A Tale of Two Jerrys: Garcia and Lewis

“When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door,” Jerry Garcia sang in my head, as Mr. Pahn said good morning.

Just like that, he called me up to inform me he had decided to end the tele-marketing program, because he just was not booking as much business as he should, and now has plenty of time to make the calls himself. He could no longer pay me $10 per hour for each hour of calling plus $20 per census, but I could call all I wanted on my own, and he would pay me $90 per census. Well shit on that, thought I. I decided once again I had to take things in to my own hands, so off I went to Craig’s List to seek my forturne, yet again.

This time, I used everything I learned from Mr. Pahn and Boss J: it is all a numbers game. I started applying for everything, indiscriminantly, I did not care what, afterall, I had sold perfume to old Mexican men in gas station parking lots. I was one step away from being a whore and/or a debt collector at this point; my ego had dissolved along with my shame.

I got one temp agency on the phone, and they lured me down to their office with their bullshit. Of course, by the time I got down there, the $11 an hour tele-marketing job had turned into a $10 an hour fundraising job. It was for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Annual “Lock Up” Program, you know, Jerry’s kids, except no Jerry Lewis, and no telethon, just me on the outbound end of a phone calling up executives and business owners and putting them under arrest “for having a big heart.” A friend of mine did this a couple of years ago, back before the whole world went broke, back when it actually made sense. The MDA puts these “business leaders” under arrest and they have to reach out to their network to raise their bail money.

The temp recruiter, Angie, coached me on how to conduct myself during the interview. I have to be high energy, and positive. Fortunately, I have been trained by Boss J, Mr. Pahn, and Stella Adler’s key disciples, so I know I can probably handle it.

The next day I booked another interview with another temp agency. They wanted me to take a typing test. I had never taken a typing test, or typing. I can type fast because I write fast, but this test was about typing something from a page. Luckily, I have pretty close to a photographic memory, so I just memorized as much as I could and just typed it, all the while hearing my father’s voice in my head.

When I was in high school, he constantly told me that I would never amount to nothing if I did not take a typing class. I was busy taking other classes that I thought would increase my chances of getting a scholarships to colleges far away from them, and I did succeed in that. But I wondered, as I typed, had he gotten the last laugh afterall. Had I in fact, after all of that education, amounted to nothing? Isn’t that one explanation of why someone with my education and corporate background was now taking a typing test at the age of 36 in the ass of nowhere Cerritos?

Ding! Time’s up! Time for me to take me seat at the boardroom with the recruiter, who would reveal my typing speed to me.

“43 words per minute. Not bad. A little above average.”

“Wow!,” I said, “My father used to always tell me I would never amount to anything if I didn’t take typing, but I guess he was wrong!”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth and silently started flagellating myself. “Goddammit, why did you do this yet again, why did you say something negative? You cannot say negative shit in a sales environment, you have to be positive and upbeat at ALL times.” My mind drifted back to my first meeting with Boss J. We were watching a Saturday Night Live rerun with Michael Jordan as a guest star. He wondered aloud how much the Championship rings were worth or insured for, and then a piece of verbal diarhea exploded from my mouth. I felt compelled to share the negative bit of trivia, that when Michael Jordan’s father was murdered, he was wearing a Championship ring. I beat myself up in the same way as soon as it came out of my mouth, but tried to play it off, like I don’t know how this negative thought got in here and came out my mouth; ponies, butterflies, daisies.

Anyway, the recruiter unveiled the wonderful new opportunity for me, that paid as much as $12 an hour. It was fundraising for the MDA. “Do you know how to be a phone actress?,” she asked.

“Oh honey, you have no idea,” I said with my inside voice.

“You have to be up and one from the minute you walk in the door at the MDA. When they ask questions, your hand has to be the first in the air. If you don’t make your quotas, they let you go.”

“What are the bonuses for achieving quotas?” I asked.

“The bonus is you get to keep your job.”

Columbus Day: A Day to Celebrate the Colombians in My Life

And not just the ones from Columbia, South Carolina and Columbia, Missouri….I’m talking about the ones from Colombia, South America, most of whom think Christopher Columbus, or Cristoforo Colombo, or Cristobal Colon raped and pillaged their ancestors…But the fact of the matter is….if you’re from the Americas, at some point you have to be grateful that your European ancestors did make it here and did rape your American ancestors so that you can exist now. It may have sucked for your American ancestors, but it sure worked for your European ones, and for you.

The politics of ethnic cleansing aside, today I celebrate the four most important Colombians in my life: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shakira, Juanes, and last, but certainly not least, Fernando, who is actually the perfect combination of the first three.....although most people only get to see his Shakira side.....and although I’ll be the first to admit that if they haven’t already made a gay porn version of “Love in the Time of Cholera,” Fernando should definitely play the role of the doctor, and they should definitely call it “Love in the Time of Mariconeria”…..All that said, Fernando is as rich in spirit as Pablo Escobar was in riches of this earth.

He has straightened me out more than once, with his consejos, kindness, and other acoutrement….which I am quite sure would also be found in Shakira’s make up bag. He has a supreme capacity for foregiveness, unless you are a straight guy who cheats on one of the women in his life.

In a recent viewing of “Sex in the City,” the movie, he confided that although he thinks Steve is a cutie patootie, he would never be able to condone the cheating, and hence, Miranda would just have to move to LA, where her gay Latino friends would help her raise her baby in Samantha’s condo next door to Gilles’.

I am reminded that Fernando is the most conservative of Mis Gran Hermanas, as he adjusts his bifocals to get a better look at the photos on one of his bootie call websites. “Mija, come look at this guy’s lips,” he exclaims with delight. “Now let’s look at his naked pictures….”

“The African King had nice lips.” I say.

Busily multi-tasking, Fernando looks up from his screen filled with closeups of various guys’ money shots, and peers over his bifocals sighing, “I know Mija, but the bottom line is he cannot provide for you, and therefore he is not appropriate.”

Part of me knows that Fernando has spoken the truth yet again. He periodically sums up huge truths with a one liner. He came to visit me in Brooklyn once, and we looked so out of place there, like two tropical birds next to a little wooden bird house made by a Cub Scout. We made the best of it, but by the end of the evening he made the astute observation, that maybe LA is the perfect median point between the South and New York. It’s sunny and warm, people have time to talk and hang out, but they’re liberal AND friendly. I did not think there could be such a things as a rude liberal that has no time for you until I spent some time in New York City.

All the self help books say you have to love yourself first before you can really love anybody else or they can love you. My late blooming on the path of self-love may explain many things in my life….but I begin to practice it, by seeing myself the way my dog and some of the people in my life see me, the people that don’t hold back. Fernando does not hold back, not with plants, not with animals, not with people. He throws brutal honesty in there for the humans, but increases his level of tact depending on how much he cares about your feelings. I appreciate his tact and caring with me. I can see it upsets him when I do not take care of myself. I now see that not taking care of myself is just as wrong as ripping one of his orchids out of its coconut pod. I reflect on how guilty I would feel if he left me in charge of his plants and I let them die, and apply that to myself.

Fernando believes in living every day as if it were his last, in every way. He leaves no regrets. He leaves nothing unexpressed. He leaves nothing unconquered, or unconquisted. He is a fearless explorer, pushing past the possibility of getting gobbled by sea serpents, or sailing off the edge of the eath, or it ending in 2012, entering foreign lands, and thriving in them, and he is also a native, loving and caring for the plants, animals, and people around him, until he returns to them.

Dialing for Dollars

But enough of love and war, I need to get back to finding new ways to make money, since my perfume career had come to an abrupt halt, and I have yet to start earning money consulting to small businesses or by resurrecting Empire State Chocolate. A return to the insurance career which I started in mid July seemed like the logical choice.

The Lawd/Universe has a sick sense of humor. As I have mentioned many times, I was the girl who could barely sell Girl Scout Cookies. If I invented sushi, I would call it dead raw fish. My sales challenges contributed to the cryonization of Empire State Chocolate. I have overcome and mastered many things in life that came very difficult to me: networking mixers, the Spanish language, driving a stick shift, learning to do so in the mountains of Spain with driving instructors who mostly speak Catalan, which I do not. In some ways I consciously and unconsciously implored the Lawd/Universe to help me develop sales skills, preferably at no cost to me.

