A Typical Workday at Chuck E Cheese

February 19, 2010 in Jobsmoker, Wordsmoker Short Fiction

My current job is at Chuck E Cheese, wearing the six foot rat costume. The inside of the costume smells horrid, since one time for maybe 3 days Management stored a dead body in it.

Not that I complain.

You know I have that hobby of sniffing gasoline. I keep a plastic baggie of gasoline wadded up in the “nose” of the rat costume, so that’s all I ever smell. That keeps me sharp for work. Sharp and angry.

I tend to lurch after the kids barking gibberish out of that rat head, so there’s usually a mob of terrified children fleeing from me. Really. When I’m at work it’s like a prison riot at knee level. Waves of kids slamming into my legs, wailing and scrambling bug eyed for the exits. Which is cool with Management, they like to keep things edgy.

What was my point?

Right. My new girlfriend made me switch to Marlboro menthols because that’s the only thing I can steal out of her purse. So I’m smoking inside the rat costume as per usual, when strangely enough the menthol cigarette ignites the gasoline fumes inside the rat “head”. A blast of mint flavored flames shoots from the eyes of the mascot. I remain heroically calm. Not so much the children. They were already agitated because I was thrashing through the brightly colored plastic ball pit shrieking that I would drink their blood, and now demonic flames are pouring from Chuck E Cheese’s eyes.

Children are so alarmist.

Image of Chuck E Cheese via blogs.riverfronttimes.com.

Tags: Chuck E Cheese, Demonic Flames, Edgy Fast Food, Smoking Menthols, Sniffing Gasoline

← My Health Insurance Crisis

Golfer Says Sorry →

http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/maelstrom/ Maelstrom

That’s really commendable how calm you remain. Now, do you think you can get some free coupons for my kid? He loves you in ways you can only imagine. Also, do you do private parties?
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/strawberry-shortcake/ Strawberry Shortcake

I never went to any of these type places as a child. We also never went to Disney. I never really wanted to. I thank my parents know for my, sometimes overly, active imagination. But hearing people tell of them is horrifying! Thanks for this glimpse behind the front lines in the battle.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/sarcastro/ Sarcastro

Bravo. I wish the world were more like this. You really only get this sort of behavior from carnies these days.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/strawberry-shortcake/ Strawberry Shortcake

Sarcastro- Carnies helped Dorothy get home, they have been know to rebuild damaged economies and all with out dental coverage. We own them SO much.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/mama-penguino-2-2-2/ Mama Penguino

I’ve been on a cruise with 500 tots a la Disney and I’ve been on a cruise of the Danube with 100 placid seniors (and my mother) and I’ll take Disney any day. Late one evening the senior cruise docked at a small town in Austria and I was first off the ship and literally ran for my life. I ran and ran through that town, up dark, twisted old European streets, until I was exhausted and crying. I slowly walked back to the ship, resigned to the fact that I’d be trapped with the seniors for another couple of days. I guess what I’m sayin’ is that Chuck E Cheese is a fucking zoo, but there are worse things.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/gerbilsinlove/ gerbilsinlove

I’ve been on that Disney Cruise, too, and there is absolutely nothing anyone could do to make me ever return. My son was six, and even he was appalled at the behavior of the other children; he wouldn’t even go to the kids’s club. Port calls were the best part of the trip.

However, the pizza at Chuck E. Cheese doesn’t suck, there’s an AYCE salad bar and drink bar, and if you find a nice booth where you can keep an eye on things, it’s a great place to read a book while your industriuos progeny run around spending your money and collecting tickets, all in the name of turning them in for a couple pieces of plastic crap that get thrown away as soon as you get home. I’ve spent worse afternoons than that.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/mama-penguino-2-2-2/ Mama Penguino

@Gerbs: I’ll never go on that cruise again – don’t get me wrong. I just had a better time on the Disney ship than I did the senior ship. I don’t really remember the other kids being bad – we never did the kids club things – just swam and ate and went to shows and movies. And the pizza at Chuck E Cheese is AWESOME!
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/strawberry-shortcake/ Strawberry Shortcake

