World of Workraft

bigpeeler posted:

I was paid $2000 to be Frankenstein's monster for two weeks.

Eight years ago, my wife and I were out to lunch at a local eatery here in St.Louis. It was early October. As we sat quietly, my wife noticed that there were two men at an adjacent table that kept glancing over at us. Now honestly, being a rather large (6'3", 300lbs) fellow of extraordinarily good looks, I'm used to having people gawk at me. But I too began to notice these guys as their glancing became more pronounced.

Finally, one of the young men got up and walked to our table. He introduced himself and immediately apologized for staring. He explained that he and his partner leased out a local warehouse every year to stage a haunted house for Halloween. They both had spotted me and agreed that I would make a cool looking monster. As odd as that sounded, I took it as a compliment.

He then asked if I would be interested in being part of their annual nightmare. He explained that all I would have to do is show up at the warehouse around 6:00pm (and hour before the doors opened) and sit through a 30 minute make-up session. I would then be set free inside the haunted house, free to roam about as I saw fit. The only caveat was that I was not allowed to "get rough" with the customers since a lot of them tended to come in drunk and tended to get tough with the crew.

I was allowed to hug, touch, grab and otherwise scare the shit out of any and all who crossed my path. There were other "monsters" in the house, but all but myself and The Mummy had to remain in their designated area. We were allowed the run of the place which was awesome since the way the place was laid out provided scores of hidey holes. Sometimes I would simply back into a space along the wall and allow people to accidentally find me as they groped along the walls (they would enter from a brightly lit room, thus screwing with their vision).

Other times, I would just walk on my 4 inch platform boots and just attack people. I'd scream like a lunatic and clomp after them as they ran further into the chamber of horror. "Clomp" was the operative word seeing that my outfit was very constricting which made it quite hard to move around. Thank God I never fell down otherwise I'd have been like a turtle on it's back. "Grrrrrrrrr...help me....GARRRRRRR...uh please???"

Anyway, this ran for only 4 days (Friday & Saturday nights until 1AM, 2 weekends in row.) Their initial offer was $1600.00 or $400 a night X 4. I told them I'd think about it and went home. The next day, I decided not to do it and I called them to decline. They were pretty bummed out but said it was cool and hung up. Then about an hour later, the phone rang and they upped the ante to $500 a night, or $2000.00. For some reason, this iced the deal and I took it. They paid me half up front then $500 on each of the remaining two nights. Another bonus were the after-parties which went on for hours. The food and beer were free which was nice since some of us had to spend 20-30 minutes getting out of our costumes and make-up.

That was easily the strangest thing I have ever done for money. What's your story? It doesn't necessarily have to be a job. Maybe your MILF neighbor paid you $50 for a toss in the bedroom. Maybe your Uncle Stu gave you $300 for a kidney. It can be anything, as long as you got paid for it.