Hustle & Slow: Nacho Ordinary Job

Kid And Play:

Until last weekend, I was in love with every aspect of working at Galaxy 9 Theaters. I enjoyed cleaning spilled nachos off the carpet, holding dance battles between my coworkers, poring ice in urinals, smiling big, and giving a thumbs up to everyone who deserved one. But Friday was the day I had been dreading for three weeks: the day that I would begin working concessions. Concessions is definitely the busiest job, and creates the greatest number of opportunities for customers to become frustrated and act out in a rude and abrasive manner. Friday rolls around and I find myself thrust into my dreaded job on or busiest evening. So I did what any kid would do, make the most out of what you have by treating the whole situation as a big game. Along with having to learn how to do my job, I tried to sell particular food items that people didn’t want to buy. “Hey, I know you only want a small drink and small popcorn… but if you get our ‘Batman Combo,’ you can get a large popcorn and a large drink in this super sweet Batman cup! So can I interest you in this cup and combo?” In addition to playing games involving customers, I would play games with myself. Working concessions in extremely intense and fast-paced, but only in spurts. We will have an hour rush, followed by two hours on nothing. This is the time when we restock and prepare for the next rush. But there’s only so much preparation that can be done, which never takes two hours. So once the important and immediate things our done, I have two main games that I like to play. One, I try to clean the same spot of the counter as many times as I can before someone realizes that I’ve cleaned the same spot more than 15 times in one hour. While cleaning, I often look for fascinating people. My town is a breeding ground for people who make me smile and question everything I think reality is. Mullets, on both adults and kids, are a common sight. A recent trend has been temporary tattoos. Women of all backgrounds and styles, throughout the past week, have been sporting fake tattoos… which I’m fascinated by. The most fascinating moment of last weekend came from an unlikely person. As I was handing someone their 84 oz soda, I looked up to see a 30-something aged woman playing a shot’em up arcade game. Here’s a woman who looks like she has just stepped out of an Anne Taylor catalogue holding a gun and blowing away zombies. It was such an odd sight—I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.


Small Body, Large Coke:

I would have to say that he cutest thing that I’ve seen in the past month came from a very small body. As I was tearing customer’s tickets, I looked down to a mini Dakota Fanning holding the biggest drink we sell (to give you an idea of how skinny she was, hold together your pointer and middle fingers—that’s about the width of her forearm). She had her arms around the coke as if she was hugging it (but it was more like she was holding onto it with all her strength). It was such a cute sight to see a 3 year-old girl holding onto a cup almost as long as her torso (and nearly as wide).


Not So Late Registration:

I was in Wal-Mart on Monday and I saw a sign advertising Kanye West’s new CD. According to the sign, the CD came out on July 12. I felt a mixture of excitement and disappointment. I was pysched to pick up the album, but frustrated that I hadn’t purchased it two weeks earlier. I was surprised to hear from an employee: “Sorry dude, we are completely sold-out of it...” So next, I went to Target, only find that there wasn’t even an empty space where the album once was. On top of that, the “CD Guy” hadn’t ever heard of Kanye West. Why is it that guys who should be working in comic book shops, work in the music section of popular stores? I kept thinking to myself: This CD is a big deal!!! Why are there two shelves of Bow Wow CDs and no one seems to know anything about “Late Registration.” Long story short, I got impatient and decided to by the album on Amazon. It turns out that the CD doesn’t come out until August 30! Apparently, the Wal-Mart employee who told me that the album was sold out, also works in the model airplane section and was high on glue at the time I talked to him.