Read Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single Online
Authors: Heather McElhatton
I get to work on the “Great Do-Over,” a promotion we're launching to revitalize stagnant cosmetics sales. Free makeovers, in-house stylists, makeup artists, and color consultants will be provided at no cost to the customer. They just have to drag their hideous carcasses in here so we can patch them up. These campaigns are easy because it's the same old barrel of switch words.
Renew
,
revive
,
refresh
,
revitalize
,
retrieve
,
rethink
,
re-do.
They would be easy anyway, if I wasn't Bitterina Bitter-son, as Christopher calls me. I don't really feel like writing about anything that's fresh or new right now.
I feel like writing about the pointlessness of trying.
At noon Ted brings me a sandwich from Cecil's. “Feeling any better?” he asks.
“No, not really.”
“Christopher told me to make you eat more. Here, a Reuben with extra sauce. Nobody likes a skinny Santa!”
I glare at him. “It must be nice,” I say, “to not care at all how you look.”
He shrugs. “Yep. Wanna sit with me during the employee-bonding seminar?”
Employee-bonding seminar? Crap. I forgot about the lousy seminar. A great day gets even better. I trudge downstairs with Ted and all the other Keller drones to the cafeteria for a mandatory employee-bonding seminar. What joy. I absolutely hate these stupid seminars. They used to be offsite and it wasn't so bad, like when we went to the Holiday Inn and everyone stayed and got smashed in the hotel bar. Now, whenever they have all-staff meetings we have to use the cafeteria, because
it's the only room big enough for all of us when the store is open.
The bonding-seminar leader guy, who looks like Gene Wilder outfitted from an L. L. Bean catalogue, welcomes us and tells us we're going to get going right away. I casually look around for Brad. The seminar guy says to pick a partner and turn your chairs to face him or her. There's a wave of quiet commotion as everyone in the room starts knocking into everyone else as they scoot chairs around. “Here we go,” Ted says and turns his chair toward me.
I hate this cheer-up corporate crap. If they want to cheer us up they should pay us more and let us work less. The seminar guy says we should look directly into our partner's eyes and reveal our biggest dream. Ted automatically starts talking.
“Once, I had a dream of becoming an emergency room doctor,” he says. “Did you know the number-one emergency-room visit is for something stuck up the butt?”
I roll my eyes and look away. I know he's just doing this to make me laugh and what's irritating me is that it's working.
“Seriously!” he says. “You wouldn't believe the stories I've heard. My cousin worked in an emergency room in Houston and she says men will shove anything up their butt.”
“Right,” I say, “especially their heads.”
“And flashlights!” Ted says, eyes wide with intrigue. “Some that are still on. She also said they've extracted maple syrup bottles, whole light bulbs, a peanut butter jar, and once, an egg timer.”
“And what do they say when asked how an egg timer got in their ass?”
“That's the best part. They say they slipped in the shower or fell down the stairs. One guy showed up with a Barbie doll up his ass and said he fell down the stairs and landed on his daugh
ter's Barbie doll. I mean, how does a Barbie doll accidentally go up your butt? She said they had to tape his ass open and use forceps to get it out.”
“So all this is part of your big dream?”
“Sort of. These are the things I need to see one day. My cousin said one woman came in with a Doberman pinscher on top of her. She was having sex with it and the dog got
engorged
.”
“Engorged?”
Ted nods. “Sick, right?”
“Don't ever say the word âengorged' again,” I warn him. “Seriously. I'll vomit.”
“They had to give the dog sedatives to get it off her. The ambulance drivers were on their knees laughing.”
The microphone shrieks with feedback as the seminar guy steps up to the podium. “Okay, people,” he says, “now switch it up! Make sure each person has a chance to share their dream!”
I look at the clock on the wall. “Okay, Ted,” I say, “I never thought I'd say this, but my dream is for you to keep telling up-the-butt stories. I didn't know it was my biggest dream, but it is.”
Ted doesn't miss a beat. He pulls his chair closer and says, “The worst thing she ever saw was a
cement enema.
This guy came in saying something was in his ass, and she says it took half an hour before he admitted he and his boyfriend mixed up some patio grout and poured it through a funnel right into
his ass.
”
“Okay, people!” Seminar Guy says again, “now tell each other one thing you could do to get closer to that dream.”
Ted thinks for a second. “I know. I could shove something up my ass and go to the emergency room, where I could fill out a doctor job application. It would be a touching, come-full-circle kind of story.”
“Any idea what you'd shove up there?”
“The options are endless. I think I'd start with something small though. Like a Q-tip.”
“You know what we're learning here?” Seminar Guy asks. “We're learning our co-workers aren't
just
our co-workers, they're people, too. People with dreams that might be a lot like yours. See? A lot of you probably just found out you have something in common with your co-worker that you never knew about before.”
A screen lowers from the ceiling and Seminar Guy kicks up a PowerPoint display. His helpers pass out little white wallet-size plastic cards that have acceptable emotions for the workplace listed on them. He tells us that at any given moment in the day, we can locate the emotion we're feeling on the wallet-size emotions card and then we can work up to the ideal emotion, which is apparently “Satisfaction.”
“So, if you're feeling angry,” Seminar Guy says, “then you look here and find angry on the emotions card and you work up from there. And you know what the absolute most useful emotion there is? The one that can turn everything around? That's right.
