3 Weird Things That I Had to Do as an Intern for a Multi-Millionaire

1. Bird Boy

I was in mid wake-and-bake, combating the massive hangover I awoke to, when my phone began ringing.  Grabbing my phone I let out a breath of smoke, coughing as I saw the screen: “boss lady.” Fuck that, it was Friday and I had the day off. This guy was not about to answer his phone. Then I hear the voicemail beep go off. Nothing pisses off at 20 year-old bro more than a voicemail. 

“Hey SouthPaw, Bill is back in town and needs a few things done, could you  swing by the house for 30 minutes or so? Thanks!”

I immediately wished I had not checked the voicemail. You see, after three years of working for this family I have lost all since of self-pride and tend to succumb to just about every one of Bill’s and boss lady’s requests. I also knew Bill was rarely in town and helping him out could go a long in way in securing a job in his company upon my graduation. Needless to say, I got off the couch, put some eye drops in and made my way over to their house.

It was a shitty, rainy day. The family was all snuggled up on the couch by the fireplace, watching Sponge Bob and eating pizza. Without so much as a hey, Bill sitting from his leather chair shouts:

“So me and the boys are going out to the lodge this weekend to do a little duck  hunting. Will you go to the backyard and cut down those bamboo trees we  have out there and make some duck blinds with them?”

Is this guy fucking serious?

“You know how to use a machete, right?”

Physically, I’m not impressive; just your average, run of the mill, white male. So what this guy was thinking asking me use his machete to cut down bamboo and build fucking duck blinds, I honestly have no clue. However, I was in too deep.  “Yeah, I’ve used a machete a couple times,” I replied.  In reality, the biggest knife I had used up to that point was the kitchen knife I use to cut my frozen pizzas when my actual pizza cutter is in the dishwasher.

Fast-forward about 30 minutes. It’s pouring down rain, my hands are full with cuts from them slipping on the wet machete grip and sliding onto the blade, blood is all over my shirt, jeans, face, and I am whacking at bamboo like a fucking amateur.  However, after a few more hours of this I had managed to take down an entire forest of bamboo, as well as build some pretty mediocre duck blinds. Content with my work, I went to retrieve Bill from inside.  Looking over my duck blinds, adjusting some to his liking, he seemed to be satisfied.  “Good work, how about you come along with me and the guys this weekend?”  Naturally, I’m thinking this is it. This is my time to bond with the boys, get a few words and laughs in, lock up a job and become a millionaire by 30.

By the time Bill and I pull up to the hunting lodge all his boys were already there, standing around in a circle drinking and bullshitting. Walking up to the guys, Bill yells out, “brought along my bird dog,” pointing and laughing towards me. Immediately ten eyeballs are fixed on my blood shot eyes.

I would love to say I rebounded from that initial low blow but that would be a lie. The next two days consisted of me setting up decoys, fetching birds and cleaning guns. Not once did I shoot a gun or contribute to any conversation. I was a fat chick at a frat party. Not one person wanted to speak or look at me.

Well, my weekend came full circle Sunday night as I sat on my couch back at home, taking bong tokes and cleaning the 50+ dove shot that weekend to deliver to Bill the following morning.

2. Soccer Mom

One of my regular duties as an assistant was picking up my boss’s kids from school and their other extra-curricular activities. I will concede that this is a relatively easy task, as it does not take much brainpower to drive around town and straight chill at a soccer game. However, what people don’t realize about this gig is that you aren’t riding around alone in your car, no, you are cruising with a group of fucking ten year olds, all of whom which are yelling and screaming at literally everything.

Making matters worse is after a few weeks of regularly picking the kids up from school, soccer practice, dance recital, friends birthday parties, ext. other kids parents start getting comfortable around you, some a little too much so. Creepy old dads asking what sorority has the biggest sluts, moms trying to give advice on how to date, just a lot of out-dated comments from a lot of out-dated souls. It became a regular occurrence for a parent to come up asking if I could take their kid home from school on Tuesday or if I could babysit their kid the following weekend. Um sorry lady, I’m not a fucking daycare. I’m a drunken, washed up frat star who smokes entirely too much weed. So no, I will not be taking little Timmy home Tuesday and I definitely won’t be spending my weekend watching reruns of Teletubies with him either.

With that said, I have a new found respect for soccer moms across America. Everyone thinks you ladies have it made and refuse to take you seriously when you say you had a hard day. Well not this bro. I’ve been their ladies, being a soccer mom aint no stroll in the park.

3. Zoo Keeper

Call me a zoo-keeper, veterinarian, dog-whisper, or bitch, whatever you want to call me, I was the master of the animals in this household. This my fellow Bros, is no easy task. You see, a prevalent characteristic amongst rich people is their passion to own a shit load of animals, and the apple doesn’t fall from the tree as their kids also share this same characteristic. When you combine a filthy rich persons passion for owning animals along with his spoiled kids passion for animals, the result is a fucking zoo. This family was no exception to that rule: three dogs, one cat, an aquarium of fish, one hamster and a fucking parrot.

Being busy multi-millionaires, Bill and boss lady didn’t have time to care for their zoo, and their kids were way too busy counting their allowance to even think about stepping up to the plate, so this is where I came in. Below is a list of my duties for each pet:

Dogs: Feeding, bathing, brushing teeth, ironing their bandanas, taking them on walks, picking up their shit in the backyard, and giving them dog treats anytime they barked at me. Because that’s what rich dogs do when they want a treat, they fucking bark at you.

Hamsters: I’ll never get used to cleaning hamster cages. There is just nothing natural about spending 30 minutes a week freshening up a cage so some glorified rat can sleep easy at night. Also, these fuckers have a life span of about 2 weeks. I swear there was a point in time when I was buying over ten hamsters a year from the pet store just so boss’s kids wouldn’t realize that ole “Cinnamon” died three years back.

Parrot: Fucking birds. It always blows my mind that anyone could love such a terrible animal.  I mean they bring absolutely nothing to the table. Not cute. Not playful. Not cheap. Not clean. Not quiet. Not funny. Anyways, my job here was to regularly clean the cage and keep him full and hydrated everyday.  All in all, not too much work. However, the haunting dreams I still have to this day of being attacked by a group of parrots is enough to make this the worst chore of the week.

Fish: Probably the biggest pain in the ass out of all the animals. Cleaning an aquarium is a tedious, long process and can only be mastered through repetition. Unfortunately, I had lots of repetition over the course of three years and learned how to clean the fuck out of an aquarium.  I also got pretty attached to those little guys in there. Probably the lowest I was all of 2011 was when Jasmine, the goldfish, died. Then boss lady had the nerve to blame Jasmines death on me, saying it must have happened when I was cleaning the aquarium. Bitch, no one is more devastated about the passing of Jasmine than this guy.

Cats: Like most people in this world, before I took this job I despised cats. However, after three years of being a self-proclaimed zookeeper, the admiration I now have for cats is unparallel to any other animal I have come across. I mean literally the only thing you have to do to take care of a cat is change its kitty litter once a week. Besides that, those mother fuckers fend for themselves in every aspect of their lives. Pretty impressive stuff.  Don’t get me wrong though, I still would never actually own such an ugly creature.

[Intern image via ShutterStock]