Mama-Before my great grandmother died of Alzheimer she was in an assisted living home where she would fold and refold a pile of 5 washcloths all day while watching a slide show 7 pictures of kittens playing. I felt like I was going insane every time I visited!
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/mama-penguino-2-2-2/ Mama Penguino

@SS: Aw, poor thing. And don’t get me wrong – I love old people. I was my grandmother’s caregiver, brushing her teeth, bathing her body, and changing her diapers, for two years. It was this group of snooty seniors on an “intellectual” cruise along the Danube and my mother was a little batshit, too, so she never wanted to leave the room b/c she didn’t want to face the other seniors, so I was trapped in this tiny room with my neurotic mother who hated all the other cruise people and I’m sorry folks, but Germany and Austria aren’t really my cup of tea, but you know, I actually enjoyed Bratislava and Budapest, but that’s another post.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/bjonston/ BJonston

Holy shitballs! This is one of the funniest things I’ve read all year. I was laughing and chuckling all by myself over here for like five minutes. I loved this piece.

Also, Mama P: Frankly, I think it’s a draw between seniors and kids. They both share the same problem–a patently selfish inability to realize that they are not the center of the universe.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/bjonston/ BJonston

Also: More, please. I need more humor in my life and this just tickled my funny bone something awesome. Thank you.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/forwardmotion/ forwardmotion

It’s hard to describe the feeling of jobs like these, but you did an excellent job. I worked in a factory where I spent 8 hours a day punching the center of a non-digital alarm clock(you know, where the arms of the clock poke through the printed paper) out with a sharpened awl, surrounded by crazy people who had spent hours inhaling ink (it was connected to a printer factory) who ALSO had sharpened awls. I lasted a week and thankfully was not stabbed, nor did I stab anyone else. Miribilis dictu!
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/marshmueller/ marshmueller

Now I REALLY know why my parents only took me to Chuck E. Cheese once.

This really made my Friday. I’m so glad you mentioned the colored plastic ball pit; I am relieved it is used for scaring the hell out of children, instead of exclusively as a bathroom for the little monsters.

It also reminded me of when my sister worked as a wildland firefighter–she would have to escort her co-worker dressed as Smokey the Bear, and that poor guy was suffering because their boss was previously in the stanky costume, and had just finished digesting the chili they had for lunch that day. Ew. You don’t have to share your rat costume with anyone, do you?
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/strawberry-shortcake/ Strawberry Shortcake

I have a phobia of those ball pits. I get nervous just thinking it. I truly believe that if i get one I will suffocate.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/rhea-pollstry/ Rhea Pollstry

Wow. That sounds like a really good time.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/misspeacock/ MissPeacock

There is one thing, and one thing alone, that would compel me to go back inside a Showbiz (I refuse to call it Chuck E Cheese, THANK YOU)……and that thing is SKEE-BALL!!!! I could spend hours playing that game.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/misspeacock/ MissPeacock

Ohhhh, I broke the page.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/bjonston/ BJonston

Still laughing.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/voxpopuli/ VoxPopuli

This made me laugh the most delightful, evil laugh. And then I was sad because I was alone when I read it, so no one got to hear that cackle.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/voxpopuli/ VoxPopuli

@MissP: AAAHHHH!!! OK, OK – the lipstick-wearing giant baby can roll his own skee ball just as long as he doesn’t crush my head with that boulder!
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/gerbilsinlove/ gerbilsinlove

Miss Peacock: Skee-ball is the one thing that makes me exit my booth and steal my kid’s tokens. Of course, now he’s 12 and too cool for CEC, but oh, do I miss my Skee-ball. That giant baby, however, would scare me off.
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/perverseus/ perverseus

@Fatty: I now have an insatiable desire for pizza. Well done (the piece, not the pizza).
http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lipsticklibrarian/ LipstickLibrarian

You had me at “mint flavored flames.” (Yeah, I know that phrase doesn’t appear until the latter half of the post, and my comment implies that I didn’t enjoy the bulk of this piece. Honestly, it is truly amusing, but “mint flavored flames” is where you really grabbed me.)

Pea: Oh, Skee-Ball! On our first date, my boyfriend and I went to the arcade on the Santa Monica Pier, where I proceeded to destroy him at Skee-Ball and air hockey. He took his lickings like a man.

Wordsmoker