But now that I’m in-house all day, every day, little things are grating on me. Take, for example, the microwave. I generally bring my lunch to the office, as do many. The floor I work on has only one microwave for about a hundred employees. This shouldn’t be an issue because the lunchroom has an entire bank of microwaves. However, it is apparently far too difficult to take the elevator up two floors to use one of the many spare microwaves. So, starting at eleven a.m., people begin jockeying for position in the heat-my-lunch line. Some days there are ten frozen Lean Cuisines in a row slowly defrosting on the counter waiting their turn.
But this is not what annoys me. If there’s a line, I eat later or take my food upstairs.
What makes me want to go all Russell Crowe is the stupid bimbo who brings in a gigantic raw potato every day and then nukes it for fifteen minutes. And since my desk is closest to the kitchen, people stand and whine about it right next to me. This happens every single day. This means fifteen minutes of potato-complaining times five times a week times the six weeks I’m to be on this assignment equals 450 minutes of my life I will never get back. That’s seven and a half hours. I could fly to Las Vegas round-trip and people would still be bitching about the potato in the microwave.
The state of being annoyed is like a cancer. My aggravation spreads and begins to encompass everything around me. Like right now, I’m bugged by what I’m wearing to the point I want to tear it off and stomp all over it. I’m wearing one of my dozen similar Ralph Lauren wrap skirts; this particular variation has been hanging in my closet for years. It’s a pastel madras plaid and it’s very long and very straight—practically to the ankle—and it’s greatly limiting my range of motion. If I don’t take tiny steps like a geisha, I’ll totally bite it as I scurry off to the copy machine. I guess I could pull the wrap apart so I can run better, but it might be nice if I stop accidentally flashing my support garments to the rest of the secretarial pool for once. (This has been the Summer of the Flippy Skirt. Which, I learned too late, tends to fly up at the slightest breeze, like from when someone sneezes. Achoo and voilà—your nonstop ticket to Girdle City!)
Anyway, when I got dressed this morning, I couldn’t remember why I never wear this skirt. With its lavender, pink, green, and turquoise stripes, it matches almost everything in my closet. But as I bunny-hop over to the Xerox machine, I suddenly remember Fletch used to call it The Hobbler. I flash back to the last time I wore this skirt—it’s summer of 2001 and I’m in Orlando for a big investor relations conference. The New York Stock Exchange has rented out a large portion of Universal Studios to host a party. I spend the evening woofing down top-shelf scotch, networking with other corporate executives, and, when not movementally challenged, admiring my place among the financial glitterati.
Which causes me to glance at the stack of paper in my hand and grow more annoyed. And even though I already know the answer, I can’t help but wonder how I’ve gone from making million-dollar decisions to making copies.
I collate and glower, and when I finish I stop into yet another new boss’s office with a stack of warm-from-the-machine papers. He looks up at me with a big grin and nary an ounce of condescension to say, “Thanks, Jen! You’re a life-saver!”
This stops me in my tracks.
When I used to wear this skirt, no one said thank you. Ever. Back when I made the kind of decisions that impacted stock prices—positively, of course—no one verbalized appreciation. Ever. Nobody valued my fourteen-hour days. No one cared when I sacrificed my weekends to tweak proposals and prepare RFPs. I was barely ever congratulated for projects implemented, deals closed, agreements struck, and when I was, it was in a backhanded, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sense. Even though I gave my company my all, nothing I did was ever good enough.
Yet for the act of making a simple stack of copies, something any child could do, I receive the kind of accolade I used to dream about. At this moment, I realize I never had a professional job I didn’t loathe on some level. NYSE parties not withstanding, I despised almost every aspect of all the real jobs I ever had—the backstabbing, the premeeting meetings, the protracted “mission statement” discussions. I detested the bullshit conference calls, the ridiculous panty hose–mandatory meetings even in hundred-degree August humidity, redundant results reporting. Although I was unaware of it at the time, getting up every morning and facing chaotic day after chaotic day managing people and products I hated was an exercise in futility. In short, I despised every bit of Corporate America and now it makes sense why I was so mean to people and why I tried to bolster my happiness with multiple $150 Ralph Lauren skirt purchases.
I realize now as a temp I get to work when I want, where I want. And if Jimmy Neutron and his childbearing hips annoy me, we can part ways without incident. I can stroll out of whatever office I’m in that day at 4:30 on the dot and take my dogs for a leisurely walk without bringing a cell phone and pager, just in case San Francisco clients need to contact me. I can chat about goofy reality TV over the watercooler without stressing over my loss of productivity. I can make friends who, despite thinking I’m an idiot just because I’ve mistaken Sigmund Freud for Colonel Sanders, won’t take that information and use it against me in order to jockey for position. I can make mistakes without the unspoken threat of being replaced by someone a bit younger and hungrier than me. And the best part? I get to pursue my dream of being an author and still afford to pay rent in the city that inspires me.