Curiosity.
When we become curious about something, even if we're mad about it, then we start to look for answers. Like you might say, âHey, I'm mad about this recent pay cut I got, or at least I think I'm mad. I'm curious to know if I'm actually mad or not.' And then you could look at your emotion-investigation-technique card and try any one of the suggested ideas for investigating your curiosity. You could try this one, and ask yourself, is this event life-threatening? Well, no, it's probably not. Sure, there's a pay cut and that's going to count for some quality-of-life points, but those points might be like giving up your daily doughnut! In that case you turn it into Weight Watchers points, right? I'm kidding, but am I right?”
He drones on and on about transforming something into
something and avoiding something so we can all something-something more effectively. About this time my eyes are wandering around the room and I spot the back of Brad's head. I think it's his head. He's sitting in between two blond women; I think they're from cosmetics. Is that Brianna? Why would he be sitting next to women from cosmetics? Everyone knows they're total sluts who give STDs to the tester makeup when they touch it.
“So when something overwhelms you,” Seminar Guy says, “you have to
chunk it down.
You guys know what I mean by that? Chunk it down? Of course you don't, that's why I'm here! If you already knew how to chunk it down then I'd be out of a job! Then I'd have my own quality-of-life points to worry about! Then I'll have to give up my daily doughnut!”
He picks up a doughnut and whips it over his shoulder. A special effects
whoa-oh!
sound blares and the doughnut hits a woman standing by the Tastee Freeze machine in the chest. “Chunking it down means you break the task or problem or co-worker into chunks and deal with each chunk
individually.
Like pieces of pie. You guys like pie, don't you?” Everyone nods and mumbles yes. We all like pie. I like pie. I'd like to smash pie in Brad's face. That is totally Brianna he's sitting next to. I think.
A picture of a cherry pie pops up on the screen behind the podium and a piercing prerecorded “Chunk It Down” song comes on over the speakers. “That's the real key to solving your problems,” Seminar Guy shouts. “Chunking it down! I can't stress that enough! I can't tell you how important it is.
Chunk it down!
If I can get one thing across to youâit would be that. One thing and everything else will follow! So the next time you're overwhelmed at work,” Seminar Guy shouts, “what are you going to do?”
“Chunk it down,” the room mumbles.
“What was that?”
“Chunk it down,” the room says again, slightly louder. We close the bonding seminar with a “Personal Achievement” pledge and we each get a magnet that says:
CHUNK IT
!
On the way out I'm wondering if I have any sick days left when someone tugs on my arm. It's Brad. He's standing there flanked by two cosmetics girls.
“Hey,” he says to me.
“Oh, hi, Brad!” Ted says loudly. “How
are
you? You are just doing a
super
job!”
I give Ted a little shove and I must have used more force than I thought, because I almost knock him down. “All right, already!” he says, brushing my arm off, and he sulks away.
Brad winks at me. “Wanna have dinner again?” he whispers.
I peer over his shoulder at the two cosmetics girls behind him.
“With me?” I ask.
“Of course with you,” he says. “I'll cook you dinner at my place.”
“I don't know,” I sniff. “I'll have to check my calendar.”
“Come on,” he says, “I insist. I won't take no for an answer. This weekend. Let me cook you dinner.” I look up at him and he's still the most handsome man I've ever seen.
“Sure,” I say, smiling like a lamb on her merry way to slaughter. “Of course.”
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“No, no, no!” Christopher protests. “Why is he cooking for you? At his house? No. Too soon!” I tell him he seems to forget we've already had sex, so Brad couldn't be trying to get me in bed. We've already been there.
“Doesn't matter,” he says. “You see a horror movie on a
second date or go feed ducks. Cooking you dinner at his house? That's too personal, too soon.”
“One, I hate horror movies. Two, it's January and any ducks still in Minnesota are frozen to death, and three, I think we crossed over into âtoo personal' when I was on my knees in front of him. You know?”
Christopher shakes his head. I get irritated with him. He's crapping on my parade. Then when I ask him what I should wear he gets all huffy and says it's my funeral, I can wear what I want to.
Sheesh. Some people just can't be happy for you.
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At my desk, I have two new e-mails from my mother. The first one is the latest mind-numbing layout of the seating arrangement for my sister's wedding. You cannot imagine how many times this seating arrangement has been changed and rechanged. Winston Churchill himself would be impressed at the tenacity, intricacy, and strategy these women have put into who should eat chicken Kiev next to whom. I don't know why I get these updates, they have nothing to do with me and they further agitate my barely suppressed anger at how much money my parents are spending on the stupidest day of my sister's life.
By the time Hailey is done with her requests for silver chopsticks and releasing imported butterflies instead of rice, my parents will be broke and whatever chance I had at a decent wedding will be shot. I'll have to win a free wedding on one of those Mississippi gambling paddleboats. Wedding, reception, and honeymoon all in one location. We can get married on deck, tear up some pull-tabs in the minicasino and vomit over the side of the boat when we drink too much complimentary Champale. It will be beautiful.
The second e-mail is a forwarded list of “stress-reducing tips
for the office” from
Woman's World
, the magazine for women who love being bath mats.
According to this article, it's easy to “Let go and Let God!” All you have to do is: