While I waited last month to start my new job, I took an…interesting…temporary job.

One Sunday, the director of the local funeral home (and a deacon at my church) called to say he’d heard I was between jobs, and would I be interested in making a little extra money?  I said yes…and left Cisco the next morning at 6 a.m. to pick up a dead body in Amarillo (a 7-hour drive) and bring it back to the funeral home.  It was a total of 15 hours altogether.  What made things even weirder is that, due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to take my son with me.

If you think I might have been a little uneasy doing this, you can imagine how my son felt.  There were some things that took his mind off our mission, though.  Mr. K gave us plenty of lunch money, so once we arrived in Amarillo, and before we, uh, made the pick-up, the boy and I went to the Big Texan Steak Ranch, a legendary Texas restaurant.  The steaks were delicious, and my son left with a cowboy hat and a mug shaped like a cowboy boot, thanks to the restaurant.

After that, we went to the mortuary to pick up our passenger.  My son was getting way creeped out by then, but the director explained things to him in a way that calmed him down some.  Once we were ready to go, we stopped once for gas, and once again for dinner.  About an hour back into the return trip, the kid was acting as if we were the only two there.  Our passenger, I have to say, wasn’t a great conversationalist.  The pay wasn’t too bad.  I don’t know if I’d ever do it again, though.

So…what’s the strangest job YOU’VE ever held?  Change names and places if you must.