And if that means an occasional trip to the copy machine? That’s just fine with me.
I hand my boss his copy and hobble back to my desk, smiling the whole way.
Hey, what do you know?
I actually do get my Hollywood happy ending.
* * *
To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work
From: [email protected]
Subject: instances where i have annoyed my sainted husband in the past few days
Monday
12:25 a.m.
Me: Of course I’ll get up with you tomorrow. I know your mornings go much more smoothly when we rise at the same time.
6:45 a.m.
Fletch: Jen, it’s time to get up.
Me: Piss off. Zzzz…
8:57 a.m.
Me: (opening the front door, dogs in tow, announcing in my outside voice) No poopies this morning!
Fletch: (gesturing toward the phone with one hand and making “shh” motions with the other) Absolutely, I’ll get that spreadsheet to you by this afternoon.
(Okay, that wasn’t completely my fault. He wasn’t on the phone when I left and it does have a mute button. The man has lived with me for ten-plus years. He should know better by now.)
6:05 p.m.
Fletch: (on our way to Home Depot for more plants) Ha!
Me: What’s so funny?
Fletch: The guy next to us has a Morrissey bumper sticker and he’s driving an Escort. He may as well put on a bumper sticker that reads “Kick me.”
Me: I don’t get it.
Fletch: Jen, the sticker says Morrissey. You know, Morrissey? It’s funny.
Me: I don’t get it.
Fletch: Morrissey? An Escort? A little tiny guy driving it wearing big Drew Carey glasses? He’s practically begging for someone to beat him up.
Me: I don’t get it.
Fletch: (sighs) Never mind.
6:07 p.m.
Fletch: Promise me you’re going to make this quick and that you’ll only spend what you’ve got on your Home Depot gift certificate.
Me: I promise.
Cashier: (fifty-two minutes later) Your total is $70.46.
Me: (to Fletch) Can I have $45.46, please?
7:37 p.m.
Fletch: Jen, I just remembered, can you please pick up my prescription at—
Me: There is no talking during America’s Next Top Model!
11:39 p.m.
Me: Of course I’ll get up with you tomorrow. I know your mornings go much more smoothly when we rise at t
he same time.
Tuesday
7:01 a.m.
Fletch: Jen, it’s time to get up.
Me: Piss off. Zzzz…
4:58 p.m.
Fletch: If you’re watering plants on the second-floor deck, please don’t toss the hose off when you’re done. Leave it and I’ll take care of it later. You’ve already broken three nozzles this year doing that and it’s only May fifth.
5:26 p.m.
Me: (only remembering after tossing hose off second-floor deck and watching it clatter and shatter on the bricks) Uh-oh.
(Okay, this one wasn’t as bad as it sounds, either. Nozzle three was a high-pressure model and it left my plants cowering in their pots because it must have felt like being sprayed down by the Gestapo.)
7:36 p.m.
Fletch: (motioning toward our cinnamon apples and dilled red potatoes on the prep line, waiting to be bagged with our chicken at Boston Market) I feel like a little kid because I see those containers and want to say to everyone, “That’s our food.” (He puts a childlike expression on his face and points earnestly.)
Me: Bah ha ha!
(Who doesn’t enjoy the tinkling of their wife’s laugher at an amusing little scenario? If I’d simply giggled at Fletch’s joke, it wouldn’t have been annoying. But because I snorted and guffawed like a ’tard the entire ride home, it was.)
10:49 p.m.
Fletch: I’m really exhausted. I’m hitting the hay. Are you coming?
Me: No, I’m going to read a few blogs and take a bath first. You’ll be asleep by the time I’m done.
Fletch: Okay, but don’t forget, I’ve already set the house alarm.
Me: Alrighty, perimeter is armed. I won’t forget. Good night.
11:14 p.m.
Me: (running into the bedroom to turn off the blaring alarm, which has woken up Fletch, the neighbors, and their dogs on either side of our apartment because I wanted to spy on the people loitering by the complex’s front gate) Sorry about that!
11:58 p.m.
Me: (wildly waving the Glamour magazine with Mischa Barton on the cover at the clanging smoke alarm that has gone off because of the steam from my bath) Sorry about that!
Wednesday
12:07 a.m.
Me: I’m going downstairs to send a few e-mails now, but of course I’ll get up with you tomorrow. I know your mornings go much more smoothly when we rise at the same time.
I think we all know how this is going to end.
* * *
* * *
To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work
From: [email protected]
Subject: pots and kettles
Why the hell don’t we have our own sitcom?
