My first job was at the Dairy Queen. I was sixteen years old and ready to work. And The Queen Mum wasn’t paying for anything fun. The first week on the job was to learn cone-making with the fancy shmancy DQ swirl at the top.
Once that was perfected, it was on to Dilly Bars. The same swirl was used but in the form of an ice cream bar. You’d make several bars on top of a stainless tray, insert a wooden stick into each and carry them into the walk-in freezer. The next day they would be dipped in chocolate.
I was proudly carrying my first tray of Dilly Bars into the freezer when the end one slid right off and onto the floor of the freezer……….where it instantly stuck. In a first-job-sixteen-year-old-panic, I tried everything to get it off the floor. Did I ask for help? Did I fess up to what happened?
No.
I got a wet dishrag from the sink and tried using that to get the Dilly Bar off the floor. And then the rag stuck to the floor. I yanked and yanked on that thing and it did not budge so I closed the door and pretended nothing happened. It would soon become clear that The New Girl made one big mess in the freezer.
I managed to keep the job for six months until winter came and the hours disappeared, but I’m pretty sure they never forgot me.
That kind of information and skill set gets preserved.
Somewhere.
