Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss video, and is it just me, or are there fewer kids out there saying, when I grow up I wanna be the Roger Ebert of Waterslide reviews?

But Waterslide critic is an actual paying job! In 2013 the company Splash World was on the hunt for somebody willing to wear a bathing suit to work, travel to exotic locations, think Tunisia, Egypt, Thailand, and then test and review their water slides for social media.

And that's just the first of many facts about unbelievable jobs we're bringing to you today in this video, presented by our friends at Allstate.

Wanna save prairie dog's lives? Become a prairie dog remover. Several communities have laws that say that developers have to remove prairie dogs humanly.

So, the job of prairie dog relocation means you flush them out with dishwater, occasionally grab them with your hands, and move them to a starter burrow on fresh land.

It's hard work, but it's rewarding. Prairie dog removers make between $50 and $100 per dog.

Plenty of folks don't have time to stand in line, but still want the newest phone, or pair of sneakers, or passport. That's where a professional line sitter can help. 
Companies have popped up to meet all your line waiting needs. And a good line sitter can make up to $1000 a week.

If you wanna know what a bad line sitter looks like visit your local DMV.

Recent studies have found that there are twice as many adults today who describe themselves as lonely as they were 30 years ago. So, professional cuddling services are there to fill the gap. 

For $80 and hour, complete strangers will come to your house and cuddle you, in a strictly platonic manner. Seriously, there's no funny business. I mean, except insofar as having a stranger cuddle you. It's itself kinda funny.

If you're a veterinarian or a chiropractor looking to specialize, there's always horse chiropracty. The practice of adjusting horse necks and bodies. Which is been done since the 1890's. It can help a race horse get back on track. Helping them move better. Even improving their immune system.

But getting licensed isn't easy. It takes over 220 hours of horse work. If you want a quick job, may I suggest professional line sitter?

If you love sculpting but can't afford marble, or feel like it doesn't properly highlight your talents, maybe cheese carving is for you.

From weddings, to shows, to fairs, if you live in the American mid-west you can be a cheese carver. And really only if you live in the American mid-west. 

Sarah Kaufmann, the world's best known cheese artist, who you'd be surprised to learn, is from Wisconsin, once had to carve a 7-foot-tall dairy cow sitting on a throne.

Speaking of live stock, goat herding is back in vogue. If you own goats you can actually hire them to corporations as a kind of greener lawn mowing service.

The goats arrive, eat all the brush in sight, leave some natural fertilizer, clearing yards without the need of machinery.

(?~2:39) yards were kept in nineteen-century England, but it doesn't address the underlying question which is why, of all the plants we could grow on our front lawns we choose turf grass, which humans can't eat?

And then there's the job of professional dog food taster. Dog food is of course big business and each component of your puppy's chow has to taste right. And because humans can talk and dogs can't, that job falls to people. 

The job mostly involves taking cans off the assembly line and chomping down on a spoon full to check for consistency. Testers aren't actually obliged to swallow this stuff but, you know, who wouldn't want to?

It's like, you don't have to swallow the wine at a wine tasting, but you do.

If you really wanna make the big bucks in the dog food eating business, you'll also need to start developing recipes and writing reports.

Not even eating pet food is free from paper work these days.

Of course if dog food isn't your thing, there are lots of more reasonable taste testing jobs out there.

In Britain there 46 people who go around to pubs and bars to make sure that they're serving beer at the perfect temperature and correct conditions.

Ice-cream testing may sound enviable, particularly if you're a professional dog food eater, but that doesn't mean the job is just eating from a fresh pint.

Testers have to taste spoon fulls at various stages of the production run, to make sure that the texture and taste is gonna be just right.

One taster even has his taste buds insured for a million dollars, and eats ice-cream from gold-plated spoons to make sure there are no off notes.

I wonder what the going insure premiums are for dog food taste tester.

Tea tasting is a slightly different beast. To get that job you'll need to spend five years of intense training, including practicing blindfolded to be able to identify all the details in a cup of tea.

But you also need to be good when the blindfold comes off because a big part of the gig involves analyzing the color of the tea.

Before doctors are unleashed into the real world, they need to practice interviewing people who are sick. And how better to do that than with actors.

For 15 to $20 an hour, a standardized patient is given a background, some health conditions and motivation. It's not full-time work but you do get paid to practice being sick.

And then there are snake milkers. The people who grab deadly snakes by the scruff and squeeze venom out of their fangs. Most of these people actually have graduate degrees in herpetology, but there's nothing stopping you from just going out there and milking your own snakes. Except for, you know, safety, sanity.

NPR found one milker, actually, who's background was in patent law. But why is juicing a reptile even a job?

Well, in addition to making anti-venom, scientists study the milk for its anti- coagulation properties, useful for new heart-attack and blood pressure medications.

If your nostrils are your biggest asset NASA has a job for you. Because the agency hires a chip sniffer to smell every item that goes into space. Down to the ink used on checklists.

It's important because once something is in space, there's not a lot you can do about it, so, that stick bomb is gonna be up there for potentially like a year.

And speaking of space, as space tourism gets nearer to reality, food science is getting cutting edge. Like, the challenges are many. You can't cook things in a conventional way. Anything that can make crumbs has to go. It needs to be dense enough that it doesn't take up to much pay load.

If that tid bit about eating ice-cream with a golden spoon sounded strange to you, there are actually whole industries devoted to how materials affect our palate.

Like zinc spoons, for instance, can make cream taste better. But it makes other dishes taste more metallic.

One British scientist is even working on a set of spoons with tasting notes, so that you're always pairing the right spoon with the right taste.

Of course that might be partly in your head. And there are all sorts of other areas of food psychology to get involved in, including like, how sound effects flavour.

Low pitch sounds can make chocolate taste more bitter, while high pitch ones can bring out the sweetness.

Lice picking may sound like a job you'd outsource to a mother gorilla but it's steady business in New York City. Because New York City schools have implemented a no-head-lice policy, where if the child is found with head lice, they're sent home until they can prove that they are head lice free.

So, how do you certify a lice free child? Well, one of the easiest ways is to hire a removal service. For a few hundred dollars an hour, they come to your house and shampoo and comb the critters out of your hair.

So, that's how billionaires get rid of their lice. How do they get their newly bought yachts to their docks at home?

Why, a yacht delivery service of course. The hours can be long and there isn't as much shuffle board as you think, but being a yacht delivery person is a great way to crew a boat while sailing the seas, and getting paid for it.

Rock climbing may seem more hobby than profession, but the skill is particularly useful at wind turbines farms.

Instead of of hiring cranes to clean the gunk off turbines, more and more companies lean on rock climbers to scurry up the bates and polish the blades.

And, finally, I return to my salon to tell you that if sleeping is your thing, why not consider becoming a professional sleeper? 

You can put your talents to use in sleep research studies, although that often involves getting hooked up to medical devices. But there are lots of other places for you to laze your way to the top.

New hotel chains frequently hire people to test drive their luxury mattresses. And mystery shopping companies send buyers to snooze on the clock, as long as you can describe your experience well. 

Thanks again for watching Mental Floss Video, which is made with the help of all these nice people. And brought to you by our friends at Allstate. 

Let me know in the comments which of these jobs you'd like to have. And as we say in my home town, don't forget to be awesome.