Are you a college student seeking real-life work experiences to complement your course curriculum?
Do you ache for an exciting position exposing you to every situation and every type of personality? Perhaps a part-time job offering a flexible schedule and the opportunity to sharpen your problem-solving skills?
If you answered “yes,” then I have the perfect job for you: the exciting and glamorous world of the part-time singing telegram messenger.
About the same time I was obliterating the God Shows at 98 KFMZ, the Midwest’s Best Rock, I was regularly seen in my 1979 Ford Pinto, filled to the brim with helium balloons, en route to surprise, delight, humiliate, and fondle complete strangers as a hormonal gorilla, a jovial clown, a gallant Prince Charming, or a scantily clad Tarzan.
You’ll have to trust me on this but there are some life lessons you can only learn in a chicken suit or worse…
Working at You Gotta Be Kidding (an appropriate name for this business if ever there was one) was a pretty fantastic college job. I got paid a whopping $5 for each telegram which, in 1983 and 1984, was well above minimum wage. Plus, not only did I get to hone my burgeoning comedic and improvisation skills, but there was not one other job in Columbia, Missouri where one could get paid to polish one’s performance skills.
My daily “calls,” or as I referred to them, my Opportunities to Humiliate (O.T.H.), were conveniently scheduled around my college class schedule. So, if your office birthday party was scheduled at 3:00 PM and I had a 2:40 class, you basically had to wait for your singing Tarzan to finish his History of Film mid-term first.
Money and power… what could be better?
Not surprisingly, the most requested telegram character at You Gotta Be Kidding was The Flasher. And yes, the when-he-opens-his-coat-he’ll-expose-his-wiener kind of Flasher you have in your mind. However, as public nudity in Columbia was illegal, I would maintain an appropriate degree of modesty, protect my dangle, and sport a gold lamé g-string under my obligatory trench coat. Besides, in my mind, no one deserved wiener-viewing privileges for only $5. Let’s get real—my pecker was worth at least $10.
Even as something as benign as Columbia’s resident singing Flasher, I developed a marketing plan. If it worked for notorious stripper Gypsy Rose Lee to leave them wanting more, then it would work for the when-he-opens-his-coat-he’ll-expose-his-wiener guy too.
My approach was simple:
1. Enter the venue;
2. Get noticed—not terribly hard to do when you’re practically naked and armed with balloons;
3. Engage the Crowd—once again, not terribly hard to do, especially if alcohol was involved;
4. Perform my song—self-explanatory;
5. And, in rapid succession: corner my victim against a wall, widely open my trench coat, briefly show her my goods, and quickly smash my entire body against hers amidst animated screams from both victim and partygoers alike. In particular, the body slam technique was developed to take the emphasis off my lamé-encased package and place it on her reaction as seen by her guests.
I had essentially developed a successful method of being a paid exhibitionist/pervert that wouldn’t get me arrested in the early 80s, but probably would in today’s more conservative culture. My victim got a memory she would never forget, her friends got the huge laugh they paid for, I got my five bucks, and my peter was safe.
More often than not, my marketing plan worked beautifully and resulted in additional sales because no one actually saw the full Monty. So the phone—it just kept a ringin’.
However, I would soon discover the tragic flaw in my master plan as the result of a public spectacle that redefined my definition of O.T.H. from Opportunities to Humiliate to OH, THE HELL!
What I failed to realize when I originally devised my “see-no-evil” marketing strategy was that a g-string was just that—a thin string that wormed its way up the crack of my bum and attached itself to a waistband by an emaciated thread—an imperfect fashion accessory that ultimately left my butt cheeks exposed yet strategically covered by excess trench coat.
Covered yes—but oh-so vulnerable all at the same time.
It was a frigid December night in 1983 when my plan began to unravel. With my buddy nestled in its pouch and my butt cheeks under wraps, I was ready for another exciting evening of flasher-grams.
And tonight’s destination was a young woman’s birthday celebration at Town & Country Lanes.
Ah yes…bowling for birthdays…my favorite.
I arrived at the bowling alley right on schedule and followed my well-rehearsed plan to the letter—with one small hitch: there’s no solid wall in the center of a bowling alley. When time came for my big reveal; approximately one-half of the bowling patrons would be able to see my entire flash—g-string and all.
Though this regrettable structural situation was unavoidable and my marketing plan was basically shot to hell, modesty dictated an attempt to minimize of the number of crotch viewers. I even briefly considered parading my birthday girl down the lane to the pin station to—well—pin her, but wisely reconsidered. A quick review of the Town & Country Lanes patrons left me with little doubt that they had the potential to get ugly if Naked Balloon Guy interrupted League Night.
After careful deliberation, I executed a highly professional, though more-exposed-than-normal, “flash.” However, in the afterglow, I felt an unusual breeze gliding across my butt cheeks. This was odd as I didn’t realize that Town & Country Lanes was a drafty building.
Well, it wasn’t.
Some unknown male bystander made the adroit decision that it was, in fact, appropriate to lift up the back of my trench coat and expose my bare bottom to the remaining half of the bowling patrons.
Without my permission, I was mooning almost fifty percent of Town & Country Lanes—and only getting paid $5 for the privilege.
As I turned into a barrage of camera flashes, I quickly grabbed the tail of the trench coat away from my new redneck buddy and returned it to its previous butt-covering position.
Did you happen to catch the part where I mentioned it was December—meaning COLD? Frankly, the entire G-string could have snapped and fallen to the floor as my manhood, for fear of hypothermia, had retreated so far into the recesses of my body that I had essentially developed a vagina.
