whenever i hear weezer’s “good life” i think of working at the gas station. one of my job’s at the gas station was to stock the cooler. there’s a magic land behind the shelves and shelevs of mountain dew and diet coke, that i just loved. i would put on my head phones, shove the discman into the kangaroo pouch of my purple-hooded sweatshirt and head to that land of cool soft-drinks. the cooler was lined with shelf upon shelf of soda pop, juice, milk, and most any other sort of cool, refreshing beverage you can think of.

i loved stocking the cooler because it got me away from customers who thought i was a high-school drop-out and let me just sort of escape my brain. it was monotonous work, shoving 20oz bottle after 20oz bottle of diet pepsi into their slots. but it was so rewarding, seeing every single slot full, all the twelve packs in a neat row at the bottom.

i’d dance around in there, tripping over the crates of mountain purple gatorade, listening to weezer as loud as my ears could take it. i’d shake my booty thinking that soon i’d figure out how i got off the track and that soon i’d be back to the good life. and somedays as i sit at the job that i dreamed of having when i was a gas station attendant, i think, “i want to go back, i want to go back.” there’s something to said for jobs where your main responsibility is making sure there’s enough icy-cold mountain dew for the citizens of shakopee, minnesota. not that i’d really go back. working at a gas station is hell. but sometimes i miss the days where i got paid do shake booty in the cooler, and then read books in the office.