Stick it In

When I was in high school, I learned how to handle a wiener.  It’s not what you’re thinking, nasty.  Well it is, but that’s a story for another blog. 

As a teenager with no useful skills, I landed a summer job at the now defunct NoCal theme park, Marine World Africa, U.S.A.  It was like a zoo, an aquarium and a water park had a drunken three-way and ended up with a baby that smelled like saltwater and hay.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to train dolphins or run elephant rides.  I worked in “Private Picnics,” which is a fancy title for “You’re a Kid Earning Minimum Wage for Three Months so We Can Make You Wear Brown and Orange Polyester and do Whatever Crappy Food Service Job we Tell You to Do Each Day.”  The main gig was to stand on a buffet line and dish out barbecue food in the sun at company picnics, but if it was a slow picnic day, we’d get loaned to other concessions at the park.  Bitchin’! Cross-training indoors at the “Giraffeteria” or the “Whale-of-a-Hot Dog Hut,” or whatever the hell those greasy places were called. 

On several occasions, I was deployed to the hut that served such authentic African fare as corn dogs and Cokes.  Being too inexperienced to run the cash register and too young to work the fryer, I was assigned to corn dog sticking.  For six or so hours, I would stand and perform the following maneuvers:

1. Pull slimy, semi-frozen wiener from cardboard box
2. Position bottom end of dog into spring-loaded, plastic cup-like device
3. Load sharpened wooden stick into lower end of spring-loaded device
4. Grasp slippery wiener in right hand (a skill at which, as a teenage boy, I was quite good)
5. Slam dog down onto wooden stick
6. Transfer stuck wiener to bin to await frying
7. Repeat

Now, whenever I have dirty, mind-numbing repetitive work to do – and let’s face it, most work is – I always tell myself, “At least it’s better than sticking corn dogs.” 

Tell me in comments about your corn dog-sticking job(s).