Long Lost Post: Office Hazards
If I was to keep track of how much of my writing I'd lost due to my failure to save, Internet/computer crashes and not keeping personal copies of website assignments, I would cry. Daily. Luckily, thanks to services like waybackmachine, I can find some of what I've lost. (Not that I'm sure it's all worth saving.) With that in mind, here's something originally posted on May 12, 2008:
The disk drive to my computer is broken.
Well, I guess it's just kind of broken — it isn't completely non-functional. It still opens sporadically, there's just no guarantee as to how many times I'll have to push the keyboard button that makes it pop out before it opens. It could be three punches, and it could be twenty-seven.
(Incidentally, my computer also started making some really strange sounds on Tuesday, and without a MAC specialist, no one's been able to fix it yet. The noises are driving me somewhat insane — which one of the IT guys pointed out as "being a short trip" — and I whole-heartedly look forward to repairs being made and silence, glorious silence. I tell you this so that as you're reading your June issue of Lipstick, you'll know what I had to go through right at deadline. My life is so hard. What with my nice office, air conditioning and zero back-breaking physical labor, I have it rough.)
Also, in addition to pushing the keyboard button, I have to hold the little door down on the disk drive to get the CD-Rom slot to pop out. Now, the CD-Rom slot is made of plastic and probably weighs less than the magazine, yes? And it could hardly be said that the slot zooms out — it's not like there's a lot of speed behind it.
So, basically, the CD-Rom slot on my computer poses no threat to me whatsoever. And it's certainly not a striking snake or a sharp-bladed throwing star. If it hits my hand, it's won't even leave a pink mark. Yet, every single time I open my computer's disk drive, I jerk my hand backwards when I hear the CD-Rom slot start to move.
What is up with that? I mean, I know I'm a wimp (you can ask several doctors who've tried to approach me with needles and my high school soccer coach about that one), but this is pretty ridiculous, even for me.
Plus, I open my disk drive all the time. You'd think that all the times it doesn't hurt me would have conditioned me into less-spastic behavior. But no. It hasn't happened yet.
Anyone out there have some irrational fears or strange habits to make me feel better?
Current Signs Of My Internet Addiction*
1. I don't just visit People.com too frequently, I hit refresh when I'm on People.com because I feel that strong a need for the latest info on the Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart cheating scandal. Not only do I not know Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart, I don't even like the Twilight movies.
2. I begin most of my sentences with, "Well, on Pinterest ..." When I'm not on Pinterest, I'm doing fun things like pasting wallpaper to the side of an old dresser, making concoctions with shredded chicken from the crock pot and removing the den doors. (Yes, I physically took down the doors to the den.) Last night, I washed banana out of my hair after reading about homemade hair masks on, what else, Pinterest.
3. Perhaps of greatest concern, I'm newly obsessed with memes. (At present, my favorites are "drunk" Irish baby and "Just describe your lunch to me!") I Googled how to put text on images in Photoshop. A lot of my evenings involve finding photos of the dogs, putting phrases on them and emailing said photos to the SO who is all of two feet away on the couch. If he doesn't pick up his iPhone in the evening, it's most likely my fault because he's tired of getting a notifcation when I send him Carat and Cassidy memes. I should also mention that I'm not good at this.
I'd say that I should find a hobby, but I think that was my original intention with Pinterest ...
* "Current signs" because it's not like this is a new phenomenon.
Disillusioned DIY: 4 Fun Pinterest Projects & 1 Craft To Avoid
I have a Pinterest problem. It's not like I really needed another reason to be on the Internet, but the universe still gave me one. It has made me want to cook a lot more, but my house is also starting to look like a bizarre "trash to treasure" experiment gone mad.
Since I don't volunteer or help the community in other ways, I thought I could at least help someone out there from drowning in pins and boards. Here are a few of my successes and failures in the DIY realm*:
I had a hard time believing this bread was actually going to turn out, but it did. I am now obsessed. I've made four loaves, and we've already eaten two. Admittedly, we like to add cheese at my house, but it's been quite the tasty adventure. The SO thinks I'm a domestic goddess, and my new Le Creuset oven (not a cheap investment, but worth it) looks really pretty in the kitchen even when I'm not using it. I am very pleased.
Despite my rather perilous learning curve, this tutorial was incredibly helpful. I've made about seven of these. (Wow, this is starting to sound like I have a lot more time on my hands than I do.) Here are a couple of suggestions:
A) Do not buy traditional Christmas lights or the lights from Big Lots. You will spend too much time putting those lights in the bottles. I actually ended up pushing each individual light into the bottle and had an incredibly sore hand. Buy LED string lights. They are thin and much easier to work with.
B) If you're don't think too much about science like me, you might have an urge to clean your wine bottles right after drilling the hole. Don't. The wine bottle will be very hot from the drilling, and what happens to hot glass when it comes into contact with cold water? It cracks. Fooled by the laws of nature yet again.
3. Coin Jewelry
This was another handy tutorial. If I was you, I'd actually follow all of the instructions. Instead of stabilizing my drilling with a wood block, I decided to use a phone book because it was nearby. This was not the best idea. Still, the holes were easy to drill, and I can finally do something with all of the foreign money I've saved from trips throughout the years.
I put some coins on a key ring instead of a jewelry ring, including one coin each from Japan, Thailand and Europe to represent the around-the-world trip a BFF and I took in 2003. It makes for a far more elegant souvenir than I expected.
Sometimes the fact that I can't stand clutter runs afoul of my Southern sentimentality. On my first date with the SO, we were given free t-shirts by the concert venue. The t-shirts are hideous. They look like hypercolor without actually being hypercolor and advertise a local car dealership. The only sizes available were large and extra large. Nothing is attractive about these t-shirts. (Stuff like this happens when your first date is to a Def Leppard concert.) However, when the SO tried to throw out his t-shirt, it spawned a long conversation, the crux of which was, "How can you even think about getting rid of something that represents such a special day in our lives?"
I lost this argument because of the ugly factor, and it spawned a DIY t-shirt projects hunt. Enter the scarf. While this isn't my favorite project of all time, I do like it. Plus, the red circles come from the aforementioned t-shirt so I feel like I have a piece of that day without pouting that my boyfriend won't wear a Toyota t-shirt when we go out and about.
