Dead End Job

by Ingrid Reinke

  I considered myself just as liberal as the next person, but Kathy’s friends took political activism up a quite a few notches to the point where most working people would consider them fanatics. It was a bit odd because most of her friends belonged to the same social group that Kathy did: unemployed, credit-card hippies, supported by their mommies and daddies. It was frustrating for me because: A) I actually had to work for a living (corporate America was a big no-no in this social circle), and B) I wore non-organic clothing in addition to eyeliner, so no matter how I voted, I would never be an acceptable member of this group. For all of the all-inclusive conversation, in the end they were very clique-y. In fact, I was pretty sure that they found each other on a forest-green Subaru meet-up website. So even though I knew my friendship with Kathy could never fully flourish, she was nice enough and didn’t drink my wine, which was central to my tolerance of her messiness and social circle.

  I highly doubted that I would bring my date home tonight, but just in case, I grabbed the bleach I had hidden in the built-in cabinet in the garage and poured a capful into her toilet. I told myself I was being sneaky because I was trying not to hurt her feelings by pointing out how much of a disgusting human being she really was. The truth was, I was just chickenshit. I didn’t want to have the conversation with her because I knew that any type of confrontation gave me heart palpitations, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days if we’d had a fight about it. Plus, I didn’t want to create any drama that might ruin my living arrangement.

  I thought about cleaning more of her mess, but, in preparation for my date, I had also promised myself I would get to the gym today. If the date went well and I hung around, I would most likely drink a bit too much, then come home starving and binge eat—switching back and forth between a bowl of cereal and slices from a giant block of creamy, fifteen dollar French cheese that I had splurged on at an organic grocery store on Monday night. After a year of unemployment and those pesky, weekday morning wine and cheese binges, I had gained nearly 20lbs, which had sneakily deposited itself in what I’d self-critically deemed as the sloppy, paunchy areas around my stomach, hips and thighs. I now divided my months in two, surrounding my period. There were the first two (pre-rag) guilt-ridden, near masochistic work-out filled weeks of moping and body-hating PMS, followed by the second two (post-rag), careless weeks of eating cheeseburgers, drinking beer with abandon and lazing around the house. Today caught me smack dab in the middle of the first week, so appropriately I was currently in the throes of body detesting disgust. I roused my English bulldog, Winston, from his daily twenty hours of slumber, prodded him into the yard, and took off for forty-five minutes on the elliptical in order to bolster my self-confidence as much as possible before my upcoming date.

  Showering, I thought about my evening and hoped that tonight’s guy would actually be a bachelor, and not another married man. My forays into internet dating had taught me that the only way to spot fake bachelors was to absolutely insist upon meeting friends who can vouch for their stories. I had learned the hard way that if a man won’t introduce you to his friends, he’s married. Or crazy. I prayed that my date tonight would be neither, but I wasn’t holding out much hope. I dried my thick, long, wavy blond hair bone straight (which took considerable effort), expertly applied my makeup, slipped in and ripped the tags off my new dress and threw on some heels, and did a quick evaluation in the full-length mirror. I thought that I looked nice: not too many zits, only a couple of wrinkles, I had spanx on under the dress and had just enough of my ample cleavage out to walk the very thin line between classy and total hoochie. Success. I headed out the door.

  My date and I were going to meet downtown at a wine bar across the street from my office building. This spot had become my go-to for first dates for a couple of reasons. First, it saved me money on parking, since I could park in the (very expensive) downtown spot I rented on a monthly basis next to the office. And second, it had a rotating weekly wine special, and I love love my wine.

  Chapter 3: Dates and Drugs

  His name was Jonah and he worked over at RealNetworks as some kind of computer guru. Online, he seemed cute enough, pretty successful, and apparently normal. He also had lots of pictures of himself on his profile page doing very frat-boyish activities like golfing or playing beer pong, and he was proud of it. I hated to admit that I was a sucker for the bad T-shirt wearing, beer guzzling, popular party guy. He even included some of those blurry bar photos of himself partying. That, and his funny and sometimes quirky email messages, sold me hook, line and sinker. I was still murky on all of his details, but I was guessing that he was about thirty-two, and from our conversations, it sounded like he just gotten out of a long-term relationship. I hoped that he wouldn’t totally blow it by proving himself either a “glom- on-er,” (calls you every single day after the first date) or a “brush off-er” (says he will call and never does). The appropriate mix had been a tough one for most guys I had met to achieve, but I was hopeful about this one.

