too. Anyway, when I was about nine years old, I started selling flower and vegetable seeds door-to-door. A wee Willy Loman!

Even at age five, while the other kids were playing cops and robbers or shooting marbles, I would put on a little Bing-Crosby-esque hat, grab my red, cardboard suitcase and ring doorbells, pretending to sell insurance. Yes, it's true. I played "Insurance Salesman" at age five. "Hello, little girl! Is your mother home? Oh, you are the mother. Goodness gracious. My name is Joel Nichols and I represent the Nichols Insurance Company. Would you be interested in buying some?" Remember, I'm five. Now, which is weirder: The fact that I would pretend to be an insurance salesman in the first place or my actually using the phrase "goodness gracious?" Anyway, after all this experience, I was primed, by age 9, to knock on doors, for real.

Just how successful I was is a little hazy. I do remember that you had to sell an awful lot of seed packets just to get to five bucks. Five dollars was a lot of dough for me. Remember, a Saturday matinee was a dollar. Candy was in the 25 cent or less category. We didn't have access to toys except for about two weeks around Christmas when the hardware store would open their downstairs toy aisle. To be quite honest, even now, in my 40s, with four kids and a wife, I'd like to actually see and hold a five dollar bill for longer than a half-day.

The seed company gave us salespeople an option when it came to remuneration. We could take the money or we could use a points system and order out of their "Novelties and Magic Tricks Catalog." I must admit that I took that route fairly often. It just seemed like a foam rubber sandwich or X-ray Specs had to be worth more than the five dollars. I mean, a fake ink-stain "So Real Your Mother Will SCREAM!" was worth every footstep through the neighborhood. The best item I ever earned, though, was Fake Doggie Doo! I used that over and over! At home. At school. In the car. As I've gotten older and had to purchase things like washing machines and automobiles, I've come to truly appreciate the craftsmanship of the Fake Doggie Doo I had back then. The attention to detail was amazing. And, best of all, it really worked. Every time!

I sure hope my boss here at KMBC isn't reading this. It might generate some ideas about how best to appropriately pay me for my so-called work as a weatherman. Just to be safe, I think I'll ask someone else to open my pay envelope this week.