Fall of the House of Usher
During an interview, someone asked me about my first job. I did not tell them that I worked six hours in a famous, yellow-arched house of hamburgers but quit after my first shift.
At the fast-food restaurant, you didn’t walk on the floor; you walked (slid) on six inches of caked-on grease on top of the floor.
I was terrified of French fries – not the actual slivers of potato, but the vat of sizzling oil that was bubbling constantly. There was a crazy part in the back of my brain that wanted to know what would happen if someone stuck a hand in there – not mine (preferably someone awful).
I hated the whole experience and smelled like pickles the entire shift.
The final straw of my one-and-only evening came when my manager asked me to empty the garbage, but right before I walked out the back door, he added, “Make a lot of noise on the way to the dumpster to scare the rats away.”
I handed in my apron and never looked back.
My real first job, which lasted longer than Viagra, was at Cinemette South, a local movie house. I stood in a suit jacket and clip-on tie, ripped movie tickets in half, and said, “Enjoy the movie,” for hours. By the 9 o’clock show, it had become one word: “joyyourmovie.”
You’d be surprised how many people said, “You, too!”
I spent most of my time trying to make the candy girls laugh.
Side note: I would like to apologize for the decade. It was a sexist time when there were no candy boys or usherettes (the female version of usher is also usher, but it makes the sentence confusing).
But I digress, like I do. I looked out the window and saw a man in a red and white checkered shirt about to enter the theater. I said, “A man wearing a Pizza Hut tablecloth is coming in.” When he turned the corner, he entered, and the candy girls laughed.
He said, “What’s so funny?”
I told him I was explaining the movie’s plot and couldn’t tell him until he saw it. Luckily, my shift ended before the movie did.
Once, I was fired from that job for dry heaving, trying to clean up an accident during a Saturday matinee, but I was hired back the next day. They needed someone to cover the Sunday matinee.
While there, a group of ushers dated candy girls, switching partners like they were doing the do-si-do. It was hard to keep track. Marianne was with Ron. Then, Shannon was with Ron. Then, Carolyn was with Ron.
Maybe it was just Ron.
Because it was during our formative teenage years, we would ponder life’s biggest questions, such as, “Butter or no butter?” and, “Would you like to make it a large for 50 cents more?”
They tore down Cinemette South and put up a putt-putt golf course. I’m glad people are still enjoying themselves in the same space.