My name is Nate, but my friends call me Nasty. For the last three years I’ve worked as a stand up comedian. I’ve been spit on, tackled, heckled, had cigarettes flicked at me, and a small protest held in my honor. And that’s just my sex life… but seriously, comedy is awesome, but it isn’t exactly profitable. At 23, when someone offers to pay you in beer instead of money, you end up living with your parents again. I used to have nice things, but somewhere along the line I thought it would be cool to “follow my dreams”, what a dumb f***ing idea.

On my quest to become famous and someday have enough money to poop on a gold toilet, I’ve had to do some things I didn’t want to do, pretty much everything short of working at McDonalds, which I’ll probably regret saying someday. “Hi my name is Nasty Nate and my life is in shambles, can I take your order?”

I’ve worked as a farmer, warehouse worker, cage fighter, industrial ventilation cleaner and landscaper. Yes, a cage fighter and it was awesome except it hurt my face, because everyone kept punching it. My last job was as a landscaper and my boss used to pee in Gatorade bottles and keep them in the work truck. Enough said.

It was time to look for a new gig. On Craigslist I found a job posting titled “ZOMBIE ACTORS NEEDED!” Perfect. I emailed my name and “credentials”, and within an hour I was emailed a place and time to interview. I show up. I was greeted by a giant dude whose large gut and mullet made him look like a mix between Duck Dynasty and Shrek, but made me feel … safe…and warm.

He gave me a pen and an insurance waiver and sat me down on a plastic chair. I didn’t ask any questions. After five minutes of staring at my own shoes, an older man in overalls named “Marv” stood over me and said “the hockey pads don’t really cover your armpits but I like to cut up yoga mats and stuff ‘em in. ” Uh, what? Having no clue what he was talking about, I just kind of nodded like an idiot. Had I just joined a cult? This a question I have had to ask myself too many times in my life.

He explained that as a “zombie actor” I would be attempting to scare people as they shot me with paintball’s. The pads and yoga mats would keep the paintball’s from doing any significant damage. And I was to be paid in real American currency! I even signed a tax thing, which made me feel like an adult.

Orientation involved following a dirty guy driving a golf cart around the zombie paintball course. “Oh yeah man, it’s a great time, the kids love shooting us and we hope you’ll have a good time too. Here is where we want to put the industrial flame thrower.” Industrial flame thrower? That seems about right; what could possibly go wrong?

My first day was exciting, there was an entire barn full of body armor that had been pulled from various thrift stores. Baseball-catcher’s gear, hockey-goalie leg pads, motocross gloves, old sleepingbags, our instructions were to “make it work, cover your whole body, otherwise it’s going to hurt likehell.” I fought my way over to some pink chest protection, grabbed a life jacket laying next to it, and got to work. After going through an entire roll of Duct tape, I was more padded up than a middle schooler’s bra.

After two hours of waiting, a bullhorn sounded off. Go time. The first wave of shooters was driving towards us. They came in a tractor with three trailers attached, each one blinged out with 10 paintball guns, black lights, and speakers pounding dubstep. All. Night. Long. Children and women screamed, men roared. We realized how many spaces on our bodies were not covered by pads. Every inch of our bodies were pelted, sometimes the paintball’s didn’t break, which frickin’ hurts.

The first hour went by, we kept smiling and joking around between waves of shooters.

By the second hour I had welts from my neck to my ankles, but I was still warm.

Hour three, the paint had soaked through to our clothes. The poncho got reallll heavy.

4 hours, forget this.

5 hours. No.

The sixth hour passed and I was off. I went home and applied at McDonalds.