Most Menial Job I've ever had...

My most menial labor? It was winter here (back in 1983, I believe) and I headed south for Mexico...found a beat up VW camper with a good engine in Phoenix, AZ for 400 bucks (which was my savings) and so went looking for itinerant day labor. Got a job shoveling colored gravel on a large property in Fountain Hills (an upper crust community) working alongside a couple of Mexican laborers. A few days of backbreaking shoveling and the Mexicans quit. I stopped the next morning at a Denny's to get a bite to eat for breakfast, parking lot loaded with Cadillacs and Mercedes, etc...the menu I had to choose from cost double of that of the 'seniors' with fancy cars. That day while shoveling, I noticed a woman drive a pink cadillac out of the garage across the street...then she went back in and pulled a blue cadillac out of the garage. Standing next to them she looked alternately at the cars and her clothing, cars, clothing. Pulled the pink one back into the garage...and then drove off in the one that best went with her outfit. I quit that afternoon.

Crossed the border a few days later, spent two months camping by a hot spring in the mountains of Mexico...playing guitar, writing, drawing. Would go to a village 15 miles distant once a week to get fresh veggies and corn tortillas...to supplement my stores of beans and rice. I soaked in the springs at least 3 times each day. Spent 60 dollars US in as many days, including fuel. Returned to Minnesota with what I had left and built the homestead I now live on.

so, in many ways my most menial labor also became my most rewarding.