bring the banshee her hot dog.
hitting people is bad. i don't do that, unless they hit me first.
cancer is bad. let's help people not have that anymore.
killing people is bad. why don't governments believe that?
not letting a kid say something even if you don't believe in it is bad. let people say stuff.
thinking another person is different is ok. thinking another person is below you because they're different is bad. i don't do that either, even if they do it first.
that's easy right?
now, i'm all aware. i'm all uppity and tense about zimbabwe and the death penalty, and it's not because of my new job. it's because i read, and you know, someone gave me a heart when i was little.
i thought back to when i used to do things that didn't really matter to me or anyone else for that matter. because excuse me, but quizno's is not exactly rocket science.
but i remembered back in the day when my mom and i used to volunteer for the make a wish foundation's haunted house in denver. and occasionally, i would have enough fun to forget that it was all for charity and stuff. ok, most of the time, i would forget.
it was on the edge of this mall that we never went to (tamarac square anyone?!)... and my mom and i would drive all the way out there and enter through this white unmarked door in the mall. the staging area was just a bunch of shoddy mirrors in a flourescent lit commercial space.
us and a few of the other regulars would battle passive-agressively for the parts that we wanted.
the first night, when we were newcomers, i got stuck with the banshee. never again.
the banshee had a kickass costume all flowy and creepy and white with purple makeup around the eyes and white teased up hair. i thought it was pretty cool when i was fifteen, anyway. and you had to stand in this little space of like two foot by three foot behind a two way mirror. when people passed by the light flicked on, and you know, you had to be all scary like.
well, the bane of the banshee was that when break time came (hot dogs and sprite), she always got forgotten about. no one would tell the banshee that it was hot dog time. the banshee would sit there for a while, wondering why no one was walking by, bored out of her frikkin mind ... but bored for a good cause. until she looked at her cleverly hidden watch and realized it was halfway through the shift and time for hot dogs.
anyway, over the few years that we did this for the month before halloween, i got to be a filleted baggage handler in the abandoned DIA, a swamp monster, and the much sought after burned princess of the dragon's lair (oh man, i was a good screamer).
and as i was thinking about this last night, trying to toss and turn through my insomnia, i realized that that was probably the most fulfilling and fun job that i've ever had. and i wasn't paid a g.d. cent for it.
i got these great car rides with my mom, free hot dogs and pop, and crazy costumes. not to mention that i got to scare the ever lovin pants off people. and i was good at it.
thanks, mom.
why can't everything be that simple?
