Being a professional tickler requires four years of trade school, four years of apprenticeship, three years of mentorship, and one year of actually working as an electrician before you’re fired and end up tickling full-time. Maybe that career-ending electrocution means your hands are always shaking now, but at least it means you can be a pretty good tickler or a really, really bad surgeon.
I started my career by tickling strangers on the street, then made my way up to tickling strangers on the sidewalk. Since the compensation for tickling isn't really there, I spend most of my free time also on the sidewalk. Being a professional tickler is all about the passion.
My top clients are children with depression, who have a tough time laughing because it reminds them of all their bullies laughing at them for being so different and weird. At least I can make them laugh when they point at me for being more differenter and weirder than them. When I tickle them, they kindly ask me to stop.
I might not be any good at my job. But to be completely honest, I hate my job. In another life, maybe I could’ve been something cool, like an uber driver, that has his own car and tickles on the side. I’m just a tickler that sleeps on the side of the road and gets hit by cars sometimes.
Tickling is truly a thankless profession. I’ve made dozens of people laugh in the past year alone, a few more in the years before that, and not one person has tipped me, let alone pay me. The world should be thankful that I tickle out of love, because the alternative would be tickling out of hate, which would be a very scary thing for very many people.
On my lucky days I work the comedy club, dashing in and getting the audience all riled up. I nearly make it to the ten-minute mark before I’m escorted out for trespassing and someone’s laughing at me as I leave. Nice. That’s the first person I’ve made laugh this month.