In some ways, the Lawd/Universe granted my wish. I began looking for jobs to supplement my income in June. Generating Leads for the Pahn Insurance Agency presented itself as my first and only opportunity. I will not sugar coat it: it is tele-marketing. Mr. Pahn gives me a list of 100 or 200 businesses and I have to called them all and cajole them to not hang up on me, revealhow many people they employ, allow me to tempt them with the prospect of getting a better benefit value for the buck, and then provide me with the name, age, zip code, and dependent information for each employee. Easier said than done, since one in ten is disconnected, about three in ten can barely make payroll, and about three in ten would never spend the money giving their employees health insurance. Of the two in ten who do consider providing health insurance for their employees, at least one of them gets it from their brother-in-law or best friend from high school, and would never consider changing even if it saves them thousands of dollars per year. People do not like to change, even when it behooves them.

The irony of the situation is not lost on me. I work as a 1099 contractor, which means my “employer,” Mr. Pahn does not provide me with any benefits, and I call up struggling business owners and attempt to convince them to provide benefits to their employees, something I could obviously not afford to do myself, when I had employees.

Although I do not particularly like what I do, I genuinely like Mr. Pahn. I learn from him. He has the ultimate sales personality. He tells me to always agree with the customer, something I never would have thought to do. I respect Mr. Pahn for attempting to do things differently for this economy. He says he doesn’t know what’s happening, he said it was easier to make money back in the height of the 70s gas crisis than it is now. He asked me if he thought it would make difference if I bribe people with a $5 Starbucks card if they give me the census data. I told Mr. Pahn that I was no marketing genius, but when I struggled to make payroll, a $5 Starbucks card would not be enough to send me on a health insurance shopping spree for my employees.

Still, we press on. I have worked my way up. When I started off I made $5 per hour, and $10 per census. After I received three censuses, I made $7 per hour, and $13 per census. Finally, after I received eleven censuses, I made $10 per hour, and $20 per census. At least I felt like I was on easy street, but getting there was not easy. People hung up on me and said mean things, which I did not like, although the tutelage of Boss J helped me to get over that.

Then Mr. Pahn changed the rules. From now on, he would only accept censuses for businesses with at least three employees, and we must get at least one census for every ten hours of calling. Since I already have two censuses, that means I can mindlessly call for twenty hours this week and get paid for it no matter what. Is the universe great or what?

The (African) King and I

I lost count of the gleams in Charles’ eyes, as he scientifically noted the TRUE sexual orientation and objective of each passerby on Sunset Boulevard while licking actual and imaginary salsa from the corners of his lips. Charles watches and comments on people like an expert bird watcher wherever he goes, often forgetting himself, and forgetting to use his inside voice for his observations, or at least a language his subjects do not understand.

“Did you see that?” he whispered, in and uncharacteristically demure voice.

“Another closest queen that doesn’t know it yet?”

“Mija, he was checking you out!”

“Really? I never pick up on those things.”

“You miss a lot, mija. You know why?”

“No,”

“Because you’re always looking down. Look up! Smile!” his fingertips meringued between his ears, chin, and chest to signal a forthcoming profound comment.

“Look. I’m going to tell you something that took me forty four years to learn: When someone looks you in the eyes, you have an 80% - 90% guarantee they’re interested. The way you can find out, is to hold their gaze. Now maybe, they’re shy like you too, and they’ll drop their eyes, which also means you caught them. To find out for sure, throw them a bone and smile. In your case, since you’re a girl, he should come after you if he’s a man, and he’s interested.”

We both smiled.

“You know where I learned this?”

“No,” I said.

“At Superior, the ghetto Mexican grocery store near my house. It may look like Pisa-Central from the outside, but believe me, I score constantly there, because I look them in the eyes. And that is a metaphor for the world.”

Like eager brokers in the heat of the real estate boom, Mis Gran Hermanas impatiently await the day they can stage me and put me back on the market. Lately they have been using a “no pressure, we don’t really care, whenever you’re ready, honey” approach, but if you ply one of them with a cocktail or two, she will look you dead in the eyes and tell you point blank they’re ready to be tias (aunts) again, and a they’d really like to add some little blonde ones to their collection.

They already abound with a plethora of biological and non-biological sobrinos (nieces and nephews), but apparently can never have enough excuses to visit Disneyland. They revere women, especially mothers; one of them cannot even abide the recounting of a mom joke in his presence. While they run amuck themselves on the internet, in clubs, and apparently, in neighborhood Mexican grocery stores, they hold extremely conservative, old fashioned views when it comes to male/female relationships. They turn into Log Cabin Republicans with a flick of their imaginary wands the minute they smell any hint of any woman not getting her propers.

Not surprisingly, they DO NOT approve of my long term, and now long distance relationship, with Khaled Kadhouri, the love of my life, the African King, who so happens to be a non-English speaking Muslim from Algeria. This relationship makes no sense to them, (or apparently anyone else), it irritates them, they want it to go away and in the meantime keep a thick layer of barrier cream between it and them. They see no redeeming qualities, no upside potential.

I admit to Charles that I am not the girl I was five years ago, when I first met the African King, and many of the things that made me feel at home with him then, I now recognize as dysfunctional patterns that I should run like hell from, familiar as they may be. However, I do love the African King, despite the fact he often does and says things that make me too angry to speak to him for hours, days, or weeks.

Before I continue, I should clarify a few things about the African King. People often imagine him as Black or Arab, not as a tall, white man with eyes that alternate between green and hazel. The African King is a Kabylie Berber, a type of white person native to North Africa for tens of thousands of years, flip-flopping between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam over the centuries. When not holed up in mountain enclaves, head-butting the opposition of world Soccer championships, or instigating revolutions, Kabylie Berbers have been known to sack and pillage surrounding areas, first as the Phoenicians, later as the Barbary pirates. Physically beautiful, athletic, and extremely dramatic, they typically conduct themselves in neurotic Brooklyn Jew fashion, a la Woody Allen and Larry David. Imagine the most dramatic Black man, most dramatic Latino man, and the most neurotic Jewish man you have ever met in your life and swirl them altogether, add an arch-conservative Muslim ideas and you will begin to imagine the African King. At last I found someone equally extreme and hard headed as myself. I loved him so much I gave up pork for a time, the ultimate sacrifice and symbol of devotion coming from a Virginia/North Carolina girl such as myself.

Mis Gran Hermanas disapprovingly note that he has not made his way to this hemisphere, nor run across the Mexican border, nor squeezed through a hole in it, as some of them were man enough to do for love and freedom. They have no sympathy, patience, or tolerance for his inability to be here with me, and interpret his non-presence as a direct insult. To quote Boriqua, as she flips open her imaginary fan, “When a man loves you,” as she wafts it and herself through the surrounding air, “he will climb mountains, and cross oceans to be with you,” and then snaps it shut for emphasis. The African King’s lack of mountain climbing and ocean crossing leaves them underwhelmed, unimpressed, and unforgiving.

I realized recently, that mostly I love the African King out of habit, out of respect for the intense things we have experienced together, and to some extent from a sense of guilt and obligation. I learned earlier in life that I could not stay with a man for whom I had no passion, with no way of increasing, not decreasing, the love and bond between us over time. I do share those things with the African King. We converse in my second language and his fifth, we come from different places in the world, whose conventions weigh us down, yet meet on some inexplicable psychic wavelength.

Like Santa Claus, the African King seems to know when I am sleeping, when I am awake, or whether I am sick or well, even when we’re separated by thousands of miles. Although he has brought considerable pain into my life, he seems to want the best for me in his own way, which he likely assumes is better than he could ever give me. He once dreamt that I was dying, and people were gathering around me, and somehow he got me to say the phrase from the Koran (in Arabic) that Muslims say as their last breath. He constantly worries about the possibility of my death, perhaps rightfully, and tries to do things to prevent it or at least make sure I do not end up in a place where a hot collar will be affixed to my neck for eternity.

I have learned many things, both strange and profound from this relationship.

I told Charles I could not imagine myself calling the African King and telling him it’s over. I could only imagine him saying or doing something that made me so angry that I would stop talking to him again, and something else would happen in the months before I forgave him again. I assured him, that even if I did call the African King, and told him it was over, it would not be. My heart would twitch like a dead snake until sundown, and probably much longer than that.

I told Charles that I wished to be fully present in any relationship I entered, and not bring a half life or ghost of another one with me. I now understood the unfairness of that to me and the other person when that happens. Charles agreed with me whole-heartedly.

“On the other hand,” I said, “maybe at this age, it’s normal to carry torches. Women my age, and men within ten years of it, have had a heart break or two. Maybe we don’t have time to recover from them and start fresh. Maybe we just have to accept one another, ghosts and all. Though, I will say that most people I know who got into a successful relationship, did take a detox period in between.”

“Maybe that’s what you’re doing now, Mija.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I tend to stay in relationships for years after I should end them, and try to use that time as my detox period. I reckon I’m chicken shit, and make other people suffer for it. This is more than chicken shit, there’s love there too, along with sadness and disappointment.”

