GRAVEYARD SHIFT, from Season 2 of the enduring Nickelodeon hit cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants, is one of my all time favorites. This series, which I took to around 2002-03, features the title character as an annoyingly expressive sponge (in yellow kitchen sponge form) living at the bottom of the sea with his best friend Patrick (silly starfish), next neighbor Squidward (cynical octopus) and boss Mr. Krabs (greedy, stingy crab). He works with Squidward at the Krusty Krab fast food joint...in this episode Krabs discovers he can make more money if his place never closes: hence, the graveyard shift. Squidward can't stand it, and SpongeBob thinks it's the greatest thing ever..."Wow, we never have to stop working!". Fed up with his coworker's unbridled enthusiasm, Squidward decides to play a joke on him and dreams up a ghost story about the "Hash-Slinging Slasher", supposedly a former employee who accidentally cut off his hand, got run over by a bus, and will come back to "Get you!" It works on SpongeBob, who shrieks repeatedly until Squidward tries to shut him up by telling him it was just a joke...then he switches to laughing repeatedly (see above picture). Later that night the clues that Squidward laid out about the Slasher's return start coming true, and the two are left shaking in terror as the sinister figure holding a spatula enters the restaurant...
I have worked the graveyard shift on three different jobs: a weekend shift as a clerk in a traffic management office in Miami Shores, a very brief stint at a Gainesville convenience store, and for around 18 years as a clerk at the post office. There something just not quite right about leaving for work late in the evening and getting off when the sun has just risen in the morning...I never completely got used to working those hours, and on my off days I would sleep the late night/early morning as if I had more normal hours. The world outside gets eerily silent in those wee hours of the morning and you can hear some pretty distant sounds...all sorts of nocturnal wildlife like to make their appearance then as well. Nowadays with my afternoon/evening work schedule it's a major chore for me to just get up at 7 in the morning, much less work all night long. SpongeBob's Graveyard Shift episode is loaded with laughs...unfortunately, although this series continues on to this day with new episodes, I don't think the ones after the fourth season are very funny: if you haven't seen it yet, I'd focus on those early seasons if I were you...
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