empty pockets
now that summer seems to be officially upon us (though i dare not say that too loudly for fear of dipping back into the 40s), i’m reminded of my first job. for three consecutive summers in my late teens, i slaved at one of the country’s last surviving drive-in movie theaters. better known as the skyview drive-in located in beautiful belleville, illinois, i started out as popcorn slave and quite rapidly worked my way up to box office queen. some stints of playground warden, cashier, and grill bitch were interlaced in between.
truly none of the above were illustrious positions, but for some reason, at least in my mind, manning the box office seemed to have status. although remembering back to 100+ degree days inside a sweltering 4’x4’ shack with a bucket of ice nearby to dunk my face and feet into, i guess the elitism fades a tad.
one particularly busy evening (perhaps the opening night of the lion king), the assistant manager and i were admitting cars at lightning speed. back in 1994, skyview allowed adults in for $5 each and all kids were free. a bargain when you consider the fact that you were in for two movies, not just one, and we didn’t do trunk checks for hidden passengers, kegs or drugs. a solid way to spend an evening out and let your children run amuck.
during the mayhem of packing in probably 750 cars (maybe more – the factoid section in my brain on skyview has since been erased), the assistant manager wanted to play a trick on the owner. the owner had a tendency to come at exactly the wrong time to alleviate some of the overflow of cash in our respective boxes.
remember how i said the box office shack was only about 4’ wide? well, put a ticket seller on either side serving two lines with hundreds of cars and then a money-hungry small business owner in the middle flipping through hundreds of jacksons, and you get a too-close-for-comfort scenario. not to mention, a wide birth for financial error. especially considering the owner’s methodology for keeping track of the two separate box office tallies:
box office #1 cash went into his left pocket.
box office #2 cash went into his right pocket.
and on a night like the lion king night, he easily stashed away a few grand in either pocket. after depositing the cash in his trousers, he ambled back to the office located in the concession stand, where his grin widen with each twenty added to the pile.
but as he counted my box office tally, something was amiss. based on the number of tickets sold, my money was off by $100. without hesitation or recount, he confronted me, demanding answers as to what happened out there. a naive girl always wanting to please everyone, i didn’t have an explanation and started to panic that i would be terminated.
before i clocked out for the last time, the assistant manager, being the ballsy character that he was, sarcastically pointed out to the owner that perhaps some money “slipped out” of his pocket on his way back to the concession stand. realizing this could be a legitimate circumstance, he went back out to the darkened, car-filled parking lot to see if some money just happened to be laying around.
meanwhile, the general manager counted the second box office numbers and found the missing $100. knowing the assistant manager’s scheme, he chuckled and asked, “do you think now he’ll stop using his pockets as money bags?” they each passed it off as a stupid question, and then proceeded to reassure me that my job was intact and that i should get accustomed to drive-in antics. of course, i insisted they give me advanced warning of their intentions next time since i, the newbie, was completely in the dark on said practical joke.