I have been tagged by the effervescent SamuraiFrog with a series of questions.

Four jobs I’ve had or currently have in my life:

1. I worked several summers as a dishwasher at a Shakey’s in Springfield, which I actually enjoyed a large part of the time. They tried to give me more responsibility, but I basically argued my way into remaining the dishwasher. For a brief, unhappy time I handled the chicken/fish friers, which I didn’t like for a variety of reasons (prepping chicken, getting burnt by grease spatters from water-filled giblets, and emptying the grease at the end of the night).
2. One summer I thought I’d try get a different job, something un-Shakey. I tried getting a job at Blockbuster Video. I tried getting a job as a stocker at a supermarket. Nobody wanted me. I ended up getting hired at a Dairy Queen. This particular DQ also had a grill. After my first day of training, learning all about the secret curlicue technology DQ employs on their soft serve ice cream, a redneck faintly-mustached fella handed me a piece of metal that was used for shaking fries into the little fry sacks. I was very unhappy when I realized that once again I would be on fry detail. Redneck guy took my sour expression as uncertainty regarding how to use the fry shoehorn, so in his most encouraging voice he said, “You slide it in. It’s just like pussy.” I quit the next day and signed back up with Shakey’s.
3. When I was in college, I worked at a video arcade. I was hired primarily because I was a musician. The manager assumed that musicians would be mechanically-minded, and would be more likely able to do minor maintenance on the machines when they broke down. He was quite wrong about me. One night I made the mistake of locking myself out of the back room. I ended up having to to take the door off of its hinges to get in. Classy, eh?
4. Also in college I had a job making pizza dough at Godfather’s pizza. Excepting the manager, there were a lot of really nice people that worked there. At the restaurant they had a conveyor oven that people would put pizzas in on one side, they’d roll through, and by the time they would come out on the other side they would be cooked. Unless it was very busy, no one would be standing, waiting for the pizzas to come out. Still, you had to keep your eye on the oven, because food could get backed up and burn. It was customary to loudly say “Cut table!” when you saw food coming out of the oven and you yourself couldn’t make it over to get the food out. Someone who did have a free hand would hurry over to the oven, take the pizza out and cut it into slices. One day we closed for the day so we could do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. We carried out all the items that weren’t too heavy or bolted down into the parking lot so we could spray them down with a high-powered hose. As a coworker and an assistant manager were carrying it out, I yelled “CUT TABLE!” and actually made the assistant manager involuntarily flinch. It was one of my finest employment moments.

Four countries I have been to:

1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Italy
4. Austria

I talk about some of my travels to foreign lands here.

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. Living in a nice, big house on the north side of Chicago
2. Living in a nice, big house on the north side of Chicago
3. Living in a nice, big house on the north side of Chicago
4. Living in a nice, big house on the north side of Chicago

Four foods I like to eat:

1. Homemade mac ‘n cheese
2. Chocolate cakey things
3. Barbecue pork chops
4. PB & J

Four personal heroes, past or present (or future):

1. Noam Chomsky
2. Bill Moyers
3. Jim Henson
4. Ralph Nader

Four books you’ve just read or are currently reading:
Ack. I have not been reading a lot lately.

1. The last Harry Potter
2. Interventions, by Noam Chomsky
3. Assorted children’s books

I am not tagging anyone at this point, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t happening at some point.