I’ll never forget my first and last day of my one and only desk job. I worked as an editor for a national travel guide and my first day at the job was 9/11/01. Yes, that day. As I wrote in a prior blog, it was obviously a horrible and awful day. After that day, though, the travel industry took a nosedive and the need for a travel guide was limited.

It was not a fun job and it was fifteen miles away from where I lived. I lived in Venice and the job was in the valley. Now, in Northwest Ohio that may not be a big deal but in Los Angeles?!? Fifteen miles may as well have been one hundred miles. So, the drive sucked. I was the youngest employee at the guide by roughly fifteen years and my likes and dislikes did not align with anyone who worked there. And the company was really struggling. My existence at this place was miserable.

People who had worked at the guide for a number of years would pass on stories how every year’s Christmas party was better than the last. The previous year’s Christmas party had been a black tie affair. The 2001 Christmas party? Pot luck at the office after everyone had worked a half day. Yippee. Oh yea, and games would be provided. No booze and it would take a gallon of booze to get me through this disaster.

Now, I didn’t care so much. I was desperately looking for a new job and get out of there so a black tie party wouldn’t have kept me there but it woulda been cool. And, a pot luck party just isn’t enticing. I know everyone loves Jello but one can only eat so much of it.

Anyway, I didn’t pay attention to the announcement of the ‘games’. When the head secretary approached me to buy tickets for the ‘game (S)’ I didn’t ask what the games were. I handed her twenty bucks and she handed me four raffle tickets. I thought nothing of it.

The day of the party, I worked at my desk, editing and fact checking. An announcement over the intercom announced it was time for the party and the staff was to congregate in the main foyer/lobby. When I entered the lobby, I bore witness to something I’d never expected. A gigantic cage consumed the lobby. Fifteen feet high and, well, I’m not good with numbers but many square feet in dimensions. On the floor of the cage, in drawn squares, were numbers. It was very confusing.

I saddled up next to one of the employees and asked, incredulous, pointing at the cage, “What the hell is that?”

He replied, “Didn’t you buy a raffle ticket?” I had, and I pulled my tickets from my pocket. At that moment, the company’s head secretary entered the cage to a loud cheer from the crowd. In her hand, she held a HOODED ANIMAL. As I looked closer, I saw that the animal wearing a hood was a rooster.

“Holy shit, it’s a cock fight,” I murmured.

Luckily, it was not. But what it was, was a Chicken Drop. As it was explained to me, the hooded rooster had been fed something that would increase the quickness of its bowels and whatever square the Cock defecated on… that person with that number would be the winner.

In utter horror, I stood and watched as 80 grown idiots screamed and yelled at this hooded cock, who through fear, poor sleep or not enough fiber was constipated and couldn’t go two-sies.

It was at this moment, I knew my time at the travel guide had come to an end. I walked to my desk, listening to the cheers and jeers of adults rooting on the bowel movement from a member of the poultry family and began to type…. “This hereby is my two week notice of quitting.”