Top 5 Reasons to be a Mortician

1) Free makeup

2) You'll lose weight because you're never hungry for lunch

3) You never have a client complain (that's a cadaver joke folks)


4) No one's life is at stake

5) You never have to take your work home with you (yep, another cadaver joke)

Jobs we never admit to

Thinking back on all the jobs I've had, I start to wonder: What was I thinking? As you know if you've read my blog, I was Chuck E Cheese for a while. I remember actually thinking as I applied how cool it would be to wear around that huge rat costume. Truth be told, it was terrible. It was so hot - you're covered by layers of padded fur and you have to dance every hour. The mini fan in the head of Chuck E doesn't come close to cooling you down. I used to sweat so much, my glasses would slide off my face inside the Chuck E head. Plus, you've got kids pulling a tugging on you wanting constant attention. I think parents who don't give thier kids enough attention take them to Chuck E Cheese. That way, they can get hugs and have someone hold thier hand as they walk around, while mom and dad sit at the table drinking cheap beer and even worse wine. I guess those help wash down the awful pizza and make parents forget they don't give their kids enough attention. Then kids can win cheesy prizes for playing games and collecting tickets. I don't know what the attraction is, but I'll admit I loved going there as a kid too. But working there was a whole different story. What was I thinking?

Tossing the salad

Well, as some of you know, I used to work at Chuck E Cheese pizza. Although I was only there for 5 months, I gained many stories and life lessons from that awful place....most aren't worth telling, but here's a good one.
When I wasn't "in Chuck E Cheese" as we say in the industry (i.e. dressed up in the costume getting punched by children) I was a host. Basically, I was a personal slave to grouchy parents for 1.5 hours at a time. They would book their special birthday party for Jimmy and invite all his little friends and I would set up the birthday table and serve them greasy pizza and cheap sheet cake. One Friday night was particularly busy with a full dining room of parties so I was rushing around trying to keep up. As I headed pass the salad bar back to the kitchen I had no idea what I was about to walk into. Someone had diligently mopped the tile floor after a major soda spill created by one of the little pipsqueaks but failed to put up that annoying bright yellow sign that says "Caution: Wet Floor" in Spanish. Feeling rushed from the madhouse of customers, I was walking briskly back to the kitchen when I took one step on the wet tile and...well, let's just say my back hit the floor before you could say "advierta el suelo mojado". However, in that brief second in mid-air I managed to reach out towards the salad bar to try and catch myself. Try is the keyword there. Instead of breaking my fall, I managed to wrap one finger around the crouton dish, one finger around the sunflower seed bowl, and one on the bacon bits....you know, those ugly maroon unbreakable dishes they use on salad bars? I'm not sure how it happened, but all the salad toppings beat me to the floor and I landed in all of them. If it wasn't obviously enough that I had fallen, the three unbreakable dishes bounced around on the floor like a set of drums, drawing even more attention to the guy laying in salad toppings. "Attention all employees. Clean up on aisle one, salad bar. Stat."

Near Death Experience for Chuck E Cheese

It's every parents nightmare. They ask their kids what they want to do for their birthday and the "precious little children" opt to go to Chuck E Cheese Pizza. I know how much parents hate it - from personal experience. I use to work there and one of my main duties was hosting birthday parties. I was their personal host for an hour and a half. It was awful. The parents were more than likely grumpy as the realization hit them they would be spending much more than planned for little Jimmy's special day. It's bad enough just to take your kids there and have them yelling and screaming and whining for more tokens. What's even worse is having 20 other peoples' kids there. It never ended. It was one Exedrin headache after another. One of my duties was dressing up in the Chuck E costume and walking around hugging the kids. Ironic isn't it? At furry rat making up for love their parents never gave them. Anyway, that usually wasn't too bad, until some brat came up to me with what I thought was a friendly handshake, only to find out that he secretly mashed his chewing gum into my furry paw. I was also punched in the crotch more times than you can imagine. But, I had passive-aggressive ways to get revenge on the little twerps. Like the time I was walking down the isle, leading a train of about 20 children, marching happily along through the dining room. Unfortunately, Chuck E's shoes are about five times as big as mine and a little trickier to walk in. Consequently, the overly large red shoe caught on a chair and sent me tumbling to the floor. The train of children suddenly came to a screeching halt as Chuck E's head rolled down the isle and his body lay limp next to the tipped-over chair. Their happy little smiling faces instantly became hardened with fear, for Chuck E may have died in their minds at that moment. But, I knew the death of Chuck E would be far too traumatic for these small, virgin eyes. So, I slowly slithered along the floor on my furry belly until I reached my jumbo sized head. As I looked more closely, I realized the horrific fall had broken off the two front teeth from Chuck E's plastic face and cracked the left ear. But these were the least of my concerns - I had to pull through...for the children. I couldn't stop now; I must show them that Chuck E lives! So, I slipped the head back on, stood up quickly, and with my plastic smile and missing teeth, confidently continued my joyous march around the dining room. That's one birthday those children will always remember.