Thinking of Stephanie

Six and a half years ago, one of my soulmates from college passed away from breast cancer. I recently found the eulogy I read at her memorial service alongside our other best friend, Cecille. Ironic, as this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Steph I’m thinking of you, this month and always.

May 12, 2005

Stephanie, Cecille and I met in 1994 at UT Austin. There we went through all the trials and tribulations that college girls experience and typically over-dramatize together. Steph was “the pretty one.” And Cecille and I were merely the vehicles for all the cute guys to get to her. I can’t count the number of times we heard the line, “Hi, I’m so-and-so. Who’s your cute friend?”

After our Austin days, we remained just as close in spite of the thousands of miles that separated us with me in LA, Steph in Houston and Cecille in San Antonio. We did so with sporadic reunions and “conference calls” that we would schedule in order to catch each other up with all that was going on with our lives. I remember one conference call in particular when Steph told us all about this “dorky” doctor who was so persistent in asking her out. He wouldn’t quit until she accepted his request for a date. She then told us that agreeing to go out with him was the best decision of her life. And that within a mere few weeks she knew that he was the one. And of course, being the eternal optimist that she was, Steph had to throw us a bone and say, “Don’t worry! You girls will find your Glens one day too!” As beautiful as she was, Steph was never prophetic. Cecille and I are still waiting for our Glens!

Stephanie, as the years go by, our reunions will continue and our conference calls will continue. And you will always be a part of them. We love you very much and will miss you terribly.

Alexandra Wallace: A Teachable Moment

And just when the Charlie Sheen mayhem was starting to bore, the pop culture gods graced us with Ms. Alexandra Wallace. What an unexpected splash of excitement to my otherwise monotonous workweek!

As I watched the video over and over, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions.

Phase 1: Morbidly Entertained – As the Alexandra Wallace train wreck unfolded right in front of my eyeballs, a number of thoughts ran through my mind. Was this a commercial about push-up bras? Where was the “Live from New York! It’s Saturday Night!” voiceover guy? Did this chick really get into UCLA? Then enter “ching chong ling long”…

Phase 2: Pissed – And suddenly, I was brought back to one day in the 4th grade when I was sitting quietly on the bus, pondering the plethora of choices for my afternoon snack when I got home.

“Hey spic! Go back to Mexico!” were the words snapping me out of my food coma. It was a 5th grade bad-boy I secretly had a crush on.

“But I’m from the Philippines,” I protested innocently, not realizing he had zero interest in my country of origin.

“So?” he asked smugly.

“So that’s an entirely different country,” I stated. (Remember that same line from Clueless? Well I said it first, Paul Rudd!)

“You’re still dark!” he said victoriously as he exited the bus leaving me wondering if that exchange was a sign of progress in our relationship.

Not to defend this kid, but back in the 70’s there was no such thing as politically correctness. In spite of hurt feelings that were often kept bottled up (we are Asian, after all), there was no expectation of public empathy. That’s just how it was.

My brother endured the classic “me Chinese, me play joke, me make pee-pee in your Coke” (cue index fingers stretching out eyelids). While my sister’s flat “Filipino” nose received the brunt of her taunting. We all went through it. And we all became stronger people because of it – or so say all the self-help books.

But that was the 70’s. In Texas. This is 2011. And we’re in California. Yet these ignoramous comments still continue to make their way out of people’s pie-holes? Really??

Phase #3: Teaching Mode – This debacle has made me think of my three young, maleable nieces. And I wonder… if they saw Alexandra Wallace’s video, would they only see a pretty white girl with blue eyes and flowy blond hair as I would have so innocently focused on at their age? Or would they be able to sense the inadvertent hatred laced within her words and know that this girl was talking about people just like their grandparents?

And I figured that there’s no better time than now to teach them that very, very bad things happen to girls who look like whores and ignore their roots. Oh… I mean…  girls who fail to show kindness, tolerance, and respect to their fellow human beings.

To my girls I say watch, listen, and learn:

Jimmy Wong, you are brilliant and I might have a bit of a crush on you!

…WAAAHAAHAAHAAAA!! I can’t even begin to count the great one-liners in that display of comedic genius! I LOVE this guy!

Stop it! I can’t breathe!

And #1 on my iPod playlist: Alexandra Wallace, The Remix Baahaaahaaaaa!!

