People are strange, and my celebrity twin

About a week ago I learned something in a crowded room full of (mostly) strangers. People tended to be drawn to those who looked or seemed most like themselves. The few blondes in the room always sat together. The guys in plaid with baseball caps stopped talking whenever a man wearing a tie sat near them, or a female. Leather jacket people (unfortunately not the biker kind) had their own little group, and so on. I mostly sat next to Pat since I knew him, and there wasn’t time for idle chatter so it worked out. Talking to Pat is like talking to a rock.


He just can't do it.

When we took breaks the strange behavior continued as people congregated in the hallway, lounge and outside. For the most part people were polite. No one I spoke to ever snubbed me, except for one of the blondes. It was like I was invisible. In that moment I felt… so… black. Damn cracker.

Now here is the list of brave people who initiated conversation with me:

· The only Native American woman there, who sat next to me and sought me out on breaks. I was the only one she talked to and her bff that week. I’ll just say I know more about her family than I ever will about Pat’s. I don’t think he even has one.

· A red headed woman who thought I was funny, but then again, it could’ve been gas. You never know.

· When I was a few minutes late one morning a really spiffy and happy man said, “Hi! There’s an empty seat right here. Sit.”

Damn, I didn’t get his name or number.

· Pat said, “How about Perkins?” and “Let’s go to KFC,” and so on. He was definitely the bravest.

I’m a tough one to figure out thanks to my dark hair and peachy/pasty skin. Whenever someone meets me for the first time and tries to label me or guess my ethnicity they are usually wrong. The upside is being able to blend in just about anywhere. The downside is… Well, there really is no downside. When they are wrong I find it amusing. One time I’ll never forget was back when I was married and living in my husband’s home town. I’d just started making chicken-fried steak (which is the only thing I can cook well) and we were almost out of cooking oil so my husband went to the store. He returned with an old friend he had seen walking along the road carrying a 12 pack. I hadn’t even met this guy yet but here he was, at our dining room table waiting for dinner and drowning himself in his beer. They called me out of the kitchen. Right after we were introduced he blurted out, “You look like a Jew!”

I smiled and said nothing.

He turned to my husband. “She’s not Jewish?”

My husband just smiled and shook his head. Then his friend turned back to me, “You really look like you’re from Israel or sumthin’!”

To this day I’m still not sure if he was racist, ignorant or just thought I looked like Anne Frank.


Anne


Me

She's definitely my celebrity twin. Now if anyone needs me I’ll be hiding out in a house full of white kids.

Eddie Murphy, I hope you're not toying with us

It takes a special kind of person to get up on stage, and while warming up the crowd say, “Hey baby, what’s shaking tonight?” to a complete stranger in the front row. But if the comic is good someone’s face will turn red. And they might even laugh hysterically for no reason. Well, no reason other than they were singled out and are so excited to be able to share that moment (and also very nervous and not PMSing).

Somehow I can imagine Eddie Murphy doing just that. No, not giggling in the crowd. There’s no punch line here.

He says he’ll return to stand-up comedy in a few years. After he’s finished with his current Hollywood commitments, he’s planning to retire from movies altogether and do what he obviously loves and misses. If you have googled the man within the last 24 hours, or watch the Today Show then you already know this. But I’m betting there are people out there who have better things to do in the morning than suffer through an Al Roker interview. Things like flossing, or sleeping off a hangover and waking at noon to tell themselves, “It’s always okay to black out among friends.”

All I can really say about this news is, I hope the man is serious. He better not be spouting this off in a desperate attempt to save face after the embarrassment of starring in more lame films than… than… well, you get the picture. If you have no idea what he’s been doing since Beverly Hills Cop you might want to consider getting out of whatever cult you are in right now, or leaving the convent, or running away from the Amish community. Hmm, I bet they’re having the last laugh, with their horses and buggies.

