You guys think you know what suffering is, what pain is, what Hell is - you don't know shit I'm telling you.
I did a tour of duty at a Chuck E. Cheese in Brookfield, WI back in '82 while I was in High School.
And speaking of shit, my favorite C.E.C. poop story goes like this: One Saturday night I noticed a bunch of parents trying to beat down the door to the manager's office.
It became readily apparent to me that this was more than the usual paternal complaint of, oh say… my kid put a 3" gash in his forehead after climbing up the skee-ball machine and jumping off the top of it, or my pizza came out with the words "FUCK ME" written in sausage, or one of your cooks sold me some oregano instead what he was supposed to be selling me, etc.
No, these parents were mad because their kids (and themselves too for the most part) were all covered in streaks and blotches of poop. Some sick, twisted little Johnny or Suzy devised the most effective and sinister method for delivering their foul loaf to the maximum amount of innocent civilians: [b] They took a shit in the ball pit![/b]
You probably can't believe the amount of traffic that the ball pit would get on a Saturday night, but usually there was always at least a line of 10 wide-eyed munchkins on a sugar jag just dying to get into the thing at any given moment. An attendant was usually on duty to make sure that only 12 rug rats were in at a time, make sure no kiddie established himself as 'honcho' or 'boss' of the pit, keep the 16 year olds out and so on, but even they've got to take their own potty breaks. That's when the copro-fender struck apparently.
I can't possibly fathom what is going through a parents mind as they press closer and closer against the relative safety of the Lexan window enclosure around the ball room with their little Kodak camera ready to start clicking away in hopes of capturing the pure rapture, the ecstasy, that only a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit can bring into their child's otherwise mundane and bland life. The waiting, as their little precious one dives face first into an ocean of tiny plastic balls and then just disappearing - disappearing only briefly to emerge wearing a giant sticky turd and a smile stretching from ear to ear. It bends the mind really.
What did I do? Well, after the manager, who was almost in tears, placated the swarthy balls of hate (or 'customers', as they were known) with tokens, coupons for free beer, and "FUCK ME" pizzas - he went a-lookin for volunteers. But before he could make the [i]"W"[/i] sound in "We need to clean this up", I was punched out and headed for the rusty Cutlass Supreme in the parking lot that held my Ramones tapes and a six pack of Pabst. After all, I too needed to be comforted after a night like that (well, I honestly didn't care since I really hated that job anyway - I just couldn't wait to go tell my friends the fabulous story that had just unfurled).
So, my Chuck E. Cheese teammates that stuck around (losers) had to tip a bunch of tables on to their sides to form a barrier and pick each individual ball out, spritz it with Windex, wipe it off, and throw it onto a pile. It took the two of them five hours before they even got around to cleaning the pit itself - but on the bright side, the did find like $28 in change (albeit shit covered) in the bottom of the pit - the manager was nice enough to split it with them 3 ways.
Yep, I guess those were some damn fine times working at The Cheese.