“You’ll know when it’s time, Mija,” Charles said gently, “trust me, you’ll know.”

Candle, Candle Burning Bright

“No hay una enfermedad que queda cien anos, no una cuerpo para resistarlo.”
(There is not a disease that can last a hundred years, nor a body that can resist it.), Fernando said matter of factly as I recounted my day. The trials and suffering of others dwarf this small and silly problem of mine that saps and drains me like a tapeworm. I am embarrassed and ashamed to have it, of the way I let it ravage me, and the fact I cannot control it.

“We will see you in a little while, Mama” he said.

Mis Gran Hermanas (My Big Sisters: my fabulous and overly protective gay Latino cohorts, now hovering between 45 and 55, but never looking a day over 38), had the displeasure of meeting March a couple weeks earlier.

“Who left the toilet seat up?” she demanded as she swaggered towards them John Wayne-like. It was truly the most cordial introduction March could muster. Mis Gran Hermanas quickly pegged her as a closeted, repressed Lesbian with an axe to grind, and began treating her accordingly. In her previous drunken tirades, she had mentioned she had a problem sharing a bathroom with a man (clearly), especially a straight one, though she doesn’t want to live with a “Faggot,” either.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. As part of Operation “It’s Raining Men,” Fernando and Charles planned to drop by and fag out anyway, and would now quadruple their normal level of faggottiness based on last night’s rant. (We want March to leave on her own so I don’t have to pay a lawyer a $1000 to formally evict her.)

As they began to make their grand exit from the humble home I unfortunately now share with March, they said, “Mija, please get in the car with us and take a ride around the block.” They wanted an update on what the lawyer could do. I told them it would cost at least $1000 and may not work, but I could no longer stand the negative energy of March, and worried she may kidnap SHJ.”

“Sweetie, I think it’s time we put her on a candle,” Fernando said. “It’s totally white magic, you just wish her to leave with the least complication, because you don’t want the karma of black magic.”

“You just get a white candle, and write her full name in pencil on a piece of white paper, and then you cover it with honey, and put the candle on top of it. Every day for nine days, you keep that candle burning as much as possible, and you pray to the Saint in which you have the most faith for her to leave.”

“Can I use the Dalai Lama, since I’m a WASP?”

“Of course you can, Sweetie, use the Dalai Lama, and every time you think of her, you imagine her leaving. And go to a Botanica, and buy some pimenta voladora, and very discretely sprinkle it on her chankletas and purse every day. That will take care of her right away. There’s nothing black about this. This is totally white magic, but you need to get her out of your house.”

Since they were already prescribing a program of Santaria on their second meeting with March, I could only imagine what Mis Gran Hermanas would do if she irritated them further. I focused on the image of her loading a U-Haul as we looked on from the courtyard, gleefully sipping sangria and stroking our real and imaginary lapdogs.

“Up and Down, Up and Down, I will lead them Up and Down”

Depression and anxiety cackled as they shook my head and heart awake. A therapist once told me to “sit with them.”

“Oh sure,” I said, “How about I give you a glass of Clorox to gargle with and you sit with that? How about I light your hair on fire, and you sit with that? I get so sick of people acting like I imagine things, yet telling me in the same breath they’re my own fault and I deserve them. Nobody says that to people with lung cancer, although, arguably, they chain smoked cigarettes. Nobody says that to people with heart disease, even if they ate trash all their lives and now weigh 300 pounds. Nobody even says that to alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver.”

“The only people they say that to are people with AIDS and people with some type of thing like this, but at least they don’t tell people with AIDS they’re just imagining it, and they should just get over it. Nobody ever faults anybody with cancer who wants the plug pulled, or even shoots themselves, but they fault people with this. And then they say it’s our fault for not taking the pills. People just think I’m crazier for hating pills, but they probably would too, if they walked in my shoes.

I have tried pills, twice. Effexor numbed me too much, and Celexa did not numb me enough. I do not want to be numb. I just want it to go away on its own, or at least with something natural like workaholism, which is cheaper than acupuncture.

A rude comment kicked off a crying jag, which always annoys people. Then it began to ease up after a positive conversation, and then another rude encounter got me down, and then another positive conversation lifted my spirits. I guess the truth is nothing stays the same, but how I hate the lows. People tell me “just don’t let it get you down.” I’ve done my damndest not to, trust me, but it comes for me, and will not let go. You don’t tell somebody in the midst of a heart attack not to let it get them down. It does feel like I imagine a heart attack, but a real heart attack caused by someone who clogged their own arteries is acceptable, this type of heart attack, is not acceptable. It’s my fault for allowing it to happen. I pray to be let out of this prison as soon as possible, and do not care how I leave it.

Dare I Eat a Pear?

“Now I brought pears from my father’s farm, and I want you to eat them!” March screeched at me as she loomed drunkenly in my office door.

First of all, ain’t no damn way I’m eatin’ any food her bitter old ass offers me. It’s probably poisoned. Second of all, I do not like her energy or aura, and prefer to avoid touching objects she touches. Third of all, as I told her:

“I don’t like pears! And I’m not going to start liking them now.”

March spends at least an hour telling me what a terrible person I am, and for some reason, I listen, and attempt to reason with her. Haven’t I learned my lesson with alcoholics and dry drunks yet? Their perspective and verbal diarrhea bears zero relationship to reality.

After every battle with March, I reflect, and I ultimately realize that everything she says is either a result of her delusional thinking and/or an attempt to manipulate, wear down, and sabotage the other person (me). Nothing positive comes from attempting to listen to it. It makes me feel like shit even if I know her comments do not hold water. I’ve finally learned that it always makes you feel bad to hear people say bad things about you, and always makes you feel good to hear people say good things about you, regardless of the validity of either, so you might as well reach for the better feeling conversations.

I used to think that listening to the ravings of a dry drunk or an alcoholic made them feel loved, accepted, and heard, things they needed so badly, and if I could just give them those things, miraculous change would ensue. I now know better. First of all, they rarely remember that we had the conversation or that I listened, and hence I failed to “make them feel loved, accepted, and heard,” and therefore no miraculous change ensued. Who did I think I was? God? An ineffective one that felt like shit because she was so ineffective?

I refuse to do this any more, especially for March. From now on, I plan to treat her as if she’s mold: some unwanted thing that came into my house, that I will have professionally removed as soon as the funds for that come available.

Do you think I’m being extreme? Callous? Un-Buddha-like? Well, I did attempt to give her a chance. I invited her to eat with us. I served her sangria AND Banana Pudding, my second most powerful asset. The next day she wrote me an extremely rude email, in addition to her typical rude comments. Just because I meditate every day, does not mean I can now cope with rudeness and insults, especially from people to whom I have served Banana Pudding.

Banana Pudding is my acid test. If we cannot make peace after I have served you Banana Pudding, there is no hope. None. March and I came to this crossroads almost two months ago. She refuses to leave unless I evict her, which will cost $1000.

I cannot abide this scourge on my house, the negativity she emanates. Could the Lawd/Universe be forcing me to yet another lesson? This lesson of having to live or work in close quarters with an unreasonable and dominant woman keeps coming up for some reason. I normally just leave, except this time, I’m not leaving, because this is MY home. I assume I have to face it head on, and deal with it, or not mind it, except I do, a helluva lot. What shittinness! What shittiness!

The (Rude) Awakening

And within an hour of our grand exit from Scentura, SHJ and I gazed at wildfires in the hills from the fifth floor office of my accountant, Jack L’Enfant. I first met Mr. L’Enfant nine years ago, as I started my first legally incorporated business, and he’s stuck with me ever since: through buying houses, renovating them, renting them out, returning to them, starting businesses, closing them, working six figure jobs, quitting them, working $10 an hour jobs, getting fired from them, moving to other countries and states. When somebody does your taxes for nine years, you do not have much to hide from them. I consider Mr. L’Enfant a mentor, and someone who has always believed in me, despite the fact that many of my plans fall into the “ill-conceived” category. At the same time, many of my results fall into the “goddamn, I can’t believe she did it” category, and Mr. L’Enfant has occupied ringside seats for those spectacles as well.

He wanted to know what brought me back to Playa Larga, and I told him of the real estate woes I now experience, and of the real estate and small business tragedies I witness on a daily basis. We lamented the fact that crooked banks got tarp money, while small businesses grovel and beg for a $35,000 loans, and with not enough sales, have no choice to lay people off, and add to the unemployment problem. I knew from working on a federal government contract why this occurred: it all comes down to who has the most powerful friends on the Hill.

