I put the four dollars in my coat pocket and drove back to the hospital parking lot.

By eleven o’clock Wednesday night, the air inside Patty’s Truck Stop Diner smelled of fried catfish and floor bleach.

My legs felt as heavy as wet sand after eight hours at the billing desk and four hours carrying dinner trays.

I lifted a heavy wooden tray loaded with six thick ceramic coffee mugs and four glasses of iced tea off the pass-through counter.

My right work shoe caught on the raised rubber edge of the floor mat by the commercial ice machine.