Now, even though I don't really like to sew, sometimes a complete "no sew" project looks too ragged to me. While I didn't sew the loops that make up the bulk of the scarf, I did sew the bits of t-shirt that connect the loops for a somewhat neater look. (Looking back at the original post, I now realize how much prettier her scarf was than mine. Sigh.)
5. It Is Not Easy To Cut Glass At Home
I feel like I've said this 1,000 times by now and people probably wonder why I'm oddly bitter towards glass crafts, but this undertaking was one of the biggest pains I've ever encountered. Take a moment to look at these glasses:
Now let me mention the 50 broken wine bottles I threw out in various pieces to get here. I saw this video and thought I was set. Clearly, I was not. Also, these are my three best examples, and you can see that they're not completely even.
To think that I did all of this to avoid paying for a $29.99 set of the exact same glasses makes me question my decision-making skills. (The scorer was $25.) If you value your sanity, and the unbroken skin on your hands, leave this one alone.
* I never claimed I was a photographer.
Wet And Wild
This past week, the SO and I, along with some family members made our annual pilgrimage to the Big Kahuna’s Water Park in Destin, Florida.
Not too much has changed since last year. The slides are pretty much the same, the food is still overpriced and everyone in charge is someone who I could have, in theory, birthed. The “ma’am” quotient seems to be up, but I’m trying not to dwell on it. It’s possible that my move to the full-on Spanx bathing suit has something to do with it.
(I love the suit, but there’s no liquid consumption when I’m in that one. Once the Spanx bathing suit goes on, it’s not coming off unless I’m done for the day. I learned that lesson after a particularly grueling incident in a public bathroom which may or may not have caused other patrons to believe I was a) wrestling with myself b) experiencing a seizure or c) being tortured to death by a large animal. I’m also pretty sure my waiting friends thought that I either had GI issues or an eating disorder considering how long I was absent. I like to get that suit in place, leave it and go through the inevitable undressing struggle later, in the privacy of my own home. Yes, there are breaks involved to catch my breath.)
I also saw a new sign this year. It’s possible that the sign was there last year, but I feel like I would have noticed it then, too.
In addition to the warnings about heart conditions, pregnancy and back problems, this kept popping up in large, large letters: “Do not ride if you are ill with diarrhea.”
This was a warning on every ride. It was one of the largest warnings. Frankly, I found it unsettling.
As someone who tends to wonder about the origins of signs, I couldn’t help but think about what led to this little gem.
It’s actually hard to come up with something more humiliating than being blamed for excessive poop at the water park. Honestly, I could have nightmares. It cannot be pleasant to be that person. Part of me wants to hug him or her. The predominant part of me wants to send a reassuring card and make sure we never touch skin. (I wash my hands about 20 times a day. I have issues.)
Of course, I quickly had to put all of that out of my head for the sake of enjoying the water park. I still have some questions, but I’m also pretty sure I don’t want the answers.
I purposefully don’t know what’s in a hot dog, I don’t ask about expiration dates at Six Flags and I think this Big Kahuna’s mystery will join those ranks. I’m pretty sure curiosity would kill my love of lazy rivers here, and I just can’t allow that to happen.
Also, for anyone keeping track, the best tattoo I saw this year was “Stray Dog” inked vertically down someone’s spine.
How Not To Make Wine Bottle Lamps
I am currently obsessed with Pinterest. Anyone following me on Pinterest probably thinks that I don’t do anything but create pins. (This is somewhat false.) I like to think of myself as crafty, so the “DIY and Crafts” tab is particularly tempting. Unfortunately, I am also impatient.
I don’t block my knitting or check the gauge. (Despite one hideously large sweater that I even wore out in a poor show of will, I still haven’t learned my lesson.) I move on from tutorials with terms like “drill press” and “stabilizing clay.” If there’s a project that I like, I find the simplest way to do it. I prefer sitting at my desk to an excess of power tools.
So, when I decided to drill holes in wine bottles, I found instructions and pretty much only paid attention to the drill bit I needed. Here’s a step-by-step look at my latest project:
1. Put on safety glasses.
I may be impatient and clumsy, but I’m not completely insane. I value my eyesight, and I’m somewhat self-aware.
2. Consider hair.
Usually, my hair is up. However, since I’d recently straightened my hair, I didn’t want to put a crease in it. Even though I thought about getting up and finding an elastic, I changed my mind in the name of vanity. (I may wear a terribly unflattering homemade sweater out and about, but a crease in my hair? I think not.)
3. Begin drilling.
4. Lean in to check process of drilling.
5. Realize hair is in drill.
6. Panic.
7. Take photos of self with phone to later share with the world.
8. Imagine oneself with Anne Hathaway’s new pixie cut because you had to cut 1/3 of your hair out of a drill.
(Note: Much like going into the salon after a break-up, making hair decisions because of a power tool incident is not ideal.)
9. Panic more because you realize that will not be a good look.
On a very round face? I think not.
10. Inspired by the mental image of yourself with a pixie cut, determine that you will get out of this mess without the use of scissors.
11. Take deep breaths.
12. Disconnect power source from drill.
I trust a safety switch, but only so much when my head is involved.
13. Remove drill bit from drill.
14. Remove drill bit from hair.
Mechanics may not be my thing, but I do know it’s far easier to take a drill bit out of one’s hair than an entire drill.
15. Thank God that the dogs were your only witnesses.
In short (no pun intended), be hair aware ladies. If you’re having a particularly good hair day, put your DIY project off. It’s not worth the risk.
* Photo note: I am trying to teach myself photoshop. Since I have no eye for design, this will probably not be pretty. Also, as an English person, I only know about Times New Roman and Arial fonts. Bear with me.
Signage Fail
If it was not a restroom that I used in the California ferry station, well let's just say that management is not going to be happy with everything that's going on in there.
Against my better judgment, I'm going to quote Wikipedia here. "Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony."
Did I somehow wander into an ironic bathroom? What would an ironic bathroom even be?
I can only assume that the ferry station has had trouble with some of its clientele. I'm guessing they don't want anyone hanging out in the restroom or confusing it with a "rest room." However, having been in the restroom, I feel like anyone choosing to spend large amounts of time there, maybe reading a book or catching up on correspondence, has been punished enough.