He said he knew of a number of small businesses that needed money, but did not have time or skills to write plans to get them, and that maybe I should get into that. We talked about the hotness of the geo-thermal and sustainable energy space, despite the rest of the economy. The thought of writing business plans had crossed my mind; I had won a fairly substantial prize for writing one less than a year ago. I know how to do research and how to write, but I feel like a hypocrite giving out (or selling) business advice.

“This physician needs to heal herself,” I said. “This cobbler needs to put some shoes on her feet.”

“She will,” he smiled.

My personal financial statement does not show much nowadays, but my personal experience statement sure does. I give thanks for all the richness that has come into my life in the form of the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had. I often wonder aloud if my life would be more stable if I had just not opened any businesses or moved, if I just continued working a meaningless job, and stayed in a dead relationship.

All I know is that I was not happy in that steady state, and while my impulsive, hard headed moves bring in their share of sorrow, they never bore me. I give thanks for all people, those who make me laugh, and those who make me cry, that come into my life, and the things I learn from each of them. I reckon even March has barged unladylike into my life for a purpose: probably so I can practice meeting a bullying woman head-on, and remain impervious to her.

I especially give thanks for all of the people who continue to believe in me during the times I find it hard to believe in myself, and inspire me to keep going.

Death of a Saleswoman

“Goddammit,” I said as a I fumbled with the key in Raymundo’s wooden door. I could not open it to drop off Sassy Hancock Jones for day care while I hawked perfume in parking lots. What could I do? Wake up Raymundo, who clearly needed his beauty sleep based on his peri-menopausal rant the night before, or leave SHJ alone with March, who I fear might kidnap her just for spite? Choosing the environment with the most stable hormones and brain chemicals would be a risky game of Russian Roulette. Sometimes you have make tough decisions as a parent.

I reflected on how I would feel after I returned home after dropping bottles at cost, having earned nothing, and finding SHJ gone. Thoughts of my rebirth in Darfur may not be enough to keep me in this world without her. Clearly, I could not leave her alone where March would have access to her all day.

I did not want to end my perfume career, but I could not ignore the low returns so far. I knew I would not receive my $25 bonus today, because I did not reach my personal goal of dropping five bottles, due in part to the fact my crew spent half the day smoking instead of pitching. Even if the rest of my team had dropped a motherload of bottles during the night, I still would not be eligible for my portion of the group bonus, because I did not reach my personal goal. The same thing happened the day before, and I did not notice anyone getting the $300 or $500 bonus on Wednesday for having the best attitude.

I enjoyed the perfume job, and learned from it, but I needed money this week. Perhaps I would be better off to go back to my insurance tele-marketing job. Also, I cannot leave SHJ alone with March while I night merch. Additionally, with the busy perfume schedule, I cannot have the phone conversations I need to have during the day: with the laywer, my accountant, my bank, prospective tenants, etc.

When I returned home cashflow negative, there would be no time or energy left to take SHJ on a proper evening walk, work on my business taxes, look for other jobs, advertise and show my room for rent, do my medical marijuana edible R&D, spend time talking to friends and neighbors, or plot the resurrection of Empire State Chocolate.

As much as I wanted to continue as a perfume magnate, something had to give. At the end of the day, I lacked adequate dog care, and I knew what I had to do.

I threw SHJ in a beach bag so we could board the bus to headquarters and turn in our bottles, so Boss J would not send the poe-lice after us, which he let everybody he had no problem doing. I sadly turned in my bottles. I wanted to stay, but just could not.

“Not so deep as a well, nor wide as a church door, but tis enough, twil serve.”

First of all, we’re not breaking the law, for those of y’all not familiar with California statutes. Not only can you buy hard liquor in the grocery store on any day and at any hour out here, you can also find a Medical Marijuana Dispensary every half mile most places, and every tenth of a mile in the Armenian colony of Glendale. Sick people need their medication!

If anybody deserves a medical marijuana prescription card, lawd knows it’s me. I spent the first 31 years of my thinking I was just “nervous,” feeling the gunshot wounds of migraines drizzling down my face, throwing up all the time, and feeling the quickening of my heart from 100 to 200 beats per minute while I sat still in a chair, because I’ve “always been a nervous person.” Terror taxied to me like tornados to trailer parks, sometimes leaving me in despondent and isolating wreckage for several weeks.

I have already said too much about this subject, one I do not to like to recall or discuss. It took me more than a year before I could even say sentences such as these out loud, and I do not like to dwell on it. I will not be another woman who talks about these things and how she recovered from them and give you hope on how you can too. Other people in this world have things a million times worse than this; this is nothing.

People do need their medication, though, especially ladies going through chemo. Faces emaciated and twisted with the pain of chemo and radiation pressed themselves into the window of my childhood along with beautiful memories of open fields, apple orchards, and well meaning, flawed, and loving people surrounding me. If I can help relieve on tenth of that pain, I will do it. There is no love lost between me and prescription drugs, and I heartily believe in natural cures.

Of course some ladies would never smoke a bowl. I understand that. I likewise find it unladylike to purchase marijuana myself, and have never done so in my life. It just appears for me, like fresh produce always appeared at Aint Veenie’s house. It just comes to me when I need it. Now is one such time.

Clearly the Lawd (Universe) wants me to be back here in Playa Larga now. New York could not be less hospitable or ruder to me. The need for me to return here could not be more urgent. People on both coasts summon me to help with this need, given the profundity of my knowledge of all natural, trans-fat free emulsifiers, my compassion for this cause, and my comfort food cooking acumen as noted by the New York and the Los Angeles Times, and various other regional, national, and international publications.

And so I take up the task of finding the perfect all natural mold inhibitor, both for the resurrection of my chocolate company, Empire State Chocolate, as well as my up and coming line of Pain-relieving Comfort Food, “Herbitage not Hate.”

I test each batch myself to ensure quality and maximum pain relief. People with respiratory issues or a social inhibition need a way to receive pan relief without smoking it. The pain relief vehicle should also taste delicious and deliver a dosage appropriate to each patient’s needs.

Obviously, I can only work on this mission and research after March goes to work, which further delays it. Yet another reason she needs to leave sooner rather than later. Oh lawd, how I wish she would leave without me having to pay $1000 for a lawyer to evict her. I pray for this miracle, trusting it is already coming to pass.

Brownie Points

My crew sped off into the Hawthorne sunset to a much larger, classier Shopping Center. After a little bottle dropping in the satellite stores, Little Boss T promised to teach us how to “work a Wal-Mart,” the only time when he advised cherry picking and subtlety. I dropped a deuce (two bottles) in an insurance office before my crew and I swam into Wal-Mart like sharks, each stealthily taking a cart “as if we’re shopping.” Little Boss T warned us that sometimes Loss Prevention Agents pose as Wal-Mart shoppers, so we needed to learn to sniff those people out with small talk and avoid them, so we will not be thrown out of Wal-Mart. He did instruct us on how to respond if someone attempted to throw us out of a Wal-Mart (which in my case, would be almost like someone trying to deport me from the United States of America, another place I have god-given right to be).

“First of all, we’re not breaking the law.”

“Really?” I asked “so who remits sales tax to the Franchise Tax Board?”

Little Boss T responded with the same confused, constipated look I aroused when I mentioned Lynyrd Skynyrd. “The office does. It’s not like we’re selling Avon or Mary K. They have to warn you at least one time before they call the cops.” He coaxed another FNP to sidle up to an unsuspected Wal-Mart shopper in the Crafts Aisle.

The rest of us circled nonchalantly, pretending not to observe the transaction or look for heat. I pinched myself as I waited. “Am I dreaming? Could I really leave a Wal-mart with more money than I brought in with me? What a welcome change from working at IBM!”

No scores at Walmart that day, but the evening was still young. Little Boss T stressed again how much he recommended that we go “night merching.” Since my crew had wasted several hours in Starbucks, Staples, In and Out, and Hot Wings I decided to go solo. If my friends came down from LA, I would pitch everywhere we went, if not, I could always hit the streets alone.

I could see this working out. I could picture my own offices in West Hollywood and Palm Springs. I could see my own team of bottle droppers. I could do the little speeches like Boss J, either as a nouveau riche North Carolina redneck or an educated person, whatever they wanted. I could see using the office at night to resurrect my chocolate company. I could see myself creating $8 an hour jobs attaching butterflies to boxes by night for people who couldn’t take the uncertainty of bottle dropping.

I recognized the brainwashing techniques as the same ones used by the military, corporate America, gangs, churches, and various other spiritual group: droning rhythmic music, deprivation of food, water, and sleep, creation of jargon and a “language” unique to the group, a hierarchy, hazing. I understood how and why the model worked. I enjoyed the pimp/ho experience without actually having to engage in a sex acts or lap dances with the customers.

