Odd Job Man

Odd Job Man: (Colloquial, noun) 1) Man/woman who earns money through casual work performed for various employers 2) Man who earns money through strange and un unusual work performed at curious hours 3) Eugene P. Nittleworthy.

Sunday: Man in the pub asked me today what I did for a living, so I told him. He said I was mad.
He could be right.

Monday: Phone call this morning:
"Hello. Is that the Odd Job Man?"
"Hello, yes."
"Got a job for you."
"Is it odd?"
"Well, I want you to make my porpoises levitate."
"How much have you got?"
"About a thousand."
"A thousand dollars?"
"No, porpoises."
"Is that legal?"
"Will you take it?"
So I got his address and drove round. I asked him how he wanted me to go about this. He said he thought that was my job. I asked him why he wanted me to do it, anyway. He said to entertain the penguins.
It took me a while but eventually I figured out how to do it. It involved throwing them in the air.

Tuesday: No work today. Bored. Depressed. Not getting much work lately. Passed the time by practicing origami with a brick.

Wednesday:
Ring ring. Click.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Mr. Nittleworthy? Help me, please! I've lost it, and I don't know whe..."
(Wearily) "Madam, we are not a lost and found society. This is the Odd Job Man agency. If you want to find something..."
"Oh, but this job is odd! You see, I've lost my ... my SELF!"
"Er, you appear to have lost me, ma'am."
"That's just it! You see, I've lost Me, and I don't know where to find Me!"
"What?"
"My ego, you see... my sense of self-awareness, my Centredness - it's all but vanished!"
"Hold on ... I'll be right round."
As I suspected, her house was filled, wall to wall, with Self-Help books - with titles like:

The Doors to Perception, and How to Get Over Them

Travelling through the Journey of the Self

How to Fit a Circle Through the Set Square of My Centredness

Help for the Self-help Addict

Motivation - Actualisation - Self-esteem.

She was actually reading one when I got there. I saw what the problem was straight away. She had tried so hard to find herself that she had forgotten all about it. I found it pottering in the garden planting some azaleas. She was very apologetic, but said that unfortunately, she was completely unable to pay me at the time being.
My client, meanwhile, smiled a little smile of satisfaction when she saw her self again and stuck her nose back in the book - the selfish so-and-so.

Thursday: Guy called me today and asked for an elbow job. I advised him to go to the nearest sensual massage parlour. I may be an odd job man, but even I have standards.

Friday: Annual meeting of the Odd Job Man society. I'm the only member. I started proceedings by asking everyone to leave, which they did. Then I spent the rest of the meeting feeling lonely.

Saturday: Busy day. Working on some scientific experiments.

8.00 – Working with some farmyard animals. Tried to locate hens teeth, and then clean them.

10.00 – Got out the calculator to work out exactly ‘How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck if a Woodchuck could chuck wood?’

2.00 - Tried to work out what, exactly a goose’s bridle is – working on a paper known as ‘The Wigwam Principle’.

Sunday: Guy walks up to me in the pub and asks me my job. I tell him. He says I’m crazy.

I tell him I’d be crazy to take any other job. I tell him he must be crazy to be doing what he’s doing now. I tell him that it’s none of his damn business anyway. Then I tip a beer over his head and walk out.
I love my job.