So, if he indeed is telling the truth and not just spitting out sentences in an effort to regain some dignity, can you imagine what a serious case of comedic back-up this man must have? It’s been like, gosh, at least half a century or something since he last did a routine. He’s probably got material dating back to the Ice Age, or whenever Madonna first became famous. So, the more I think about it the more the anticipation begins to build. I’d punch Madonna in the face to see him doing stand up again. I’d hit her so hard, I’d send her back to Sean Penn.

Raw was the first show I ever saw. When you’re a kid and Eddie Murphy is the first comedian you ever see perform, well, even though it was on video it’s still pretty tough to forget that moment in my life. And if my mom knew I had seen it at the time, she probably would’ve locked me up with the nuns for at least a year, or would've made me swallow rosary beads. Just rubbing them and “hailing Mary” wouldn’t have been enough. And I ate soap so many times, I figure, she’d have to come up with something unique under the circumstances. I’m just glad she never found out.

So, you go boy. Bring it back, and please be relevant after all these years. If worse comes to worse, you can always, just… use a lot of curse words.

"Just Say No" to your boss

It’s not easy for me to just say nay when my boss is in a tough spot. If I’m needed I can usually be counted on to nearly run myself into the ground for the company. But yesterday when I was asked if I wanted to work the substitute day off I was given for working through the weekend to cover for another employee, my aching body told me I needed a day to recover. So I turned it down. It was a tough split-second decision but I’m happy with my choice.

So today I was home with a sore back considering why I have such a hard time just saying NO. After some reflection and nearly shattering the mirror in the process, this is what I learned about myself.

I like the extra money… I like bigger paychecks. Sure, the extra money gets spent on things I wouldn’t need to buy if I weren’t working so much. Things like frozen and fast foods, and toys for the kids to ease my guilt.

But still, it looks good on paper and seems wiser (in theory).


I like to prove my loyalty. I don’t know why this is an issue with me. Why do I need to prove I am loyal? Isn’t the fact that I show up on my scheduled work days proof enough?

A boss has never actually said anything like this to me, “I don’t think you are loyal enough. Why don’t you prove it by working your days off this week. If you don’t, we’ll know you are nothing but a loose cannon.”

This is reality… My boss simply asks me if I can work and I say yes. Seriously, I need to grow a pair.


Most of my jobs have had room for growth. And I like moving up the ladder and getting the few more ounces of respect and pay that come with it, only to eventually quit because I have to move, or give birth and nurse a child for a year. Okay, that was a lie. I’ve never breastfed a child. I've tried but things didn't operate like they should have, and I still feel like less of a woman.

But this job is different - it’s a small business. There isn’t any promotion available that I’d actually want or need. I don’t want to take over while my boss is on vacation. She works from 8 am until 10 pm, seven days a week! What kind of life is that? I can’t see any real benefits from becoming boss number two, even if it is just for a few days. The hours I put in are enough as it is, thanks.

So now that I’ve realized promotion isn’t a factor here, I need to learn to implement “just saying no” more often.


I’m a nice person. I need to work on this before it kills me.


I have a fear of losing my job. I’ll start with the story of the last time I lost a job because it’s slightly relevant. Okay, it’s not really relevant at all. The true reason I fear losing my job is the fact that any work is hard to come by in a small town and I can't really afford to commute 100 miles per work day, but I really want to share this story anyway.

I used to work in an office for a guy who started up a small business, and it went very well in the beginning as far as sales go. But it wasn’t enough to support his family and cover the expenses so his credit card became his best friend. He ended up starting another business in a more profitable field and in the meantime ruined some important client relationships with the first one - not delivering the finished products on time. Running two businesses was too much for him as he couldn’t be in two places at once. It would take too long to train a new employee to do this specialized work, which was a difficult and dirty job.



