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That was the number one duty on my cut list tonight at work. The bathrooms—their details—I was in charge. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to clean a public bathroom before, but let me tell you something: GOOD LORD. We are ANIMALS. There is no aiming and zero sympathy. There is just shit (sometimes literally) ev-ery-where.

The only time you wish that male and female bathrooms were consolidated is when you have to clean both of them. This is the case at Huhot, when after I finish scrubbing down the ladies’ muck, I get to barge into the M-E-N’s room. Then I get in there, and I know I shouldn’t be in there because I’m not a dude, and it clearly says M-E-N on the door, and I feel cool. It’s the worst kind of special feeling you’ll ever have.

Then I see what I have to deal with. Shit.

I’m not trying to pass off men as being barbaric, but let me break this down for you:

Now you see what I’m working with here. 

So this evening, I’m cleaning the details of the men’s bathroom, feeling cool because I know I shouldn’t be in the men’s bathroom. And I get interrupted by a man.

I saw him enter and looked up from the mirror I was cleaning. “Oh! I’ll leave—” I started to say as he marched toward the urinal. After all, I was on his turf.

“Oh, no! That’s alright! I’ve just gotta pee.”

And I saw the horror unfold before my eyes, so quickly, and so disgusting. I made a beeline for the door before you could say “detail clean bathrooms.”

I was disgusted to think that I’d have to go back in, finish the job and retrieve my supplies. Five minutes later I moseyed back to the M-E-N’s room, vowing to make it quick.

Quick! Hurry! I commanded myself, but it was too late. Billy the new line filler had to GO.

“I’ll leave!” I told him when I saw him waiting at the door, his eyes googly with constipation. 

“I gotta GO!” 

Fearing that I might relive the same incident that had occurred five minutes prior, I grabbed everything and dashed out the door. Go, Billy, go.

I was done detail cleaning the bathrooms, no matter how unclean the details where. There was no way I was going to scrub another bowl or watch someone whip it out again tonight. No way.

But that Billy, bless his soul. He came up to me shortly after to thank me for leaving so he could use the john, claiming that “I’d saved his underwear.”

Well, shit. Ain’t that special.

I mean, think about it. You work at a hardware store and all you see is men looking for drill bits and chainsaws. You work at Hollister and you see 15-year old girls looking for XXXSmalls. But when you work at the grocery store—you see everybody. Not everyone needs hardware or teenie bopper garb, but everybody needs food.

What does this mean? The grocery store is prime people-watching ground.

I’ll admit, I’m a people-watcher. I don’t watch people to make fun of them, but to guess what their lives are like outside of the place I’m seeing them, or what they’ve been doing all day. At the grocery store, I can gather both of these things AND what they’re going to be eating for dinner. It’s a phenomenon. 

I haven’t yet calculated the exact demographics of the grocery store, but I do know there are a staggering amount of elderly folk, most in brightly-patterned polyester and head scarves. A lot of these people only come out of their homes several times a year: six times to grocery shop, and once on Christmas Eve. Some of the elders examine the meat, poking at the fat and hand-weighing it. Some check for harmful ingredients in the frozen vegetable medley. Others stroll around on electro-scooters and nearly collide with anything in their path (which today, was me). The grocery store is an interesting…dangerous place.

Then there are people like my sister who could care less about anything that costs more than a dime, and head straight for the free samples. Near the bakery there’s a generous tray of semi-soft cookies and/or sugar-coated donuts. I’m not one for donuts (too healthy for me), but my sister usually takes a few and shoves a couple more into her pockets. She would. She so would.

The donut corner is popular with the husbands, by and large the older gentleman that Edith or Thelma pried from their recliner parked in front of the TV. These men are grumpy, and with reason. I mean, I would be royally irked if my spouse ripped me away from 60 Minutes to buy a block of cheese and a couple cans of beans. I feel their pain.

By far the best sight I’ve ever seen at the donut corner occurred several months ago. Two gentlemen, golden-aged and spry, strolled through the store. It appeared as if their wives were out of town (or otherwise), and they could buy whatever. Whatever. Whatever they wanted.

Buying whatever you want at the grocery store is exciting for two groups: The very young, and the very old. Young people, when given sway over the grocery selection, will spring for sugary cereals, fatty pizzas, and high fructose corn syrup-coated high fructose corn syrup. Does it have sugar in it? Yes? In the cart. Now.

(Note: College students do not get excited about buying whatever groceries they want because this is all they get to eat…ever.)

Old people are the same way, and these men were no exception. Clearly fed up with Dorothy and Judith’s cabbage soup and meat pie, they breezed over to donut corner and, much like my sister, grabbed a dozen. Then they perused the pastries for a while, and from the glorious self-serve case, each selected a donut of their liking. They disappeared from my view for a while, and when I ran into one standing behind me in the checkout line, it was clear what his diet would be for the next couple of days (or forever): powdered sugar donuts and chocolate milk.

I would go to the grocery store every day to watch people, if I had enough pluck to do so. Unfortunately the designated and self-proclaimed “people-watching bench” near the entrance/exit is more often than not crowded with husbands that opted not to go to donut corner…

…and instead watch me load my cart with beans and cheese, sugary cereals and high fructose corn syrup. Because hey, if you can’t beat them…watch them.

