How Not To Entertain Yourself While Pregnant
Whatever you do while pregnant, don’t:
1. Google anything and everything about your pregnancy and/or newborns.
A personal low? I Googled “can my baby kick too much” because I was convinced I could diagnose ADD/ADHD in the womb.
2. Wander the aisles of Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. It's a very costly place to worry, and buying more wash clothes isn't going to do much.
Hint: You’ll be there daily in the first few weeks anyway, so you might want to wait.
3. Try on those tiny bikinis you see the sorority girls picking up thinking you will look OK (or even like a celebrity) because you’re “all belly.”
If you are super tiny, this might work. I don't wear a bikini when I'm not pregnant, so God only knows why I thought this was a good idea. When I put on that Target brand swimsuit one fateful March day, I did not look like a celebrity rocking her baby bump on the beach, and it still frightens me to remember how my ass looked in so little Spandex.
Everything I Dislike About The Fair In One Photo
Every year, when ads start popping up for the state fair*, I think, "Oh my gosh, that would be so much fun!"
My mind is filled with stock photo images of autumnal delight -- children mesmerized by the twinkling lights of rides, cotton candy and caramel apples, young ladies and gents playing games to win stuffed toys for their paramours ... In my head, it's wondrous.
I get geared up to go. I imagine my head thrown back in laughter as I tilt-a-whirl. I smile at the SO, "I know what we could do this weekend ..."
Then, we arrive, and just as the stench of cigarette smoke and broken dreams reaches me, I remember that no fair has ever lived up to my glossy-staged-photo dreams, but instead always ends in too much hand sanitizer and nightmares of Enterovirus 68.
Cotton candy isn't tasty. It's sticky, like everything else at the fair, and I don't like sticky.
In that germaphobic, I'm-the-freak-that-worries-about-their-insurance-policy spirit, I give you everything I dislike about the fair in one photo:
My son does not want to pet the animals in the petting zoo. Which is cool because the animals in the petting zoo don't want to be touched either. There's a stranger in our photos -- who doesn't smile -- wearing a shirt with the phrase "tickled pink" embroidered on the pocket.
I think it's safe to say that no one involved in this is tickled pink.
And then there's me -- getting felt up by "the 'roo" that we all know isn't a kangaroo. (My aunt, who spent a significant portion of her adult life in Australia, confirmed this for me, and said that this creature was either a wallaby -- or an overgrown rat -- but it definitely wasn't a kangaroo.)
Of course, the kangaroo/wallaby/rat probably has the innocent intention of tapping out SOS on my chest in Morse Code in hopes of salvation, but considering how I feel about stickiness, I think you can imagine how much I wanted an animal that had spent it's day in a poop-filled pen in the parking lot touching me.
When we leave, the SO always gives me the "I told you so" look, and I nod in agreement -- until next year.
* I actually dragged my family to something known as a "fall festival." It's like a kissing cousin of the state fair. It may not carry the title, but the rides, shows and prices are the same.
The Misanthropic Parent
Most likely, one day, my son will discover that I don’t really like people.
Of course, I like my family and my friends and most people depicted on ABC Family shows.
My problem is with other “people.” (And, just to be clear, I’m not talking about “you people” in some thinly-veiled racist way. However, racists are part of the “people” I don’t like.) I’m talking about “people,” like the guy that jumps in line when we’re all waiting for the next available cashier in an orderly fashion. (No, you are not the genius who figured out the line with no wait while the rest of us poor saps stood around like sheep waiting on Tanya on register eight.) It’s the unsolicited-advice-givers and I-don’t-know-what-to-order-at-the-top-of-the-line-during-rush–hour types that make me a tad crazy – and dark.
Where do I think my son is most likely to learn that I don’t like people?
The Zoo.
Like many families, we love an outing to the zoo. There’s fresh air, and cute animals, and walking. And on nice days, there’s also every other family within a 15-mile radius.
On our first trip to the zoo, I was enjoying the otter exhibit when a barefoot woman emerged from the lily pond to talk to me. (I have issues with feet and bacteria. We were already off to a bad start.)
“Have you seen the otters?” she said.
“Not yet,” I said. Then I proceeded to tend to my son – you know, the one in the stroller that I came to the zoo to spend time with. I was doing my best to mind my own business when I heard a kind of squealing noise.
