"Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory" is about choosing what you want to be when you grow up, and finding out you still have to wait tables on the weekends. The story follows one year in the life of an adjunct instructor who takes on side jobs as an ice cream man, stand-up comedian, haunted house character, and Billy Graham Crusader. With college enrolment and tuition costs at record highs, universities are staffing their courses with part-time instructors who commute between different schools to make a living. Big Wheel follows one year in the life of an adjunct instructor who takes on side jobs as an ice cream man, stand-up comedian, haunted house character, and Billy Graham Crusader. The jobs begin out of financial necessity, but become more of a diversion from a teaching career that Hess fears he is starting to take far more seriously than this employers are taking him.