Aside from gravity and how good it feels to put a Q-tip too far into your ear, nothing quite unites mankind like the fact that at one time or another, just about all of us have had a lousy job. I don’t know, maybe you still have that lousy job. There are many days, and this one is no exception, when I feel I made a serious vocational error. Of course, it’s not as bad as the singing telegram job I had while I was in college.
The company was called Bananagrams Singing Telegrams. The signature costume was, you guessed it, a banana. I spent more than a year driving around various parts of Tucson, Arizona, dressed as a banana, a mermaid, a monkey, and a chicken. I was running behind one late afternoon when I got to the singing telegram business and was quickly thrown into a frog costume. The costume was a skin-tight number which required you have only the bare essentials under the garment. The foam head of the costume was massive but the eyeholes were positioned perfectly for me to see to drive my pickup. What I hadn’t considered was how I was going to drive the vehicle with webbed hands and feet. Only a twenty-something would bypass such particulars.
As soon the manager of the company helped me into the frog costume, she left. I was alone outside a strip-mall trying to master the art of shoving a dozen helium-filled balloons into the cab of my truck. I had the colorful balloon bouquet positioned just so in the seat, had managed to weigh them down with my purse, and was holding them out of the way so I could close the door when I realized the keys to the vehicle were lying on the dashboard. I stuck my webbed hand in the door but it was too late. The locked door closed on the webbed hand and I couldn’t get it out. No amount of tugging at the web would dislodge it. The skin-tight suit zipped in the back and stopped in the middle of the giant foam head. I couldn’t reach it and, even if I could, I had only the bare essentials on underneath so…
After wrestling for more than fifteen minutes to free the arm of the frog costume from the door, I decided to try and flag down a passerby. I started waving at cars speeding along the thoroughfare, but they thought I was an advertisement and honked and waved back at me as they continued on their way. At long last, a family stopped to see what was going on. Their little dog went crazy at the sight of a giant frog, but they did manage to help get me free.
My grandfather always used to say, “Chris,” and about five minutes later, I’d say, “Yes, Grandpa?” And then he’d say, “Chris, always do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Of course, my grandfather worked at an ammunition packing plant and he was extremely sarcastic, but it’s a cute story.
One of the best jobs I had in my life was working at the Old Tucson Movie Studio. I started out as a saloon girl and graduated to stunt person. If I wasn’t on the south side of sixty and had the patience now to deal with rage inducing park guests, I’d want to give it another try. I should just stick with writing and hope for a better tomorrow.