“I found them!”
I did not acknowledge. I know myself.
“Do you want to see?”
“I’m OK,” I said.
“No, come see,” she said. Then, said stranger proceeded to grab my arm (I also don’t like to be touched) and pull me over towards the corner of the giant tank where the otters live. “Do you see them?”
“They’re all sleeping on top of each other,” she said. “It’s a pile-up.”
Friends, it was a pile-up alright. It was a pile of rocks.
But, I don’t like to engage with strangers, let alone argue with them, so instead, I stood there while a stranger held onto my arm and pretended to marvel at the rocks/otters.
“Neato.”
Later, when we went inside the monkey house (which I’m sure has a more scientific name, but I just learned the difference between tortoises and turtles, so clearly I’m behind on all matters animal kingdom), I encountered a middle-aged couple pawing each other in front of the lemurs. While myself and the children – please don’t forget about the children – watched those delightful little imps run around and swing from ropes, Ronnie, as I’m calling her, grabbed Ron’s crotch and whispered things in his ear more appropriate for HBO late night than daytime at the zoo.
(I’m guessing that they really wanted to do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel. Also, in honor of Ronnie and Ron, I will no longer say “go at it like bunnies,” but instead refer to those that want to get it on like visitors to the monkey house. Clearly, I’m not getting as much from primates as some people do.)
Then there are the unaccompanied minors. Please don’t get me started on the unaccompanied minors. I know it makes me sound old, but on this particular day, their clothes were so tight and their comments were so dumb.
I believe it was while four such youngsters were attempting to trap a peacock that I said, “We must move on now, and to somewhere they won’t follow.”
While I’d like to be my best self for my kid, and I’d like to think that motherhood has reorganized my priorities, helped me let go of the small stuff, show more compassion and on and on and on, it seems I’m still me – petty complaints and misanthropic tendencies and all. Is it better to just own it or try and be better? I’d like to say I’ll try and be better, but then someone steals a parking space I’d clearly stalked and claimed with my blinker, and well, we’re right back where we started.
I think I’d rather admit to most of my 20s than see that sweet face fall the first time he hears me yell at an aggressive telemarketer.
Because right now, my son looks at me like I’m awesome, and I don’t ever want it to be any other way. He thinks my singing, dancing, tickling ways are delightful. He has no idea that I’m tone deaf – let alone the rest of it.
When he looks at me with so much love, well, I, too, which I wasn’t the person who complained about “That Guy” at the pharmacy who always says that it will be 10-15 more minutes no matter how many hours in advance I called.
I wish I could stare at a pile of rocks with genuine wonder. It seems like more fun than cynicism.
Maybe it’s enough to try. Let’s hope so, because that’s all I’ve got.
* Photo of actual otter, not rock. Photo by hotblack.
How To Entertain Yourself While Pregnant
So, here’s how long ago I initially planned to write this post. My original intro: In light of the recent snowstorms and Valentine’s Day, I thought I would prepare a helpful list for those sure to find themselves in the family way over the next few weeks.
Sorry to let you down, ladies. Those of you impregnated during the snowstorms and Valentine’s Day festivities are probably giving birth in November, so I’m way behind. Regardless, I wrote this, and now maybe I can help those of you overly affected by Facebook photos of cute kids heading back to school and Carter’s ads.
What no one tells you is how boring pregnancy can be. First and foremost, no alcohol is pretty limiting. Then, you throw in the fact that you’re the person at the restaurant asking whether or not there’s raw egg in the salad dressing, if the cheese is pasteurized and if they could heat your turkey sandwich to 140 degrees, and you’re just not a to of fun to go out and about with.
Next, factor in that you’ll spend almost three months in what I call “quarantine” because you don’t know what to say when your friends ask you why you’re not drinking (I was pretty sure people around me would assume rehab), so your social skills disintegrate. (In real life no one wants to know all of my feelings about Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? What?!?!)
Last but not least, please consider the fact that you’ll spend most of your pregnant time trying to figure out what the hell is going on with your body. So, you’ve got a lot of new knowledge about the placenta that no one else cares about. (And, they want to hear about that even less than Taylor.)
