We Had It Our Way

Part 2 of a recurring series

This is the first of many disclaimers in this article. Brad Knopp and I were young when we had this job, and therefore did a lot of stupid things. The purpose of this is not to glorify immature behavior. It is simply a documentation of what happened, and most of the things worth writing about from this period are, well, pretty dumb. Are some of the things funny? Yes. Would I do it again? Unfortunately.



Oswego, New York
1993-1994
Booger King*

*For legal reasons, I will not mention the large corporation I worked for by its real name. Perhaps you can put it together yourself?

Strangely, the first job in this series did not involve Brad. Get used to him now. He will be a character that pops up from time to time (Six all together). This story starts with him because he preceded me at Booger King (henceforth BK for short, just thought that sounded good and has nothing to do with the other BK). He got me the job. Sweet Jesus, if only the moron in charge knew what they were getting themselves into! Sadly for said moron, they don't really get to choose from the cream of the crop, so they got Brad and me.

It is time for character development. When I started, I put frozen meat patties on the conveyor belt thing, and their corresponding buns on a lower belt. Yep, that's it. After about 12 seconds, I was ready to move on. I wasn't even particularly driven (I was 16), just not mentally handicapped. However, one person (let's call him John Nettles) was possibly challenged in some way. But he was a genius in school, so it couldn't have been mental. The thing is, he had been there a long time and NEVER moved past the very first job. And he would also call out "sending singles" every time he'd put single hamburgers on. Just in case we didn't see them coming out at 5 feet/hour one minute later. Or needed to warn someone because all of our motor functions suddenly dissipated.

Anyhow, Nettles was an interesting guy. He would talk to me in excruciating detail about the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, even though I told him I'd never seen the movie. It is also possible that we would mock his "sending singles" (his voice was...I can't think of a kind way to describe it - sorry, use your imagination). It is also possible that one time Brad and I teamed up to draw a smiley face in ketchup and mustard on the back of his shirt. He didn't know.

Here comes another disclaimer. One manager, let's call him Paul, was a really cool guy. He was older than us, but cool in his circles which included older brothers of our friends. I appreciate now that he was in a difficult position. He was cool and understood when things were funny, but he was also not 16 and trying to be semi-legitimate.

So it was probably his dilemma that caused him to come out of the office, yell "Knopp, Trent!," only to stifle heavy laughter as he returned to the office. Sorry Paul.

Character development part two. There was a very, very stupid person who worked there. Let's call him Jeff R. Poor Jeff was not smart. Brad convinced him that he was a devil worshiper, to the point of Jeff going out and purchasing some kind of Satanic Bible. Disclaimer: Brad is not particularly proud of this, but insists he was young. Somehow, Jeff was too dumb to balance on one foot. I know, I didn't think that balance and intelligence were related either, but if you knew Jeff you'd know that they are. His lack of balance kept him out of the military. Imagine being rejected by the military?

The best part about Jeff was his gullibility. After he had been at BK for a short period, he asked Brad one day what he was doing. Brad was doing inventory. Jeff wanted to help. Poor Jeff. Brad told him that he needed a count of the ice cubes in the ice cube maker. The mercy killing happened somewhere North of 800. Jeff was not bright.

Employees were not the only victims. Windy's (another burger joint with a similarly spelled name) was next door. They were consistently bombarded with rotten tomatoes. This was especially satisfying in the winter, as entire sheets of snow could be shaken loose, thus plummeting to the sidewalk. Legend also tells of a time that predated me, where an employee went on the roof with a BB gun, and deflated the giant blow-up Windy during Classic Weekend (much more on Classic Weekend later, perhaps even in this post).

And poor customers. There were two particular "favorites" that come to mind. 1. On a Whooper, smashing down the top bun material until it formed a bread bowl. Then filling said bowl with mayonnaise and scraping it level. 2. Injecting the mustard and ketchup bottle tips into the burger, and squeezing. And squeezing. And squeezing some more. Basically, squeezing until the patty itself rose considerably. For both methods, the burger would then be wrapped and served. Somehow, some way, nobody ever complained as far as we know. That is disgusting.