  When I walked into the restaurant, Jonah waved me over to his spot at the bar. I knew it was him because of his profile pictures, and he clearly recognized me, hence the wild arm waving. When I walked up he held his arms out, indicating that I should give him a hug. Ok, fine. I was not a ‘huggy’ person, but whatever, I could do it when called upon, I figured. Unfortunately I sucked at it. Jonah and I both tried to have our arms on the top of the hug, then both realized the error and went for the bottom, and ended up in one of those one-arm-up, one-arm-down, “bro” hugs. Thankfully, he brushed it off.

  “Louisa! You look beautiful,” he said. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. Please sit down. I got us a spot at the bar, but we can go into the restaurant if you want to.”

  “Oh, thanks, this should be fine.” I replied, and took the seat he was offering. Then, he sat back down and turned his chair slightly to face me. “You can call me Lulu, all of my friends do.”

  He smiled. “I like that. Lulu – very cute.”

  “Thanks,” I smiled, giving myself an internal pat on the back for the outfit choice.

  “It’s so nice to meet someone who actually is as cute as their profile picture. You never know exactly what you’re going to get on these dating sites,” he said, giving me a big smile.

  “Right?” I answered. “I always get a little nervous before an actual date. Sometimes the people you meet turn out to be complete weirdoes. Thanks for seeming normal…and obviously being attractive,” I added the last part a bit hesitantly, not knowing if it would seem to aggressive too return his compliment, but deciding to go for it anyways. Apparently it was the right choice, Jonah kept smiling and reached over and squeezed my hand gently.

  “I clean up all right,” he said, slowly pulling his hand away and reaching over the bar to hand me a menu. “What do you like to drink? I’m having a nice cabernet, but they have lots of choices,” he said.

  I took a minute to give Jonah the once-over. He was well-dressed—wearing a shirt and tie tucked into well-fitted grey pinstripe slacks. The fabric of his pants had a slight sheen that looked expensive, and he had on a pretty nice watch from what I could see. His hair was light brown gently streaked with blonde (highlights?) and longish. It was tousled in a way that made it seem effortless but probably took him a good fifteen minutes of styling and some expensive product to achieve. More importantly, he didn’t seem socially disabled. I decided that I would not have to resort to my emergency bad-online-dating plan of turning around and running out of the door, then blocking him on the dating site.

  I ordered a glass of pinot grigio, my staple. Jonah was at the bottom of his glass of cabernet, so he ordered himself another. The conversation flowed very smoothly, and we mostly avoided any awkward pauses. I learned that he grew up in Redmond, Washington, near the Microsoft campus, and had spent some time in Chicago during school. He had a younger brother, and his parents were still together, retired, owned a German shepherd, and still lived in his childhood home. I explained that
my parents had divorced when I was nine and were both remarried. I told him about Elin and my younger sister Beverly, but didn’t mention the strained relationship with my drunken, sociopathic father, or the fact that I had not seen or spoken to him in almost three years. I also glossed over the fact that my sudden return home from Orange County and the loss of my lucrative job at the brokerage firm were initiated because my fiancé had slept with a neighbor in our bed while I was out of town. I tried to leave a little of the baggage for the second date.

  During the second glass of wine (my second, his third), the flirting was really picking up steam. When I said something mildly funny, he laughed and put his hand on my left knee, then quickly took it away. I thought it was cute. He didn’t seem to be too cheesy or perv-y, plus he was asking quality questions and actually listening to what I said.

  When he got up and went to the bathroom I grabbed for my phone and typed out a quick text to my friend Alex: He’s cute! And I think I like him-going well! then I made sure my phone’s ringer was off so I wouldn’t get a conspicuous text back when he returned.