When I Grow Up, I Want To Be Like My Dogs*
I absolutely believe that the dog is man’s best friend. (Or any pet for that matter. I know that not everyone is a dog person.) Pets offer unconditional love. They are cute. They can’t speak, so they can’t whine or complain. They can be loyal to a fault.
I love almost everything about my dogs. (I use the plural because I had a dog, and the SO had a dog when we met. By now, I think of myself as having two dogs.) I also know they can be much better to me than I am to them.
This might be a little too All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, but if I could do it (and I’m trying), I would adopt these three traits from my dogs.
1. Every morning and evening, we feed the dogs. We don’t buy expensive or fancy dog food. (It’s Purina. You can find it at Wal-Mart.) Carat and Cassidy have never even had wet dog food. We buy the exact same dog food every time we go to the store. There is the same dry kibble waiting for the dogs every day, and still, whenever it’s time to eat, Carat is just as excited as she would be the first time she was ever given a meal.
All you have to do is say, “Carat, are you hungry? Do you want to eat?” and she literally runs circles around herself with joy.
Carat doesn’t get in ruts. She’s not dissatisfied with what she has. She doesn’t get bored or take things for granted. Every morning and evening is just as wonderful as any other for the sheer fact that she gets to eat.
2. Cassidy is kind of like my little bodyguard. She goes everywhere that I go. Every morning (or, every other morning, whatever), when I get in the shower, she sits on the end of the bed and waits for me to get out. Before she eats her breakfast, she checks to see where I am to make sure that I’m OK. If I’m particularly upset, she senses it and sleeps on the floor right below me. She gives up her bed to be near me.
I, on the other hand, go out when I want to. I take trips and leave her with friends. I forget to buy dog food on the way home from work or have to wait for my next paycheck to take her to the vet for her shots.
She would have me watch her every time she eats, but I don’t.
It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do, Cassidy is the same good-hearted, adorable companion she’s always been. She doesn’t hold grudges. (She peed on my foot once when we moved, and I was working a lot, but that was years ago.) She doesn’t operate on a score system or tit for tat. She doesn’t expect to get as much as she gets. She just gives and seems perfectly content to do so.
3. If dogs really are smiling when they wag their tails, my dogs spend most of their waking hours smiling. Sometimes it’s a huge grin over a treat (even their generic brand biscuits – again, they don’t’ care about labels). Other times it’s a big smile when you say one of their names. Mostly, it’s just a consistent wag/smile because we’re there. What do they need? Food, a warm place to rest and us.
They are so happy just to be, and they express it in the only way they know how – by wagging their tails.
I wish I remembered to smile as much.
Feel free to call this my cheesy post of the month. I’m sure I deserve it, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I really love me some animals.
* I'm also sure I opened myself up to a lot of jokes with this title, but can we avoid any comments with the word "bitch" in them? Thank you in advance.
My Sinister Side
The universe does not want me to exercise (or perhaps even leave my house). How do I know this? A few weeks ago, on a day when all I did was walk, sit on a stool and do some deep breathing (I’ve gotten into some new relaxation techniques), I woke up at 5:30 a.m. with horrible pain in my left knee. I have a floating knee cap there, but I still never saw two Aleve and an ice pack coming from that day.
Who injures themselves walking and breathing? Apparently, me.
Perhaps more disturbing is that this latest “injury” goes to support my theory that the left side of my body might be evil.
Not evil in a possessed, does-amoral-things-when-I’m-asleep way or anything, but still just a little off. Maybe I just have a difficult left side? I could call it ornery?
On top of the floating left knee cap, I’ve broken my left wrist twice, and yes, when it rains, my wrist hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot. I have a special brace, like all the cool kids do.
Even the left side of my mouth has issues. I have two crowns and need a third on that side of my mouth. During my senior year of high school, when I had the two root canals that led to the crowns, I was in so much pain before the root canals that I stopped chewing with that side of my mouth. To this day, I still can’t seem to break the habit and most often use the right side of my mouth to eat. (If you thought I was weird before...)
I even think I broke my left toe once, too.
While I like to joke that the left side of my body is evil, I’ve learned that not everyone appreciates this humor. Especially people in the health care field.
On my first visit to a new dentist, he and I were going over the results of my X-rays.
“You have a little decay in some of your molars,” he said. “But I think we can just keep an eye on it for now.”
“Are they on the left side of my mouth?” I said.
“They are,” he said. “How did you know that?”
“I just figured,” I said. “That’s the evil side of my mouth.”
My dentist didn’t laugh. He cocked his head to one side and stared at me in a way that clearly said, “I’m not sure this is a patient I should have given nitrous oxide.”
Little did he know, that was probably the most coherent I’d been during the whole visit. These are just the kinds of things I say. But when I walked into a wall on the way out of the office, I didn’t exactly help my case.*
* That last part was due to the nitrous.
My First Drink
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you might have picked up that I have some proficiency with alcoholic beverages. At one time, my shot vocabulary was more impressive that what I knew about geometry. (The ingredients for a surfer on acid? Yes. Which is one is the isosceles triangle? No.)
And while this might come as quite a surprise, it wasn’t always this way. I didn’t drink in high school – as in ever, at all.
I was terrified of getting in trouble and convinced that drinking would destroy my chances at going to a good college, but I decided that my senior trip to Europe would be a great time to have that long-awaited first drink. (College applications were done, and it was Europe. The legal trouble aspect was gone.)
Since I was in Italy, you’d think my logical choice would be wine. Even without wine, you’d think I’d go for a beer, but after having a sip of beer at 13, I decided that it was one of the most foul-tasting liquids I had ever put in my body and wanted nothing to do with it. (Nothing to do with it until I was a sophomore in college that is, but bygones.)
Surrounded by all the choices in the world at an Irish bar in Italy (I might have already been starting off on the wrong foot, but I think it was close to our hotel), I ordered a margarita.
“A margarita?” the bartender said.
“Yeah, a margarita.” I’d seen my parents order them enough, and it seemed like a perfectly lovely choice for me.
Of course, there were two major problems with this plan:
- No one in Italy does girly drinks. Traveling abroad, especially in the country of the world’s finest wines, is not the time to order a Midori Sour or Peach Schnappes unless you also want to wear a large neon sign that says “Ignorant American” with an arrow pointing at your head.
