–Spring semester, Sophomore year, 1990–91—Even under penalty of tears and tantrums, do not agree to go if your roommate pleads with you to take part in a ghost-hunting expedition in downtown Columbus, not only because it is overpriced and a criminal waste of time, but also because you might, to your still-great disbelief, bring an actual ghost home with you. How this happened, we weren’t sure, but in fact, it did happen. For the remaining seven weeks of the semester, the mirror over the sink in the corner of our dorm room took on a cracked aspect after the hour of eleven P.M., and each morning when we awoke, we’d find our underwear had been herded into the back of my roommate’s closet, some of it disturbingly damp, as if worn by a profusely sweating girl-ghost. Were we being taught a lesson in the vanity of our ways? Some of the underwear was made from lace and worn solely with the intent of being flaunted before dumb boys who would not have cared if we were wearing underwear stitched from a potato sack, as long as it came off as easily as any other fabric did.
–Fall semester, Senior year, 1992–93—“The main reason why you should get a college education,” Professor Randall Dixon said near the end of the semester in European History from 1900 to WWII, “which is the same reason why you should study history, is to learn humility.”
A student with a Southern accent who had lived in my dorm freshman year raised her hand and said, “Isn’t that also the main purpose of life? Aren’t we supposed to learn to bow down to the government, to our bosses and husbands and police officers and politicians, from here on out?”
Professor Dixon blinked for several long seconds before answering. He smiled and shook his head. “Submission, humility, self-abnegation, self-immolation, suicide.” He paused. “Not that I’m advocating anything but humility. Still, people have killed themselves for far less than bad government and a surfeit of murderous stupidity.”
A few days later, Professor Dixon was reprimanded by his department chair for this minor blip of a political protest speech, after an aggrieved student filed a complaint. It had seemed to him that his professor was advocating suicide and was probably a nihilist or maybe even a Satanist. At the time, I was dating the self-righteous idiot who filed this complaint. His name was Mike Post and he ate chicken Kiev every Thursday and fish sticks with mashed potatoes every Friday. He had a big p*n*s and, needless to say, a small brain and heart.
–Spring semester, Senior year, 1992–93—When my closest friend from home, Elizabeth Pelsen, came to visit over her spring break, which was one week before my spring break (half of which I had planned to spend at her college), I made the mistake of having relations with my boyfriend in the same room where Elizabeth was asleep, or had been asleep until our indelicate noises awoke her. I didn’t know that she was in the room because I had been drinking my classmate Yasmina Pujoles’s “Toxic Waste Dump Punch” and stayed later at Yasmina’s birthday party than Elizabeth wanted us to, which meant that E. walked home alone, deciding as she walked the several blocks between the party and my apartment that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with me. I was a shallow, sometimes-bulimic, weekend lush who had developed an annoying laugh and a falsely breathless way of talking that she thought made me sound like a parodic Marilyn Monroe impersonator. At the time, I thought she was being prudish and mean, but after several years of calling her uncharitable names to a diminishing number of mutual friends, I finally realized that I had behaved like a self-absorbed idiot who was more interested in trying to please boys who would never really love me than maintaining the most meaningful friendship (so far) of my life.
CULTS
–May 1995–July 1998—Member, G. Don Dinkman’s Church of the Divine Truth. Personal schism with church occurred when the suggested tithe went up by 18 percent overnight because of a roof problem that was the dipsh*t minister’s own fault. He tried to create a refuge for bald eagles on top of the church by attempting to grow scrub and pine trees and installing a miniature lake and a 1/10,000-scale model of a mountain range meant to duplicate the Canadian Rockies, which cost more than a hundred thousand dollars and caused the aging roof to collapse just after a birthday party for Mr. Dinkman (who has been dead for a long time, but a party is still held in his honor by many ministers each year because Mr. Dinkman is the Divine Truth robots’ own personal Jesus figure, but without the crucifixion and loaves-and-fishes stories—just the alien ancestors and millionaire adherents who are so easy to brainwash it might be hilarious if it weren’t also so sad).