And I was mad—not a little mad but a whole lotta mad. What on earth possessed this complete stranger to think he had the right to expose my rear end to umpteen unknown bowling teams without my consent? And to add to my fury, this was my third involuntary moon that semester thanks to some horny co-eds at Stephens College and the hormonally charged staff at Ma Bell’s Billing Office. It seemed my butt had been on display all over town. Was I finally to the point where I should just go back to Taco Bell and beg them to take me back?
Thankfully, in the lack-of-heat of the moment, I remained calm and, though I’m not sure the exact words I used when addressing my new buddy and butt-exposer, I recall getting a huge laugh. After all, this was someone’s birthday and I was not going to ruin this important occasion despite the fact that her paying guests only saw a gold lamé pouch, a bare chest, and some man-nipples while complete strangers got the full moon.
But, as they say, the show must go on and I finished my performance, kissed the birthday girl and, with my now ascended testicles and inverted penis, quickly rushed to the safety and security of my now completely frosted-over 1979 Ford Pinto.
I must admit I was never more grateful for my mom’s penchant for blue-light special shopping at Kmart—I had five ice scrapers in the trunk.
A few minutes of aggressive windshield abuse followed by a couple of frenetic turns and I was on my way home via I-70 West to experience my anger in private—and in pants. But “Cool God” was, once again, in a mood that night and, working in cahoots with Murphy and his damn Law, made the decision that my adventure was to continue. I looked in my rear-view mirror to execute my fourth lane change in approximately 47 seconds only to discover the iconic sight of a Police cruiser’s flashing lights approaching my bumper. Though my ego was bruised, I was practically naked, and my new mangina ached from the cold, I dutifully pulled over to the side of the road to greet him.
Officer Highbeam slowly and methodically approached my driver’s side window—his hand poised just above his weapon in case a lunatic lurked inside. Well that, or a naked vocalist with a bad attitude.
How on earth do I explain this? In my delusional mind I could almost hear the unavoidable report on KOMU News. Our local NBC affiliate and a product of the University of Missouri’s Journalism school, KOMU provided an on-air opportunity for newscasters-in-training to find their broadcast voices.
Newscaster: A nearly naked Mizzou college student was arrested by Police on Interstate 70 this evening and charged with indecent exposure at Town & Country Bowling Lanes in Columbia. The arresting officer, Max Highbeam, discovered the young man in the fetal position and almost naked, except for an ill-fitting gold lamé g-string, as he attempted to hide in the floor board of his 1979 light blue Ford Pinto, Missouri license plate PER-VERT.
Jones is accused of exposing his bare buttocks to members of the popular Thursday Night Pee Wee Bowling League. In a press conference this evening, a police spokesman reported that several eye witnesses have surrendered photographs of the alleged “full moon” to Columbia Police to be used as evidence.
Reporting for Channel 8, this is Elizabeth Vargas.
Oh for God’s sake Elizabeth, I am so sorry I didn’t cast you in my play. GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON!
Officer Highbeam’s probing flashlight quickly brought me back to reality as he cautiously evaluated my state of undress: bare calves, bare thighs, slightly open trench coat, and bare chest.
Officer: Driver’s license and registration?
Randy: Uh…good evening officer. Is anything…uh…wrong?
Officer: Son, while exiting the parking lot at Town & Country Lanes you hit the curb twice and, once you entered I-70 westbound, you have been driving rather erratically. Driver’s license and registration?
And next phase, of course, is the absolute worst part of the process of being pulled over—those few minutes that feel like hours as the officer leaves you to return to his cruiser and review the details of the incident with, what I knew had to be, the entire Columbia Police Department.
I sat alone, naked, and shivering for so long I was convinced the officer was conducting a phone interview with Elizabeth Vargas to prep her for her upcoming broadcast. And, as they always do, my officer eventually returned to my vehicle.
Officer: Son, finding you in this condition is a little…well…unexpected. Let me just ask you this—is something wrong?
The compassionate officer took pity on me after I provided him with a copy of my singing telegram work order with the You Gotta Be Kidding logo prominently displayed at the top. And as I am never one to miss an opportunity to tell the whole story of an event:
Randy: Officer, I’m just really upset. You see, I was doing a singing telegram for someone’s birthday at the bowling alley and some other guy decided it was OK to lift of the back of my trench coat which means I mooned dozens of people in the bowling alley and that pissed me off because exposing my butt is not part of the $17.50 fee they paid to the store and since this has happened before, I admit I was just in no condition to really drive, but I wanted to get the hell outta there because how would you feel if you had to moon bowling alley patrons as part of your police job…
Officer: Son, it’s all right. I’ll follow you to the Stadium Boulevard Exit just to make sure you get there safely. And you promise me you’ll be careful and go right home. And son, please close your coat.
In Columbia, You Gotta Be Kidding had a well-established reputation so as absurd as my explanation sounded; Office Highbeam apparently bought it. Well that, or he wanted me to shut up—both are equally plausible.
My new hero, Officer Highbeam, followed me and my 1979 Ford Pinto to the Stadium Boulevard exit as promised and I would never again return to Town & Country Lanes. Of course, I was only really safe until I returned to Braemore Road where I fully expected my mom to have heard the entire ordeal on her police scanner already.
My mother never disappoints:
Mom: Randy, can you just tell me how many of my friends you plan to show your butt to before you graduate?
Without knowing it, my loving mother was reinforcing the first rule of business, which I would later pass on to my own children: whether you are bowling, at work and/or being questioned by police, cover your ass.
Humorist, Editorial Writer, Speaker, and Entrepreneur Randall Kenneth Jones is the creator of professional-courtesy initiative, RediscoverCourtesy.org, and the “confessional development” chronicle, AttackBunnies.com. His creative communications agency, MindZoo, is dedicated to the development of highly targeted and innovative written and visual communications for use across today’s wide spectrum of online and offline media.
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