Sweet Purple Roses

We had a bit of a scare when my parents came to visit me here in LA. On New Year’s Eve, Dad’s nose incessantly spewed out blood leading us to spend that morning in the ER. Decked out in his finest Horned Frog apparel in honor of TCU’s first Rose Bowl appearance, Dad also paid homage to the Wisconsin Badgers with bloody red towels in-hand as we waited for his turn to be seen. As fate would have it, his nosebleed was brought on by a perfect storm of circumstances: high blood pressure thanks to the chicharon bulaklak at Max’s Fried Chicken the night before (that’s deep fried pig intestine, for those non-Tagalog speakers); Coumadin he was taking for his heart problems; and the sudden change in weather. Thank goodness this ailment was nothing a good ole nose tampon couldn’t fix.
 
Dad was released just in time for me to join my fellow Horned Frogs at the TCU pep rally in Downtown LA. I’ve been to this venue countless times before amongst Angelinos — die-hard Lakers, Clippers, and Kings fans alike. But being there amidst a flood of Texans was exceptional, and allowed me to relax my tongue and slip out a coupla “y’alls” here ‘n there.
 
After the pep rally, I joined Mom and Dad at my aunt’s house where we rang in the new year on New York time and called it a night well before LA’s new year, fully wiped from the day’s excitement. We woke up bright and early the next morning and joined our other relatives at our front row seats to the Rose Bowl parade. Watching a parade that close to the action was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I made eye-contact with Grand Marshall Paul Deen who blew me a kiss when I professed my love for her Krispy Kreme bread pudding recipe. The Salvation Army band pulled us up to dance as they began an impromptu stationery performance just a few feet in front of us. Bucky the Badger pointed to me and rubbed his tummy in anticipation of a Horned Frog feast. I heard each instrument in the band, felt the swishing of cheerleaders’ pom poms, dodged twirling flag poles, high-fived band leaders. Just amazing.   
 
Following the parade, I headed to the Rose Bowl to join my friends at the tailgate while Mom and Dad made their way back to the ER to have Dad’s nose tampon removed. Unable to find my friends, I ended up partying with Badger fans who, in spite of their chiding, kindly invited me to take pictures with them and share their food.
 
Two hours before kick-off, I was approached by a scalper who offered me tickets at less than half of face-value. I asked him to wait as I called my Dad to see if he would be up for joining me. Dad picked up his phone just as the nurse secured the hospital band around his wrist and began to take his blood pressure. He then stopped the nurse and exclaimed that he had to leave so that he could go watch the game. And within the hour, Dad and I were munching on bacon-wrapped hot dogs and cheering on the Frogs — Dad still sporting his tampon with string taped to cheek.
 
As the aerial views on TV suggested, Frog fans accounted for less than a quarter of the attendance. And where we sat, there wasn’t a sign of purple within spitting distance. The warm Midwestern hospitality I enjoyed earlier that day soon dissipated and became a faint memory. And for the next three hours, Dad and I withstood an onslaught of derrogatory statements about our mascot, “dirty” Texans, our tiny band, the Mountain West Conference, Christians, Fort Worth, the color purple… You name it, they disparaged it with the same fervent hostility one would experience wearing burnt orange in Norman, OK. Fearing an assault of nachos, Dad and I secretly low-fived every brilliant Gary Patterson call and tennis-clapped each TCU first down. It was the first time in my life I attended a football game and didn’t scream my head off. But the silence soon became the Badgers’ as the Frogs recovered an on-side kick with 2 minutes to go sending Goliath toppling down from his mighty glass tower. Take that, Bucky!
 
This year’s Rose Bowl brought back wonderful memories of being witness to the Longhorns’ unanticipated victories — first over Michigan and then USC. And I can proudly say that I am now 3 for 3 in Pasadena. What great fortune to be able to watch both my schools represent Texas in the “Grand Daddy of ‘em All”.
 
And to witness this last victory with my Dad… priceless.

Typical… so effing typical

Each week I look forward to Fridays, my days “off” from my rigorous Monday-Thursday job search. On a typical Friday morning I volunteer at a nearby shelter helping to cook breakfast and lunch for 120 homeless men and women in Pasadena. It’s a fun, yet highly work-intensive volunteer job much different from my duties at the Dallas shelter where I simply scooped food onto patrons’ trays in the cafeteria line. Here I’ve boiled huge vats of grits, fried up rows and rows of sausage patties, made gallons of powdered milk, scrubbed down and set up tables, and sat with the patrons and talked about life – which happens to be the best part of the morning.

