In my thirty-one years of life on this planet I have managed to obtain fifty-eight jobs. I think it's been that many, there could be more. I'm going to start at the first one and make my way every week through the list. I hope you find it humorous and, at the very least, interesting.
In order to explain the first job, I must first tell the story of the best friend I had growing up, Jamie. Jamie was about two years older than me and lived across the street from my family in Lake Orion, MI. She was a female, adolescent version of Dr. Dolittle. I swear the girl could talk to animals. This girl had a zoo in her house. There were dogs of all kinds; Great Danes, Terriers, Cockapoos, Cockalazapoos, you name it. She had cats and fish, turtles, snakes, flying squirrels, chinchillas, rats, mice and gerbils. There were over forty birds in her house, including a white Cockatoo named Snow that could scream her name exactly like her mother did so we often thought we were getting in trouble when, in fact, no one was home to catch us doing what ever it was we surely should not have been doing. Jamie grew butterflies in her bedroom and let them fly around in it, she introduced me to Sea Monkeys and Tent Worms. One time during a thunderstorm we were in her bedroom and a blue Parakeet that must have escaped from another house in the neighborhood crashed into her bedroom window. Jamie went outside and rescued it and kept it for many years. I suppose the bird had heard through the grapevine about the house with all the animals and the girl who could talk to them because how else could it have ended up there? Maybe the Parakeet had gotten news of the Seagull with the broken wing that Jamie took in. Her mother was an RN and helped Jamie amputate the wing that was broken beyond repair and they kept that Seagull for many years too, until it died from old age. Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up.
This brings me to my first job. I was twelve, almost thirteen, when I started this job. Jamie had been training hunting dogs with this lady that she knew from the riding stables where she kept her horse. (She had one of those too.) She asked me if I would be interested in doing it too because the lady, Diane, needed more help. I jumped at the chance to have a job because it was such an adult thing to do. I imagined being able to tell my friends that I could not play their childish games today because I had to go to work. I also imagined all of the Gobstoppers, Cheetos, and Jolt Colas I'd be able to buy from the nearby party store with my new wealth. It was going to be great.
My first day on the job was cake. I was training to train dogs. All I had to do was stand in a field and watch Jamie throw rubber "buoys" as far as she could into the tall grass. After Jamie had thrown the buoy, Diane would release the dog to go and find it. The best part was the eight dollars an hour cash that was handed over to me when the six hour day of work was finished. Not bad for a twelve year old.
The next day I went back and it was my turn to throw the buoys. Simple as pie. I had a pretty good throwing arm and it was fun. Working was awesome, I didn't understand why grown ups complained about their jobs so much. After working for six hours, I went home with cash again and was so excited about my job. I was going to be rich!
Then came the third day of my dog training career. It never occurred to my twelve year old self that hunting dogs didn't typically, and when I sat typically I mean ever, hunt rubber buoys. Any guesses on what they do hunt? Keep reading.
I got to the field bright and shining early and found that the usual cardboard boxes that housed the rubber buoys had been replaced with larger, wooden crates. Of course, it didn't occur to my twelve year old self that anything might be awry. I still didn't get the hint when I was handed rubber gloves to put on. It was only when the lid was removed from one of the large wooden crates that I fully understood what my job description was and what it was not. It was not going to be the rubber buoy tossing, Cheeto eating, Jolt Cola drinking, career that would make me the envy of all my middle school friends at all. When the lid came off of the crate that day, I stared into rotting, stinking, maggot covered truth of what my new job title was. Dead Duck Thrower.
You know when I was a kid we threw dead squirrels. That's right, squirrels, because we lived inland away from society so we only had squirrels near us. And when it snowed 10 feet we still had to walk to school, while it was raining, no roads, and on our knees because we didn't have ankles, and we liked it that way and never complained.
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