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Maxwell started his career as a comedian, but the other moose, deer, and antelope in his local forest just didn’t find him all that funny. His go-to joke, “Why don’t you ever see moose hiding in trees? Because they’re really good at it!” always fell flat. The crickets chirping after his punchlines were louder than the laughter.
After a couple of open mic night flops, where even the usually supportive squirrels threw acorns instead of applause, he decided to pack it up and move into town to get a job. The only thing he could find was a part-time job loading trucks at night, but that had its own set of problems.
“It was very frustrating,” Maxwell explains. “My antlers were constantly getting stuck on the truck’s tailgate.” He chuckles, remembering the time he accidentally decorated an entire shipment of lampshades with his shed velvet. “Aside from breaking things in the warehouse with my antlers, the foreman would get annoyed when I would scratch the walls. He’d yell, ‘Maxwell, this isn’t a petting zoo!’ But what could I do? A moose has got to scratch!”
Determined to find his true calling, Maxwell tried his hoof at various jobs. He briefly worked as a lifeguard at the local pool, but his well-intentioned ‘cannonball’ dives to rescue swimmers often resulted in more chaos than help. “Let’s just say, I was asked to ‘moose on’ after I accidentally turned the kiddie pool into a wave pool,” he says with a sheepish grin.
Next, he attempted a stint as a barista at the local coffee shop. “I thought I’d be great at it, you know, being a natural at handling big mugs,” Maxwell jokes, gesturing to his antlers. However, his latte art always came out looking like abstract antler shapes, and he had a tendency to add too much ‘moose-iato’ syrup to every drink.
It was during one particularly disastrous shift at the coffee shop that fate intervened. A customer, amused by Maxwell’s clumsy yet endearing attempts to make a ‘Mocha-lce’, turned out to be the GM of a social casino.
“He said he’d never seen anyone handle pressure with such good humor,” Maxwell recounts. “He told me, ‘Kid, you’ve got the charm of a stand-up comedian and the resilience of a… well, a moose. How’d you like to be the face of my casino?'”
And just like that, Maxwell found his calling. As the Casino Host, his natural wit, charm, and yes, even those troublesome antlers, became his greatest assets. “Turns out, people love a moose who can take a joke, especially when they’re trying their luck at the slots,” he says with a wink.
Now, Maxwell spends his days welcoming guests, cracking jokes that finally land, and occasionally using his antlers to hit the ‘spin’ button for luck. “I guess you could say I finally found a job I can’t ‘moose’ up!” he quips.
From failed forest comedian to warehouse worker to accidental lifeguard to hapless barista, Maxwell’s journey to becoming the beloved Casino Host was filled with mishaps and laughter. But as he always says, “In life, like in our casino, sometimes you’ve got to lose a few to win big. And boy, did I hit the jackpot with this gig!”