I rushed home to show Banford’s empty room. My determination to be a good mother to Sassy Hancock Jones battled with my determination to be a good provider. I vowed not to skimp on our standard evening walk due to work. When we returned at 10:00pm, my stomach grumbled, but I vowed to get to Kinko’s before it closed to Xerox a rental application and drop at least two more bottles before 9:00 the next morning.

I broke a cardinal rule of bottle dropping when I decided not to pitch to the manager at Kinko’s, thinking it could get “weird” and that perhaps I should not shit where I eat. I continued down the Boulevard, pitching to everyone I encountered. I naively thought I had the gay guys and the parking lot attendants, but alas no. I pitched to a man who I thought could be sitting on his stoop, although he let me know he was “sort of homeless now,” but complimented my sales techniques and wished me luck.

I pitched at least 12 people without success as the clock edged towards midnight. I knew I had to get some sleep in order to get to the office by nine the next morning for a full day of more pitching, and felt tiredness from my other nocturnal activities of the week: doing taxes for my chocolate company, showing my room for rent, fighting with March, going out to dinner and clubs with friends, and being a single mom.

My eyes drifted towards the gas station a block from my house. I spied a Black guy in the parking lot. Our eyes locked. He started walking towards me, in what seemed like slow motion, as I could barely wait for our encounter, to see which of us would speak first.

“Tell me something,” I whispered licentiously.

“What?” he responded eagerly.

“What cologne you like?,” as I brandished a bottle like a badge.

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Ah thought you called me over here ‘cause you wanted to buy a phone. I sell cell phones.”

“What? I don’t need no phone. I have a phone.”

“Hey,” he whispered licentiously back. “I sell weed.”

“So do I.” I said

“You want some weed?”

“Why would I need to buy weed from you?” I demanded. “I have a pound of at home.”

He recoiled to the gas station. I stormed off to my house to contemplate all natural shelf life extension for my regular chocolates as well as for the “Petit Scores,” I’m developing for the dispensaries. Sometimes you need to get high in a dainty, discrete, AND delicious way. Like tonight, for example.

Say Hello To My Little Friend!

“Tell me the truth, you’re the smart one, is this a scam?” two fellow FNPs asked me.

“Well,” I said, “it is what it is.”

“We ain’t got paid yet, and we’re on foodstamps. Is this gonna affect our food stamps?”

“Well, you’re a 1099 contractor. Do you understand what that means?”

“No,” they said as if I had just spoken Martian.

“It means you don’t get a paycheck every week with taxes taken out, they can just pay you an hourly rate or commission.”

They looked at me in disbelief.

“They key to getting paid is to make as much as you can dropping bottles: get $30 for them if you can, and ask for a tip, and only when you meet their goals will they pay you your bonus.”

“It takes us two hours to get here on the bus,” he said. “How are we going to pay our rent?”

“This economy kicks my ass also. I will not bullshit you, they’re not going to pay you unless you drop shitloads of bottles. What were you doing before?”

“Door to door construction sales.”

“How’d that go?”

“Shitty. People ain’t got no money. They paid us by the hour, but if we didn’t get any sales they’d fire us.”

“Well, that’s how it seems to be going everywhere. I hope we all make some money very soon, here or somewhere else. Good luck if I don’t see you tomorrow.”

This conversation ran through my head as I noticed their absence and little things in the office, such as signs that say if you damage the perfume box, you have to pay a $1 to replace it; you have to pay $4.50 if you deplete your perfume by over-spraying.

I could see it from both sides. I knew it cost less than ten cents to manufacture those boxes, and less than $5 to produce a bottle of perfume itself, yet I saw why they needed to protect themselves against shrinkage, and make $16 profit per bottle even if they weren’t spending any money on salaries or employment taxes. If you make it to the 60 to 90 day mark, they put you up in your own office, through the “generosity” of the owner. Let’s not bullshit everyone and call it generosity, let’s just call it “the business model.”

As I found out, many people who do get their own offices, can’t keep them. (Surprise!) Just because you’re good at dropping bottles in gas station parking lots, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at things like Profit & Loss Responsibility, etc. So those people have to return to training and drop more bottles, and make more money for the house.

Sure, it’s a little sleazy, but isn’t corporate America just as bad, just sugar-coated?

Today, Little Boss T took three of us under his wing. We promptly rode off to a Starbucks to plot our strategy. He wanted each of us to give him a quick bio. I told him that might take a while. He prodded for a quick version….

“Like Lynyrd Skynyrd, I came into this world via the 1970s South, and have been on an extended world tour ever since, and now here I am in a Starbucks in Torrance with you. Can you smell that smell?”

He looked simultaneously amused, puzzled, and constipated as he racked his brain trying to place the Lynyrd Skynyrd reference. I lived my late teens vicariously in the brief moments I listened to the two nineteen year old girls recount their life stories. I still have that hopefulness that everything will work out, just as I did then; but find myself more skeptical now.

After much ado about his management style, and his questions about our career goals, and some practice pitching, we at last got to pitching, and pitching I did. I pitched everybody I saw: Old men, little girls, families, people of all colors. At long last he let us go to the Mexican restaurant. I started pitching these Mexican men waiting for their food. The first two didn’t have money, the old one responded in Spanish, to which I retorted:

“No te precupes, nino. No quiero hablar ingles mas.” (Don’t worry, baby. I don’t want to speak English anymore.)

I brandished my bottle of (fake) Hugo and got to work. I found pitching much easier in Spanish, because I had not planned it. Also, I followed the golden rule of making them laugh. First of all, a Southern girl speaking Spanish with a Catalan accent makes anybody chuckle. I say things in Spanish I would never say in English. The few inhibitions I have fall away, and I get even more dramatic.

“Otra dia” he told me. (Another day.)

I decided to get a little Eckhart Tolle on his ass.

“Manana estamos muertos! Solamente tenemos esta noche. No despiertala.” (Tomorrow we’ll be dead. We only have tonight. Don’t waste it.”)

He smiled knowingly, calculating the investment. He knew full well that this 3oz bottle of liquid panty dropper was well worth $25.

“Normalmente solamente trente, pero para ti papito, solamente viente cinco.” (Normally only 30, but for you, baby, only 25.”

He slowly shucked two tens and five ones out of his wallet, and off I went to join my crew, who was ready to move to fresh territory.

Our fearless leader fixated on finding a Staples or Office Max where we could laminate our pitch cards. I roamed the aisles of Staples, pitching everybody I saw, including the employees, but alas, no dice. He then decided we should go eat while they laminated our cards. More pointless conversation about dreams of grandeur of their future empires in Gardena ensued.

I pitched to a black guy covered in gold and diamonds while the rest of my crew ate their hot wings adjacent. He got all of his cologne for free, of course. I enjoyed pitching. At last I could turn the tables on all the unwanted attention I receive. Anything from the occasional, “Yoah huhsbund a lucky may-un,” to “Day—um! Got-----day—uhhhhm!” to “If yoah husband evah, evah, evah fuck up, please let me know” to my latest favorite: a man approached me, using his three year old son as a wing man, as I harvested a week’s supply of Cool Whip from the grocey freezer section, asking me “Is you obligated?”

“E’cue me?” (I typically respond in Cuban in these situations.)

“Are you married?” (While I have received marriage proposals while throwing up, this was the first time I had received one while purchasing Cool Whip.)

I smiled broadly, “Aye, si, papi. Eso es para mi marido! No se puede imaginar los placers y felicidad de nuestra vida juntos” (Oh yes, Baby, this (Cool Whip) is for my husband. You cannot imagine the pleasures and happiness of our life together.)

Now, I am the aggressor. I made I mental note to take my merch bag with me everywhere, just as Little Boss T recommended. I could not wait for my next run in with Carlos, my latest stalker/admirer.

Like most Latin men in Southern California, Carlos sells Herbal Life, or something like that. At first I assumed he was one of those “I talk to everybody who comes within three feet of me” freaks (before I became one myself). He typically spies Sassy Hancock Jones and me on our morning walks, parks, and approaches us by foot, or, if he cannot find parking, follows us in the car, and tries to convince us to get into his car. He confronts us at least once a week, but never recalls previous meetings. The last time we saw him, he had already spotted us, found parking, and was already waiting for us, with lipstick smeared on his cheek. He only “wants to be my friend,” although he quickly gets lewd when I brush him off. The next time he lunges from behind a bush wanting, I’ll have my bottle of Hugo cocked and ready so he can “say hello to my little friend.”

