The Pinnacle of My Career

I just reached the pinnacle of my career! I totally didn’t see it coming because I thought I’d reached the pinnacle already last week by becoming El Presidente at the Deluxe Leisure Centre, but now this week they crowned me El Presidente Superior, except instead of a getting a crown I got a solid handshake. I didn’t expect to get much out of working in the leisure industry so this is very exciting for me. I never thought I’d be reaching any kind of pinnacle at such a young age. Some people—like Marty or Jonas?—they didn’t reach their pinnacles until they were forty-five or fifty-five, or maybe older. I’d always imagined my pinnacle wouldn’t arrive until I’d settled down with a multilingual wife and eight-year-old twins (fraternal, so I could tell them apart) and a dog named Parsley, and until we lived in a two-and-a-half-storey house at the end of a dead-end street so the twins and the dog could play in the street without anyone having to watch them.

Reaching the pinnacle right at this very moment is so impressive that if I was a child, I might be called a child prodigy—or maybe that term is reserved for kindergarteners who can play Beethoven sonatas with their ears plugged and their eyes closed.

I reflected back on jobs I’d done before, and thought about what I’d given up for my lifestyle during my time as Deluxe Leisure staff member. I used to have room in my schedule for movies and crossword puzzles, but since I started at the Leisure Centre, I’ve been too pooped for extracurricular activities. For something like two years I worked as a server at Linguine Dreams, but they said goodbye to me after I told them they should reinvent the menu by adding a simple hamburger to the food options, or otherwise by serving bowls of cotton candy for dessert. I brought in free hamburger and cotton-candy samples to let everyone taste what I was talking about, but as it turned out, they didn’t want to reach for the linguine stars by broadening their food horizons.

After the pasta job, I answered telephones for the stock brokers Davis, Davis, Davis, and Davis. I liked saying “Please hold!” but they seemed not to like my summertime no-socks policy in the office, and I’m a firm believer in summertime no-socks for the sake of foot breathability, so I transitioned to the Deluxe Leisure Centre, even though I was reluctant to take the position when I found out how short the lunch breaks were—only fifteen minutes long. Not very deluxe, if you ask me. But am I ever glad I’ve been able to do this leisure work, even when I sometimes have to answer so many questions when all I really want to do is sit back and relax, maybe daydream about something unimportant. Anyhow, just one of the benefits of working at the Deluxe Leisure Centre is I get to wear a whistle around my neck at all times. That’s a real privilege, something you’d think only crossing guards get to do.