I was only good at the secretarial stuff and (still) had no manly muscles, so I wasn’t a good candidate. The one guy he had spent months training became a party animal so you can just imagine what that was like. After losing clients he finally threw in the towel and gave up production. Since we had become good friends while I worked for him he asked me if I wanted the business in its new form. At this point he had already informed me he was shutting down the office, so I’d be losing $300 per week. I knew I had to find another job. But if I took over the business and ran it from my home, on the side I could make an easy $50-$100 on every sale (at least), so I thought I’d be a fool to say no. He signed it over to me for nothing and I became a dealer. Now that production was no longer an option, he sold the equipment and got a little money out of the deal.

So, the company that supplied the product to me for resale would now handle the production. This raised the final prices, and made it more difficult to entice customers. The market is an extremely small and competitive one in my area as it is. And rising fuel prices haven’t helped any as costs in the industry have gone up dramatically (rather than slightly) every year since 2004, which just happened to be the year I was handed this so-called business opportunity.

There have been some good times, though. I secured a client on my own for a couple of years and it helped pay some bills. But he was having too much difficulty turning a profit and it didn’t make financial sense for him to stay in it. Funny, I wasn’t making a killing either so I couldn’t lower the prices for him. It was fun while it lasted.

So instead of being a proud profiting business owner, I work another job and bend over on a regular basis for fear of losing that job and having to rely solely on my flailing business. What’s so wrong with kissing the ass of someone who is turning a decent profit and can afford to keep you fed?

Forget I said that. It could really be misinterpreted.


Has it ever been tough for you to just say no to your boss?

Awkward Moments: Wee Willy Winkie

The first time I ever saw a mini wiener I got an unsuspected two-fer on a family trip. During the first sighting the kid was older and didn’t even speak English. The second incident was much more intimate, and the kid was my age. This happened within a few days' time. Before you start thinking I was a little peeping pervert, hear me out. That didn’t come until about ten years later, I swear.

I was five on this occasion when my mom, dad, little sister and I hopped into the van and traveled from Minnesota to Arizona where we had lived up until the previous year. My parents had a lot of friends there and my grandparents were still together and living in Tucson. The journey itself was a lot of fun. This was back when seatbelts weren’t a requirement. So when we weren’t staring out the back windows watching other cars and making funny faces at old ladies, my sister and I were sleeping comfortably or sitting on our parents laps up front learning how to drive. Well, not really driving, but we experienced the thrill of learning how to steer a moving vehicle going 55 mph down the highway. Dad was a good teacher; and I admit it was a real power trip, knowing if I let go of the wheel we’d all surely die.

My dad loved the two-seater van and spent a lot of time pimping it out in the mid to late seventies. He insulated it, installed woofers all over the place, built and installed a bench, not to mention built a bed in the very back. We spent a lot of time in it as it was our ride and doubled as a camper. But then the new laws went into effect and the van went into permanent park mode. There wasn’t any sense maintaining it anymore. Hello station wagon! It just wasn’t the same. Safety really put a damper on things.

Many rest stops and homemade sandwiches later, we got to Tucson and went straight to Grandma & Grandpa’s. Nothing odd happened there. Well, that’s not entirely true. Someone decided since we were so close to Mexico, why not hop the border (legally) and visit my great-grandparents who didn’t speak one word of English. Cool! Little did I know just how much “cooler” it would get. So the next morning my grandma hopped into the van with us, which was kind of important since she was the only one in our little group who was bilingual. I wonder what she was saying when she’d mutter things under her breath in Spanish and look at my mother. I’ll never know for sure but I can just imagine.

We got to the shack for the very first time in our lives and couldn’t believe our eyes. It had a tin roof, wood stove, no electricity whatsoever… and an outhouse? Up until then I’d thought everyone had indoor plumbing. What insanity! Have you ever had to urinate or defecate into a hole located in what resembles a closet but is much smaller? The toilet seat is just there for show. This is nothing like a toilet! It is less frightening and probably more sanitary to use a bush, but there was no wilderness to be found; just rows of shacks surrounded by barbed wire. To protect what? I don’t know. Maybe the Virgin Mary statues and hoards of candles.