Despite our best efforts, BK was a food establishment. And so we ate there as well. Sometimes we even paid. Most other employees always paid, dearly. If they did not come back to the kitchen and prepare their food themselves, Brad or I would chop the burger, like a pizza, into somewhere between 8 and 32 pieces. Since that wasn't nearly annoying enough, we would then wrap the fragments between 8 and 100 times. We were not interested in reducing, reusing, or recycling at this point in our lives.

We did not pay often (this theme may pop up again at a later job). For example, Brad would build a triple Whooper just the way I liked it. He would then put it in the microwave. Coincidentally, I would happen upon that same microwave moments later. Seeing the ginormous burger inside, I would accidentally drop it down the front of my apron. This really made me have to pee. So I'd go to the bathroom, and while I was already there, I decided that I may as well eat. Another example would involve switching the names Matt and Brad in the above example.

We also quickly learned about shelf-life. Chichen Tenders (perhaps this is normally spelled differently also?) were only good for 2 hours. Hmm...this gave us an idea. If a customer ordered, say, a four-piece, what would happen if we put 50 in the deep-fryer? You guessed it! Forty-six would be "bad" in 2 hours. The rest of this story goes how you might think. Disclaimer: I actually don't feel real bad about this one. I mean, we did this a LOT and no one really noticed? Frankly, that's on management.

BK had microwaves that were not normal. Brad and I are pretty sure that one second of BK microwave equals one minute of any other microwave in the world. And do you know what happens to a burger when it's microwaved for 2 1/2 minutes in a BK microwave? The patty ends up the size of a half-dollar. I know this because I tried messing with the front-end girl by handing her a nuclear hamburger. Sadly for me, the trick didn't work. She must have touched it so briefly that she didn't feel it's burning-emberness, or else she simply deadened her nerve-endings. Either way, that burger went out! Thankfully, it was for a customer who was eating in. So I did the responsible thing and ran to the customer and took his burger away. It was then that the half-dollarness was discovered. Whew!

You must now be wondering how we could have possibly done all this without dying or killing someone else. Sorry to ruin the ending, but neither Brad nor I died. And besides accidentally elbowing a handicapped person in the face (Which instantly caused a yard sale. The items for sale included a hat, bow tie, glasses, burger wrappers, and whatever else she was carrying.), neither of us hurt anyone else, either. But...

When I started, we had a streak of one year without injury. Brad ended that. He was being slightly crazy, jumped up and hit his head on the hood over the oven, and needed to go to the ER for stitches. The next day, I decided to try and start a new streak, and so I sliced my finger half-off cutting a chicken sandwich. Disclaimer: Don't ever go to the Oswego hospital if you're injured. I waited so long that my finger healed before I could get stitches. The doctor even tried opening my cut back up (aggressively), but to no avail. The next day, the streak was extended. But this needs a little set-up.

Greg was our friend, and he was funny. Bud was the Head Manager, and he was lame. Primus had a song called "My Name is Mud" at this time. So of course we would walk around doing the bass part and singing things like: "My name is Bud. I'm the manager at Booger King and I'll be here the rest of my life my name is Bud." And so on. Well, on this fateful day, Greg was performing an especially inspired version of the song, complete with stage moves. Unfortunately for Greg, one of his stage moves was to jump with his "guitar." Remember the hood from Brad's injury? It got Greg, too. Only it knocked him out. Cold. The best part is that he landed propped up against the burger freezer, so he was essentially out sitting straight up. I'm pretty sure that a minute later he asked "what happened," but I was laughing to hard to say with certainty.

Final disclaimer: This is longer than I ever hope to write again. However, there is still more to be told. Brad will insist that I tell the rest. What I really want to know is, are you gonna go my way? No, that's not it. I mean, do you actually want to know more, or are you disgusted by our hi jinks? Let me know, and perhaps the next installment will be about Booger King, as well.

Otherwise, the next installment will be...Little Caesars!