I made reference in my post about the duck to needing evidence to back me up when I say I saw a duck. And this reminded me of an incident that occurred when I was a hard-working teenager with a summer job at Six Flags over Mid-America. Unfortunately for me, I have no evidence that what I saw was actually real.
I was sixteen. I had gotten a job at Six Flags outside of St. Louis. To this day, I do not understand why my parents let me do that. I did not have use of a car, and Six Flags is easily a 25-minute drive from where we lived.
But I'm off track here -- I was sixteen and working my first real summer job. Like many teenagers working at amusement parks, I had dreams of working on one of the big rides. Mind you, I didn't like to ride the rides, but I thought operating one and telling people to "please keep your hands inside the car" would be a blast.
I got a job with food service. Yeah. Instead of corralling people through a maze of hot metal railings as they baked in the sun waiting to enjoy fifty-two seconds of torture, I was heating up baked beans in vats you could cook people in and deep-frying chicken in the back of amusement park restaurants only to then haul them down to the "catering area" where the park served the employees of corporations who put out the big bucks to entertain employees and their families with boiled hot dogs and full pans of yellow potato salad.
Working catering was interesting. I definitely have to list it as life experience -- both the job and the people I met. I met my good friend Kevin there. As he pointed out last week on the phone (after a return trip to Six Flags with his girlfriend Kay after many many years of absence), it's strange that the two of us who have such similar backgrounds, and grew up in the same suburb, and went to similar schools, would have to meet at an amusement park 30 minutes outside of St. Louis that employed thousands of teenagers -- and that we met working the catering gig with two other "permanent" catering employees and a manager just a few years our senior.
Kevin and I became fast friends after I taught him that when foiling the side of a chafing dish to protect the sterno flames from the wind, one should not foil all four sides of a chafing dish thus suffocating the sternos. He gave me a ride home that first day -- thus freeing my father from many hours in the car dropping me off at and picking me up from work.
Catering could be really challenging. We had no real facilities at the catering area -- a shed with some running water. We had to cook all the food at restaurants throughout the park and then transport the food to the catering area in "caves" and then move the full pans of steaming food to the buffet tables that we had also set up. Everything had to be washed off site as well. That summer I earned "catering hands" allowing me to pick up said full pans of steaming food with my bare hands and power-walk the 20 feet to a chafing dish with no spillage. The thick skin and calluses from developing catering hands helped to minimize the dish-pan hands I should have had from the many hours of dishes I did that summer. I also learned to expertly tear duct tape with my hands.
Due to the nature of catering gigs, we didn't work regular schedules that summer. Rather, we worked a few hours before a meal, through a meal, and then for several hours after the meal to clean up. Sometimes we worked both a lunch and a dinner in one day serving hundreds of people. A few times we actually catered a breakfast -- I know, gross -- which meant even longer days.
We were earning minimum wage -- or something just over it if we had earned bronze, silver, or gold medal stickers that granted us 5- or 10-cent raises. We were paid overtime, however. To be honest, I don't remember how much money it really was, but I felt like it was a lot. I even got a card at the local grocery store so I could cash my mega paychecks.
We worked very hard and we worked a lot. Depending on how catering gigs were scheduled, we could be working pretty insane weeks. Being a teenager, I also tried to squeeze in a social life. So, I was operating on very little sleep a lot of the time.
Yes, this is all leading up to something.
When he was able to drive, Kevin and I would go to work together. We'd go down to our respective locker rooms and change into our bright red and blue catering uniforms and then meet to walk through security together.
The security booth for employees to enter the park was near a warehouse that held food service inventory (and behind one of the popular water rides -- one of the few kinds of rides I would ever attempt). The men and young men -- yes all of them were male -- who worked at the food warehouse were an odd bunch (again, for another post). I had had just a few encounters with them previous to the particular day that I am slowly but surely leading up to.
This particular day was toward the end of the summer. I remember that because Six Flags used to have "Harvest Days" or some other autumn theme as the summer wound to a close. So Kevin and I were both exhausted having worked way too many hours. It was super St. Louis hot. We were walking through security. When I held up my id to show the security guard who couldn't care less, I spotted the young guys from the food warehouse. They were in front of the warehouse with the huge firefighter-like hoses that are used to wash down the park pavement after the park closes each night.
They were using the big hoses to wash off a cow. A real cow. A perfect cow with black and white spots on it. A cow that could be a cover model for milk cartons or butter packaging. The guys were laughing and enjoying themselves. The cow seemed happy to be getting cool in the summer heat.
I thought it was strange, but I did not say anything about it. Kevin didn't mention it either. We both walked into the park in silence and trudged our way over to the catering area.
Later that day when we took our lunch break, I thought I'd mention the cow. I know the park decorated for Harvest Days, but getting real cows was pretty impressive. So I mentioned the cow to Kevin. Kevin said,
"What are you talking about?"
"The cow the guys at the warehouse were hosing down this morning."
"Katie, what are you talking about? There was no cow."
"Quit messing with me, Kevin. I'm talking about the black and white cow that the warehouse guys were washing."
"There was no cow. Why would there be a real cow? The warehouse guys weren't even out this morning."
The more we debated it, the more I realized that there was no freaking way I saw a real cow being hosed down by the food warehouse goofs at Six Flags. I remember it so clearly. I have still have a vivid image in my memory of walking past that damned cow! As this was in the days before cell phones with cameras (hell, cell phones at all), I have no evidence of this cow's existence.
I am sad to admit that my one and only real-life hallucination occurred when the only thing I was under the influence of was lack of sleep and the hot hot sun.
And so, when I saw a duck in our neighborhood on two consecutive days recently, I took a picture for proof.
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