  A minute later, Jonah emerged from the men’s room. He approached me quickly and stood behind me, placing his hand on my shoulder. I was surprised by the intimate touch, but it felt nice, comforting. Then he spoke.

  “Hey baby! How you dooo-en?” He guffawed loudly, sliding his hand up into my hair and mussing it roughly before he sat back down on his barstool, head tilted to the side, mouth agape in a goofy smile, waiting for my response.

  “Uh. Hey there, I’m doing fine, thanks. How was your trip to the bathroom?”

  “Fantastic! I hope you want to party tonight, because it’s ON. High-five!” He held up his hand, waiting for me to slap it.

  “Yeah.” I slapped his hand a little more lukewarmly then I’d intended to, so I tried to fix it by giving him an encouraging smile. I was feeling a bit trepidatious about Jonah’s sudden personality swing from respectful, romantic first date guy to wild, fraternity party boy, but I tried to remind myself that this was what I’d signed up for when I noticed his profile. While I didn’t really think that we were in “party down” mode, I’d been wrong before, and at least it was obvious that Jonah was having a good time. I made a quick decision to just go with the flow and try to have some fun. “Should we get another drink?” I asked, smiling.

  “Most definitely,” Jonah smiled and put his hand back on my knee. “I know! Let’s do some shots! Do you like Jagermeister?”

  “Oh. Well,” I faltered, struggling for a graceful out. I most definitely did not like Jagermeister. “I like it OK,” I lied, “but I don’t usually do shots during the week, you know, with work and all. Do you mind if I just have another glass of wine instead?”

  “That’s cool. Hey bartender! Bartender! Can we get some drinks over here?”

  I cringed as Jonah casually committed the cardinal sin of yelling and snapping his fingers at a member of the wait staff. As the bartender slowly approached us with an air of barely masked disdain, I stared down at my napkin in horror.

  “Another wine for this lovely lady, and I’ll have a whiskey Coke please.”

  At this moment I was getting the feeling that there was a small possibility that the date was close to completely falling off of a cliff. Jonah’s buzz, while undeniably upbeat, was absolutely not sexy. In fact, the way he was acting had created a certain dryness down in my lady bits that I could only compare to a mid-summer’s day in the Gobi desert. I felt certain that not only would we not be going home together, but that we would probably never see each other again after tonight if the date continued down this particularly boozy path.

  While the bartender poured our drinks I tried to catch his eye so I could mouth the words “I’m sorry” while Jonah wasn’t looking.

  Jonah’s whiskey coke went down even faster than his previous glasses of wine. The whiskey seemed to do its job, and within twenty minutes, Jonah had officially veered away from serious buzz territory and was heading straight into fall down drunk land. He was now talking excitedly about the Seahawks upcoming season, but I couldn’t really follow as I was trying to avoid getting sprayed by the flecks of saliva shooting out of his mouth and onto my face, boobs and hands. As he swayed in his barstool the warning bells going off in my head were dinging and donging at a deafening volume. Things would have been better if we were actually eating dinner, as promised, but to my dismay Jonah hadn’t touched the menu, which was becoming a huge problem for me. Because I hadn’t eaten a snack after the gym, my hunger was quickly moving into the desperate state that I like to call “hanger” (obviously an excruciating combination of hunger combined with irrational anger). When I suggested that we order appetizers, Jonah half-heartedly scanned the menu, and then seemed to forget about it. Then, quite abruptly, he excused himself to the men’s room again.

  Geez, I thought, this guy either has the runs or the smallest bladder in the world. I sat at the bar by myself, sipping my second glass of pinot grigio, and waited for him. Five minutes went by, then ten. The bartender was eyeing me suspiciously. He kept stopping by and filling up my water. I think he assumed that my date had taken off and was making sure I didn’t skip out as well without taking care of the substantial bar tab. Feeling fidgety and uncomfortable, I pulled out my phone again to see if I had gotten a response back from Alex. Nope. It was only seven-thirty, so I guessed she was out on one of her twenty-plus mile daily bike rides. Damn it! What is going on with this guy?

