Ahh, it’s Memories Monday again. Today, Rosemary Clement-Moore is going to share with us a memory she has that will probably have you cringing, and stifling a laugh. So sorry, Rosemary. I’m soooo sorry. At least that time is over now!
My job in high school was working for Chuck E. Cheese. The pizza place. Where a Kid can be a Kid. Unless you’re a high school kid, trying to earn money to put gas in your car.
First I was on pizza making duty. That wasn’t actually so bad, as long as you were on the assembly line. I wasn’t so great working the oven. Let’s just say, wielding those paddle things takes a leverage that I found it hard to manage. For one thing, I’m petite, and the actual conveyor belt where the pizzas come out of the oven was about head high. It wasn’t so hard holding the paddle over my head like a lance and sliding it under the pizza. But bringing it down and around without tipping the pizza off onto the floor? More of a challenge.
So they moved me to the costume character department. That’s right. I was Chuck E. Cheese. Frankly, assembling pizzas was a better gig.
You’ve been to Chuck E. Cheese, right? Well, even if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen its clone on TV or in movies. Or, you know, if you’ve made a Dante-esque journey through the outer circles of hell. It’s auditory torture, full of bells, whistles, screaming kids, running around… Oh, the humanity.
Now imagine being in the middle of that dressed as a giant rat, with this big head with this little bitty space for you to look through. It was hot and smelly, and the kids would always run up and give you a bit, sloppy hug and wipe their pizza and snot covered faces all over you. The best, of course, is when one of the taller ones realized Chucky E. is a girl. And then proceeds to feel you up.
To top it off, our animatronic musical character was “The King,” a lion who sang Elvis songs. Only he was broken, so the only song he sang was “Viva Las Vegas.”
Bright lights shining in the *mumble mumble*
Gonna SET my SOUL on FI-er
Now I can never hear that song without having flashbacks to anchovy smell, oven burns, sweat stains and getting groped by eight year olds.
The horror.
…
The horror.
Thank you for sharing, Rosemary! I think I laughed so hard I cried–seriously. My fave job was as a waitress at a Chinese Buffet. Yeah, you read that right. I was–you know–that girl who brought you the tea then never came back. Yeah–I understand you about the anchovies, except for me, it’s that smell of soy sauce and heat lamps…though no 8 year olds ever felt me up…
It was the endless singing of the same Elvis song that really made it special. And the noise. OMG. To this day I still hate anything resembling an arcade.