- There is no ice in Europe. Ice is kind of important when it comes to a margarita. “Frozen” or “on the rocks,” you’re going to need ice.
Giving me yet another of her confused/disgusted looks, the bartender pulled a martini glass off the shelf, filled it nearly to the rim with straight tequila and squeezed a lime in it.
Not knowing much better, and not wanting to seem like a wimp on my first drinking excursion, I took a swig.
If I thought beer was foul before, I had an entirely new standard.
Still, I couldn’t give up, and I had to keep going with my “margarita.”
I made it through one and a half drinks. (Yes, I was stupid enough to order another one.)
That’s when a friend of mine who knew the potential disaster of what I was actually drinking too my glass away from me.
“You’d have to be very tipsy to want more of that,” he said.
This was more than fine with me because by now, I was feeling very giggly and really needed to use the restroom. A couple girlfriends and I walked back to our hotel, and I was asleep soon after.
When I did have my first real margarita as a freshman in college, I figured the difference in drinks was just another cultural difference – like berets to baseball caps.
It took one re-telling of the story of my first drink in Italy, to a friend whose family was from Italy, for me to realize how innocent (nice word?) I had been. And that maybe picking up a guide book or two wouldn’t have been a terrible choice before heading abroad.
Either way, I can’t say that I recommend straight tequila for the inexperienced drinker. It might not improve your street cred, but a Midori Sour is a lot easier to choke down.
* Obviously, the margarita pictured looks nothing like what I ended up with in Europe.
In Which Laurel Learns A Very Valuable Lesson
Until Tuesday, I had assumptions about certain aspects of the world -- mainly cemeteries.
- Grave robbing was a 19th century problem. You know, something that ended with Dickens. I’d imagined grave robbing in the same age as street urchins, chimney sweeps and people who said, “Blimey, I’d like to get my hands on that ring.”
- Cemeteries were like parks. They closed at dark, and while it was encouraged that you leave at sunset, there was no one to really enforce that rule. All horror movies (not exactly the best source I guess, considering that I don’t want to be beheaded by a ghost) and Supernatural have led me to believe that you can always get into -- and out of -- a cemetery.
- Other than teenagers wanting to drink, fool around or mess with urban legends, no one goes into a cemetery after dark anyway, right, so again, probably not too much security.
Based on these assumptions, I didn’t pay too much attention when I went to Elmwood, Birmingham’s main cemetery. Without getting too deep into this, I went to put some flowers on my great-grandmother’s grave. She lived until I was 13. My paternal grandparents passed away before I was born.
Anyway, I had no idea how many rules cemeteries had. (I mean, really, other than those beheading ghosts, I couldn’t think of much that could go wrong there.) I was very wrong.
First, there are rules about flowers. I’d tell you what those rules are, but the list was so long (10 different points!) that I got lazy. As per usual, I just did what I wanted to do.
I also suppose that when I got distracted by the many, many flower rules – and let’s not even get into regulations about other acceptable mementos – I didn’t see that the cemetery had hours.
It never occurred to me that a cemetery would have hours of business. (Please refer to point #2 at the top. I really kind of thought I was at a park.)
You can imagine my surprise/abject fear when I decided to leave the cemetery only to see large, locked gates in front of me.
Next to the locked gates was a sign that said, “Gates close promptly at 5:30.”
“Now you tell me,” I thought. It was 5:45.
There were no cars around. The office closed at 4:30 (that I did see when I arrived). I grabbed the map that I had gotten and decided to drive around to all of the other exits figuring that at least one would be open in case of emergency or have a really lackluster lock.
This was not the case.
Around this time, I might have been driving around like a mad woman wondering how I would explain to anyone that I had locked myself in a cemetery without ending up in even more therapy. Would I call my mom, have her pick me up, scale the fence and come back for my car in the morning? Would the SO even believe me when I told him where I was? Would I actually have to sleep in my car here?
Anxiety at this point: 11 on a scale of 1-10.
I was circling back towards the main office when I saw a car at the gate. I pulled directly behind him like there was nothing at all odd about the two of us heading out just before 6:00 p.m.
It turns out that I was behind the security guard, so while I escaped the cemetery, I also got a very stern lecture about reading signs and obeying rules.
I was so glad to be out of there, I would have taken an hour-long tongue-lashing. Fortunately, elderly security guards from cemeteries just want to go home, too.
And now I know – grave-robbing is still a very real concern so cemeteries have hours. (I might be the only person who didn't know this considering that when I tried to recount my harrowing evening to the SO, he said, "I mean, I knew cemeteries closed.")
This is one of the few mistakes I plan to never, ever make again. Maybe, just maybe, doing what I want to do without reading all the way to the end of the pamphlet isn’t always going to work out.
My Shortest Job Yet
In all of this thinking about my various jobs (which if anyone is still counting include babysitter, grocery store clerk, card store employee, hostess and server at four different restaurants, NHL hockey hospitality, substitute teacher and bank teller – and all of this is before my professional career began), I’ve remembered more and more about the items that never made my resume.
I’ve also become extremely grateful for the fact that I’m my own boss now. Who would want to put any training in to this job hopper?
Anyway, I originally thought that my shortest tenure with any employer was my infamous four-day job that I made my sister quit for me. But then I remembered yet another job, and this is one that I held for all of six hours.
Right after I graduated college, and for some reason the six-figure job offers weren’t rolling in, I signed up with a temp agency to keep up with my social and shopping habits.
The temp agency never really took a liking to me. They liked to call really early in the morning – like 9:30 a.m. early – and always wanted to talk about receptionist positions.
“One of your responsibilities would include taking in the mail. How are you with mail?” they’d say.
“I really like mail,” I said, which is true, I do love checking the mail. “But I think I’m going to pass on this one.”
The temp agency did not appreciate it when I passed on job interviews.
“Pass on this one? Again?”
“Again,” I’d say.
Now, I’m in no way knocking receptionists, I’d just made it very clear to them that I wanted to work in non-profits, and seeing as D.C. has a few thousand of those, I was hoping to at least be a receptionist at a non-profit.
“This is a really good vet’s office,” they’d say.
“I’m sure it is,” I said. “I just don’t think this is right for me.”
“Are you worried about the phones?”
