cracker barrel euthanasia

I heard lifeless singing and waited to see if it was a birthday song or a death song. We did both at Cracker Barrel, sometimes even mistaking the tunes because it was impossible to distinguish happiness or sadness there. Celebration and mourning resided together in water leaking from the undercooked eggs and saliva dripping from the slackened mouths of ketamine fueled employees. 

Mistaking the two songs happened often and when it did we were deprived of our day-old biscuit allotment and a year of wages transformed into a lifetime ten percent off coupon for the affected party. They’d leave happy regardless of the outcome, either celebrating the modest discount or the slaughter of a sickly family member. 

We’d sleep in the decorative hay bales on those nights and wonder how many people we had killed to the sound of pimples erupting through our clogged pores and crawling down our skin tagged faces, as though our insides were an unfit home for a sack of yellowing puss. 

The valleys and hills of the song would determine if it was a phlegm ridden sheet cake or a twelve guage shotgun, but most of the time the staff was too stoned to remember the lyrics or carry a tune, so we did our best.  

The birthday cake was $8.99 and the euthanasia was $15.99, for an extra $3 we’d make a commemorative shirt with a live action picture of whatever took place. The face of someone who would grow up to resent his parents for their pathetic birthday party or the blown head of an elderly grandparent that no one wanted anymore immortalized on a nipple chafing, officially licensed Cracker Barrel t-shirt. 

We were known as “Happiness Ambassadors,” and management made sure we were always smiling. Even after mistakenly disintegrating the head of a six year old celebrating what would be his last birthday, management maintained that frowning was not tolerated as it would ruin the remainer of the meal for the family. 

We’d help carry the ruined corpse out to the car as a courtesy, with hopes of a pitied tip and sulked back to the restaurant when it didn’t come. 

Sometimes the family would ask me to pose for a picture with them for Instagram. A washed out stranger holding a fistful of indistinguishable remains and offering a thumbs up, as though it were an endorsement for the afterlife. 

“Come for the Double-Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake, stay for the seamless execution of someone who may or may deserve it,” was what Mario Lopez said in the commercials holding a replica shotgun and sitting naked on some vintage looking barrels. 

I thought about that commercial a lot and the fact that no one really came for the Double-Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake.