About 6 months ago I found myself unemployed, after being in the same field for 12 years. Life is interesting to say the least. Since then I have done many things to make ends meet. My wife is an 8th grade English teacher so her income is steady, but we are still a two income family. Back to the point, I've had some interesting jobs over the course of the last few months. My main source of income has been with a fundraising organization that works with school clubs, boy scout troops, church youth groups, and other organizations to help them raise money. We supply all the forms, flyers, etc. and they go door to door, or over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house-or hizzee, as the kids say- to sell her cookie dough, fudge, cheesecake, pizza, coffee and cocoa, just to name a few. I have driven all over the state of Colorado, been to towns at the tops of purple mountain muddiness, the base of intertwining, shimmering ski slopes and at the bottom of the lush green valleys with weaving, waterways flowing with what could only be milk and honey. Though I can't really say for sure about the milk and honey because I am always in a rush to get the cookie dough delivered on time, so I've never stopped to check the validity of the story hitherto. But I love my job. I still get to work with kids even though it is in a much more limited capacity than my former career, which I am still pursuing but with out much luck momentarily. I drive a pick-up truck pulling a refrigerated trailer that, much to my embarrassment, has a sticker on the side emblazoned with a 4 foot tall man holding a chocolate chip cookie covering his torso. If that is not enough to insure my embarrassed state, the oversized delectable declares me to be "The Cookie Dough Man." Every gas station I enter, I hear some gruff voiced rough-neck call out to me, "Where's the cookie dough man?" I never answer. Honestly, it is out of fear of the unknown that I don't answer. That and I am ashamed to say a little judgmental on my part. It is never a guy in a suit or a soccer mom or even a teenage couple giggling at the moniker. No one, my mind reasons, who would be a suitable or viable client making a legitimate inquiry. My mind reasons they can only be trying to steal my cookies; either out of the back of the trailer after they have knocked me out, hog-tied me and thrown me out back of the gas station; or even worse still - desiring to "steal my cookies," a euphemism I once heard in a skit about sexual abstinence at a church camp, much in the same scenario, knocking me out, tying me up and stealing my cookies in the back of their trailer. It is silly I know; strange I admit; homophobic probably; but truly what I think, most assuredly. But other than that part of my job I enjoy it immensely. We've helped cheerleading squads afford new pom-poms and be able to have the money to travel to cheerleading competitions so they can shout "Bring It On," as in that one movie, so that they can tumble, and so that they can spell, "R-E, R-E-B, R-E-B-O-U-N-D, Rebound!" They are cheerleaders so apparently they have to get a running start at spelling, but who am I to judge. I can't spell phantasmagorical with out double checking with Daniel Webster to be on the safe side. We have helped band nerds raise the 'dukkets' to go on trips to parades and prestigious competitions where they impregnate each other in the backseats of "yellow dogs" and argue for hours over who was better in a position of leadership, Picard or Kirk, or which had a more profound impact on the Pentegon, Star Trek the television series or the original Star Wars trilogy, or coming up with inside jokes that they will later put on a t-shirt (“there was this one time, at band camp“ ) so as to chronicle their lack of adventures and bore the rest of the school to tears with later. I mean we are making huge political and social progress by helping these organizations fill their cash boxes. But I just like to eat the cookie dough raw rather than cooking it first. Chalk another one up for instant gratification.