“It’s not that exactly.”
“Fine then.”
Two months after graduation, I found a job on my own, but when the agency called with an actual temp job, which is what I’d been hoping for all along to fill in the gaps, I decided to take it since I still had a few weeks until I started work.
“This one’s in education,” the temp agency said, sounding a little snooty. “We thought it’d be more up your alley. You’ll need to be at Catholic University by eight in the morning.”
I agreed to be there, and told them I’d found a job, so they could take me off their call list after that. They also didn’t seem very happy that I’d found a job without them, and when I told them I was going to be the Assistant Director of Development and Marketing at a non-profit, the only response I got was a, “Well then.”
When I arrived at Catholic University, I met up with an older woman and a group of about eight to ten people ranging in age from myself to my mom in the university’s student union. The woman in charge explained that there was some sort of teacher exchange program going on, and we were going to help the teachers prepare to leave the United States. They were swapping classes for a year with teachers in other countries who would arrive later in the week.
This is what that preparation entailed: “Now, if you see here,” the woman in charge said, “we have a line made of masking tape. When the teachers arrive, you’re going to take their luggage from them at this line. Then, you’re going to take their luggage to this line.” That’s when she showed us another line of masking tape in the corner of the room.
“You’ll also notice more masking tape on the floor so you can line up the luggage in orderly rows.”
We had a group of at least eight people to move luggage fifteen feet. I was also pretty sure that since rolling luggage had caught on, it wasn’t going to require more than one person to move bags, but for once I decided not to point out the design flaws.
Basically, I felt like I’d gotten out of bed and done my hair for work that a well-placed sign could have accomplished.
As our “job” was being explained, I made eye contact with the only male in the group, and a guy who was clearly about my age. We’ll call him Dude from here on out.
Until a certain age, I had a very distinct physical type. My roommate at the time said he could walk in to any room and pick out who I would be attracted to within about three minutes. He was right. At the time, it was also a pretty good bet that you could put me in a room with 300 young professionals, and I’d end up spending all night chatting with the bartender who lived in his van.
Dude was definitely my type. He also thought this job was absurd.
As we were waiting for teachers to arrive, I said, “You think there’s a liquor store near here?”
“I wish,” he said.
Since there’s always someone with too much gusto in any group, two women were most definitely vying to be the best at luggage rearrangement, and Dude and I decided to take that opportunity to eat lunch. At 10:30 a.m.
Just as I was fully into the fantasy that involved Dude and I telling people at cocktail parties how we met on the strangest temp job ever, he said, “I really need to make some money to move to be with my girlfriend in Chicago, but this is ridiculous.”
For the next few hours, we talked and had a good time, debated the liquor store idea some more and sat on desks watching women spend way too much time making sure the masking tape borders were respected.
I knew I had a job lined up, and $8.00/hour just wasn’t enough for this. I can handle a lot of things fairly well, but boredom isn’t one of them.
Around 2:00, when Dude and I were told we could take another “break,” he looked at me and said, “Should we make a run for it?”
As irresponsible and terrible as it may be, I wanted to, and I did. (Catholic University has a really convenient Metro stop, so escaping from their campus is really easy to do.) So, while Dude and I did not turn out to be love matches, we were complete soul mates when it came to slacking off.
Almost more amazingly, the temp agency never got on to me for running off the job site. I think someone thought I was on campus all day, doing all that I could for those teachers.
That, or they finally had the evidence to back up why they despised me so for those two months.
“I knew there was something wrong with that one from the beginning.”
In Which I Audition For A Reality Show
I don’t know why I get the e-mails that I get. Some of them seem too good to be true – secret shopper opportunities and large Target gift cards included. Others are press releases that have little to do with me (“U.S. Prepares Secret Charges Against Dictator X”). Some are entirely in Arabic.
However, when a little e-mail popped up in my inbox a few months ago asking if my home was cluttered and I needed help, I decided to respond.
I disdain clutter. I am a neat person. We have known some hoarders, so my mother is the anti-hoarder. This is a trait she has passed on to me. For everything that comes in, something goes out, and the only thing I’m sentimental about is cards and letters. If you come over and don’t see something you gave me, save yourself the pain and don’t ask, but know I appreciated the thought.
Unfortunately, someone I care very much about doesn’t worry about clutter as much as I do. When you throw in the fact that we both work from a home that’s less than 1,000 square feet, well, there can be issues.
I wrote a couple of sentences back to the e-mail. The sender wanted pictures. Within five minutes of sending the photos, this e-mail arrived, “We want to talk to you.”
We chatted on the phone, I sent more photos and I got another e-mail reading, “We’d like to send a producer to your house. Does tomorrow work?”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to be thrilled (free stuff for the house!) or ashamed (I’m a reality TV producer’s dream).
Also, I’d done all of this while the SO was out of town for work, so I had to call him and tell him what I’d been up to. You know that phone call, when you tell your SO that you’ve been scheming to have his house made over (TV crew included) while he went away for the weekend? Pretty standard stuff.
“Have you heard of the Style Network, honey?”
“I guess,” he said.
“How do you feel about being on it?”
When the producer came over to do our interview and take a tour of the house, she and I had a 45-minute interview. She and the SO talked for 10 minutes.
Beyond the “how do you feel about the clutter?” questions, there was “Is this the man you want to family with?” “How would you feel about someone else coming in and telling you what to do with your space?” and “Is this a deal breaker for you?”
That’s when I had another realization: I was the source of drama for this television production. They either expected me to argue with the SO about the house or argue with the organizing team about my house. I was their Omarosa.
I could complain, but whom are we kidding? If someone is going to bring drama to a housing renovation, it’s going to be me. I can bring drama to a lunch for the mute. I like to think of it as passion, but I could be wrong.
We took two and a half hours of footage, I sent more photos and there were lots of phone conversations, but unfortunately, we didn’t make the cut. In some ways, it’s nice to know people need more help than I do. In other ways, I really, really wanted free stuff.
Also on the plus side, I appreciate that the SO continues to put up with my shenanigans, and on the negative one, there’s a tape out there somewhere with a whole lot of me bitching about binders and photo equipment.
* This is not one of the photos I sent of my house. I don't do plants.