It’s very easy to find yourself sipping Sprite, alone, next to a maybe-pasteurized-maybe-not cheese plate at a cocktail party while everyone else gets a good buzz on.
If you’re like me, you’ll also be unable to watch, read about or discuss anything that involves babies, children, sick people, puppies, exotic pets, the elderly, kids going to college, mothers, fathers, changing seasons, mean people, or small goats without crying (heavily and loudly, regardless of time or place). This will reduce your range of conversation topics by about 98%, leaving you to entertain your friends with tidbits about donuts and paint colors.
It isn’t pretty.
I read the entire Rizzoli and Isles series while pregnant. I don’t know why. (And I cried during the one about kidnapped pregnant ladies. I'm still ashamed.) No one wanted to hear about that either (except my father, who, God love him, had thoughts about the casting choices TNT made, but it’s entirely possible he was feigning his level of interest just because he loves me).
So, from my perspective, there’s not a lot to do. But, you can do these things that I came up with during the seven or so months I felt like there wasn’t much for me to do other than, you know, grow a human and all:
1. Pretend you don’t know you’re pregnant.
If someone says “Congratulations,” feign shock.
Tell them you knew you’d put on some weight, but still…Seem to be working out some math in your head. “It has been awhile since I got my monthly visitor.” (Yes, I also like to use antiquated terms in my play to up the awkward. Feel free to substitute “Aunt Flo.”)
2. When your friends are talking about where to go after 9:00 p.m., and you’re tired but know you won’t sleep, suggest the nastiest club in town. Then mention that you were there X months ago and need to look for someone.
(X clearly equals the number of months that you have been pregnant.)
3. Actually go to said club and try out the infamous Amy Poehler/Josh Brolin SNL skit. (Hide your belly while you make eyes at someone across the room and then, “Surprise!”)
This was one of my favorite pregnant lady fantasies.
4. Around Spring Break or anytime during the summer, visit your nearest Target or department store. Find the college girls trying on tiny bikinis for trips to Cancun. Without prompting, point to the tiny bikinis and say, “That and a lot of tequila shooters is how I got here.” [Reference bump.]
Consider it a public service.
5. Pose for stock photos.
I learned a lot putting together this post. If you want to download free photos of pregnant ladies from the Internet, you're in luck! I think we call that a win for the fetishists.
Good luck ladies!
The Truth About Your Name
It was very easy to name my children when I was single and all of my children where yet-to-be-conceived.
If you’re female, I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.
“I’m going to have two boys and a girl, and they’re going to be named Bailey, L.B. and Isabel.”
Even when people asked about my fictional children’s hypothetical father, I had an answer. “He can have the middle name.”
So, you can imagine my surprise when, actually pregnant, I told the SO my idea for our baby boy’s name, and he said, “no.”
Sixteen years of planning, and it all came crashing down with one “no.”
After my disappointment/confrontation with reality, the SO and I began the baby naming hunt/game in earnest. For me, I think this process is best described by a woman I met at a baby shower: “I pick names and my husband shoots them down.”
I read a baby book.
I read a baby book with 10,000 names in it.
I highlighted my favorite names and created a working list.
I shared my working list with the SO via a Google doc that we could both edit.
The SO chose to yell things out as we drove or shopped at Target. (He didn’t seem to get the memo about my baby book or Google doc.)
It went something like this:
“Rock!”
“What? Am I going to hit a rock? Is there something in the road?”
“No, what do you think about Rock for the baby?”
“As a cheap toy?” I said. “A nursery theme?”
“As a name.”
“No.”
LeTron, Shogun and Lightning all came to my attention this way.
For the record, I am not someone who could own a cool, alt baby name. Some people fit with an Apple. I do not.
A hip baby name would only cause me deep shame and judgment every time I checked in at the pediatrician’s office or had something monogrammed.
“What would you like on the towels again?”
“Toaster.”
“Toaster?”
“You know, like the Instagram filter.”
And the idea of standing in front of all the other mothers with my non-cloth-diaper-wearing son while the nurse called out “Lysol” or “Legume” is too much for me.
For awhile, I was convinced my child would be named Samurai because the SO and I couldn’t agree on anything, and, at least, as a friend pointed out, I could shorten “Samurai” to “Sam.”
