This story begins as all stories from my teenage years seem to: Fell for the wrong boy, ended up wearing a rat costume. Wait, no, that's actually just this story. Easy mistake!
See, I took a job at Chuck E Cheese the summer after my sophomore year of high school because that's where my then-boyfriend worked. This is the ridiculousness of first love, am I right? I'd be willing to wager all my love for all the bad tv shows on the planet that I am married to exactly who I'm supposed to be married to and I find him to be just the best and would step in front of a train for him and BLAH BLAH BLAH YOU GET IT, HE IS AWESOME, but if he turned to me and said, "Baby, will you work at Chuck E Cheese alongside me, so we can spend that much more time together and so maybe you can even cover a shift or two for me so I can hang out with my going-nowhere friends?" I would probably pat him on the shoulder and say, "Oh, love, fuck off."
Not 16-year-old Jennie, oh no. She said, "THAT IS THE BEST IDEA EVER."
(It was not the best idea ever.)
The thing about Chuck E Cheese (at least late-90s Chuck E Cheese) is that they treated their employees like waitresses. And by treated, I mean paid. I started at $2.10. AN HOUR. I was paid less than $20 a shift. I got tips when I was an exceptionally awesome party host, which was a high percentage of the time when I was a party host. Unfortunately, I was only a party host about twice a week.
So.
That math.
It cuts.
Let's forget about how pathetically I was paid for a quick sec and instead talk about how my 24-year-old boss may have possibly inappropriately hit on me. (Often.)
I know, that's a fun subject turn!
I'm going to tread lightly here because no matter how creepy this man was (and he was), he has still probably heard of Google, and here is what my internet math looks like: heard of Google + one unfortunately specific search = THIS BLOG IS NOT JUST FOR LAUGHS ANYMORE. So, I'll just share this tidbit with you, instead, this conversation that actually happened:
Me: I think I wanna go to New York after high-school. To dance. Professionally.
Him, leering: You could totally be a professional dancer.
(I meant ballet. I am fairly sure he did not mean ballet.)
Another spectacularly awesome part of this job was the early Saturday morning birthday parties. Hey, moms everywhere, if you want to throw a Chuck E Cheese birthday party but you don't want it to SUCK OUT YOUR SOUL FROM YOUR BODY, throw it first thing in the morning. Empty! Crickets! No one wanted to open on Saturdays because that meant there would only be one or two parties and that meant you'd most likely have to dance alone in front of those parties. (Saturday night meant you never had to dance alone, and I think I just named my next blog.) Yes, you had to dance for the parties you hosted, and there was even a choreographed routine. With arm movements. When no one else was there to dance with you, you were just....dancing in front of them.
Alone.
That's not weird at all!
I worked with a lot of idiots. I know, that's not very kind of me to say, but it is oh-so-painfully true. I worked with my boyfriend, yes, but we also worked with another couple, another pair of high-school sweethearts who were perfectly fine independently. Together they were....concerning.
Their song was "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain, which isn't weird BY ITSELF, that was a super popular song for the time, but they would sing it to each other WHENEVER THEY'D WALK PAST EACH OTHER. They worked together, so you can imagine they passed each other fairly often.
"Hey, can you help me clean up table...YOUR CRYING SHOULDER...six? There was a big spill."
Or, "I think I'm closing Thursday and Friday, so I could probably just cover your shift....WITH THE TRAPPINGS OF LOVE...."
It was a weird work environment.
(Although, hilariously, I was just neurotic enough to pick fights with my boyfriend about how he never sang to me when we passed each other at work. "ARE YOU NOT THE GREATEST FAN OF MY LIFE OR SOMETHING?")
There was also the time we found the joint under a table, during closing. We were STUNNED and APPALLED and SHOCKED that a MOM could possibly bring her KIDS to Chuck E Cheese and irresponsibly get HIGH while watching them. I remember shaking my head for a good half hour, what has this world COME TO, I thought.
When I recently remembered that story, I had a strangely different reaction: Shit, you do what you gotta do, you know?
In February, Kyle was invited to two birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese, and I took him to both. He really wanted to go, and it's hard for me to say no when he gets that excited about anything. I am so damn doomed when he's old enough to ride a motorcycle, aren't I? Anyway, it was kind of a weird full-circle moment to be there.
I used to pity the moms I served, with their screaming kids and cold pizza. Sure, I was awkwardly dancing alone in front of them, but I got to take my $20 and blow it on cheap booze or McDonald's with my stupid boyfriend who I thought hung the moon. I was living the life, back then.
When I was there last month at one of the parties, we had a super sweet waitress who was all enthusiasm and teenage hormones, and as she ran around serving all our screaming kids, she had that look in her eye, that "I can't wait to get to the cheap booze and stupid boyfriend portion of this day" look, and I smiled at her, genuinely, and said, "It gets better. Trust me, it gets so much better."
She looked at me like I was crazy, and she was right. I am pretty crazy. (You know this.) But I'm also confident that in fifteen years she's going to look back and realize I was right too.
Next time I'll tell you about the time there were snakes in the ball pit.