My Exciting Life

It has come to my attention that some of you think that I lead an exciting life. How amusing. While it is true that by day I masquerade as Carly Crookston, even though my true identity is that of Sydney Bristow, I didn't realize that you knew that...so I need to come up with something to divert your attention away from my secret agent tendencies. Let's see...where do I even begin?

Well, I hung out with some Amish people last week. That was a treat. My mother pestered one of those cute lil' country boys about geraniums, and while we waited for his head to stop spinning from her flurry of questions, she tilted her head and said, "Like, do you know anything?" That was embarrassing. Note to self: Stop taking Julie on public excursions. Sweet Cletus [that's what I decided to call him in my mind] smiled shyly, and slowly said, "Naw, naw...I don't take no offense," when I indignantly cried out in his defense. It'a good thing Sweet Cletus is so sweet or else we probably would have had a whole bunch of Amish men with pitchforks and ominous looking beards chasing us. Needless to say, that would have been unfortunate.

After we harrassed Sweet Cletus for a while, we talked to Roger, who is a blog all by himself. He grows the world's best hostas and hoooooo boy, did he love his job. He called his plants his "babies," which would have been weird if Mom hadn't have been nodding her head appreciatively. Gardening...I will never get it. Next, we went to a restaurant called the Blue Plate, and Mama Dugger was our waitress. I ate my weight in pie. That was fun and I definitely didn't regret it for the rest of the night [**rolls eyes**]. Overall, Amish Country was pretty legit.

My next adventure consists of myself and exorbitant amounts of lingerie. For those of you keeping track, I finally got a job -- at Victoria's Secret. I had my "onboarding" last night, and as part of my training I had to watch the most horrible, ridiculous, asinine instructional videos ever created. By definition, training videos suck, but these ones made me want to gauge my eyeballs out with a spork. Seriously -- it was PAINFUL. But after that torture [and practicing bra fittings with my brand new coworkers], I got to try on some, ahem, product. Every job has its perks, right?

Anyway, my first day was today and, as is usually the case with the jobs that I have, I was painfully undertrained when I hit the floor. I was supposed to shadow another employee, but the store was understaffed and busy, so my new manager told me to straighten the "panty bar." That's right: The Panty Bar. I now have to use terms like this in all seriousness, so back off. I mean, my job was simple enough: straighten the Pink panties that the hoardes of middle school divas touch and mess up. The problem is that I am too well trained in customer service to ignore women with imploring, puppy dog eyes, and that is where I made my first mistake. I smiled at a guest, and she pounced.

"How are you doing?" I asked her. Her response?

"Can you measure me? It's been forever since I had a fitting."

Now, okay, I know that Victoria's Secret is supposed to be all about the right fit and whatever [sorry, Furrow. No one is making you read this, you know.], and that it is part of my job description to help women choose a bra in the right size, because after all, 70% of women wear the wrong bra size, and that is just stupid. And it's not like I'm physically uncomfortable to strap a tape measurer around a stranger's chest [although maybe I should be?] and talk about things like "lift" and "swell." I could do that all day...if I actually knew what I was talking about. Since I'd been an employee for about 5 minutes, however, it was sort of awkward. You know that point of no return, where you make eye contact with a stranger and can't decide if you actually know them, so you continue to stare in a slightly mystefied way, until they look at you like, "WHAT DO YOU WANT, CREEPFEST?!" and then you're like, "Oh. My bad." and only then does it get outrageously awkward? That's what it was like as I stood inches away from these women, staring at my tape measurer as if it were marked with heiroglyphics and saying, "Um..I think...I mean, I would say you're a 36B...what size do you normally wear? 34C? Oh, well...um...I'm new..."

So that was a blast and a half. I spent most of the day smoothing out the excessive amounts of panties that are on those little tables and trying to avoid eye contact. I have a feeling that I will love this job...but only once I can gain a little bit of product knowledge besides, "Well, this is a bra...and these are panties. What else can I help you with?"

After work, I went to dinner with Shelby and our cousin Mackenzie. We went to Carabbas and, given my dainty, ladylike appetite, I absolutely inhaled a steak. It was slightly embarrassing, but then I remembered that I don't get embarrassed, so I was over it. Besides, it was utterly delicious. What's more, our server was extremely impressed. I know, because he said so. His name was Nate and his tie clip was a fork. He was kind of weird, but in a cute-ish way...he looked like he would be friends with Old Navy Joe [be still my heart...consequently, I don't think that Old Navy Joe works there anymore. I suffer acute pains of disappointment everytime I walk through those once sacred aisles]. Anyone who is cool with Old Navy Joe is cool with me, so I left my phone number on the receipt. Stop judging. It was mostly a joke...unless he calls. Then we'll go from there.

Seriously, stop judging me. I never do this. It's literally the first time it's ever happened, and it's only because my cousin threatened to leave my number if I didn't and...whatever, okay?

So that about catches you up to speed. I also went shopping with my cousin Allie and found her the PERFECT dress for her 8th grade graduation...she looked beautiful. I made about 3 billion subs for Warner's open house, I bought some fabulous makeup in ridiculous colors, I've read roughly 7 books on the subject of creative nonfiction, planned a trip to New Jersey, perfected my Southern accent, joined a dating website as a joke, laughed a lot at said dating website, sighed in relief when said dating website terminated the trial membership, fought with my little sister, made up with my little sister, got talked into auditioning for The Amazing Race, received payment for my writing, and potentially landed the most incredible job in history. Whew.

So, those of you who think I live an exciting life? Maybe. But it's all a matter of perspective.