The Stories I Could Tell

Here are some of the stories I could tell: while I've never set a Hooters on fire, I have been fired by a group of pacifist Montessori teachers who not only let me know it was my last day via the sudden and immediate presence of Chinese cops in my classroom, but also by sending a parcel of attorneys to my house to threaten my maid and my kid. Yeah, that's a good one. I once went to a bar--in my hometown, if you must know--where I realized I had dirt on everyone there. I was a tofu-slinging waitress at the time being chased by the bouncer at the bar, a man who had served time for killing his mother, and who was now free and presumably full of regret. When I mentioned to my sister Sissy that he was after me, she sniffed and said, "Well, he always was  a Chubby Chaser."  I could write about the time I was leaving the set following the filming of my segment of a popular children's TV show, feeling very smug and quite smart in the best make-up job I had ever had, when a small child said, "Hello, Grandma!" to me. (I was not yet 40.) I could write about the poet who loved me and typed a manuscript of love poems with all eight fingers on the City Public Library over the course of one summer, but this did not end well, as I could not stand him and he, alas, felt The World Was Too Much With Him.  It was, but not for very long. I could write about the man who DIDN'T love me, thank God, but who made himself a knight's suit of armour out of a bunch of tin oil drums and dented pear cans, and who pierced his gypsy nipples way, way back in the 80's before ANYONE was piercing much of anything. I could write about a recording job I did last year with a born-again Evangelical pastor who wore a t-shirt of Christ's crucifixion with the following legend, "Body Piercing Saved My Life."  I could write about checking into a  Love Hotel in Tokyo for the night with a group of girls I sang with because we missed the last train home and the hotel was bigger, cheaper, and cleaner than the Hilton. We took baths and watched "Leave it to Beaver" on tv and that was it, swear to God, although my boyfriend at the time hoped it was a lot (a LOT) more.  My jobs have included: working tray line in a hospital cafeteria, a baker, a caterer, a spotlight operator, a dancer, a mime (please don't ask), an actress, a nightclub singer, a proofreader, a Wang Word Processing specialist, office manager, X-ray technician, dog sitter, Medical Assistant, Phlebotomist (I drew blood for a living) Textbook Writer, Script Writer, Poet,  Editor, Montessori Kindergarten Teacher,  Early Childhood and Elementary School Teacher, Reading Specialist, Realtor, Assistant Curator, Department Head, Tour Guide, cashier, waitress, dish washer, Intern to the International Education Department at a little university, Editor-in-Chief, Director of Education for a publishing company, Drama Teacher, Voice Artist, Model (Life Drawing.) Oh, yes, I grew up going to garage sales and helping my grandmother out with her table at the Flea Market, so you can add "huckster" to the list. The one career I really wanted--Housewife--has eluded me. So far nobody's hired me for the job, but I DID get to be a single-mother-with-world's-worst-divorce-attorney, a fact which is undisputed when you read the facts of the case. I have disappointed my mother tremendously by never working at McDonald's, which for some reason she considers a "fun" job. Well, it's too late for me to take up stripping, unless perhaps it's for the visually disabled (I wasn't going to be non-PC and write "the blind")   and I won't be going up any of those stripper poles either, even for a laugh. I'm about to start a new teaching job and as I do I'm thinking to myself, Is this really what I want to do?

Why All the Men In That Office Were Single