It’s Friday: I’ll Wear a Damn Gas Station Out; I’ll Work the Shit Out of Bank

Day 3: Sub-Boss L took the podium to teach us comebacks to the excuses we get.

“I’m broke” = Where are you broke, I’ve got some crazy glue right here, I’ll fix you right up.
“I’m allergic” = Really, I’ve got Benadryl in a bottle (doesn’t benadryl come in a bottle anyway?) I’ve since come up with a better one: Are you allergic to beautiful women/men too?
“No English” = Really, let me help you learn a few more words “Calvin. Klein”
“I don’t have time.” = Really, I have ETERNITY.

Boss J quickly got bored and shooed Sub-Boss L away and took over. “I don’t have all damn day, these folks need to get to the field and drop some bottles and make some money. Today’s Friday, pay day. On Fridays I’ll wear a damn gas station out. I’ll work the shit out of bank. You need to work fast, very fuckin’ fast. Remember, you talk to three hunner, you spray one hunner, you drop ten, fifteen, and then you wake up one day, and you’re a goddamn me-yun-nur.”

“You need to know where everybody in your crew is at all times. Don’t be wandering off and wasting time looking for people. Don’t be calling me asking where people in your team are. You got to CO-MUN-I-CATE.”

“Compliment your customers, but don’t be full of shit when you compliment a lady. They see through that shit.”

“It’s a vicious cycle folks. Let me draw it for you: You have a great attitude, you have fun, you drop bottles, you make money, you get promoted, your attitude gets better. On the other hand, if your attitude is shitty, you don’t have no fun, you don’t drop no bottles, you don’t make no money, you don’t get promoted, and your attitude gets what, folks?”

“That’s right, Shittier!”

“So check the shittiness at the door and go out there and drop some bottles and make some money!”

Cherry Picking, Bad; Cherry Popping, Good

“Hi! Quick question: what colognes do you all like to wear?” I paused to see if they understood English.

The old men threw up their arms as if I was napoming them. “Oh, I no wear. Don’t like.” Clearly the one on the left would be a tough nut to crack, but I might have a chance with the one on the right.

“What does the lady in your life think about that?” I prodded.

“We married 40 years.” He snapped.

“Well, then,” I said as I flipped my hair and reached for my bottle of (fake) Paris by Paris Hilton, “then isn’t in high time, you develop a new relationship with her? What if she smelled like this?” I whispered seductively as I pressed the merchandise into his hand and told him to inhale. “Sexy, isn’t it? You could have a totally new relationship with this.”

“Oh—oh,” he smiled seductively…… “It not fa huh, it fa my daughter.”

“How about a little something for each of them? This is a light and playful scent younger girls like,” I said as I pushed (fake) Fantasy by Britney towards his nostrils. “Or for something a little more sophisticated, you can never go wrong with Light Blue by Dolce & Gabanna. Which do you like best?”

He limply pointed towards the (fake) Dolce.

“You know this goes for anywhere from 60 to 90 in stores, but the company I work for puts its overstock out to the public for 60% off retail, so I can give you this huge bottle, for just 30.”

“Too expensive!” he screeched as if I poured acid on him.

“Come on now, she’s worth it, and you know it. You’ll thank me tomorrow.”

“Too much!” he wailed.

“Wow, you really drive a hard bargain….I’ll give it to you for 25.”

“No, don’t need it!”

I noticed Little Boss C approaching impatiently in the corner of my eye, miming as if she was rolling up a car window.

“But you WANT it.” I said “20, that’s my final offer.”

“OK!” he said, as he scurried to the register and pulled out a crisp clean $20 bill and pressed it into my hand.

Little Boss C struck up a conversation in Spanish as she entered, and he responded. She inquired about his ethnic background. “Filipino,” he said “but Muslim.”

Little Boss C and I discretely sashayed 20 feet away from the back door before she started jumping up and down and high fiving me. “You dropped your first bottle! I dropped one two! You know what this means? You popped your cherry!”

And so I had….and with an 80 year old Filipino Muslim man in a Janitor Supply place in Bellflower on a hot afternoon in the middle of Ramadan while his friend watched, no less. Well….all I can say is…..“Muslims have always brought me luck.”

"Ten's not so young"

It struck me strange as I heard Eudora Weltey’s words coming out the mouth of my 18 year old “Trainer,” Little Boss C, as she leered at a two preteen girls ambling down Bellflower Blvd.

“I dropped a bottle on a twelve year old last week,” she said with a toothy grin. “I stopped her and sprayed her with Fantasy by Britney, and I gave it to her for twenty since that’s all she had. She was on her way to buy a top for school, but when she smelled this she really wanted it. I guess it made her feel grown up.”

I quietly weighed the morality of what we were doing against some of the other things I had done for money in my life, such as helping to supply the Navy with combat-ready laptops so 18 year old rednecks, totally mercenary (much like Little Boss C) and ready to lay their lives on the line for “their county” could receive orders from their commanding officers to kick in some innocent Iraqi’s door and do whatever fearful redneck 18 year olds do in that situation.

I also leered at the girls as I took a moment to ponder how I felt about an 18 year old stopping a 12 year old, spraying her with a “rendition” of a fragrance by Britney Spears, apparently a role model in her eyes, and then literally giving up a shirt that never even made it to her back, all the money she has, so she can be and feel “sexier.” The socio-economic implications of the transaction overwhelmed me.

“So you took a loss of a dollar on the bottle, because you felt……sorry…..for the girl?” I asked, since I now knew our “turn in” to the house was $21 per bottle.

“It had nothing to do with that! Sorry for her?! Please….I was hooking her up….its worth it to lose a dollar on the bottle so I can meet my production goal and get the bonus,” Little Boss C nodded with a grin.

I let the idea sink in and marinate, and for a quick moment I reflected on whether it really made sense to make little to no money so twelve year old girls in Bellflower feel sexier….from the perspective of my personal now and the collective future.

So this was my first “Training Day,” my first time “In the Field,” which I assure you, bore a lot more resemblance to a Denzel Washington movie than to a Deepak Chopra book.

The day began in the office with hands on learning: the trainers taught us how to discern a scent based on the color and labeling of its box. Sub-Boss L slowly held up a blue box with a black stripe. “Now this here is Blue Jeans by VersAys.”

“I pronounce it VesAys?,” I asked, “not Vers-ahchi?”

“Ummmhmmm,” Medium Boss L shrugged, “I know you’re from the country and these European names must be new to you. This here is by Sean Paul Got-tee-A, the rapper.”

“Not Jean Paul Gautier, the designer?”

“No babe, he’s a rapper, not a designer, OK?” Sub-Boss L sighed patiently, “and this here is Hair-ess by Paris Hilton.”

When they began quizzing us on how quickly we could match the boxes to the scents, they said they had never seen anyone memorize the boxes as fast as me, and quickly dubbed me “a fuckin’ genius.”

Sub-Boss A periodically screamed “ATTITUDE CHECK!” and whenever we heard that, she expected us to scream and clap as loud as “shit”. Sub-Boss A wore a bustier, jeans, high-healed sandals, and a lip ring. Her ensuing lecture on topics such as “The 9 Steps to Success,” “The 3 Ups,” “The Law of Average,” “The Law of Assholes,” “The 4 Reasons Why People Buy,” “The 5 Steps to a Transaction,” “Red Flag Words to Avoid,” demonstrated a street-wisdom far beyond mine at her age, which I assumed to be about half of my age now.

I learned many things I did not know and had not applied before, such as how to have “SEXC,” with the customer: Smile, Eye Contact, Xtra Enthusiasm, and Confidence. “The more confidence you have, the more they believe in you. Never ask a yes or no question.”

If only I knew to do these things earlier in life!

“You give them SEXC, your story, then you spray them and says ‘Smells Good, Huh?’ while nodding and smiling. The customer will copy your body language. You give them a high/low. ‘Normally in stores, these go for 60, 70, 80, even a hundred, but TODAY, I can hook you up for 30. Sounds good, huh?’ (nod and smile) Never use red flag words such as dollars, cents, buy, or sell, that makes them think about money. Say ‘hook you up.’ When we sell a bottle, we never say the word ‘Sell,’ we say ‘Drop.’

“Then you REHASH: Remember, Everyone, Has, A, Sale, Hidden.” You say ‘So, do you have a girlfriend at home, has she been good? How about hooking her up too?’ How about your sancha (secondary girlfriend), what does she like?’ As they give you the cash, you say, how about hooking me up with a tip, most people give me ten, but you can give me what you think I’m worth (smile).’ The funnier, and looser you are with them, the looser they’ll be with their pockets, because they feel like you’re they’re friend.”

