-- My job with the dead --

I was a senior in high school. I had just moved to a new town and was looking for a job. There weren't many available, but one guy told me that they were looking for someone to help at the one funeral homes in town.

So, in need of some money, I went to the funeral home and was hired on the spot. I guess there aren't too many people who are willing to do this. I wasn't really sure about it either.

The job involved doing various chores, washing the hearse and whatever types of errands that needed to be done around town. Also, at night I would go and assist in moving the bodies to the funeral home. I even learned the techniques involved in the embalming, because they needed assistance at certain times.

What was spooky, was that I had to sleep there at night. I once had a month long stretch of sleeping there, with no breaks, except for going to high school during the day. And the bedroom was next to the embalming room....sometimes I heard noises at night in that room.

I didn't make it a career of course. But I did work for another funeral home for a short while where I went to college.

My strangest job.

My strangest job was working in a flower shop throughout all of high school, now I know it doesn't sound very weird but people never felt like too much information was enough. It reminded me of being a bar tender but no one was drunk. A great deal of the people I interacted with felt the need to tell me stories about who they were buying flowers for and why, this was part of the job. BUT... I had on more than one occasion someone sit on the floor and sob because someone refused flowers they were sent. I had people threaten to come after me because part of my job was confidentiality and unless the police were involved we were not allowed to give out information on the sender if they choose not to have it disclosed. There was even one occasion where I had a man come in screaming about how we were responsible for his marriage falling apart because his flowers were not delivered on time. Perhaps it was the scent of the flowers that made people a little out of sorts but most of the time I spent there I just shook my head in disbelief.

I worked in a coin laundry. Once a week we had to clean the lint traps of the dryers! ARG! but the bonus was any coins or valuables we were allowed to keep. Like a Easter Egg Hunt. The owner knew we would do a better job when we looked for the bonus items. Sometimes paper money too! Like a $5 or a $10!