Setting: Our living room, ten minutes ago, drinking coffee, watching a Lysol commercial about how germy cutting boards and sinks are.
Me: (seeing fruit served on a toilet seat) Eeew!
(Fletch rolls his eyes)
Me: (seeing a sink full of stinky, wet garbage) Eeewww!!
(Fletch rolls his eyes again)
Me: (commercial ends) Whoa, that totally squicked me out.
Fletch: (going for the eye-rolling trifecta) Oh, please. The commercial told you nothing you didn’t already know. Leather up, nancy girl.
Me: Advice to toughen up might be more credible if you weren’t taking a sick day because you hurt yourself with dental
floss.
* * *
* * *
To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work
From: [email protected]
Subject: pots and kettles, part 2
Apparently Fletch has to have gum surgery.
(But it’s still a little funny.)
* * *
Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ (and Bruisin’)
Ever see those blissfully happy couples at the supermarket? They dress all matchy-matchy in brightly colored North Face jackets and have that weird twin-speak shared dialogue? You know the ones—she says, “Hey, did you?” and he replies, “Yeah, Thursday,” and then she goes, “But what about?” and he’s all, “Covered,” and then when they walk past a display of Cheez Whiz they exclaim in perfect unison, “Monterey!” before dying over their private joke?1 And because of their whole mind-meld, they’re, like, so into their romance they can’t seem to keep their paws off each other? And you’d be happy they were both able to find the lid to their pot, as it were, but they’ve started making out directly in front of the ice cream, and all you want to do is grab a pint a Phish Food and go home to watch Project Runway, but you can’t because their damn love is blocking the cooler?
Well, Fletch and I are that couple. As long as you substitute “hitting” for “making out” and “fists” for “paws.” (We’d prefer DOA over PDA, thank you very much.) One of the reasons we mesh so well is we’re both insanely competitive. Back in the dot-com era, we used to spur each other on professionally. He made $24,000 at his first job, so I had to find one that paid $24,500. Then when he became a manager, I had to try for director. When he was promoted to director, I strove to make it to VP level, which was great, until we both got laid off and had to find a different way to compete.
Were either of us athletic, I’m sure one would start speed-walking and the other jogging. Then I’d enter a 5K, so he’d have to top me with a 10K and our athletic arms race would eventually escalate to the point that we’d swim, bike, and run to our deaths in Kona’s Ironman competition. Fortunately, we consider ourselves stand-and-fight people, rather than runaway people, and our current physical exertion generally manifests itself in twelve-ounce curls.2
As an outlet for our misplaced professional aggression, Fletch and I make bets and play games. One night at dinner he wagers $5 I won’t eat the chunk of rock salt from our clams casino serving platter. Not to be deterred by a bit of sodium chloride the size of a bottle cap, I take that bet. Sure, I spend the next three days trying to slake my unquenchable thirst with gallons and gallons of water, but still…I win, I win, I win!! We carry on with culinary challenges until our blissfully married mealtime resembles an episode of Fear Factor, and we call a truce. Incidentally, this competitive drive is why we try to avoid fighting with each other—too much potential for mutually assured destruction.3
Eventually we channel our competitiveness into Slug Bug, a game we play whenever we get in the car. If you aren’t familiar, you’re allowed to punch your friend in the arm when you see a Volkswagen Beetle as long as you shout “Slug bug!” first. Fletch normally wins these rounds because as the driver his attention is more focused on the traffic around us. He almost always drives, what with my tendency to drift onto the sidewalk when behind the wheel. We’ve found we’re much happier if I’m not in control of the little bit of metal standing between our living long, healthy lives and being smashed to bloody bits.4 However, when the new-school VW Bugs come out, my arm is perpetually sore from being hit so much since everyone in Chicago owns one now. Stupid safe, economical city car.
Luckily, the only thing Fletch likes less than losing is listening to me whine, so the game morphs into Slug Pug. Same rules, only the object in question is my favorite kind of dog. In this version, I’m the far superior player. The best day of my life is when we’re sitting in an outdoor coffee shop as hundreds of black-and-tan pugs dressed in tiny bee suits and tutus parade past, and I pound Fletch so many times the waitress threatens to separate us.
Being the better sport, Fletch allows the game to continue until it proves too dangerous. We’re on our way to the grocery store, having a perfectly lovely conversation about Jennifer Garner, when it happens.
“Hey, guess what?” I ask.
“What?” he replies.
“I did it!”
He glances over at me from the driver’s seat. “You did what?”
“I can’t just tell you, you have to guess!”
He clicks on his turn signal and we drive up Racine on the way to Webster so we can cut up to the Jewel on
Ashland. “Is this one of those situations where I’m never going to guess correctly because what you’ve accomplished is so esoteric?”
Bright Lights, Big Ass Page 12