“You flex your style to your customer. For example, Pisas (Mexican men wearing cowboy hats) love Hugo. Say: “toma calzones.” If I’m dealing with a man who doesn’t speak Spanish, I just go ahead and say ‘liquid panty dropper.’ Always spray them, and always MIH (put the merchandise in their hand), because possession is nine tenths of ownership.”

I found Sub-Boss A informative, mildly entertaining in her own, sluttish, annoying way, but appreciated the tips. At long last, Boss J emerged with a one liner and dispatched us to “the field” without further ado:

“Sometimes you kick ass, sometimes you get your ass kicked. Have Fun!”

Little Boss C and Little Boss P quickly took me and another FNP (Fabulous New Person or Fucking New Person) under their wings, and we rode off like bank robbers to a shithole named Bellflower. We would receive a bonus based on how well the team did, if we also achieved our individual goals. They wanted to know about our backgrounds so they knew what they were working with. I told them I did tele-marketing for an insurance agent, which has been true for nigh on two months now. I did not digress on what type of work I had done for the 15 – 20 years prior to that, or the fact that I had even come into this world at that time. The other FNP said his last job was “Street Pharmacist” in downtown LA.

“Hot Damn!” I thought. We’ve got a drug dealer, our numbers will be off the hook. “Then I guess you already know how to hustle.” said I.

“Yes I do,” said he. “I also rap.” And so he did, and talented he was. I liked him immediately and wanted to see him earn tons of money for his family and so he could produce his songs.

We pulled up to a strip shopping center. “Normally you hit up people up in this order: Wheels, Feet, Bricks.” First you hit up people in their cars, then on foot, then in the businesses,” Little Boss C explained. “Come with me, we’re taking the Sandwich Shop, then the checking cash place, then the Auto-parts Store, then the Beauty Supply Store, they’ll start from the other end.”

Somehow I hadn’t imagined it going down that way, as Little Boss C charged up to a woman who was eating. I thought we would just wait for our prey out in big parking lots, not actually interrupt people while they’re eating. The woman responded with interest as Little Boss C sprayed her. She contemplated the investment for what seemed like an “Eternity,” but ultimately said she did not have any money until tomorrow. Little Boss C cornered a Check Cashing employee smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk, who also had no money until next Thursday. I started practicing my pitch on the employees and customers of the auto-parts store, none of whom had money.

We moved on to the next strip shopping center. I chickened out at the Boost Mobile place, but I pitched a Chinese woman at an ice cream store, who claimed she did not wear perfume, then I moved on to a Carniceria, which I thought I had sown up. I learned that while I do have somewhat of an advantage with Mexican men, the chances of spraying them with the cologne while they’re butchering meat behind a counter is almost zero. Damn, had I forgotten everything I used to know about food safety? Shit!

No droppings at that strip shopping center, so off we went to the next. I had to practically run to keep up with Little Boss C. She engaged a Mexican man carrying a heavy box as he came out the loading dock of a Janitorial Supply Place. He said there were others inside. Little Boss C, directed me inside with a bob of her head as she brandished her bottle of Hugo and told the man, “I’ll wait til you put it down.”

I walked in and saw a room full of bleach and two old Asian mean. I debated whether I should just walk around like I’m trying to decide what bleach to buy or talk to them. The chances of anybody, especially me, walking out of that store with more cash than they went in with, had to be a statistical anomaly. I heard cowboy movie show down music in my head, along with Sub-Boss A saying “No cherry picking, the last person you think will buy, often does” and of course Boss J saying “Shit or get off the pot.”

Shitloads of Fun!

Scentura wants me to have it, and that is the third reason they wanted me to come to orientation today. Reason #1: they want to get me comfortable and prepared for their atomosphere…..and what else could make me feel more comfortable and prepared than “I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie” blaring from the boom box as I walked in this morning? It always feels good to be accepted. Reason #2: to relieve my stress…..something various psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, acupuncturists, body workers, self help workshop facilitators, Indian gurus, Tibetan lamas and I have been working towards without much success for nigh on three years now.

How, pray tell, does Scentura plan to do that? I have tried many things: meditation, chanting, pranayams, vegetarianism, Chinese massage, Chinese herbs, the Landmark Forum, tractor trailer loads of self-help books, somatic experiencing, the Silva Method, Efexor, Celexia….and really have only found two things halfway effective: acupuncture and money.

I could only assume Scentura planned to relieve my stress with money (and/or Chris Farley movies) since I didn’t see any acupuncture needles anywhere.

I arrived about 15 minutes early, when one of the bosses (Boss J) took me aside and informed me they were giving a $500 cash bonus to the most enthusiastic person today, and the quietest person will be sent home. Hence, I should take a seat in front, and give a big shout out to anyone who walks in the door (as if Norm is coming into Cheers), and make a list of 100 people I know.

What a welcome change from IBM! I’ve never experienced anything quite like this, with the exception of the Southern Baptist version of Vacation Bible School, of course. Interestingly enough, Boss J, and much of the braintrust of Scentura also hail from North Carolina. Not surprisingly, Scentura has a strong bases in the Sodom and Gomorrah of the South: Charlotte and Atlanta. Now, I know a number of sleazy things have sprung into this world from the loins of Charlotte: PTL, WWF, the banking industry…..but, my minds remains open.

Despite the fact that every other word that comes out of Boss J’s mouth is “shit” or “fuck,” many of his teachings are quite zen, or at least, new to me. He instructs us to infect everyone with the contagion of a smile. He stresses that if the boss is happy, the workers tend to be happy. He warns against procrastination. He says “I want that shit to count. Don’t put that shit off! Shit’s not gettin’ cheaper. Shit gets kinda stressful.”

He said your attitude can’t just be OK, or good, it has to be Fucking Grrrrrrrrrrreat, like Tony the Tiger. Boss J admits he can’t solve all our problems in one day, but he can help us inch by inch so that shit don’t happen again.

If only I met Boss J before I actually paid money to talk to licensed therapists! Sometimes it takes a gay guy to straighten you out, and other times, a couple one liners from the foul mouth of a North Carolina redneck can get you further than several years of therapy. Since most North Carolina rednecks will treat you for free in the privacy of your own 7-11, this would be the preferred method for those of us not blessed with health insurance. (Note: Many North Carolina rednecks are fully licensed, maybe not to actually “practice medicine,” but to invariably to hunt, fish, carry guns, and drive semis, and which all can be great therapies/problem solvers.)

Other Keys Pearls of Wisdom from Boss J
1. Don’t be full of shit if you expect people to be honest with you.
2. Don’t be affected by failure and negativity around you.
3. Do NOT take financial advice from broke people. Only take advice from people who already have what you want. Eg: me-yunurs.
4. Only do things that make Commonlogical Sense.
5. It is NOT cool to go ATVing after you’ve been drinking in the pool for 4 hours.

Before Boss J worked his way up the Scentura ladder, which now allows him to drive a Benz, and chill in the Jacuzzi with a view of the beach at 5pm, he did work other jobs. Often people want to leverage the experience from previous jobs, but as he pointed out, clearly, that shit did not work, because if it did work, we would still be doing it. He asked us to let go of our old programming, and block out the negativity of family and friends, and have blind faith. Now, I have heard these things before….from people like the Yoga teacher who tried to recruit me to this cult who thought the world would end when their leader’s late husband came back in a UFO the size of Texas co-piloted by Jesus… but Boss J’s ellusions to his negative and unsupportive family in North Carolina, whose daily lives mirror the Jerry Springer show, really resonated with me for some unknown reason.

“Can my family give me any shit now?” he asked rhetorically, “No. I shut that shit down now.” I also long for a shield of money and success that can insulate me from the negativity of my family. I made over $100K for eight years, and had a half million dollar home, but alas, they did not afford enough insulation. Perhaps Scentura will.

Soon enough, I learned how the stress relief will come….I have to call everybody in my FFAAR group (Friends, Family, Associates, Acquaintances, Relatives), many of whom are long winded, broke, and negative Southern people, before 8:30am PST tomorrow and say:

“I just got a GREAT new job with a perfume company and TONIGHT only I can get you perfume at COST. This is what we got, how many do you want?

