It's A Great Job If You Can Get It

9. Personal Assistant to a Confused Elderly Woman

Description: Perpetually befuddled old-timers all around this nation are in serious need of youthful, clearheaded assistance in just about every task imaginable.  The need for Personal Assistants to Confused Elderly Women was made crystal clear to me during a recent shopping excursion to Kohls.  A frail old biddy, finding herself bewildered by a price scanning robot in the discount shoe section of the store, asked for my assistance in reviewing the price of a particular item in her cart.  "Do you know how this thing is supposed to work?" she inquired.  I told her I thought I did and scanned the price tag for the novelty t-shirt I had in my hands without incident.  "Well, look at you," she chuckled with senile glee.  I suggested that she try holding the barcode steady under the "squiggly red things" instead of the arm flailing motion she had been using prior.  This yielded positive results.  "Ten dollars!" she exclaimed disgustedly.  I politely fake laughed and joined my wife who was looking at beach towels.

Skills Needed: high tolerance for cheek pinching and repetitive stories about the "good old days"; lots and lots of patience

Availability: There are doddering old ladies all over the place just waiting for help from a strapping young man or woman with a handle on the latest price checking technology.
10. Professional Homeless Person

Description: Being homeless isn't all eating out of trash cans, begging college students for spare change, and having spirited conversations with the imaginary spaceman who lives in your beard anymore.  Today's homeless individual has a well thought out money collection plan and sometimes a Bluetooth earpiece.  It's true.  I've seen them by Crabtree Valley Mall.  There's a couple of them that work in shifts.  Allegedly some of them have trucks parked in the gas station nearby.

Skills Needed: low levels of shame; ability to reconcile begging for spare change while owning a variety of cellphone technology many of your benefactors do not; access to a bindle

Availability: You don't even have to be homeless to be Homeless these days.  Now get out there and start begging it up!
11. Sentinel at the Gates of Hell

Description: The entrance to Hell is in Brooklyn and not in Pat Robertson's backyard underneath a pile of freshly raked leaves like we once thought. Someone's got to watch over the Gates of Hell to make sure Hitler doesn't escape.  Are you up for the task?  If so, pull up a chair and relinquish your eyesight please.

Skills needed: must enjoy sitting for long periods (i.e. decades); must have attempted suicide and failed; willingness to become a priest or nun; willingness to become a blind priest or nun

Availability: Former fashion model and shampoo spokeswoman Alison Parker currently holds the position, but when the Brotherhood who runs the whole operation decides she's had enough the job could be yours.  Prepare yourself by making a half-assed attempt on your own life.  Good luck.
12. Funeral Clown

Description: This one is going to take an entrepreneur who isn't afraid to think outside the box. You've heard of a party clown, right?  Well, people at parties tend to be happy already rendering the services of a clown moot.  Funeral goers, however, are depressed and in need of the hearty laugh only a squirting flower can provide.  Hence, funeral clown.

Skills Needed: basic clowning skills and some experience in the field of grief counseling

Availability: I'm offering you this exciting chance to be your own boss free of charge.  If you have the balls to start your own funeral clowning business, you have the self-confidence needed to survive this economic crisis.