Friday’s regular cast of characters include:

• Go-Go, the well-loved chef to whom we volunteers report
• The ex-drug addict turned psychology grad student now married to big Hollywood producer
• The former Korean War vet
• The Disney stage mom
• The Asian restaurateur

I always enjoy time spent with my fellow sous-chefs, and word of a new volunteer joining the mix was an added bonus to last Friday’s shift. I was frying up corned beef and hash as the newbee entered the kitchen and introduced himself to the rest of us. He was tall and lean, cute in a goofy way, and bore a strong resemblance to Jason Biggs from American Pie. Our eyes locked for a brief moment across the smoky grill, and I waved hello with my over-sized metal spatula. An indescribable innocence radiated about him as he dug his fists deep into his jeans, flashed a sheepish grin, and nodded hello back.

Biggs made his way toward me as I perfected my hash concoction by slightly crisping the meat. He took a cue from my Lakers t-shirt to break the ice with basketball talk. Now every girl knows that the way to a man’s heart is to exude sports intelligence, so I began my impressive recap of game statistics and piss poor calls by the refs (information which my uncle happened to spurt out to me the night before).

I was so engrossed by my feigned interest in basketball that I completely forgot about the sight of my bulky coif busting through the ridiculous hairnet delicately balanced on my head. But Biggs didn’t seem to mind as our tête-à-tête flowed effortlessly. And when our intense concentration on food preparation put a pause on our conversation, he would lean into me and give me a nudge as if silently checking in. He was funny, charming, inquisitive, and genuinely interested in getting to know me. Sparks were flying if I must say, and they weren’t coming from the grill!

I emptied the corned beef into the serving tray and Biggs followed me to the chopping station to help me make the salad. As we hacked our way through the lofty pile of vegetables, I asked him what he did for a living.

“Oh, I’m a student at Loyola,” he said as our latex-gloved hands intermittently intertwined while we tossed the lettuce into the plastic bin.

“Oh really?” I asked. “Loyola Marymount?” I speculated while sneaking in a hopeful prayer to the dating gods that he was at least a grad student. Okay, so maybe I was actually praying for a second-year MBA student who decided to go back to school after 15 years of kicking ass in the corporate world having worked his way to senior management but still wanting to achieve higher success, which would bring him to the approximate age of 37; perfectly ripe for settling down. Best case scenario.

Worst case scenario: undergrad.

“No,” he replied as he threw in a can of garbanzo beans into the mix. “Loyola High School. I’m applying to SC and am hoping to get into the business program next year.”

Yep. High school.

…and that’s all I have to say about that.

Lemonade

Last October, I joined the legion of unemployed white-collared workers in the quest for what has become one of the more prestigious minimum-wage gigs: Retail Sales.

As Q3 drew to a close and corporate postings began to fizzle, so did all hopes of my nailing a six-digit salary by year-end. Contrary to the corporate hiring cycle, retailers were entering their primetime hiring season with the impending holidays. Yet what was once considered the ultimate shoe-in job was now a position for which seekers actually had to compete thanks to retailers shedding close to one million jobs since the economy began its nosedive in 2008. Not wanting to lose yet another prospective job to being labeled “overqualified”, I dumbed down my resume and drew particular attention to my having once worked at Neiman Marcus. And just like that, all the educational accomplishments and professional accolades I accumulated the past 15 years vanished with a mere “Save As”.

Going in, I had two requirements of my new temporary place of employment:

1. It needed to be located nowhere near the lunacy of Northpark Mall.
2. It didn’t require writing an essay about why I wanted to work there and what “exceptional customer service” means to me.

Restoration Hardware and Banana Republic met both these requirements. And after a combined total of 17 minutes worth of interviews, I heard the sweet words that eluded me for the past several months: “We’d love to offer you the position.”

To clarify, that’s “we’d love to offer you the position” period. Not “we’d love to offer you the position” dot dot dot, “however we have decided to go with another candidate who better met the qualifications of this job.” And for the first time in a long time, I could once again exhale.

I took immediate pleasure in the smaller perks retail had to offer. I came to genuinely appreciate the unexpected liberation I felt clocking in and out each day, accomplishing the undemanding tasks that were asked of me, and being held accountable for no one’s job performance but my own. No longer would the company’s success ride on my ability to create and execute a multi-million dollar marketing campaign that needed to resonate with hundreds of thousands of prospective customers. Instead, all that was required of me was to smile and help people find what they were looking for. And I didn’t need an MBA to do that.

I enjoyed making a positive contribution to society and helping to better peoples’ lives by tapping into my God given gift of fashion and design savvy. Take Josh for instance, a buff 30-something who ventured in to Banana Republic one day in search of a pair of pants. His handsome face was screaming to be rescued from a body hopelessly stuck in the ’80′s by way of an oversized button down tucked into white washed front-pleated jeans. When asked what kind of pants he was looking for, he uttered what any fashion-challenged straight man would say: “Whatever’s fastest.” Channeling my inner Tim Gunn, I selected some relaxed-fit dark denims and paired them with a jewel-toned long sleeve knit shirt that complemented his striking blue eyes quite nicely.

