When I was a Hollywood Movie Star!

I had a job one time at American Multiplex Cinemas. As you drove into the huge parking lot, a gigantic neon lit building came into view. It didn't look like a movie theater, rather, it looked like a movie studio. It had 16 screens. When they advertise in the newspaper for employees, they say, "Start your movie career at the AMC." So it is no accident that it looks like a movie studio.

When I showed up for training, there were a bunch of pimply faced teenagers there. One kid was a gang banger with a dew cap and pants with the crotch down to the knees. He went through the whole training which lasted about three days dressed this way and was not told to change his "look" until his first night on the job. The pants magically became higher up to the crotch, and the dew cap disappeared. This kid used to talk about all of the girls in his life. He had his wifey and his girlies. The "wifey" was the one he was really serious about and the others were purely for fun.

When I showed up for my first night of work, I was trained on the popcorn machine. It was a dangerous contraption that could easily burn the arms of the operator. It was then that I knew that the job wouldn't be for me. And talk about clogged arteries! You had to use a blow dryer to melt the oil in the hose coming from the source into the popper to get it flowing.

Cleaning the theaters between shows was a half hearted business. The person who was training me showed me how she did the job by running down the aisles with a broom sweeping popcorn and other debris underneath the seats. I don't know who did the actual cleaning of the theater, but all I know is, it didn't happen on my shift.

The coup de gras came when I wanted to take off a scheduled shift. You had to "telemarket" for a replacement. They gave the employees a complete employee list that included the names of people who no longer worked for the AMC. You had to call people on the list until you found someone who would be willing to take on your shift. When I did this, I found no one who was willing to come in for me. After I left this job, a few months later, some poor young kid called me to find out if I would come in for him. I had to tell him that I was long gone from the job.

The last job they had me doing gave me agoraphobia (fear of wide open spaces). I was by myself taking tickets in the huge open area connecting to all of the theaters. Talk about not getting respect! Most of the customers were single people out on a hot date. They treated the ticket takers with scorn. My shift didn't end until 1:00 in the morning it was then that I decided to take the next shift off and tried to telemarket for a replacement. As I sat down at the phone with the employee list, I had no idea that I would go through the whole list and not find a single person willing to fill in for me.

So that was the end of my "movie career!" I still love pulling up to the Hollywood like building and especially enjoyed taking my mother and mother and law out to the attached restaurant. A funny event happened when Betty, my mother in law found her steak gristly. She didn't want to complain and dealt with the situation as delicately as she could. She hid the gristle under the edge of her plate without telling Virginia or me. When she excused herself to use the restroom, the obviously gay waiter came over and asked if she would like the rest of her steak wrapped up to go. When he picked up her plate, there was a neat little circle of gristle all around. Betty was caught red handed in her ploy to discreetly dispose of the unwanted portion of her meal.

Cut 'em Off at the Pass

Virginia and I had a marathon day at the hospital today all about weight loss surgery. Virginia had a very friendly conversation with a gigantic elderly woman with a blue bouffont hairdo who was waiting in the doctor's office for two hours previous to us. Waiting around can bring out a person's competetive streak as we found out when it was time for a blood draw.

We were in a race down the hall to the elevator to head for the phlebotomy department. We didn't realize it was a race until we got to the elevator door. The woman was calling out for us to hold the elevator door. When we all piled into the elevator, the race was on. The woman positioned herself right next to the door which was not hard to do since she was the last one on board. She was all red in the face and huffing and puffing from her condor like flight down the hall.

As soon as the elevator door opened three floors down, "Two Ton Tammy" ran out of the elevator to beat it down the hall and around the corner for phlebotomy before any of the rest of us stepped out of the elevator. Her plan was foiled, however, as she raced down the hall and right past the phlebotomy room. As it turned out, she was the last person to make it in for her blood draw. It was not her day. The poor thing had to wait around into the evening for someone to come pick her up. When we left the hospital, she was just coming out of the coffee shop and told us of her predicament.

Perhaps there is poetic justice in this world.