For Men For Women Unisex
Acqua Di Gio (Armani) Curious (Britney Spears) CK One (Calvin Klein)
Black (Kenneth Cole) Chanel #5
Black Code (Armani) Coolwater (Davidoff)
Curve (Liz Claiborne) Curve (Liz Claiborne)
Dolce & Gabbana Euphoria (Calvin Klein)
Euphoria (Calvin Klein) Fantasy (Britney Spears)
Hugo (Hugo Boss) Heiress (Britney Spears)
Issey Miyake Hugo (Hugo Boss)
Jean Paul Gautier Issey Miyake
Mambo (Liz Claiborne) Light Blue (Dolce & Gabana)
Polo Black (Ralph Lauren) Paris Hilton (Paris Hilton)
Polo Blue (Ralph Lauren) Touch (Burberry)
Polo Sport (Ralph Lauren) Usher
Touch (Burberry) White Diamonds (Elizabeth Taylor)
Usher

Often growth is not comfortable, and this is not comfortable for me. I was the kid who couldn’t even sell Girl Scout cookies. It makes me feel like I’m imposing on people. Calling family members will never be a positive experience. Therefore, I implore you all to buy a bottle of from me. You are entitled to unlimited exchanges. If I lose this “job,” I may not have as many interesting stories, or money for dog food. What can you get for $30? Entrance for two to a 90 minute movie, that may not be entertaining at all. I assure you I will give you more than 90 minutes of laughter if I can just make it until tomorrow. Something tells me the eco-friendly laundry detergent “job” won’t be nearly as amusing….

Smells Like Teen Spirit: Mais quel c’est?

Friday began as my sometimes days do….a day when I definitely would have blown my brains out all over the bathroom floor were it not for my rock solid belief in reincarnation. It would be my luck I’d get reincarnated in Darfur, which I reckon would be even worse than my current situation. I had a major Force Majeure of the heart on Monday, and it had just begun to set in. Also, in my attempt to deal with the plummeting California real estate values, I realized I no longer could rent my house out for anything within $500 of what I was getting for it before, so I decided the hell with it: I’ll move back in so I have a chance of re-financing my loan and rent out the two back rooms. Unfortunately, the people who rented out the rooms turned out to be characters from a D.H. Lawrence novel. Banford moved out this week, and I am looking for a lesss Lawrencian replacement for her. Unfortunately, March, who I overtly despise, continues to remain, dares me to evict her, and most of the time refuses to pay rent, and acts like, well, what I can only assume she is. So I spent much of Thursday on Friday on the phone with lawyers, which hardly ever raises the spirit.

I debated whether or not to go back to my second interview at Scentura. I did not see how selling perfume in parking lots would greatly improve my situation, and I would probably be too late anyway since I had been having a nervous breakdown most of the morning. I decided to go ahead and curl my hair and put make up on and just go and see what happened.

When I entered, the other 25 applicants were watching a video. It was not exactly a corporate video, yet it did represent all of the major corporate values, as it was none other than “Stepbrother” starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, and the perfect antidote for my morning. I lost myself in the film, and thought, this could be a scam, but at any rate it is definitely a welcome change from the eight years I spent at IBM.

As we listened to the briefing, it turns out you don’t have to sell perfume in parking lots, that is optional, you can sell it other places….but quite frankly, by that point, I had already decided that if I have to sell perfume in parking lots to get March out of my house, I’m OK with that. I’ve done other degrading things for money (or just ‘cause), and if this is what I have to do, I’ll do it.

Apparently, the perfume is actually real, they just don’t sell it under the trade name it’s known for, such as “Aqua Di Gio.” They sell everything under the name “L’observee l’essence,” which is French speakin’ for “know the scent.” Suddenly I felt a glimmer of hope…..I know somebody who loves to smell good, loves name brands, but doesn’t like to pay full price for them….her name is “every gay guy in Los Angeles”. I also realized since I can speak Spanish now, I can also market to the bathroom attendants in the clubs that always have lollipops and perfume in hopes of getting bigger tips….hmmmm……this could really work. I started imagining my West Hollywood office, with scantily clad buff young boys out front, confronting every Tragic Troll that walks by….and then I’ll branch out to Palm Springs…. And we’ll have booths at every Gay Pride in America.

Some of the perfumes have feremones….maybe I’ll just start wearing them everywhere I go and see what happens…

I passed the next gauntlet….I’ve been invited to start on Wednesday! How exciting to work for “The Man” again! The first time in 4 years!

Melaleuca, Scentura, Baked Goods, Oh my….

Lawd!

As most of you know, my return home to Playa Larga occurred in a most ungraceful, abrupt, and unceremonious fashion, as many of my exits and entrances tend to, truly Force Majeure, Cas Fortuit, Casus Fortuitus…. Truth be told, I experience at least one Force Majeure just about everyday, and often time reveals those crisises to be quite “fortuitous”. Sometimes the Lawd, or the Universe, just has to work me like this, because Lawd knows I’m too hard headed and blinded by De Nile to see signs that are neon to everybody else.

I reckon this is how I often find myself in peculiar situations, such as dancing in a circle at the Dead Sea on New Year’s Eve, as the pianist signs “The Green, Green Grass of Home” in broken English, apparently in my honor.

Outrageous fortune on both coasts has caused me to get even more creative in my financing of certain essentials, such as paying my mortgage and buying dog food. Every day I have a new scheme to make money, I even got the crazy idea of looking for a job.

Many of my potentianl “jobs” turn out to be scams. Yesterday I went to to this “job” interview in an office park in the ass of nowhere, and when I opened the door, blaring rap music nearly blew me back into the parking lot. About 20 poor bastards sat in the lobby stoicly listening to it. A sign taped to the juke box said “if the music is too loud, you’re too old.” I racked my brain attempting to identify what type of business this could be, a corporate office for a titty bar, the World Wrestling Federation, a recording studio owned and operated by Vanilla Ice, judging by the ubiquitous presence of rap and ubiquitous absense of black people….. At last, one of the owners emerged to end my suspense and describe their business model, the key points of which are “we hate librarians” (I quickly stuffed my book down in my pocketbook so no one would get the impression I spend more time reading than I do listening to rap) and “if you don’t like the music, get over it.” Apparently it was the largest distibutor of fake designer perfumes in the universe. They wanted high energy. Luckily, I literally have a degree in Drama, so rising to the occasion was not a problem.

They want me to come back for a second interview on Friday. Yeah! At last someone values my skills and validates me! Whoo-hoo! But, as usual, as soon as I google my new “jobs” dozens of links from the Rip Off Report come up.

According to Wikipedia, they’re going to give me a partner, and instruct us to hang out in parking lots, where we wait for unsuspecting women, who we corner, spray with our cheap perfume, and then cajole/guilt trip into buying it from us. Maybe my partner and I should dress up in matching Ponch and John CHPS uniforms, with guns that spray perfume, and corner our prey with “Excuse me, Ma’am, you have the right to remain fragrant.” Then we spray our prey with fake Britney Spears perfume, until she is overwhelmed by how classy she feels and gives us all her money. Then we hop on our motorcycles and move on to our next “customer.” It’s quite Darwinistic, actually.

I can’t wait to see if this actually happens on Friday!

Meanwhile, my other “job” was….let me see if I can put it the way the cult/pyramid scheme leader put it…. “I help save the planet by helping my friends, strangers I meet at Starbucks (and myself) save money on eco-friendly consumer products they would normally buy anyway….but selling them a $29 membership to a club which requires them to spend at least $50 per month…..but it’s a great value, saves the planet, and we’ll throw in a free vial of organic hand cream to make everybody feel good about the transaction.

Before I googled it and saw the 12 links to the rip off report, I thought it would be a viable service for all those Rich Bleeding Heart Liberals boycotting Whole Foods because they’re pissed off abut what their CEO said about health care. Now where are they going to get their eco-friendly laundry detergent? A pain in the ass food coop. Rich Bleeding Heart Liberals don’t have time for that, they’re busy making money, and trying to catch Poor Bleeding Heart Liberals like me shopping at Walmart.

I know shopping at Walmart is wrong on many levels. I should just go in, feel rich, beautiful, and thin (in comparison to everybody else) and storm out without buying anything. But….them Beggin Strips ain’t cheap….Sassy Hancock Jones finished off her last one last night, and so I had to tell to inhale the aroma from the bag, which she is still doing. What’s a mother to do? I am really trying to transition over to just 99 cent stores, because you know, there’s nothing I love more than supporting small business and minorities, but then again, I don’t feed my dog anything from China. That’s where I draw the line.

I know I will be catching some flack from Rich Bleeding Heart Liberals over my purchasing choices…..well, I will be happy to stop….. All they need to do is get in touch with me and commit to buying $50 worth of eco-friendly product every month, and/or some fake Paris Hilton perfume. I will gladly send them a free tube of eco-friendly hand cream to express my gratitude and as evidence I have finally seen the light.

Time to get to work….I have a conference call with my eco-friendly laundry detergent boss at 9:00 and an event with my insurance selling boss at 10:00, then I need to interface with my tenants, ex-tenants, future tenants, and research some mold inhibitors for a new baked good I’m working on.