“Is my shirt really supposed to be this tight?” he asked as we both admired his biceps and deltoid muscles peaking from behind the curtain of the clinging waffle-knit textile. “Well of course it is,” I replied while patting down the wrinkles strategically located around the pectoral area. “Why else would you spend so much time at the gym… as you obviously do?” And with my heart-felt compliment, Josh flashed a bashful smile and took the whole ensemble along with matching accessories.

Another retail perquisite I enjoyed was being surrounded by the gays. There’s just something about gay men that makes each passing day so happy, joyful, and well… gay. I remember arriving early on my first day at Resto. With time to spare, I walked through the store taking mental notes of the product details I would soon be responsible for committing to memory. As I ran my fingers through the silver sage Plush Throws and Foot Duvets, my gaydar detected an Asian sales associate sashaying his way towards me. With hand on hip he paused a few feet away from me, staring me up and down like the popular cheerleader sizing up the new girl at school. I struck a pose showcasing my best angle. He praised my suede faux fur-lined boots and I applauded his impressive effort at Euro-chic. And with this swift exchange of mutual admiration, Joey became my new Gaysian BFF and I his go-to Fag Hag.

Then there’s the lovely Brian, a co-casualty of the Great Recession of 2009. We bonded one day as we lamented over our being way too smart and pretty to be unemployed and boyfriend-less. With elbows perched on the turn-of-the-century St. James dresser and fists under our chins, we entertained ourselves by playing the Who would you date at Resto? game. Ignoring the nearby pile of unfolded towels beckoning our attention, we exchanged stories about our fabulous imaginary future lives with our fabulous imaginary future boyfriends – only to scatter like roaches at the site of our manager doing his “figure eights” throughout the store. We made a pact to recycle the lemons of 2009 by making lemonade in 2010. In fact, Fuck the Lemons. It’s All About the Lemonade. would be our new million-dollar slogan for a t-shirt to be worn by Ashton Kutcher and published in Us Magazine. It was decided. This would be our year.

Joey, Brian, and the other wonderful co-workers I bonded with made me realize just how much I missed having friends in the workplace. In my climb up the corporate ladder, I was forced to choose between managing people and befriending them. In the business world, the two are mutually exclusive as having to reprimand a friend for sub-par job performance presents an undesirable layer of HR challenges.

Each day I took pleasure in participating in petty bitch sessions about poor management practices. If truth be told, I didn’t completely subscribe to some of the issues we vented about. Coming from the corporate side, I understood implementing mandates that, while unpopular with the people, were created for the greater good of the company. Yet time and again I witnessed good customer service falling victim to unbending corporate policies, thus the catalyst for many of the complaints. And let’s face it. The sport of taking jabs at the few managers who steadfastly adhered to the most ridiculous of these policies — with no rationale other than “because Corporate says so” — was way too fun to not join in. Ironic, given that Flexibility is one of the company’s supposed core values.

Take, for instance, the company’s policy on zoning. Each zone (or area of the store) is to be manned by at least once sales associate at all times. This means that if a customer asks you to help them in lighting and you’re stationed at bath linens, you either get someone to cover you or pass the customer off to another sales associate. Makes sense, right?

But imagine starting a conversation with a customer who excitedly shares their story about how they’ve finally begun renovating their home, what color schemes they’ve selected, which rooms they want to do first, and so on. You’ve spent 15 minutes developing a bond with this customer and you’re both excited to get started on the hunt for every item on their design wishlist. You walkie for someone to cover you, to which you receive no answer. You call again. Silence. You look around to see your co-workers occupied with their own customers. So you take the initiative to personally guide them throughout the store and thereby provide them with the exceptional customer service your company touts.

The manager, who was nowhere to be found the first two times you called for reinforcements, magically appears with a white-knuckled grip on his red clipboard and decries that he “just can’t have people leaving their zone like this!” And in the midst of this public display of utter frustration, the earpiece connected to the manager’s walkie tumbles to the floor as if demonstrating that it too has had its fill of noncompliant employees.

The customer looks at you with disbelief and non-verbally asks, Is he serious? You look back at your customer with irritation and non-verbally reply, Serious as a heart attack.

Then there’s the promotional messaging. **Sigh** As a marketer I can appreciate a company leveraging its employees to deliver details of the latest promotional initiatives. It’s a cost effective way to get a consistent message out to pre-qualified customers. I get it. But some of these scripts really made me wonder if they were contrived by a mean-spirited Corporate marketing team looking to entertain itself by coming up with ridiculously bad messages to see what jackass would actually comply. My personal favorite:

Happy holidays, and thank you for calling Banana Republic West Village where we’re giving away two free movie passes for every $75 you spend in the store. This is Christina, how may I help you?