I vividly remember being very pregnant, driving around and crying thinking about the years ahead spent introducing Samurai to his teachers and coaches. (All of whom would be very disapproving.)
So, when, four days before I went into labor, the SO suggested “Benjamin,” I jumped on it.
Before that moment, Benjamin had not been in my top 5 or even my top 25. But, by then, I would have gone with anything to avoid a Samurai or LeTron (LeTronica for a girl).
This is also why I really think the SO played me for the long con. A note to the men out there: if you want to win the baby name game, just hold out any and all non-absurd names until your partner is in labor. Darth, Leppard and Gandolf sound a lot more appealing when you think your alternatives are Drapery and Hopscotch.
And while Benjamin might not have been in the top 25 names during my pregnancy or the first 33 years of my life, it quickly rose in the ranks as my favorite name once it was attached to my favorite little person.
I fell in love with the name as I fell in love with my baby, and now, I can’t imagine wanting a Bailey or L.B. instead.
This is also why you don’t tell people your baby names. Nobody loves Esther or Grayson in theory, but everyone loves it once it’s attached to 10 pounds of cuddly, squirmy baby.
So, getting back to my title, the truth is that your name might not have been your parent’s first choice at first, but it probably is now.
“We always like the name ‘Benjamin,’” is a far better story than, “I used to curse your father and cry thinking you’d be called ‘Samurai.’”
Photo by mwookie.
A Town Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us
I have a Kindle Fire. (It’s hardly big news, but all stories haveto start somewhere.) I think the SO expected me to use my Kindle Fire to readall the time, get into RSS feeds, keep up with news from all over the web,etc., etc. Instead, I quickly developed an addiction for Bejeweled.
(“Addiction” isn’t an exaggeration here. When I findsomething new, it’s all I want to do. So far, the only thing this particularpersonality trait has done for me is allow me to get through lots of episodesof television in a short period of time. I might need to work on my concept of“purpose.”)
When I was done with Bejeweled, I moved on to various hiddenobjects/puzzle games. (I am a complete nerd.) However, it was hard to findanything that gave me the same satisfaction as Bejeweled – until I discoveredThe Oregon Trail.
Unlike The Oregon Trail of my youth, which involved way toomuch dysentary and fording of rivers, The Oregon Trail app lets you build atown out West and make it prosper. You get to build houses, businesses, addlivestock, plant crops … basically, a lot of incredibly boring stuff designedfor 10-year-olds that I seem to find fascinating.
To say that I got into my town would be an understatementakin to saying that the Amy Poehler/Will Arnett split was mildly upsetting. (Ifthose two can’t make it work, I don’t know if the rest of us have a chance.Can’t they stay together for America? Seriously.)
I worked on my town all the time. I cleared all the landpossible to clear. I built mansions. I had every business available, includingthe special edition town hall and a prospecting cart. I occasionally ignored myboyfriend for my town.
“Something, something, something,” SO says.
“Yeah, sounds good,” I’d say while staring down at my KindleFire.
“Something, something, something.”
“Uh-huh,” I’d say, while thinking, “If I can just collectfrom the big log cabins two more times, I can add another telegraph office.”
“It’s your town again, isn’t it?”
“Huh?” (Thinking: “How did I run out of energy so quickly?”)
“That’s what I thought.”
I made it to level 91 on The Oregon Trail. I don’t think anysane person is supposed to do that. I had a $1,000,000 fake dollars stored inmy Trail bank account. I was out of control.
Then, my Kindle Fire died. It stopped holding a charge, andI had to ship it back to Amazon headquarters. Was I worried about my books ormy many, many apps? No. I was worried about my town. What would happen to myprogress? What would become of my houses and the black sheep I won? (You can’tpurchase a black sheep. You can only win one. I’m sure you can all see mydilemma.)
Well, sure enough, when the new Kindle Fire arrived, therewas no town, and that’s when the SO and I had a talk I’m sure every couple hasat some point in their relationship.
“Well, it’s gone,” I said.
“I know that meant a lot to you?” the SO said.
“It’s all gone.”
“I’m sorry?”
“And you know what,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going torebuild. It was a good run, but I just don’t think I have the energy to gothrough it again.”