–February 1996–present—Member, Nicolas Cage Fan Club.* Despite a hairstyle that fluctuates between silly, seriously balding, and chic-retro-minimalist, Mr. Cage is a supreme thespian who is known for taking risks with the roles he has chosen to promulgate his genius in the world, National Treasure and The Rock notwithstanding. His early triumphs in Valley Girl and the tonally opposite but equally seductive Wild at Heart remain signal achievements in the Hollywood pantheon. The one time I was in the same place at the same time as Mr. Cage, he was chatting up an underage waitress and also seemed to be drinking a lot of sake, but he was kind enough to kiss my hand and then autograph my forearm when I introduced myself; he also winked at me with his swoon-inducing blue-green eyes.
WORK EXPERIENCE
–September 1991–May 1993—The Ohio State University Bookstore, Columbus, OH
*Cashier. Duties included ringing up purchases; making change; keeping the checkout area free of trash and general debris, along with loiterers, drunks, dogs of the non-seeing-eye variety, smokers, loudly laughing people, Christmas carolers, panhandlers, and trick-or-treaters.
*Awarded Employee of the Month in April 1992, despite unfortunate clash with energetically sweating Hallmark vendor over stale chocolates the Kansas City–based company (which has since successfully diversified itself as a viable multimedia entity, though what it mainly sells is feel-good or tearjerker-type movie flotsam) had believed it could sell along with its puppy and kitten stickers and birthday and Boss’s Day cards.
*Won holiday brownie bake-off for all bookstore employees, December 1991. Never admitted that half of the brownie mix was taken from a Betty Crocker box. Other key ingredients included peanut butter, mini-marshmallows, walnuts, and Baileys Irish Cream. (Alcohol wasn’t supposed to be used either.)
–August 1993–November 1997—Dublin Animal Hospital, Dublin, OH
*Receptionist/Bookkeeper. Not really a job related to my college degree, but I did work with money and wrote out receipts for those who paid in full after their once-carefree animals had been worked into a terrified frenzy by the two veterinarians, a husband-and-wife team who often bickered in the back rooms (a place where they thought no one in the reception area would be able to hear them), usually about who had spent how much on what useless object or who had been rude to or leered at the other’s best friend, or, would Dr. Calvin ever stop stuffing his face at one in the morning and watching garbage TV until four A.M.? He was disgusting, just disgusting, nothing like the man Dr. Kimberly had met in vet school and fallen in love with and didn’t he know it was such a sad joke that he thought their neighbor’s teenage daughter looked at him with anything but revulsion?
–November 1997–July 1998—Dublin, OH
*Unemployed. Minor nervous breakdown three months into unemployment stint, precipitated by two back-to-back incidents. The first: a hotel-room burglary that occurred during a weekend trip to New York City, where my plan was to see as many museums and off-Broadway plays as could be squeezed into two and a half days. Was very disappointed that I could not get tickets to see Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes, the British actor who, for years, along with Nicolas Cage, I had the strong sense I was destined to marry. Items lost included passport, grandmother’s filigreed silver locket with picture of grandfather from boyhood, laptop with compromising photos on it taken by ex-boyfriend, six pairs of underwear (three of them unwashed—the thief must have been a pervert), one small jar of peanut butter, four sheets of flower stickers and pink writing paper, one green-marble calligraphy p
en, one box of Ritz crackers, assorted toiletries including a big bottle of Anaïs Anaïs perfume, several tampons, one tube of Crest toothpaste (travel size), one contact case, one bottle of contact solution, one pair of toenail clippers, tweezers. The worst was that they also stole $142, money that I had borrowed from the ex-boyfriend, a guy who insisted that every cent be paid back whenever he lent me money, which he continued to do even after we broke up because he dumped me for someone else and his guilty conscience made it difficult for him to say no when I asked for a loan, but not so difficult to demand repayment. It took me three months to pay him back because of my unemployed status. I earned a small amount of money during that time by selling my CDs and my favorite clothes (except for the Elite Prince T-shirt) on consignment at Out of the Closet.
