Labor Day Surprise

Why Love's Labour Is Never Lost

I walked into a Menards (a midwest version of Home Depot or Lowes) on Saturday morning while I was in flight from some things, having made a spontaneous run to that store to repair something that probably didn't even need repairing. I was doing what men do when they don't know what to do.

While I was browsing the drywall anchor section, I ran into a handyman who had done some minor work on our home the past couple of years. He had been referred to me by an electrician to patch some drywall in our basement a couple of summers ago. We had exchanged two texts since then.

I asked him how he was doing. After an uncomfortable period of silence, he confided in me: it wasn't going well. “To be honest with you, this summer has been a struggle,” he said. He finished work on a construction job back in June, and he had been out of work for weeks. Then he lowered his gaze to the ground. He told me that he had been wandering around Menards all morning, hoping to find some work. “When I have found my…