I’d tell you what the SO said next, but I couldn’t understandhim through the explosion of laughter.
Paging Pity, Party Of One
So, I’m having one of those days. It’s not like anythingterrible has happened, but my self-esteem just isn’t quite where it should be,and I’m a tad irritable. (If yelling at your car door for opening too wide inthe Lowe’s parking lot can count as “a tad.”) I would love to be one of thosepeaceful, Zen-like people who can recognize how small their own problems are,anticipate the light ahead and enjoy the journey, but well, let’s be honesthere. It’s me.
Since I have this lovely forum known as my blog, I thoughtI’d run through the current causes of myI’m-never-leaving-the-house-again-or-changing-out-of-these-sweatpants-state*:
- ThatI’m not one of those peaceful, Zen-like people who can just go along for theride. Those people seem extremely lovable, good at yoga and capable of sittingstill for longer than five minutes because of what I’m sure are their valuableand renewing daily meditations. They have probably never played a game ofSpider Solitaire for hours on end. I bet they even like how tea tastes.
- Oneday after buying what can only be described as a s&%$ ton of AA batteriesbecause of a buy one, get one free sale, the only batteries I need are AAAs.(These AAAs are for my Slender Tone belt. Yes, I know it doesn’t work, but Iwear it anyway and pretend that I’m doing something. I bought it on Ebay a few days after New Year’s becausethat’s my version of a “get in better shape” resolution.)
- Noneof my pants fit. (Please see note about Slender Tone belt in #2.)
- Mybangs aren’t behaving properly. This, too, is my own fault for thinking I couldtrim them myself. In this instance, “behaving” = “not being long enough.” (Iffor any reason my stylist is reading this, I know. I know. Also, I would liketo add “patience” to the list of qualities I wish I possessed in #1.)
- Netflixhas yet to add season two of Portlandia to its line-up. I can only assume thisis a) part of some sort of grand conspiracy on the part of Netflix to drive meinsane or b) because season two isn’t available yet. Regardless of the reason,I feel like some Fred Armisen would lighten the mood right now.
- Iordered an item off of Ebay without reading the shipping cost, because youknow, seeing as how the item is the size of my hand and in the continentalUnited States, I thought shipping would be reasonable. I was wrong. It’s $40.$40! The seller claims that’s why the item was priced so low. (Diabolicallybrilliant?) I feel kind of cheated here, seeing as how the item itself cost$1.27 more than the shipping. However, since the shipping price was listedbefore the auction ended, we return to the fact that I can only blame myselffor this one.
- Well,there isn’t really a number seven, so a normal person would end this list atsix, but seeing as how I think lists should come in threes, fives, sevens ortens, I just don’t think I can do it. Neurotic much? Yes.
And there you have it. Thank you wonderful reader for putting up with my gripes. Please add your own to thecomments. As I’m being petty, I feel I should invite others to join me. We canall start on that Zen thing on Monday.
* I mean, the sweatpants havepockets. Do I really need to say more?
My Bumper Sticker And Anthropologie: A Lesson In Courage
When I find an article of clothing that I like, I tend tobuy it in at least two colors. My more frugal sister thinks that this is crazy,but I figure that if you find something you like, you might as well have morethan one. Who knows when you’ll find something you like as much again? What ifsomething happens to the first one, and then you’ve lost your favorite shirt? Ithink I’m being practical, but I also think Tina Fey and I would be besties ifonly we ever met, so take that for what you will.
A few weeks ago, a friend and I were out running someerrands. I had on my relatively standard uniform of black flip flops and blackyoga pants as well as a new shirt from Anthropologie that I thought was soadorable and comfy. (So adorable and comfy that I bought it in two colors. I’dprobably have it in three if they hadn’t gone off sale. It’s called the slouchshirt. I wasn’t going to read into that.)
After driving around for a bit, I realized I hadn’t had mymorning Diet Coke (yes, morning), and I decided to pull into the gas station.My friend said that she wanted a Diet Coke, too.
I stepped into the store and picked up two Diet Cokes and aPowerade for good measure. (You can never be too hydrated on questionablebeverages.)
“You’re very brave,” said the clerk.