The second: A drugged-out nutcase accosted me at a U2 concert. It’s painful for me to recount the circumstances in full, but here is a short summary: I had on a new dress, one that I bought on sale. It was Laundry and beautiful, the kind of dress you’re sure will change your life. I realize that a U2 concert is not the ideal place to wear a marvelous new dress, but I couldn’t wait. The druggie/nutcase grabbed me from behind, unzipped the dress all the way down, and tore it from my body in one violent motion, like someone pulling a curtain from a rod. I had on a bra and a pair of underwear that didn’t match and there were holes in the underwear. I don’t know why I didn’t bother wearing a nicer pair, considering how spectacular the dress was. People all around me started shrieking and staring when they saw me standing there in my disgraceful bikini briefs. The nutcase took off through the crowd with the dress while I cried and tried to cover my appalling near-nakedness. My assailant was a woman, a large, sweaty one with pink and blue hair. I think we might have gone to high school together, but that seems improbable now, considering the concert was in Ohio and I went to high school in Massachusetts. A well-meaning insurance salesman eventually gave me his Cincinnati Reds sweatshirt, which I tearfully pulled on. He also gave me his address so that I could return the sweatshirt, which he said was his favorite. The one good thing about it was that it almost matched the red high heels I was wearing.
–July 1998–February 2007—Best Buy, Lincoln, NE
*Cashier (7/98–4/00), Assistant Manager (4/00–3/03), Manager (3/03–2/07). (How on earth did I end up in Lincoln, Nebraska? Please refer to Disasters Averted or Otherwise.) I think you could say, in view of my nine years’ experience at this large chain-store hellhole, that I have paid my cosmic dues, whatever they might be. First, for twenty-one long months, I rang up Britney Spears and Garth Brooks and remaindered Yanni CDs, Doom video games, big-screen television sets, exorbitantly priced printer-ink cartridges (what an effing con those things are!), cell phones, car stereos, Pilates DVDs, and impulse-buy king-size Snickers bars. I called for price checks and for managers to deal with the irate, emotionally fragile customers who were almost apoplectic when the advertised sale price did not ring up for their CD Walkmen and jump drives and Seinfeld, season 1 DVDs. I learned so much about human nature that I am now as qualified as your favorite therapist to counsel the disenchanted, the lonely and distraught, the beaten-down, the oblivious, the bankrupt/shopping-addicted, the selfish, the foolish, and the otherwise scarred-by-life.
I was looking for a different job, one in consulting, human resources, accounting, hospitality industry, etc., while cashiering, but no one was hiring. At least not me.
Wearing the Assistant Manager crown was slightly better. I got a few days of paid vacation every year, marginal health insurance, slight respect from the nicer customers, and the scornful envy of my former peers (those cashiers who were deemed unpromotable). Lessons learned or re-learned included, but were not limited to:
a)Elderly churchgoers are as likely to shoplift as meth-addicted teenagers.
b)No one has any respect for the break room’s cleanliness, no matter their rank and salary; the same for the restrooms’.
c)A pregnant woman might actually be a creative thief with a picnic basket concealed beneath her blouse instead of a growing fetus, one she has filled to the brim with CDs and DVDs.
d)Supervisor’s children are, as a rule, spawn of Satan (which I guess makes the supervisor Satan).
I was promoted to Manager of Entertainment Media (a pretentious name for music and movies) because of the kindness of the supervisor who had two young children who were known for torturing household pets and pilfering coins and small bills from their parents’ and their aunts’ and uncles’ wallets. I fell hard for this supervisor, despite his tendency to do bad Adam Sandler impressions and compulsively eat powdered donuts that left a fine sugar dust on his goatee. Needless to say, this seminal love affair did not end the way I hoped it would, and I soon left Best Buy for my next employer (details immediately below). I couldn’t bear to look at the supervisor any longer because I kept imagining him in the throes of orgasm, which made me feel maudlin on some days, horny on others. This faithless, donut-addicted man is, as far as I know, still married to his chronically unpleasant wife, and likely will spend the rest of his life bailing his ingrate children out of one scrape after another, some of these scrapes financial, some of them personal and sordid, a few of them, most likely, also criminal.