Now try saying that 50 times a day without wanting to strangle yourself with the phone cord. Really, Corporate? Really??

While working the cash wrap, there was a secret game I used to play in my head with customers I saw being helped by Carole, the one African American sales associate in the store. When they claimed to not remember her name, I would probe for more information and ask for a description. Without fail, these customers would identify her with a long-winded monologue combining elements of her location, height, hair color, background, and apparel – all laced with a compliment. The exchange would go something like this:

ME: And who was helping you today?

WHITE CUSTOMER:  Oh, it was a really beautiful young lady in the back of the room over there by the towels. She was wearing a cute pink sweater, grey pants with silver hoop earrings, and had really pretty dark brown shoulder-length hair. She said she was from Oklahoma.

All that just to avoid having to say “African American”.

I was equally entertained by the occasional political incorrectness to which I was exposed. One day during our 15-minute break, a co-worker was venting to me (and rightly so) about having to clean the bathrooms as part of the morning shift. In her sweet southern drawl she confided, “I just don’t understand why they don’t hire Mexicans or Asians to come in the middle of the night to clean this store. There are so many of them who would be more than happy to do that job for $5 an hour.” She uttered this to me with the innocence of Bambi,  somehow not comprehending the irony of my being an Asian who is oftentimes mistaken for a Mexican.

I reveled in stories like this which never seemed to happen under the protective shield of the Corporate HR umbrella.

When I accepted my fate as a retail sales associate just a few months ago, I did so with the mentality of surrendering to defeat and taking a giant step back in my quest for success.  But in a serendipitous turn, I came out of this experience with new friends, memories, and life lessons I would forever cherish.

I met people like me whose corporate careers were thwarted by the tanking economy. In spite of the significant cut in pay, they approached their retail jobs grateful for even having them and with the same dedication they once gave to the corporations that kicked them to the curb.

I met moms who endured 30 hours of physical labor each week to be able to purchase Christmas presents for their school-aged kids.

I met people who already achieved their career aspirations of being in retail management, and who had the ability to manage and motivate their staff better than any managers I’ve ever had in my 15 years in the corporate world.

I encountered 70-year old couples still in love and looking forward to remodeling the home they purchased in 1955; and young couples learning to merge their design tastes in decorating their first home; and gay couples building their new home with the hope that they could one day share it as legally wed.

I was given a reason to get out of bed and get dressed every day instead of sitting on the couch in my pajamas watching The View, Martha, Ellen, and Oprah.

On top of all this, I was eligible for time-and-a-half – something I haven’t received since I was 24. And every dollar counted towards building my nest egg for the big move to LA.

While I would never have expected to say this, these past three months were a gift for which I would be eternally grateful. Now more than ever, I am a believer of the old adage that there’s a bright side to every dark situation. Having said that, I have a solid grasp on the sobering reality that my situation could still get worse before it gets better. Yet I feel prepared, and even excited, to tackle the arduous challenges that lie ahead of me.

I’ll be hitting the road to LA next week with the hope that my beloved home-away-from-home will be good to me once again. I put my condo on the market and sold almost all my belongings. And for the first time since my college years, everything in the world I own fits in my car. I’ve imposed a six month deadline to find a job, do the things I loved doing most, and reconnect with friends and family I’ve so dearly missed these past several years. If at the end of this time I still find myself without full-time employment, I will return to Texas and start all over again. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even fulfill another lifelong dream and try my hand at New York. As I continue to write the chapters of my life, I do so with a renewed sense of faith that it’s just a matter of time before things turn around – not just for me, but for all of us.

After all, it’s 2010. And it’s all about the lemonade!

The Ashtray and The Maid

Last week, my cousin and her boyfriend exchanged I do’s in a beautiful wedding ceremony in Las Colinas. In spite of the ridiculous number of weddings I’ve attended in my lifetime, a majority of which has ended in unhappily-ever-afters, I bashfully admit that the romantic side of me still loves them. Especially those starring a bride and groom who are in crazy love. Brian and Adrienne share a chemistry that challenges even the most jaded to feel hopeful that loyalty, chivalry, and kindness do in fact exist in our generation. So with a deluge of love surrounding them, the happy couple danced the night away drunk from pure bliss. And the rest of us stumbled on the dance floor drunk from an open bar.

