"And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare. The shutters lifted in inch and temperance building high on poacher's hill. And red mutant eyes gazed down on hunger city. No more big wheels. Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats and 10,000 people-oids split into small tribes. Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of love-me avenue. Ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver frocks. Now legwarmers. Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald ...
any day now ...
The year of the diamond dogs."
Oh the glass fronts of love-me avenue. That takes me back ...
When I was about 16 and a half, I was a little stressed out because I didn't have a job. I hadn't worked since abandoning my cushy job at the Omaha World Herald. I knew plenty of people who had carried papers well into their late teens, but I just couldn't stomach the idea. I knew people who were working at gas stations. I even knew a couple of guys who said they knew some people who had landed what was considered to be the ultimate job back then. A post at Baker's grocery store.
The rumor was it was a 2 year waiting list to even get an interview at Baker's. But if somehow you should get hired on, it was easy street, baby.
I actually put in an application at Baker's. I went to Customer Service and asked the girl for an application. She looked down at me (at least that's what I believed). I mean, she was already "in".
Bitch.
Anyways, I applied at a couple dozen places where I really thought it would be cool to work. After hearing absolutely nothing from any of them, I started applying everywhere else.
Wendy's called me. Not too bad, I thought. Wendy's was just about 4 blocks from my house. Unfortunately, they needed me at the Wendy's on 72nd (3.5 miles from my house).
Looking back on it, I did not interview well.
I was asked questions about being able to handle school and work. My basic strategy was to say that I never did any school work. I always blew it off, so I'd have plenty of time for Wendy's.
The person interviewing me was named "Beth."
It is my sincere hope that nobody who knows Beth (or knew her) reads this, because it is about the most embarrassing thing I've ever written (if you know Beth).
During the interview, I thought she was kind of cute.
Looking back, it must have been her greasy position of authority.
I don't know, but it was probably my charm that got me the sweet minimum wage ($3.35) gig at Wendy's.
Back then, I thought I was going to be a famous comedian. After a few months at Wendy's I hated Beth so much that I vowed to look her up some day and fire her.
I honestly don't know what I had against her. If I think back, it is possibly because she was such a fucking relentlessly cruel bitch. But that isn't even close to justifying how much I hated her.
Anyway, we had this thing we did at Wendy's.
Usually, if an order was held up, it was because the grill man was "burnt."
If you were running the grill and you ran out of cooked meat, they called it "burnt"
Wendy's burgers always came straight from the grill after somebody ordered it. We kept several rows of burgers at various stages of cooked-ness all day long. Too many patties and the meat would dry out and become "chili meat." Too few and the customers were tapping their foot, arms crossed, face grimaced, etc.
If you were "burnt" or close to burnt, the sandwich maker would be waiting for you. All the toppings (except mustard) would be on the bun. The mustard was applied to the top of the patty after it was placed on the bun.
Why am I bringing all of this up? Because I need to explain that when the sandwich maker was waiting on the "burnt" grillman, it was customary to sing to the grill man, "Any day now."
One time, I was sandwich maker while my brother was burnt on grill. Thing is, I was a huge Bowie fan. No way I was singing some lame-ass Carpenters song or whatever it was.
But tradition dictated I sing, "Any day now."
So I started in with the little poem at the top of this page. Steve was pretty burnt. I had the whole thing memorized.
"And in the death ..." I started.
Steve was not much of a Bowie fan, but he knew the song. The recognition made him smile. He listened with what I'd like to think is awe as I recited the entire verse, finishing up with "any day now - the year of the diamond dogs! This ain't rock 'n roll! THIS IS GENOCIDE!!!"
"That was excellent," he said as he delivered the single cheese to the waiting bun. I slapped the mustard on, wrapped it up and sent it out.
Then I turned to Sue Winslow, the hottie who worked the front register, and sang in my best Bowie voice, "As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent, you asked for the latest party ..."
I totally did not have game. At all.
Full disclosure: As I started this post, I put on "Diamond Dogs" by David Bowie. I've been singing along the whole time. I pretty much remember all the words, which kind of impresses me. Probably still not Sue Winslow though.
and sc*ne
*eeeeeeeeeeee
4 comments:
I worked at Baker's in high school and during summers through college. It was pretty much as great as everyone told you. I'm pretty sure my dad got me the job since he worked there at the time. The hiring may have been nepotism, but my moving off the front end to frozen and then to dairy was all me, baby! Slinging crates of milk around in a cooler is pretty much the best job you can have. Rotating the stock of yogurt, however, is the worst, so I think it all came out a wash.
I'm sure Wendys was cool too. ;)
Ok, that's funny. It's nice to know I really did miss out. No, Wendy's was not cool, too - but thanks for trying. It was the worst job I ever had.*
When I read about how the Romans used to apply oil to their skin and scrape it off as a means of bathing, I'm reminded of the way my skin felt for the 3 years I worked at Wendy's.
*So far.
If it helps at all, Baker's went from being a really good place for a young person to work (though I don't think I fully appreciated it then) to pretty sub-standard when they were bought out by Kroger. I'm sure Wendy's has been much more consistent in it's misery. ;)
Cube, I'm not sure I know what this has to do with David Bowie, but when the Lets Dance album was topping the charts I was working as the number one keg man at Dirty Johns grocery in Iowa City. Johns grocery was known as "Dirty Johns" because as I was told John Alberhasky was the first retailer in Iowa City to sell playboy. Anyway Johns is a small corner store that is only a few blocks from campus, they have two isles of assorted groceries but they make their money on selling alcohol and lots of it. In fact at the time DJ's was the third largest retailer of alcohol in the state of Iowa. When most grocery stores were selling your normal selection such as Budweiser or Miller Lite DJ's had every import you could imagine and on the weekend night DJs would sell a lot of kegs and when I say a lot I mean a lot. On a football weekend we'd easily carry out a hundred kegs. I wasn't paid much in fact probably not much more than minimum wage, but unbeknown to the owners had a "employee benefit program" that made it all worth it. (I was rarely tipped either)
Because all of the kegs and taps had to have return deposits I had the address of every keg that went out the door, as it turned out this was the type of information cash strapped college kids were willing to pay for. The value proposition went like this, pay me $5 and I give you the address of a party that was sure to have free beer, pay me $10 and you get the address of a multi keg party, and for $20 you get the address of a party where the kegs were purchased by one or more hot coeds.
There were other benefits as well such as import beer tastings, free smokes but I'm not sure of the statue of limitations in the state of Iowa and I don't want to snitch on the Dirty Johns alumni I worked with at the time.
Oh I also helped promote a Charlie Burton show that year, but that's a different story.
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