I Was Young and I Needed the Money

I love it when some sort of semi-pornographic pictures of a pop-culture princess comes out and she immediately declares, “I was young and I needed the money”.  Last time I checked all of us were young at one time and, unless your last name was either Getty or Rockefeller, money was not exactly easy to find.  While it didn’t cause most of us to show all or portions of our junk for some seedy middle-aged photographer with a questionable moustache, I’m sure we have all had our share of crappy jobs that we did because (say it with me) we were young and needed the money.



Does this logo make ANYONE hungry?

The worst job I ever had was during college at a not-so-tr endy fast food place called Burger Boy.  Just off the north side of the Texas A&M campus, it featured the usual fast food grub that college kids need such as tater tots, deep fried chicken things and, of course, hamburgers.  Your hero in this little story was hired to deliver said delicacies to hungry people on and off campus.  Not so bad, you say!  Well, here’s the rub:  I had to deliver this “food” on a 1950’s style bicycle with a milk basket strapped to the front.  Heck, it looked JUST like this:

Bill's bike at Burger Boy or Pee Wee
Herman's bike - you be the judge!

At first, it wasn’t so bad.  I would go to work at around 4:00 in the afternoon and deliver until we closed at midnight.  At times, I probably rode over 20 miles a night due to the size of the A&M campus.  And, there were fringe benefits as well!  Not only could I now get rejected for dates while I was working, but I could “liberate” a tater tot or four on my way to making deliveries.  Hey, a bicycle delivery boy needs his carbs to successfully complete his rounds.

Everything was going just fine until my friends realized that I had to drive by our dorm (McInnis Hall for those of you who know A&M) on the vast majority of my deliveries.  At first, they would congregate on the balcony and hurl insults at me, but that quickly graduated to projectiles in the following order:

• Various bric-a-brac (crumpled paper, pens, pencils, etc.)
• Teddy Grahams
• Empty beer cans
• Tennis balls
• Tennis balls sprayed with Lysol and lit on fire before launch
• Water balloons
• Pudding (yes, pudding) balloons - chocolate was the favorite for obvious reasons



Not as painful as one would think.



I can remember several times where an object would hit my shoulder and I would turn to look only to see the warming blue flame of Lysol on my bright yellow delivery shirt.  But, I was young and needed the money so I could deal with a few of my fellow dorm buddies hurling flaming projectiles in my direction.

Unfortunately, my burger delivery career was tragically cut short due to injury.  I was delivering a chicken fried steak sammich to the Mosher hall on the south side of campus when, as I passed the Corps of Cadets dorms, a remote controlled car ran in front of my bike tire.  I attempted to hit my brakes and swerve out of the way but my front tire hit the mini-car squarely, stopping the bike in its tracks.  It’s unfortunate that I didn’t stop along with my bike as I was launched (along with the previously mentioned chicken fried steak sammich, tater tots and sweet tea) about 15 feet, landing on the sidewalk.  The meal was ruined, but so was my knee and I was sidelined for a few months until it healed.

By the time my knee healed enough for me to resume my delivery career, I didn’t feel like working there any longer.  The place had odd little rules that always made me just a bit uncomfortable.  One that sticks out was the fact if I wanted to be paid (which, as it turns out, I did) I had to go in person to the store at midnight on Thursday night – not a moment later.  I was paid in cash and doing my little part to help the owner cheat the taxman.  So, after collecting what turned out to be my last paycheck, I just stopped going to work.  No one called to ask and I didn’t give notice.  I did, however, continue to order food from there (they made a damn good burger) but always felt I was short-changed on the tots.

But, hey, I was young and I needed the money!