“Huh?” I said, looking down at my hands and assuming he wasconcerned about how much sugar and Nutrasweet I was willing to put in my body. “Brave”also seemed like an odd word choice since I was shopping at the mini-mart, andthat mini-mart was not in Pakistan.
“You’re very brave,” he said. “Your bumper sticker.”
That’s when I realized that he was referring to my Obamasticker.
In my neck of the woods, you don’t see too many Obamastickers. I think there are more leftover “W” stickers on cars than Obama/Bidenpronouncements. It’s probably one of the reasons I decided to go with thebumper sticker. I am usually very anti-bumper sticker simply because I’m toolazy to use Goo Gone, but I got tired of everyone making assumptions about mypolitical leanings. Plus, I like for visitors to know that not everyone inAlabama is conservative. We have diversity in our politics just like any otherstate.
“You don’t see too many of those around here,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, really not sure what the appropriateresponse to that comment would be.
I left the store, got back in my car and gave my friend herDiet Coke. Since I had heard some of the comments about her Obama/Biden stickerfrom the 2008 race, I thought she’d enjoy my story. “I just had the weirdestencounter,” I said.
“What happened?” she said.
“The guy told me I was brave,” I said.
“Because you wore that shirt?”
Maybe I was a little too zealous in my love of the slouchshirt after all. Hopefully, my friend will like it better in blue.
Long Lost Post: An Open Letter To The Makers Of Diet Dr. Pepper
Originally published June 5, 2008:
Dear Liars The Makers of Dr. Pepper,
Usually, I am one of your biggest addicts fans. Initially, I was heart broken when my dentist insisted that for the love of God and the health of my already enamel-deficient teeth suggested I make the switch to diet cola. I thought it meant the end of taste. But, the first time I drank your product, I had to double check that someone hadn't started a party in my mouth and forgotten to send me an invitation. It was that good. In the words of my friend Susan, "Did you strike a deal with the devil for that recipe because that's one amazing soda?"
You say that Diet Dr. Pepper tastes just like regular Dr. Pepper, and it's true. You are one of the few companies I believe believed in. I wish I didn't have to put that last sentence in the past tense.
As a devotee of your product, I, of course, purchase Diet Dr. Pepper throughout the year, and therefore throughout a variety of sweepstakes seasons. I've seen you through many contests and promotional tie-ins. X-Men 2 in the summer of 2003? I was there. Superbowl ticket giveaways? Done that. With a fierce love of Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf, I actually looked forward to the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull promotion this summer.
(On a side note to my main complaint, I do think it's pretty crappy to make "limited edition" cans, and then only have two kinds of cans, but I don't plan on hording ant/wasp attractants collecting this particular memorabilia anyway.)
All Dr. Pepper products associated with the Indiana Jones contest clearly state that "1 in 6 wins." To this claim, I must say, one in six my a$%.
Since your website is kind enough to keep track of how many codes I enter, I know for a fact that I put in nine codes without winning. Nine. "0 in 9" is a far, far cry from "1 in 6." Even if I look at the numbers upside down, it still doesn't add up.
Then, after all of the codes I have entered, it turns out that number 10 is a winner. (Again, still not within the confines of the original and promised six codes.) Yeah! I thought, I'm finally a winner! (The self-worth implications of said thought will have to be evaluated later.) I'm finally a winner, but what do I get? Is it a coupon? Maybe some Dr. Pepper gear? No, it's a screen saver. A screen saver. And it's an ugly screen saver at that. You're thinking that it might be fun to have Harrison Ford on the computer. So am I. Then I realize that my Indiana Jones screen saver is simply the title of the movie against a yellow background. The title of the movie. Against a yellow background. I didn't want a screen saver to begin with (I already have fish), and I certainly didn't want an ugly screen saver at that.
Maybe you think I'm being greedy. Maybe you think I expect to win some glorious trip to the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and meet Harrison Ford. I do not. All I really want is to win one freaking bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. One 20 oz. bottle. Is that really so much to ask?
Of course, all this being said, I will still be addicted to in love with your product, so it's not that there's any real danger I will stop purchasing Diet Dr. Pepper or organize a boycott (sad but true, I come to you with only empty threats), but you have lost my trust. And trust is a lot harder to earn than brand loyalty.