The wedding reception seemed to end just as quickly as it began and before we knew it, a group of us found ourselves continuing the party at the hotel bar. Details of the post-reception festivities are pretty fuzzy but flashbacks of certain scenes remain clear. I remember Bollywood dancing on the barstools with Hazel; putting paper napkin flowers in my hair created by Greg; negotiating with Kim for dibs on the “The 12 Year Old,” the adorable wedding guest who couldn’t have been a day over 23. Kim won.

Then the bartender uttered the two words every soiree-loving individual hates to hear: Last Call! And with that, a subset of the group bolted across the street to the one bar in Las Colinas open past 1am. Picture eight drunkards staggering across a four-lane street in tuxedos and bridesmaids dresses – one riding another’s back like the Lone Ranger on Silver (Malia), one hauling a giant tower of cupcakes (Lisa), one trying to convince herself that sprinting on gravel in 4” wedges was a good idea (yours truly). But we made it to our destination unscathed and just in time to order two more rounds of drinks.

Somewhere between the hotel and the bar I began chatting with an eligible bachelor who, as fate would have it, Adrienne and Brian had been trying to introduce me to citing his killer sense of humor. Thus my classless demands for him to “make me laugh, Monkey!” throughout the evening. This chain-smoking buddy of the groom was alleged to be a hardcore partier, a life I left behind about seven years ago. But thanks to the multiple liters of vodka in my system, the old me made a guest appearance that night and I was on my game. I called him Ashtray, not intended as an insult, rather as a term of endearment that simply called a spade a spade. The man loved his cigarettes as evidenced by the plume of smoke following him around like the cloud hovering over Charlie Brown’s friend Pig Penn. In spite of my abhorrence for tobacco, Ashtray and I clicked and remained at each other’s side the rest of the evening.

As the clock struck two, the bar closed down and the group made its way back to the hotel before turning into a giant pumpkin. As we went our separate ways, Ashtray kindly offered to help me retrieve my luggage from the Bridal Suite only for us to discover the room had mysteriously been cleared out. Too late to call anyone, we made our way to the hotel room that was graciously donated to me by a cousin who hooked up with the Best Man.

Ashtray and I stumbled across the room and plopped onto the couch. With barely enough strength to sit up, our heads fell back in a whiplash motion allowing us to admire the psychedelic pattern the ceiling made as it swirled around in circles and figure eights. I felt something poking beneath my bra so I dug in and found Ashtray’s business card that I must have stored for safe-keeping earlier in the evening. He reached for the card and replied in utter confusion, “Um… that’s not me.” Equally perplexed, I stared at him wondering A) who’s card was it and how did it get in my bra? and B) who the hell was Ashtray?? And on that note, the nocturnal recreational activities commenced.

Cut to the next morning.

As Ashtray and I lay in bed, we engaged in pillow talk that would actually have been quite delightful if it weren’t for the fact that his booming voice felt like a male cheerleader holding a megaphone right to my ear. He must have been impressed with the beautiful siren lying next to him, with eyes glued together by dried out contact lenses and false eyelashes hanging on for dear life. Desperately wanting to eradicate the reek of cigarettes and vodka from my skin and hair, I began the search for my luggage. First I called the concierge who transferred me to the front desk who transferred me to lost and found who transferred me to security. Nothing. I then called my sister’s room. No luggage. As hard as I tried to get off the phone, my sister, perky from a good night’s sleep, wanted to recap the top ten highlights of the evening. And just as I thought we were done, she saved the best topic for last.

“Sooo??” she cooed, hardly able to contain her excitement. “Are you… alone?” My guilty conscience convinced me that my sister was tapping into her keen mother-of-three intuition and sensed the presence of a warm body lying next to me. So I instinctively replied with conviction, “Yep, totally alone. All by myself. No one in the room but me.”

“Oh my God! That whore!” my sister squealed with glee.

And it was then that I realized she was inquiring about my cousin, and not about me. It was hardly a secret that my cousin and the Best Man were going to consecrate a long-standing flirtation that began months ago during one of the wedding showers. This was the exciting piece of gossip everyone looked forward to dishing the next morning. No one, myself included, predicted that my story would end up stealing the show.

“I know, right??!!” I replied with tremendous guilt as Ashtray stroked my hair ever so sweetly. I apologized to my cousin in my head for having outed her: Sorry girl. Survival instincts.

We finally got off the phone and I tracked down my luggage to my uncle, the father of the bride. He commented with concern that I sounded tired and compassionately offered to deliver my stuff to me. I swiftly refused to have him go through such trouble and told him I would be up there in just a few minutes. I hung up the phone feeling woozy from dodging the Mack truck that almost hit me. As I took refuge back beneath the down-feathered comforter, the storm hit.