"Exercise" -- The Laurel Way
In what might not have been one of the wisest decisions, I went in search of fitness programs to go with the Wii on Monday. The SO loves his Mario brothers, but since I prefer games where you don’t die (because what’s the fun in that – especially when you lack good hand-eye coordination), our Wii games are an odd mix of action-packed games that require You Tube video walk-throughs for secret level access and those designed for five-year-olds.
It’s pretty easy to figure out my games – Family Feud, Haunted House, Mickey Paints, and my favorite, Guilty Party. I had “The Malgrave Incident,” which is a puzzle and hidden objects game, but after solving it twice, I decided to trade it in.
In case you’re wondering, Guilty Party allows me to solve mysteries about a missing walrus by questioning witnesses, gathering cards and completing tasks like following the suspect’s eyes with a flashlight. I can play for hours. (Plus, until L.A. Noir comes out for Wii, this is the closest I can get to cracking cases from my sofa.)
We also have the Wii fit game, but due to an unfortunate reading of the E-bay listing, we don’t have the board to go with it.
After eating half a sackful of Krystals on Monday and watching three episodes of Supernatural in a row, I thought that it might not be the worst idea to add some kind of fitness element to the Wii.
I started at Walmart, where I learned that balance boards are $100. That’s a big investment for something that I might only use once, so I moved on to Game Stop in the hopes of finding a pre-owned one.
As an aside, my favorite part of going to Game Stop is that the staff there never knows what to do with me. I’m usually in my yoga clothes that I don’t practice yoga in, and they always ask if I’m looking for my kid first. When they learn that I’m shopping for myself, they tend to get really confused and leave me alone. After the “I want to solve crimes with my Wii” conversation from a few months ago, there’s one guy who avoids me like the plague.
There were no pre-owned balance boards, so I started digging through the used products bin and discovered Personal Trainer 2. At $40, it seemed reasonable, and I went to check out.
While I was at the register, I asked about whether or not pre-owned balance boards ever came in. That’s when the Game Stop employee pointed out, “You know this game is for Playstation, right?”
I did not. (This might be another reason the Game stop staff hates me.)
He and I went back to the bin, but all I could find was a used copy of Personal Trainer Version One for Wii. It was really beat up, and now that I knew Personal Trainer 2 was $40, why would I pay $40 for Version 1?
All of this is to explain how I ended up bringing home the UFC Trainer game. Do I know anything about the UFC? No. However, the game was brand new, promised a work out and cost $30. I figured, “What they hey?”
The SO was confused, to say the least.
So far, in my two attempts to play the game, I barely made it through the four-minute fitness test, and I’ve been yelled at by some guy named Chase or Tito for not getting my jabs in fast enough.
It’s not looking good.
In a few months, I could be able to take you in any fight. More likely, I will be trying to pawn off my “awesome” game at a “great price.”
The lesson: This is why I only spend $30 on my impulse purchases – especially when there’s a Zaxby’s on the way home from Game Stop.
The Hidden Dangers Of Seasonal Paper Products
The summer I was 17, I took a job at a greeting card store. (I know, I know. As one co-worked once said, “How many jobs have you had?” I’ve never counted, but let’s just go with “a lot.”) I won’t name the store, but I will add that if you turned over one of our cards, you would not be greeted with the special gold crown that lets you know someone cares.
For a place that was supposed to specialize in spreading joy and sentiment, it was an unusually tense environment. Our manager cried a lot. I think it had to do with a boyfriend, but after a week, I wanted to spend most of my days crying, too.
I blame this weepiness on two unfortunate aspects of the job:
- I actually had to spend two days inventorying Precious Moments figurines. Even if I liked Precious Moment figurines, going down a three page list and counting statuettes like “Bobby Fishes,” “Bobby and Ellen Down by the Lake” and “Susie’s Goodnight Prayer,” would nearly bore anyone to death.
2. We sold those nature sounds CDs that were very popular in the mid-‘90s, and they were housed in a special display that ran samples of each soundtrack over and over again in an hour-long loop. No human being is meant to hear laughing dolphins at 15 minutes past the hour, every hour, and maintain his or her sanity. I finally understood what drove Noriega out.
As a card store, we also carried a lot of seasonal merchandise, and according to the employee handbook (the very long employee handbook, I might add), seasonal merchandise that did not sell on clearance had to be destroyed after a certain point. Employees couldn’t take it home, it couldn’t be donated – it had to be thrown away. (It makes no sense to me either.)
As the lowest member on the card store totem pole, I was also on trash duty. One mid-August day, it was finally time for me to tote the St. Patrick’s Day napkins up to the dumpster.
(If you have never worked in a mall, you do not know the joy of going to the dumpster through the maze of hallways that runs through the back of your shopping center. This is not a job you want to do after dark.)
Anyway, as I was toting my boxes of St. Patrick’s day table décor through the back of the mall to the dumpster, I ran into one of the security guards.
“Those new napkins?” he said.
“I don’t know about new,” I said, “but they haven’t been opened.”
“Where you going with those?”
“The trash.”
“Really?” he said.
“Really,” I said. “Store Policy.”
“That’s a shame,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
When we got to his floor, he looked back over at me and said, “Oh s&%$,” and grabbed all of my seasonal décor before exiting the elevator. I continued my ride up to the dumpsters.
What he was going to do with all of those St. Patrick’s Day table decorations, I don’t know. Why he would take them from a 17-year-old girl, I really don’t know. I can only imagine that he really disdained waste, or for an older black man, loved March 17th with a passion few can understand.
However, knowing our store policy, I wasn’t really into the idea of getting fired from the poor man’s version of Hallmark for “stealing” plastic shamrock tablecloths. With cameras being everywhere and all, and the products never making it to the trash, I thought I should report the incident to my always-tense manager.
“What happened to the paper plates?” she said, her tears turning to an odd form of rage.
I repeated my story.
“I’m calling security,” she said.
Since a security guard committed “the crime,” this did not seem like a good idea to me, but what was a girl to do?
Another security guard showed up to take my report. (All of this over six-month-old paper products, by the way.)
This created a terrible conundrum in my teenage brain: If I really reported the security guard, I might get a guy fired over napkins. If I said next-to-nothing, I’d have a security guard that really hated me wandering the mall. After all, it’s not like there were going to be a ton of suspects for who reported the theft that happened with two people in an elevator, and I was sure my story would be the focus of some mall-wide security meeting.