Sincerely,
Laurel Mills
Disillusioned Diet Dr. Pepper Drinker*
* I now realize I might overuse the word "disillusioned."
Inappropriate With A Dash Of Bad Timing
I don’t always have the best timing. I tend to fall in love with new restaurants just before they go out of business, arrive at boutiques during the 30-minute window the owner has gone for lunch and discover listings for events two days after they happened.
Usually, my poor timing is just inconvenient. On other occasions, it’s downright awkward.
Last summer, I took in a cat that I found in the woods behind the SO’s house. You might remember her.* She was declawed, skinny and nearly hairless, so I gave her a name that I thought was befitting of the time we would be spending together trying to get her well.
At the time, the SO and I already had two dogs and a cat, and he made it clear we would not be adding to the menageries. (The SO has to draw the hard line on pets with me. Otherwise, we would have a zoo.) A couple of potential new homes for her fell through, and the days she was supposed to stay with me turned into weeks.
In the middle of July, after months of having my house on the market, I decided to rent it out. I placed the Craig’s List ad and expected for it to take some time. Instead, I had three couples ready to sign a lease within 48 hours. Not wanting to waste time, I decided to move out as fast as I could. This amped up moving schedule also meant that I needed to find a new foster home for my rescued kitty ASAP.
A very kind friend helped me find a foster family. All I had to do was run the cat to a particular vet for her second round of shots. (I mention this only so that my vet doesn’t think I was cheating on him. The other vet had a relationship with the animal rescue service.)
I didn’t realize the vet I was seeing required appointments, so I got there only to find out that they couldn’t see me for a few hours. I probably could have called first, but considering my aversion to the phone, I obviously didn’t. Not wanting to stress the cat out with too much travel, I left her with the vet’s office until I could come back for the appointment. Also, I had been keeping one of those plastic collars on the cat to help her hair grow back, but I decided to take it off for our vet visit.
When I came back and they handed me the cat, I saw that she had rubbed off the hair where she would have had eyebrows if cats had eyebrows. (That plastic collar wasn’t cruel after all for anyone who might have judged me.)
“What happened here?” I said.
“That’s pretty bad,” the veterinary assistant said. “Your cat might be a self-mutilator.”
“The cat might be a what?”
“A self-mutilator. It’s a type of anxiety disorder. It’s very rare, but it does happen.”
Thinking of the Xanax in my purse at the time, I knew you couldn’t give a cat an anxiety disorder, but I still felt kind of guilty. “An anxiety disorder?” I said.
“Have you noticed anything strange about her?”
I suppose I had been too distracted by her near-hairless state and love of rubbing up against my face to notice anything else.
“How much does the cat sleep?” she said.
At that moment, I realized that I never saw the cat sleep. I had been taking care of an anxiety-ridden, insomniac cat for four weeks and never noticed? Now my guilt was more akin to shame.
“Not much,” I said.
“Yep, it’s probably the anxiety,” she said. “We’ll just put her on some meds, and it should help out.”
After an examination by the vet, who confirmed the anxiety diagnosis, I took the cat’s prescription and was on my way. My next stop was to meet the cat’s new foster family in the parking lot of a local movie theater.
So, there I was, standing in the parking lot of a strip mall (most likely wearing yoga pants covered in dog hair and a torn t-shirt) with a self-mutilating cat and a bottle of kitty Prozac when the cat’s new foster parents got out of the car. I handed the cat over and told them all about our adventure at the vet.
“Thank you so much for helping me out. I really appreciate it,” I said. “Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“I think we’ve got it,” the woman said, “but what’s her name?”
“This is going to seem really inappropriate,” I said. It had been a big week in pop culture news. “But I’ve been calling her Amy Winehouse.”
"Ah."
(She was in rehab at my house. I thought it was fitting. Then Amy Winehouse died tragically, and even though the foster family was very kind about it, I still felt like an incredibly insensitive person. )
That day, I sent off a self-mutilating, anti-depressant-taking, nearly-hairless cat named Amy Winehouse to a new foster family three days after Amy Winehouse died.
It is a day that will forever be marked by shame.
*Amy Winehouse really is the name that stuck. I just never took to Buscemi. The above exchange actually happened.
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.
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.
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.