Finally, everyone calms down enough to try again. The guinea pig is traumatized but not yet dead. Tyler is no longer crying but is in the post-traumatic, shuddery, heaves state. Mom's smile has been frozen into a freaky rictus of fake pleasure and Dad is fearful for his life. He knows he'll be getting his punishment later that night for contributing the sperm to Tyler's creation. Meanwhile, I'm running around like a Fresno freak, trying to get these fucks out of my shack while trying to make sure this poor rodent lives through the day. I take Tyler's fucking picture, quickly scoop the half-dead animal off his lap, drop it in it's pen, collect the dough, throw the picture at them and ship them the fuck out. Then I reset the booth, do a line of blow behind the cage, and yell, "Next!"

Despite all the trauma, the worst part of the job was that I began to develop leg pains. All the running around and being on my feet all day was getting to me. I was pretty young for constant body aches and began to hate the job, so I knew I wouldn't be doing it too much longer. The best part of the job happened a few weeks after I started.

A certain number of photos were tossed every day. Either the camera malfunctioned, or the kid moved, or the film was just bad. I was allowed to just cross these off my tally and move on. Then I'd go in at the end of the day, kill the guinea pig or chicken out of pity, get my money and tally together, and hand it all in. The problem was my math sucked. To this day I can't count to 21 without getting naked. So I'd run my number, tally up my money, and the count would be wrong. I dunno why. Maybe I was giving the wrong change during the day. Every picture should have been 3 bucks, so it should all have been divisible by three. But it wasn't. Now what the fuck to do? If I hand this in I'm screwed. Only one thing to do: cook the books. So I'd pocket the extra few bucks. Now everything was neat and I could hand it in.

Every week I'd pocket a few bucks to help "even things out." Then, when I needed a few extra bucks to get through the weekend I'd "accidentally" dump a few pictures during the day. By the end of the second month I was supplementing my income quite nicely.