I ended up giving a ridiculously vague description of the security guard. “He was average?”
It felt like enough to seem like I was trying, but not nearly enough to get anyone fired. It was not, however, good for assuaging my manager’s rage. “I don’t think you’re anywhere close to being ready for cash register duty.”
The next week, I went on a planned vacation. There was some trouble with my return flight, so I asked my mom to call the card store and ask about my schedule. I’d done so much not to get fired, I didn’t really want to get in trouble for missing a shift over a late plane.
When my mom called back, she said, “They said you weren’t anywhere on the schedule. I think they forgot you work there.”
“I think we should just keep it that way.”
And there you have the illustrious story of my two-week career in retail, as well as the reason I prefer to buy all of my greeting cards at Target.
Squatting: What All The Cool Kids Are Doing
There are many titles that I’ve strived for and continue to strive for in life, as well as titles I hope to achieve one day: good daughter, excellent student, editor, best-selling author, good partner, hot chick, best friend, good mom. The list goes on.
Squatter was never on that list, but that’s exactly what I became this past weekend in, of all places, Oxford, Mississippi.
The SO and I were traveling for a film festival. He needed to lead a meeting, so he left me with the primary responsibility of checking in to the hotel. (He might call this his first mistake.)
The guy behind the desk gave me the map of the hotel and directions as to how to drive around and park in front of our room. I took the keys and was off.
When I pulled up in front of our row of rooms, I saw what I thought was the first door. There was a maid in the room, but since we were checking in before noon, long before the regular check-in time of 3:00, I assumed she wasn’t expecting our arrival.
“Do you mind if I just sit here while you finish up?” I said.
“Not a problem,” she said.
I unpacked our bags and sat down at the desk in the room. Once the housekeeper was done, I texted the SO with the room number and plopped down on the bed with my laptop and started working.
Awhile later, my phone rang, “Why aren’t you answering the door?” the SO said.
“Because you aren’t knocking,” I said.
“I’ve been knocking for five minutes,” he said.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m going to the door.”
I went to the door, opened it and there was no SO.
Then, I looked down the corridor and saw the SO standing in front of the room next door. I turned around to look at the door to the room I was in and saw A120.
We were supposed to be in A119.
“I’m in the wrong room,” I said.
“You’re in the wrong room,” the SO said, emotionally somewhere between hang-my-head in confusion and bewilderment that this is my girlfriend and an extreme fit of laughter.
We quickly gathered up all of our things.
“Once this door locks,” he said, “remember that we can’t get back in. Make sure you get everything. Because our keys don’t go to this room.”
We made a beeline for our actual room, and I knew lots and lots of jokes were coming.
Sadly, at one point while I was in the wrong room, a hotel employee even came in, was surprised that I was there, said her sheet from management must be wrong, and it still didn’t occur to me that I might be in the wrong place.
For a good solid hour, I was a squatter, and while my part of me is embarrassed, the other part of me has to admit that getting away with even the smallest of illicit acts is the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in months.
As the SO now says, who needs Priceline anymore?; I just take the rooms I want.
Landlords Are Crazy
From the time I rented my first apartment at 19 until about six months ago, I operated under a basic assumption: all landlords are crazy.
Apartment landlords, or any complex run by a company or management firm, maybe not so much. However, when you rented a house, it seemed to me that all landlords were nuts.
The landlord of that apartment I rented at 19 had a house he divided into an upstairs apartment, a main level that was kept in tact “for the family to visit” and a basement apartment. We basically lived above a creepy museum, and my landlord liked to work on the house shirt-less (at 70), made snide comments about boys coming over and let his son-in-law use the back of the house for his “art” at any given time – which usually translated to the hours of 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
I did not like that man.
I had another landlord that tried to keep our security deposit because we didn’t clean the front of the garbage disposal.
Yet, none of these compared to the landlord I had to take to small claims court. He changed the lease after we signed it (not something to do to a lawyer’s daughter), and one of its new clauses included charging us tenants a $50 fee for any repair done on the house.
We discovered this on the day we asked him to send over a plumber because two out of the three toilets weren’t working. (Little known fact: I can fix most toilet issues. I have two sisters; you learn. Even in the 300-year old house where I shared one bathroom with four other girls, we only had one plumbing issue in a year.)
I was not pleased, and seeing how we had not approved the revised lease, my roommate and I decided to move out nine days after moving in. At the time, the landlord said he was fine with that and agreed to return our security deposit and 21 days worth of the first month’s rent.
Three months and no check later, I filed papers at the D.C. courthouse.
I got my money back, but moving in and out of a house in the span of nine days isn’t something you get over quickly.
I had one landlord I adored. “This is my investment property,” Peter said. “Please keep it nice for me.”
When I signed the lease at his (gorgeous) house, and his dog lay down at my feet, we were both sold.
“She’s a very good judge of character,” he said, referring to the dog. “I think you’re supposed to be in this house.”
Based on the original Picassos in the house, I also don’t think he worried too much about money, so Peter tended not to get too involved in our affairs. He even helped me look for a job. When he sold the same house a year later for double what he paid, there were no security deposit issues. Everyone was happy.
Apart from my beloved Peter, I’ve had many other landlords over the years, and they all led me to the same conclusion, landlords = crazy.
He was the one shining exception to my rule.
So, you can imagine how difficult it was when I became a landlord this past August. By my own rules, I’m now in the ranks of the crazy. (This one’s a whole different kind of crazy than the weird, quirky, medicated categories I already fall into.)
In addition to sometimes staying up at night wondering how my hardwood floors are faring, I also worry that my tenants think I’m nuts. (Who worries about how their tenants feel about them? Crazy insecure people, I know.)
I understand a little more of the landlord crazy. I wonder how my new cast iron sink is doing without me. I hope the washing machine is being treated well. I think about chipping paint.
But I also try to give my tenants their space and recognize that they are paying for a place to live, after all.
Hopefully I’ll figure out the balance. But if you ever catch me complaining about the grime on the garbage disposal, I expect a friendly reminder about the small versus the big things in life.
In Which The Dogs Question That Whole "Pack Leader" Thing
Unfortunately, last night was another night for deadly storms in Alabama. My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones and homes.