Knock, Knock, Knock!

Not since high school, when a game-deciding field hockey penalty shot rode on my shoulders, did I come that close to pissing on myself. With a Pavlovian response, Ashtray and I frantically jumped out of the bed and ran around and around in circles not knowing what to do.

“Christina, it’s me. Open up!” It was my cousin coming back to reclaim her room.

I briefly calmed down and gathered my senses. I then poked my head out the door and politely requested one quick minute. Before my cousin could respond, I slammed the door shut and shoved poor Ashtray into the bathroom commanding him to hide in the bathtub. What that accomplished is a mystery, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. He dutifully obliged, undoubtedly sensing he was in the presence of a madwoman. As the sweat beads dripped down my temples, I took inventory of the explosion of clothing, shoes, and bedding surrounding me. And as kind as he was to agree to hide in the bathtub, Ashtray would surely not acquiesce to jumping out of the window. As I came to the sobering realization that there was no way out, I released him from the bathroom. I slipped on my bridesmaid’s dress and carefully tied the bow in the front trying as best as I could to recreate my perfectly manicured look of the night before.

I cracked open the door, confessed to my cousin that I had “company”, and let her in the room with my tail between my legs. Like a perfect gentleman, Ashtray introduced himself to my cousin and shook her hand donning plaid boxer shorts and black dress socks pulled up to his calves. He resumed dressing himself, and like college girls sneaking out of a fraternity house, we took the walk of shame down the long corridor. We approached the elevators and I pushed the up button for me and the down button for him, relieved that the embarrassment of being caught red-handed finally subsided. In this brief moment of relaxation, Ashtray went in for the farewell hug and kiss only to be interrupted by the Ding! of the elevator. This untimely interruption could have been ignored if it weren’t followed by a piercing “OH. NICE.”

I didn’t have to come up for air to recognize the guilt-provoking, shame-inciting voice my sister was so frighteningly good at projecting. I couldn’t shove Ashtray off of me fast enough as I was assaulted by the visual of my three young nieces holding hands, my sister folding her arms and tapping her foot, and my brother-in-law poking his head out from the back of the elevator trying to sneak a peek. As Ashtray walked inside that very elevator, my youngest niece yelled out “Hi, Tita Kits!!”

“Hi, Maya!” I answered feigning excitement and praying to God that my oldest niece did not yet have the capacity to put two and two together. Ashtray joined my family and as the elevator doors closed, my sister yelled out “Great way to set an example, Tita Kits!” just for good measure. And there on the other side of the elevator doors stood before me the reflection of a once-pretty bridesmaid turned Ozzy Osbourne in drag.

Ashtray and I exchanged a few text messages the days following the wedding, but neither of us has since made an attempt to ask the other out. Nor do I presume either of us ever will.

While some stories are worth prolonging with additional chapters, others are just better left as short fables from which we are to extract a moral. Perhaps the moral of this particular fable is to not mix debauchery with family events. Or perhaps it is just to embrace the wonderful carefree life of being single. Whatever it may be, the fable of The Ashtray and The Maid will always be one of my favorites.

The End.

Bachelor #5: The Hoover

I’d been communicating with Bachelor #5 for an abnormally long time before we finally set a date. This 44-year-old engineer-turned-attorney moved to Texas from Colorado a few months ago for his firm. Throughout our e-courtship he would disappear for several days as he would have to jet out of town to litigate an assortment of matters in a number of states. So in spite of the fact that he lives within two miles of me, we weren’t able to meet for five weeks due to his hectic travel schedule. There are two ways to think about this type of relationship. On the one hand, I would see him often enough to enjoy his company. And the moment he starts to get on my nerves, it would be time for us to part ways. On the other, the relationship would move at a snail’s pace and next thing I know I’m 47 and just now realizing I’ve wasted 10 years of my life on someone I can’t stand and who, as it turns out, enjoys wearing women’s underwear. That said, Bachelor #5 was straight, ambitious, accomplished, had never been married, and never had kids. So given the fact that this man was a veritable needle in a haystack, I was more than willing to give the relationship a chance.

We met at Cru, a swanky wine bar in Uptown’s West Village. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this area, Uptown is the metrosexual capital of the D/FW metroplex. So spotting the one man donning a starched button-down Burberry shirt, tucked into equally starched Brooks Brothers trousers didn’t pose much of a challenge. As I walked toward my Bachelor I got the sense that this man associated Diesel with smog-forming pollutants rather than fashion-forward denim. Our date started off like an uncoordinated dance of two animals circling each other in a pre-mating ritual. I went in for the hug as he extended his hand. Awkward pause. Then, as he went in for the hug I extended my hand. Mercifully the dance came to an end when we both shook hands followed by what had now become the obligatory hug.

