Page 48 - To Family with Love

me. The more things there were to fix in the neighborhood, the more work we had, ergo we earned more, and that’s how my old man taught me to earn and appreciate money.
Here’s the story of how I came to know the value of money.
We were repairing some door with a faulty lock and, giv- en some complications that are an integral part of every job, it dragged on indefinitely. We worked all day like dogs, and my old man needed me so much that he called for my help a mil- lion times. In the end – even though the owner started losing his temper, wondering why I wasn’t faster, for it probably seemed to him that the job would never be finished – we still managed to get everything done properly and on time. And then the best part – the time to collect our earnings. When my old man said two hundred kunas, I felt dizzy, but the owner, so eager to finally get rid of us, paid him that fortune without blinking an eye, shook hands with both of us and asked if he could recommend us to oth- ers if a similar problem happens to them, but to me it all seemed far more like mockery than a compliment, especially in the end, when he added:
− Please, artisan, don’t forget to pay your diligent appren- tice!
− Sure, sir, he’ll get his half.
− Wait, dad, according to Pythagoras, that’d be one hundred kunas straight!?!
− Exactly. And not only that, but since we’ve been working all day, the two of us are now going for a pizza.
And pizza is like pure gold to us kids from the neighbor- hood. Especially capricciosa. The large one even more so. Don’t even get me started on capricciosa with extra olives. We each chomped down a large capricciosa with extra olives. I washed mine down with some Fanta juice, while my old man washed his down with some beer, and then asked me if I wanted more. Of
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