I often tell people that being a writer for OnMilwaukee.com is the best job I've ever had. And it's true, but considering some of the oddball (and downright gross) gigs I've endured, there isn't a whole lot of competition.

Let's start at the beginning. My first job (aside from my Journal paper route) was at Koepsell's Popcorn Wagons in 1986. I was hired by Dennis Koepsell himself to work inside one of those old timey wagons at Summerfest. However, being a female trapped inside a small, steamy space wasn't a good idea. Let's just say "festering yeast infection" and move on, shall we?

After Koepsell's, I sloshed through a slew of humbling jobs. Working as a "vendette" at Prospect Mall Cinemas had its perks (free movies; cute ushers), but I felt like a total doink wearing the brown polyester wrap-around skirt and blouse. Even my Doc Martens and mohawk couldn't hip-ify the gaudy get-up.

Then there was my brief stint in the deli at Food Lane. This was a bad idea from the get-go because at that time I was a vegetarian and, even worse, was required by law to wear a hairnet. (This was not good for the mohawk, either.) Somehow I made it through a couple of months, but eventually quit when I was forced to make something called "sandwich spread" that was really just ground-up pieces of miscellaneous sausages and lunch meats dyed with pink food coloring. I had almost walked out the day before, when my manager reminded me to mix up the salads every morning because they sometimes grew a "food film" on their surface during the night.

Surprisingly, my post-college work wasn't much better. As the membership director at the YMCA I was forced to tell certain members that they smelled like B.O. -- in a professional way, of course. ("Mr. Jones, this is uncomfortable for me to talk about, but we've had a few complaints from other members and now I must remind you to wash your clothing after every workout...") This happened on at least two occasions, and both times, the culprit was a relatively dapper gentleman who thought it was perfectly acceptable to work out, ball up his sweaty gym clothes, throw them in his gym bag and re-wear them, unwashed, the next time he decided to work out. I think they had the "why make the bed if you're just going to sleep in it again" rationale going on, which doesn't translate so well when obscene body schtank is involved.

My first professional writing job had me scripting safety equipment catalogues. For eight hours a day, I busted a gasket or two trying to describe safety cones, hardhats, hairnets (what's with me and the hairnets?), Tyvek suits and goggles. To get through the day, I invented a superhero named "Safety Girl" who I called on like a Wiccan might a goddess and asked her for the strength to hammer out yet another paragraph about portable eyewash stations. This was the year I went back to smoking after a four-year hiatus.

But the most bizarre job I had was "working the door" at the Safe House. It's not a job for everyone, because it requires role-playing, heavy drinking and the willingness to manipulate and humiliate people. I loved it. My job was to stand at the door dressed like Ms. Moneypenney from the James Bond movies, collect a $2 cover charge, and ask people "the password." The password is actually not a password, rather a "pass sentence," but that's all I'm sayin'. If a person knew the pass sentence, I would flip a switch and the fake bookcase opened up, allowing him or her to go into the bar. However, if he or she didn't know the secret sentence, it was my job to make them earn their way in. This usually meant demanding they did anything from the hokey pokey in pig Latin to half-naked hula-hooping. Usually unbeknownst to them, they were actually on camera, and their performance was aired on television screens throughout the bar. It was a ridiculous job, really, but at least I got to wear whatever I wanted, which is more than I can say for the girls who waitressed at the Safe House. They got stuck wearing tight tanktops and black pants with slits up the sides -- from their ankles to their waistlines. Oy.