There was a time, not long ago. It seemed like only yesterday, and I was looking for some sort of employment. A friend of mine stopped by with a printout of an advertisement for a position that seemed perfect for me. The remuneration seemed good and the qualifications were vague, being along the lines of "candidate should be well-known for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence." I noticed that the bottom edge of the paper had the telltale marks of having been chewed by a rabbit, and assumed that my friend had gotten one too.
He said that he had actually called the number up and posed as me, and that the person informed him that I was hired, with no questions asked of any kind, and that he (I) should stop by at my earliest convenience. He thought this was strange, but that I should maybe go there and check the place out. I certainly thought it was strange as well, but my curiosity was piqued. I decided to go.
I love job interviews, because in the past, if and when I have gotten an interview, I almost always got the job. I wore one of my tried and true black pin-striped suits.
The address turned out to be in a strip mall on Route 46 in Totowa NJ, USA and I was somewhat familiar with the area. I parked my black Lincoln Town Car in front and headed to the strip mall. Outside there was a large crowd of people, and one of them addressed me by name. I didn't know the man, but he seemed decent and so I asked him what was up. He said he knew I was a coin collector and that he had some coins for sale. He showed me 4 medallions (not coins) where the peculiar thing about them was that they all had the same double-eagle design on their reverses as the 2 Crown Austro-Hungarian coin from 1912-1913 even though they were mostly worthless 0.999 Silver medallions worth only their Silver content and I estimated their total weight to be about 100 grams. His offer was 40 USD and I countered that offer with 30 Dollars, which he accepted. Gave him the money and thought nothing more of it.
Went inside, and didn't really know what to make of this store, or whatever it was. It seemed to be a combination of a museum, a store, and a warehouse where there was everything from some canned goods to marble sculptures for sale. An older lady with a clipboard and a feather duster seemed to be taking inventory and so I approached her, stating who I was. Without looking at me she said "oh, you're the new guy here, so just go see my husband, who's the owner of this place, sign the contract, and you can start immediately." Her exact words.
I entered the back room and the owner was a very obese man sitting behind a desk eating a pizza while watching some sport on TV. Never once taking his eyes off the TV or his pizza he seemed to know exactly who I was and told me I was the perfect guy for the job. He gave some indication of having researched my background and experience as well. I asked him what exactly the job was, and he answered in very vague and non-specific terms, which he summed up by concluding that I basically just had to be there 40 hours a week, and that I'd get paid very handsomely. Pulled out 2 pre-filled-out employment contracts from under his pizza and I read through it. Signed both copies and kept one for myself, which I folded and placed inside my jacket pocket, noticing the 4 medallions I had just purchased in the same pocket. He told me that I start immediately, but I got kinda hungry seeing him eat that pizza and asked him if it was OK if I ate first before I started. He said "sure, whenever you want to, but good luck with that."
That last part confused me a little as I walked out the building and as I did so, I noticed there was a restaurant in that same strip mall, a MUSICAL restaurant, whatever that was supposed to mean. I went inside and sat down. The decor was horrible, and even the tables were covered in dirty cardboard instead of tablecloths. After a few minutes, a waitress showed up, and asked me what I'd like to have, but instead of placing a menu on the table, she placed this small plastic children's toy guitar on the table whose condition was as bad as the restaurant's decor. I asked "what's this?" and she said I should just play it. I asked why. She said that based on the melody that I played, they would make a meal specially for me that reflected that melody, so that if I wanted some Italian food, I should play an Italian song, or that if I wanted Chinese food, I should play a Chinese song, and so on. Well, I wanted a hamburger but couldn't remember how the Jimmy Buffet song "Cheeseburger in Paradise" starts out, and hesitated. I told the waitress that this was stupid, and asked if I could just order normally. She called over the cook, and he explained that this was their decades-old tradition that if you wanted to eat anything there you had to play a song. I then realised that I didn't know how to play the guitar, and told them so. He said it didn't matter, all I had to do was just try and make some sounds with it, and they'd be able to deduce what it is I wanted. I told them I just wanted a hamburger, and asked if I could simply just SING the song, which I had by then remembered. "Tryin to amend my carnivorous habits, made it neary seventy days..." I sang. They both stood there and shook their heads and said that that wasn't "good enough." I became aware of the fact that I was the only customer in there and quickly understood why. I told them that I refuse to play the guitar because I can't, and I won't risk playing it the wrong way and then having to sit there for another half hour while they prepare a meal for me that I might not want. I told them that "I ain't playing that" and got up and left.
The crowd of people was still outside and another gentleman asked me what I thought of the coins I had just bought off that other guy. I told him they were actually just medallions but I found them unusual because they had the same double-eagle on them as the Austro-Hungarian 2 Crown from 1912-1913. He said he had thought the same exact thing as I did, and then told me that the man with the coins comes by there every day selling coins because he had inherited them from his father, and that he would always offer them at a fair price. I agreed, and immediately told him about my debacle in that "musical restaurant" and he said I should just go to Wendy's, which was on the same side of the highway, but that to come back around I'd have to go all the way to Willowbrook to make a U-turn, and then another one at McBride Ave. or something like that.
That seemed like a sensible idea so I headed out to my car. As I'm heading to the far side of the parking lot, I'm getting bombarded with sand and rocks coming at me from a catapult set up right next to the highway. I was pissed, and I saw 2 guys operating the catapult and approached them, asking why they were hurling rocks at me. One of them continued to load it with construction rubble and I noticed that it was a yellow Kyocera brand hydraulic catapult. Looked like construction equipment but was (apparently) designed to just hurl rocks. The other man told me that they weren't hurling the rubble at me, but at the strip mall I had just left. I asked them why, and the guy said "because they SUCK!" and I asked him why they suck, to which he responded "because they do!"
At that point I woke up.
The clock said it was 14:30, and I was running late.