  When Jonah emerged from the men’s room and began approaching the bar a few minutes later, I got my answer. He was not only really twitchy but had seemed to have developed a full-blown head cold over the last few minutes. His eyes were red and watering and he had a mean case of the sniffles. I would’ve asked him if he was feeling all right had I not noticed when he sat back down that there was a substantial, crusty, white cocaine booger precariously lodged in the inside of his left nostril.

  “How’s it going over here sexy lady?” The booger quivered violently as he spoke, threatening to evacuate his nose and land in a gooey mess on the bar. I shuddered, planning my escape route.

  “Fine,” I lied. The truth was that I was shocked and pissed off with a dozen questions running through my mind. The first one being: Seriously? Jesus, it’s Tuesday night! The second was: Who even does cocaine on a Tuesday? Then my mind started racing— On a first date? Who really does cocaine anymore anyways? I mean, I know what the stuff is, but isn’t it kind of 1985? Then—wait a second, is this guy really a junkie or something, or is this date going so badly that he thinks he has to get high just to have a conversation with me over a glass of wine? Oh God. I am such a loser!

  I started to panic, knowing that I would have to make a decision on how this thing was going to go down. Should I storm out? Make an excuse? Confront him? Pretend that I don’t notice? While I was in the midst of this personal crisis, cokehead Jonah was smiling at me goofily. He picked up his glass and gulped the last of his whiskey-soaked ice chips.

  Oh man, this guy was drunk, sweaty and was high as hell. He was still smiling, but now also gnashing his jaw, uncontrollably chewing on his tongue and lips. Weird. It looked like he was having some sort of strange seizure. Not that he gave a crap –he was completely oblivious to the situation, and furthermore, he seemed to be having a good enough time that he wanted to stick around. He got up from his barstool and leaned in next to my face, running his hand up and down my back. I could smell the acrid mix of coke, whiskey and red wine on his breath.

  “Hey there beautiful!” he oozed. “I’m going to go outside for a quick smoke. Want another round?” Without waiting for the response he walked towards the door, snapping to get the bartender’s attention. “Hey buddy, another round over here.” Then to me, “Be right back, Pumpkin.”

  I made sure he was gone, then jumped into action. I stood up, grabbed my purse and coat, plunked a couple of $20s down on the bar and slowly started walking towards the ladies’ room. I thought about waiting around and
cancelling our next round of wine, but I didn’t want to take the chance that Jonah would re-appear while I was trying to get the bartender’s attention. Plus, he could just stick it in the fridge and serve it to the next person. Pinot grigio sells quickly, I reasoned. Now I could justify what I was about to do, which was to run away from a date. Instead of taking a left into the ladies’ room, I quickly walked down the server hallway next to the food window and straight out the back door into the alley.

  By the time I got to what I deemed a safe distance from the scene of the bad date, I had broken a sweat in my new dress. I felt like a wussy for running away, had a slight buzz on, and was on the verge of some kind of emotional outburst, but my body couldn’t decide if it was going to be laughter or tears. I really didn’t care because I also realized that I was in the midst of a panic attack. These days my “occasional anxiety” was a little more frequent than occasional, and the pills my doctor had prescribed for it had become kind of a crutch for me to get through an average week of my life with work, paying bills, and dealing with being a young, broke, single woman with 20 pounds to lose. I didn’t know if these bouts of anxiety would ever fully go away, but according to my expensive therapist I “stifled my emotions,” so my anxiety attacks were a physical manifestation of some deep-rooted problem that I was choosing not to deal with. Now, my heartbeat was pounding so hard in my chest that I felt like it was constricting my throat and I couldn’t get a breath. The harder I tried to breathe, the more I panicked, and the harder my heart beat, creating a vicious cycle. I leaned against the dirty alley wall next to a dumpster fighting off the nausea that had suddenly gripped my tight chest and tried to slow my heart rate by forcing myself to take a few deep slow breaths. My palms were sweaty and I worked myself up even more because my internal dialogue was on repeat, it’s happening again, it’s happening again, it’s happening again.