While initially I was disappointed by the lack of physical attraction I had for my date, I was struck by the intelligence he exuded so naturally. And as our conversation progressed, and the multi-syllabic SAT words flowed out of his mouth like a deluge, he gradually became more and more attractive. But the novelty of his brainpower began to diminish by wine glass #3 when my date commenced his lecture on the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas. I learned about how the Aztecs were agriculturally sophisticated having developed an irrigation system rivaling their European counterparts; how the Mayans were scientifically advanced not having received credit for developing Absolute Zero; how the Incas once dominated a large area of land known today as Peru. And suddenly, something happened for the very first time since my high school years. I actually fell asleep with my eyes open. And with that, my libido metamorphosed into a longing for my memory foam mattress and down-feathered pillows. When he asked for the check, I was filled with a sense of relief knowing my oversized t-shirt and boxers were just moments from the wearing.

Then he asked where we were going next.

Those who know me best know that I am terrible at cutting my losses swiftly. My girlfriend Karoline has ending dead-end relationships down to an art. Like removing an old band-aid, she rips them off quickly leaving her bachelors with a stinging pain that lingers for three seconds. And just like that, it’s over. I, on the other hand, was born with an unfortunate gene that forces me to linger on so as not to hurt one’s feelings. Enter wine glass #4. We made our way over to Fish, the posh sushi joint just four flights downstairs from my apartment. I could almost feel the embrace of my Egyptian Cotton 1000 thread count sheets.

Thankfully the Cowboys game was on TV providing a much-needed non-cerebral conversation piece. As the camera zoomed in on Tony Romo, I commented that he better do well now that Jessica was out of the picture. My date looked at me with confusion and asked the bewildering question, “Who’s Jessica?” After scraping myself off the floor, I began my homily on the history of Nick, Jessica and her meddling father-turned-manager (didn’t ring a bell), Jessica’s dysfunctional relationship with John Mayer (he thought he might have recalled a song or two), and how Jessica finally found love again with Tony Romo. At the conclusion of my discourse about Dallas’ most prominent piece of pop culture, staring back at me was the same glassy-eyed countenance I must have displayed upon learning about the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs.

We then moved onto the topic of eHarmony. Coincidentally we were both in the upper end of one another’s dating age ranges: mine 30-44, his 25-37. My bachelor revealed that he usually dated younger women because older women were typically more cynical and jaded. Ouch. While I wanted so badly to dispute his theory, I knew from personal experience he had us pegged. To our defense, women my age tend to have a sharper bullshit radar than our 20-something counterparts. Thanks to years of kissing frogs and getting burned, we are more apt to protect ourselves which translates to the outside world as being jaded, ultimately leading to our being prematurely discarded into the cesspool of undesirables. No one wants to deal with our perceived baggage.

And on that disconcerting note, the compassionate dating gods threw me a bone. A young woman, who couldn’t have been older than 25, stumbled behind my date giggling audibly. In a slurred and barely intelligible speech she divulged that her friends, with a dramatic point across the bar, dared her to grab his butt. She proceeded to feign embarrassment and scold her friends – for the entire bar to hear, mind you – for “making” her commit such a hideous act. And as she attempted to make due on the dare and reach for a piece, my date pushed her aside and politely asked her to leave.

And this, I thought with vindication, is why I would never trade my thirties for my twenties.

Our evening came to an end as my date walked me to my front door and asked if I danced. I shuddered at the thought of accompanying this WASP to Dallas’ finest hip hop clubs as he made his gallant attempts at popping-and-locking. As such, I lied and told him that I’m not really a dancer. He chuckled and responded that with my legs, he would bet that I’d get paid a lot of money being a dancer. And before I could even formulate the thought WHAT THE F*CK?? in my head, my deceivingly straight-laced white-collared bachelor quite unexpectedly grabbed the back of my hair, dipped me like Pepe le Pew, and passionately swirled his tongue against mine. He sucked on my mouth with such a force that gave me the sensation of a Hoover vacuum cleaner painfully attaching itself to my lips. As he propped me back up, I put my fingers to my lips to ensure they were still attached to my face. This must have come across as a gesture of longing for more, as he then came in for seconds. Upon completion of the sucking, the Hoover thanked me for a lovely evening and promised to call in two weeks when he returned from his next trip. As he walked away, he looked over his shoulder and gave me a final wave goodbye. I waved back in stunned disbelief at how I just experienced the most horrifically terrible kiss in the history of kisses. And in my daze, I hit the elevator button and made my way back home.

Close Match.