Novelty Check

Today, Emily and I are performing a stuff cull before the move to Madison. We chucked about three trashbags full of random junk so far, and more to go tomorrow. But the fun thing about going through stuff is all the stuff you find. Like how Emily found the stash of notes she kept from me back when we first started dating (and before that too). We found old pictures, strange stuff (like our Kings & Queens of Scotland deck of Cards and a Proud to be a Republican hat we bought as a goof years ago). But, the jewel of the heap, for me, was a check I never cashed.

Once, while in the mall of my youth (St. Clair Square) I was tooling around, no real agenda, when a small, youngish woman approached me for some kind of customer survey. I said sure because they told me money was involved, so I followed this person with a clipboard through one of this unmarked door in the mall. I realize now that I blindly trusted this person, so maybe this was some kind of murder ploy, or weirdo cult kidnapping, but I rolled with it anyway. Plus, she was a little woman, what damage could she possibly inflect on hulking me (this is before I met our powderkeg, Diana). Anyway, they sit me in this tiny office where I had to fill out this survey information about my age group and so on. Nothing major. Then a different person lead me into this even smaller room, like only had room for me to sit, and another person to stand. There was a desk with a computer as well, an old Apple II mother. The person then told me what I was there to test.

Pudding.

I was about to be a pudding taste tester. They brought me two different packages of premade pudding, the kind you put in kids lunches (it wasn't Jello brand, but another one, I can't remember). They also brought crackers and water to cleanse my pallete in between pudding doses. After eating the pudding, the person told me I had to fill out a computer survey on my pudding experience.

So, I ate the pudding. No problem there. Tasted just like it should. Puddingy. Then I get to the computer survey, and I kid you not, it took me about 20 minutes to complete the pudding survey. It was about as extensive a questioning procedure as you could imagine for pudding. On a scale of one to ten, had to rate things like chocolateyness, texture, purchase value, overall mouthfeel, and so on for a long damn time. Have you ever applied to a job at Best Buy online, and had to fill out that ignorant 16 page personality test where they you are supposed to agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree or disagree with things like "It makes you mad when the courts let guilty people go free" or "You think of yourself as a thrill seeker." It was like that, only stranger because it was soley about my experience with pudding.

After the form, I was directed to this other person to sat behind a little sliding frosted-glass wall, which reminded me of an old pharmacist or drive through window. The person then cut me a check for my time spent eating pudding. The check was worth two dollars (American).

As soon as I got outside, I pulled out my cell phone and called all of my friends to let them know that some sucker had just paid me two dollars to eat pudding. I even told my friend Todd to get to the mall real quick just in case they were doing it all day. Something about that two dollar check completely erased the frustration of filling out that form. It was just too novel.

Man, simpler times, eh?

viva el mustache