Camel Spit
It’s sort of embarrassing to even talk about this because it was just…tacky, but when I was ten I worked for a guy who ran a used car lot. That guy was my uncle. He was sort of a con man; sort of a used car salesman.
He gave me the job because I was a go-getter, but it made him angry too- His own kids didn’t want to dress up in some horrible cheesy Arabian costume and stand with two camels he rented on the DL from the Buffalo Zoo to do commercials for his car lot.
I however, needed the money. I’d realized very early on that I was powerless if “I” didn’t have a source of income. I was at the mercy and whims of my parents…”We’ll see” and “we’ll talk about it later” being the main hurdles that faced me everytime I asked for something.
I needed a job.
I mowed lawns
I delivered papers – running through early am traffic to sell papers to commuters…dashing through traffic in a way that might have made my world-weary Mom faint had she seen what I did.
I had had the “casino”- when my parents inexplicably gifted me an entire casino’s worth of games and devices. That was a complete bust, of course. None of my friends- I mean patrons had any money either.
I did odd jobs.
I shoveled driveways (but I realized vey quickly that that work was seasonal. difficult and “iffy”).
I was always looking for a way to bring in a few dollars and then revel in that freedom.
My uncle happened upon the idea for a couple of camels for one of his commercials when he ran into a couple of buddies from The War at a bar.
The “Our Cars Are Like Camels When They Drink at The Gas Pump” series of commercials were born that night. Unfortunately it was a sort series…
Here’s the concept: A cute kid (me) held the camels as if they were mine and tried to trade them in for a nice late model Ford. This gave my uncle an opportunity to talk to the cameras and tell his story about how dependable his cars were.
The camels were pretty cranky and unpleasant…that is until I remembered visits to my God Father’s house on Grand Island.
We’d watch the hydroplane races from his living room and eat these weird pretzels that he had that had nuts inside of them…so you didn’t know whether to bite them or to allow them to just disintegrate in your mouth… Weird choice, but that was the choice that he talked about every so often too. So, there’s that.
…It was pretty cool. He and his wife were very mellow and down to earth people and I felt very comfortable with them. They also had a mule named Horace.
This mule would do anything for gingersnaps. I’ve never ridden a horse but I’ve ridden a mule – in a pen at a slow gallop but that’s more than most people, right? Horace hated having someone on his back, and now I guess that I can truly sympathize. However, he was fine with me on his back so long as the supply of gingersnaps stayed constant.
So, I’ve already said: Horace LOVED ginger snaps. After the first time of filming with the cranky camels, I loaded my pockets with ginger snaps and fed them to each liberally when no one was paying attention to a ten year old.
After a while they came to see me as the conduit for more tasty treats. They smelled foul and foreign. On the other hand, I was earning $20 a small fortune in those days to a 10 year old, so who is to say what smells bad, hmm?
The camel handler would show up early Sunday morning, pulling a two-horse horse trailer. He got the camels out and (presumably) ready while my uncle and some flunky set up the camera.
The camels, by the third outing had come to see me as “the Bringer of Treats”. They were not stupid; merely tired of dealing with others who were. However, they didn’t hit their “mark”- a piece of tape on the sidewalk. A place to where the camera was pere-focused so that my uncle could walk in and begin “selling” to the camera.
I did (“hit” my mark- once the idea was explained to me) but why would a camel notice some electrical tape under their feet?- And how would you explain this to two unwilling refugees from the Saudi Peninsula?
The handler harangued the two rather goofy-looking beasts of burden and tried to wrestle then into place- that is just behind me…the man with the cookies.
And then I guess they became agitated after his repeated repositioning of then, per the guy with the camera’s instructions. And then, I saw something I’d never seen before; I saw a camel “hauk up a loogie”!, as the older kids would say.
It was then that the camel’s cheeks filled like some jazz trumpeter and a full 15 feet away the trainer and my uncle got …spit up on. The orange-white mess was impressive and the handler tried to save me by getting me out of the camel’s proximity, when in reality, they were more than happy to shelter me under their overhanging and scary –looking mouths. I was slipping them cookies!
I’m sure that about then, the handler feared for my safety. I was fine leaning against the camel’s chest and I could feel the warmth radiating out from him/her? But the trainer -or handler would be more accurate, I suppose, in trying to wrest me from the camels grip (so to speak), lunged in and startled the camels and upset them further and so got nipped on an ear for his trouble.
Meanwhile my uncle was trying in vain to save the shoot…cleaning himself off with an old towel and checking the mirror to see how he looked.
Understand that camel “spit” is really camel puke. It’s a self-preservation device designed (here, I’m only guessing) to disgust their enemies and drive them away (presumably to get a hot shower). That orange-white mess is stomach acid mixed with camel saliva; the ability to project it however is a formidable new learned step in evolution. If you’d been there, I’m certain that you would have been impressed!
Only three weeks into my TV career, it was stamped out like and frustrated man stomping on a cigarette butt. My uncle and the guy from the zoo argued about a lot of things. I wandered off to divest myself of this humiliating Arabian costume, knowing that I was done… The camels protected me, and attacked everyone else. Even a dumb little kid could read those signs.
As we gathered up our belongings there was talk about “trying again next week”, but that faint hope for my $20 faded when the camels really puked on the way back to the zoo.
You guessed it. Too many ginger snaps.
My uncle lost access to the camels and I was out $20, which as I said before was a small fortune. He and I never really saw eye to eye after that incident…
