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Odder jobs than newspaper columnist, Part II

Last week, my peeps, we began a silly little journey down the road the oddest occupations here in the land of 2023.

The trusted companion of modern times, the worldwide web, offered strange choices such as dog food taster, mourner and odor judge (that’s a job mothers have been performing for free for centuries).

Let’s continue our trip of the strange, er, make that unique, occupations of modern man. For example, where on God’s green earth would one find their life’s fulfillment as one of the following:

• Bingo manager at a retirement home — Yep, ostensibly, this is really a thing. The question is, how did I possibly live and work on this big round ball for a full 55 years without the realization that my life’s work could possibly be so rosy as to ask if anyone has “O-67”? Ding dang it, I’d have been a natural for this!

The median average salary for this position — and again, which institution, pray tell, calculated this little factoid?– is $68,988 per year and “those working in a renowned casino can easily surpass this amount.”

I guarantee you they did NOT teach us that in Catholic grade school. And we’re all about bingo, to be honest!

• Food scientist — Median salary, $78,340 annually.

Dude, that is just plain mean, not marketing that job by screaming it from every rooftop known to man — and woman and child, capisce?

Apparently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics claims that “food scientists” can earn as much as $130,540 annually.

Dagnabit, my peeps, why would one of you not let me in on this secret passion of a pastime? I thought we were tighter than that but, whatever.

• Body part model — Listen, I wish I were clever enough to make up this stuff, but darned if I can even begin to imagine this kinda thing. Then again, there IS that odd commercial in which a late night talk show host is interviewing a big toe. Come on, marketers, we’re better than that, no?

It seems that how much body part models earn depends their employers, which can dish out between $25,000 and $124,730. And here’s an interesting sub-fact: body part models can specialize. They can become only hand or foot models, for instance. Their field of expertise fits commercials for very niche products.

Allow me to explain. “The most lucrative option is usually general-purpose body part models, such as playing the part of a celebrity appendage in say a foot cream commercial for a celebrity who supports a certain product but doesn’t care to expose said body part.” Alrighty, then.

• Bounty hunter — Listen, I’ve been a little skeptical of them since Boba Fett stalked Han Solo in “Star Wars,” a’ight? Seems in real life, or IRL as the kids today say, they are responsible for finding criminals who have skipped out on bail and to deliver them back to police authorities.

Many bounty hunters make anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent of the bail amount if they are successful in finding the criminal. Forty percent sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Cha-ching!

Heck, I’d do any job, pay be darned, if it meant I could get up close and personal with Harrison Ford, if you know what I’m sayin’!

Newspaper columnist doesn’t pay anywhere near those amounts, but we sure get to go to some fun and silly places, don’t we?

Kimerer is an imagination model whose handiwork is likely dangerously close to extinction after today. Contact what’s left of her mind via pakimerer@icloud.com

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