Life After Big Brother by Chris Pontius

When I first heard I’d been fired from Big Brother, I couldn’t have been less bothered. "Devil may care!" I said to myself. I knew that I’d miss signing autographs, but riding in limousines with Slayer, going to porn-industry parties and posing for full, frontal, nude male spreads never really meant that much to me. Maybe one day, the remaining Big Brother staff will drive past me in a limo and order the chauffeur to come to a halt. "Hey, Chris, get in!" they would shout. But I would refuse. "No thanks, fellas, I’ll just walk—just like I walked to our last video premiere! You might remember me from it, I was the star!" And so the time had come to walk away from skateboarding forever. What more could I accomplish in the sport? I mean, I was famous. It was time to start a new career. I wondered what kind of work would suit me best. Maybe I could become a policeman in charge of putting criminals behind bars where they belong. Or maybe a prostitute catering to men. I would also service women, but they’d have to pay a penalty fee for being female. To make sure that there wasn’t any confusion over the price, I’d get a tattoo across my belly that read, "Broads pay double." On the other hand, lately, I’ve been very suspicious that war would be breaking out any day, and Uncle Sam might need my help. I would join the U.S. Marine Corps! I’ve always known that I’d make a fine soldier, just like Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan! "Semper fi, do or die! Here comes a trained killer, a United States Marine Corps Devil Dog! Beware!" I’d shout while slaughtering camel jockeys. If I ever saw a camel jockey on an exotic two-humped, though, I would disobey President Clinton’s orders and spare the man’s life. I would befriend the enemy and have long conversations with him while watching the sun set over the sandy dunes of the northern Sahara. In the end, I decided to become a health aficionado. That’s when I walked into Jamba Juice and demanded an application. Jamba Juice is a juice-bar chain that specializes in serving smoothies, wheat grass and healthy ethnic soups with a California twist. During my job interview, I told the manager about how involved I was in health and athletics. To back up these statements, I wore a wife-beater to the interview to provide a charming display of skin and muscle. Plus, the manager Jeff was gay, and if there was one thing I’d learned at Big Brother, it was how far a little sex appeal can take you. A few days later, I received a call explaining that I was hired and it was time to come in and begin training. My second day on the job, I showed up over an hour late. It was my girlfriend’s fault, so I warned Jeff that if she should ever come in looking for a job, to think twice before hiring her. Later that day, some guy named Lance came in for a juice. I figured that he must’ve been Lance Dawes, the editor of Slap, and I could tell that he and all the other customers really liked me. Some of the customers looked at me with bedroom eyes, wondering what I had hanging beneath my trousers. Then a fat, black lady made trouble with me and the rest of the Jamba team. Following my instincts, I immediately turned it into a racial issue, wondering if Jamba Juice would welcome my attitudes the way Big Brother had. Ironically, the next day was Martin Luther King Day. "Isn’t it ironic/don’t you think?/a little too ironic/yeah I really do think!" —Alanis Morrisette I decided not to show up for work at all. The sun was shining, the wind was perfect, it was time to raise the sails and move on. I got the job at Charles Schwab through a temp agency. I worked as an assistant to the manager of the payroll department. As you can imagine, working for the largest stock brokerage firm in the country provided me with a lot of unwelcome stress. Wisely, I turned to the bottle. The work was grueling but a lot easier than Jamba Juice. I was also enjoying my drinking, so I stayed on the job for a few more weeks until I finally quit. When I went to the security office of Charles Schwab to turn in my clearance badge, the female guard decided to give me a hard time for not telling anyone that I’d quit. She kept asking me all these questions, but I couldn’t answer her because I was chewing tobacco and had no place to spit. I had no choice but to turn my back on the woman and walk away. I knew that she would call the temp agency and they would never hire me again, but I didn’t care. Another bridge had been burned, but there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, left. The next day, I interviewed with a woman at another temp agency. Once again, by telling lies and using the sex appeal I’d learned from my slutty sister, I was hired on the spot. I was assigned to work at the Women’s Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds women’s programs throughout California. I was the only male employee in the entire foundation, and many of the women I worked with were of color. Some of the women I was dealing with were avid lesbians and, although not physically attracted to me, eventually confessed that I had a nice voice. I loved working at the Foundation and felt sad when I had to announce that I’d be leaving to go on an extended vacation. On my last day of work, we all drank Jamba Juice.