–March 2007–December 2009—Dogs in Suds, Winfield, NE
*Manager/Dog Groomer. It is an open secret that once a dog falls for you, she will love you unconditionally until her death (provided you don’t mistreat her—a crime that would earn you a place in hell with the rapists and serial killers, I’m absolutely certain). I loved this job and the only reason it ended in December of 2009 was because we went out of business. We had a problem with a combative German shepherd–spitz mix attacking an aging, asthmatic poodle that died the next day—whether from its wounds or an asthma attack, I’ve never been certain. Word of this catastrophe, in any case, traveled in a predictable trajectory: bad news flies/ricochets/exists in an eternal vacuum, ready to resurface at any time, whereas this dog beauty parlor of the first order had previously enjoyed a flawless reputation—ten years of solid business practices and solvency with devoted clients, its owner (Millicent Hart) the founder and annual sponsor of the Doggy Day Parade down Cherry Street and a generous donor to local animal shelters, where we went twice a year to give bubble and flea baths to the canine inmates, providing each grateful dog with his/her very own flea collar.
One of the few things I didn’t like about this job was some of the dog owners: wealthy sourpusses who voted for the wrong candidates in every election and proudly affixed these gasbag candidates’ bumper stickers to their SUVs’ rear ends. And, not like there’s anything wrong with plastic surgery (if you can afford it), but just because you have a snub nose and huge tits doesn’t make you God’s Gift to the Universe, Elisha H.!
Since Dogs in Suds went out of business, I have been temping for Crème of the Crop, doing secretarial work for ConAgra, mostly. I’ve found that after nearly two years of grooming and bathing dogs, cute as they are, it’s nice to see men in pressed shirts again. Some of these professional guys smell of onions, others of talcum powder; some compulsively check their cell phones for texts (from mistresses?); one or two unaccountably have tears in their eyes when they think no one is looking. I want to take these sad, well-groomed men into my arms and offer them solace but am not sure how such a gesture would be interpreted.
IRRATIONAL FEARS
*Cobras (with hoods unfurled to their full glory—even typing this makes me feel sweaty and light-headed)
*Seagull attacks
*Being killed with piano wire (a type of grisly choking death often used in violent movies, especially those of the ’80s and ’90s)
*Decapitation by a helicopter blade that flies off of a traffic helicopter and goes scissoring through the air to find me as I walk to the library or to the convenience store for chocolate
*The one week I don’t play Mega Millions, my numbers are chosen (therefore, I always play)
SEMI-RATIONAL FE
ARS
*Rape
*Poverty
*Car crashes
*Food poisoning (especially in burrito huts, McDonald’s, and roadside bratwurst stands in small Wisconsin towns, including the one where my maternal grandmother lives)
*Identity theft
*Rabid squirrels, skunks, opossums, dogs, porcupines, armadillos, bats, cats, raccoons, mice, rats, shrews, chipmunks, ferrets, cows, sheep, bulls, llamas
*My parents’ deaths
*My friends’ deaths
*Dying alone and childless, incontinent, senile, and unloved
*Decapitation by the eighteenth-century guillotine on display in the Weapons of War and Instruments of Torture Museum in the Wisconsin town where my maternal grandmother lives (near the questionable bratwurst stands). The guillotine blade has, on two separate occasions, fallen down with a terrifying, vengeful whhaapp! while alarmed visitors looked on. The docent pleaded innocent to this mischief but could not stop laughing at the looks on her tour group’s faces.
The Virginity of Famous Men Page 25