I assumed they’d be a cranky old pair living in such poor conditions, but since this was all they really knew they were surprisingly content. But I was kind of frustrated in this foreign land; it was a bitch not being able to understand my own kin. What was even weirder was trying to mingle with the kids in the barrio. They ignored us whenever we said, "Hi."
Surely they could understand that much? Nope. They would just stare and talk amongst themselves as they passed by. So my sis and I played with our dolls out in the heat under a shady tree and hoped we’d be leaving soon. And preferably before we’d have to pee again.

After what seemed like an all-day-long-eternity but was probably an hour (I did not enjoy playing with AKA babysitting a two-yr-old) two boys who looked about eight and ten walked by and made a beeline right for our van. They disappeared around to the other side of the unlocked van, where the sliding door was located. Little five-year-old me thought they might be up to some trouble. All I could think was I had to defend our van and figured yelling at them in English would scare them away. So I boldly ran over and just as I turned the corner of the van to tell them off, I stopped dead in my tracks about two feet from where they stood. One of the boys was zipping up and the other still had his dinky out. They both turned to find me standing there with very big eyes. They promptly ran away, leaving two fresh puddles behind them. So my plan worked after all; and I didn’t have to make a sound.

*****************************************

Back in Tucson either the very next day or shortly thereafter, we went to visit a couple who were my parents’ friends. They had a boy my age and a girl my sister’s age. The boy immediately began to creep me out. He just stood there and smiled at me. Our parents suggested we go play together. Considering it was either that, listen to a boring adult convo or play with the younger girls, I went off with the little urchin.

We went to his bedroom and I had a look around at his playthings. Toy trucks? No. Action figures? Maybe. TV set? Now we’re talking. So I turned on the TV, but then he told me he had something he wanted to show me. I wasn’t prepared for a show and tell session so I was a little perturbed. All of my good stuff was back at home. But I followed him into the closet anyway, thinking he had some cool new toy flashlight that projected an image of Spider Man’s web, or maybe even the Bat Signal. Back home my only male friend and I would role play Super Heroes, but somehow I always ended up being Wonder Woman. There really weren’t any other options for me.

I get into the closet and he tells me to close my eyes for a surprise. So I covered my eyes with my hands and waited for a few seconds. “Open them now,” he said excitedly.

He was standing right next to me and had yanked out his little sidekick. He held it in his small hands and looked at it, then up at me. “Do you want to touch it?”

I never saw him again after that…

My First Love

When I look back and think about my first love I have some fond memories, but there is just no way we could ever rekindle what we used to share. And my tastes have changed since those younger days of yesteryear.


When our courtship began I was just a smidgen of who I am now. I felt like anything was possible. I was always ready to try new things. So when we came together on that special day I’ll never forget, I remember feeling uneasy about it at first, but once I swallowed I knew we had something special. I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth, but it wasn’t anything mouthwash or breath mints couldn’t handle. Whenever we were together I felt warm and absolutely giddy. I was all a-tingle and on cloud nine! And we continued to meet up every Sunday and major holiday for three glorious years, until Mom and Dad learned of our goings-on and broke up our happy affair.


It was difficult at first, to leave behind those warm and fuzzy feelings, but in time I soon realized my parents were just doing what they thought was best for me. After a short period of pain and withdrawals I was ready to move on.


And now, just in case you're curious, I'll reveal my first love.

Jesus juice!

My first real love, we are still friends, but how do you tell someone it was never meant to be without hurting their feelings? Living in another state helps. A lot.

One day when I was 10 I asked my mom if I could have some of her liquor and she freaked out. I just wanted to expand my horizons and try something new. I asked her why it was such a big deal since I had been sipping wine at church. Well, that’s when we stopped going. And to this day my mom says she thought it was grape juice the priest was serving. WTF?

When I became an adult I could no longer drink wine without getting a serious headache, so I don’t touch the stuff. Beer and liquor - no problem, but for some reason wine makes my head feel like I banged it against a brick wall for an hour. Gee, when I was 15 I could drink a bottle of Mad Dog then make out on a lakeshore and still remember it vividly. Good times.