You might think that you would eventually get used to the sound of weather sirens in the night, but I think most people who live in tornado alleys would second that it's always an unnerving and unsettling phenomenon.
Since I live in a house with a concrete slab foundation, our "place of safety" (the real term if you don't live in inclement-weather-prone parts of the country) is the only room in the house without windows -- otherwise known as the guest bathroom. It is also the only bathroom with a tub, so it's where the dogs get their baths. Whether it's claustrophobia or bad memories, neither pooch was too crazy about the idea of getting in there with a bunch of fleece blankets, pillows and the Kindle fire at 3:30 in the morning.
When they realized that they we would be sleeping in there until the tornado warning ended around 4:30, or I knew from local meteorologists that the worst part of the storm was out of Jefferson County, they did not seem pleased.
I might be projecting too much, but I do think my authority is in question now. There's just something in their eyes that seems to say, "The lady has finally lost it."
* Of course, I don't mean to make light of what anyone suffered last night. For those affected by last night's storms, the Salvation Army has announced feeding stations, and I'm sure that the Red Cross will be coordinating donations.
Don't Get Lost In The Music
In my opinion, most every major (and non-major) musical artist has written at least one song that only has one purpose -- talking someone into a one night stand.
(If you think about it, just the act of writing the song shows far more effort than your standard Jaeger bomb and "It's all really about living for the moment" line, so at least it's a step far above the person in the bar hoping they find someone before last call. Still sketchy though? Yes. Supportive of my sister's theory that most people learn to play the guitar to attract the opposite sex? Also yes. However, I'm not sure there's a ton we do as humans that isn't meant to attract the opposite sex. Moving on ...)
Let's look at the evidence:
Elvis Presley: "It's Now or Never"
Bob Seger: "We've Got Tonight" ("Who needs tomorrow?")
Eagle-Eye Cherry: "Save Tonight"
The Dave Matthews Band: "Say Goodbye" ("Tonight we'll be lovers, then go back to being friends.")
Heart: "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You"
Eve 6: "Here's to the Night"
This list doesn't even come close to the dozens of less-subtly titled songs just called "One Night Stand."
Now, of course, none of these compare to what I consider to be the creepiest song of all time: "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"
All people seem to remember from that song is, "Yes, I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain."
No one thinks about, "I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long," "I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean. But me and my old lady, had fallen into the same old dull routine," or "I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape. At a bar called O'Malley's, where we'll plan our escape."
By "red tape," I assume the dear Rupert Holmes means "talking." I also assume "escape" means "motel room."
This is a song about a man who decides to cheat on his partner, so he goes to the personal ads -- a 1979 personal ad keep in mind, so simply by being Disco-era, it's even ickier -- to meet someone new. Then, lo and behold, while he's waiting for the woman he plans to cheat on his "lady" with, he sees his own partner walk into the bar and realizes that she was planning to cheat on him, too.
Even Wikipedia refers to this song as ending on "an upbeat note."
I think we can all be honest here and admit that if this ever happened in real life, there'd be a lot more denial, anger, shame and possible shoving than heartfelt reconciliation. (Then again, two people like this probably deserve each other, and their other options for mates would most likely involve swinger's clubs and well, people who place 1970's era personal ads.)
This song is not romantic; it's creepy.
So, I must go back to my original message -- don't get lost in the music. Unless you're looking for that one night stand or trying to track down an unfaithful spouse. Then, I guess, you should save tonight with all the pina coladas and walks in the rain that you can.
And for all those girls out there dreaming of prom night, beware of the soundtrack.
No More Pretense
* A quick note: if you came to this site because you found my via Night Night Birmingham and are expecting child-friendly, appropriate stories, this is one of many posts that probably isn't for you.
Why do I love drugstore chains and Bed, Bath & Beyond? (Other than the coupons and massive supplies of pills, of course.) Because they offer "as seen on tv products" without the required patience of waiting for said products to arrive in the mail. I haven't gotten into cake pops yet, but I can't promise it won't happen.
It also offers a fun chance to observe stuff that's even weirder than what you see on late night infomercials. Massagers are a personal favorites, and I think we can all agree that the manufacturers have stopped trying to hide what they're really about over the last few years. For this particular product, the only slogan they even gave a shot was "relax." Is there anyone out there who would actually try the line that this is for tight shoulders?
White People Problems
My birthday is November 18, and despite the fact that that seems far away from Christmas, when you throw in Thanksgiving, I contend that most birthdays from Nov. 15 - Jan. 15 probably go a tad less noticed because of their proximity to the holidays. (Not that 32 requires a throw down or the complete attention of my friends. I'm actually going somewhere else with this, so please bear with me.)
The lesser attention really gets made up for in the fact that you basically get to open presents for weeks on end. It almost becomes customary to receive gifts, so when January rolls around with it's cold temperatures and historically-significant holidays (that are incredibly important, of course, but have no presents), it's kind of a letdown.
To handle this down slide, and get the most for my money, years ago I started saving my Christmas and birthday money to spend after Christmas when all of the sales are really good. I know I sound like a spoiled consumerist here, but I can't deny that I like stuff. Plus, when you mail order your sale items, it's like you get to keep opening presents because packages are always arriving at the door.
(Seasonal depression, meet my new handbag.)
The other day, I was contemplating one of my purchases, a Kate Spade cocktail ring (because I like to have nice things but only if I can pay less than half the retail price), and I asked the SO what he thought of it.
"It just doesn't look like it did on the Internet," I said. "I really expected more. Do you think I should send it back?" (Also, if you are indecisive about your purchases, you can prolong the whole present/packages deal with exchanges and returns for weeks. Yes, I may have a problem.)
His answer: "White people problems."
And it's true. Whether or not my cocktail ring was purchased under false pretenses hardly has much to do with the world at large. I probably should spend more brain power and time on the debt ceiling or North Korea or something, but I don't. So, in acknowledgement of my not-so-problemy problems, I give you "White People Problems" from last week's Saturday Night Live. Thanks to this particular skit, I can no longer use the word "awkward" without feeling uncomfortable, and since "awkward" was half of my vocabulary (and the real word I wanted to use instead of "uncomfortable"), it's been hard on me. Then again, that's just another white people problem.