Love.

It was the dawning of a new adolescent, of awkwardness, and apparently, probably, ugliness.

The best part about this age is also the worst part. You’re too young and into your Beanie Babies and sticker collection to realize you smell like garbage, and so continue your blissfully ignorant ways. Then 2009 rolls around and you unearth that dreaded 8 x 10. You know which one I’m talking about. That’s the worst. Your friends love that moment.

I wouldn’t say I was a “babe” (that title was reserved for girls that wore tech vests and french braids) but closer to an ogre. “Confused” is a safe adjective, for lack of a softer word for “fugly.” My mom frequently had to drop hints for me to clean myself up. “Your hair…eh…might need…” It was pride that kept me a tomboy, and with gusto I deemed myself the best girl at kickball, the one advantage of my rugged sturdy legs.

Then there was the snaggle tooth. 

The snaggle tooth, like sturdy legs and the semi-Dumbo ear, is another trait you’d rather not acquire from your father. My siblings, I presume, carry a secret resentment that I scored all three traits, the covetous “trifecta” of Christen attributes. My dad and I had nearly identical snaggle teeth, but his hid pretty well behind his upper lip. I was always flashing mine during a kickball match, and in hindsight, it probably instilled more fear in my opponent than I could ever imagine.

The snaggle tooth had many friends, most living across the street on my bottom jaw. Together they were a twisted and crooked pack of incisors and bicuspids, radically heinous toward the Shake and Bake and Fruit Rollups they often encountered. It was all image, gold rims and confused hair held up by sturdy legs. Surly beauty.

These things can only scare people for so long before they need to be corrected. My parents decided to start with the snaggle tooth. The day the metal was glued into my mouth, the snaggle started what was a slow decline. “What colors?” I can remember the orthodontist’s assistant asking me the first time I chose my rubber bands. I pointed to the purple and teal. “These two.” There was no other way.

At the time, braces were somewhat archaic. The glory of headgear had faded and tinsel was last season’s trend. I showed up to class, the only “brace-face” in the room (didn’t get the memo). I can vividly recall trying to eat a granola bar that afternoon at lunch, one of the most vexing experiences of my life. It honestly would have been easier to solve a Rubik’s Cube with my tongue.

“How am I supposed to eat?” I said to the other girls at the table, who looked on blankly, then continued to eat their sandwiches. They’d be sorry when I starved to death!!!

Well, I lived after I learned to eat the granola bar, graduated 6th grade and moved on to what were the most wistful and ugly years of my life. Two years down the road, in the heat of *Junior High* (OH-em-GEE), the bands were removed to reveal a straight smile. Snaggle teeth cleaned up well!

It was that day in 2001 when the orthodontist superglued more contraptions into my mouth, “post-braces braces” or somesuch. These wires’ duties were to keep the snaggle away. I was 13 at the time, and can remember him telling me that the wires would be removed “in my 20’s.”

Long after my sparkly purple butterfly retainer found it’s place in a neglected bathroom cubboard, the wires remain, waiting for me to rip them out with a Whatchamacallit bar (sidenote: Whatchamacallit registers with spell check!), or peanut brittle, or molasses—or just rip them out.

And therein my braces experience, I find room for analogy. For just as these wires have been holding each tooth in it’s place for the past eight years, acting as fixtures to ward off a crooked flood, so, too, is a day of life. What has taken years to gain, be it acceptance, respect, or simply straight teeth—one snap of a wire and it will shift all the same.

So I carry on, warding off the crooked flood.

new

is 

good.

Holly:

Please review for next Finer Things Club meeting. You’re in charge of the Henry’s, I’ll be discussing contrasts and social order of 18th century England.

Also, ensure that Sparkling Cold Duck is well-chilled, spreadable cheese is spreadable, and cheap crackers of choice pass as “classy.”

See you soon!

Jenny

Who in the halllllllllllllllll decided this was happening?

This explains a lot about my role as a mule in the 6th grade Christmas program…

It’s been well near a month since I’ve seen you. Snow’s fallen, the choirs and carols long since hushed by faces consumed with Christmas leftovers and New Years’ drinks. Wrapping paper concealing the socks and electronics we had on our list, it’s somewhere in a landfill now. The candy canes are on clearance, and cherub stuffed Santas returned to their box deep beneath the stairwell, in the heart of the basement. The trees we stripped of their ornaments, their dignity, long ago tossed to the curb to see a new life in an unfriendly forest. 

This break, it’s almost—so close to being, almost so close to over. 

What I’m trying to say is, I’m ready to come back. The trays of sweets diminished weeks ago and my bedroom walls are caving in. I’m starting to like TV, and it’s scaring me. I saw a man with an egg shaped head tonight, that was my sign; I know for certain that my time here is near expired.

Anyhow, how’ve you been? 

Good? Fantastic? I bet you’re still witty and beautiful. You’ve probably been watching a lot of the History Channel, and I can almost see you curled up on your be—excuse me, the couch, getting a mouthful of sleep. I hope you’ve been taking absurd amounts of bubble baths (I want to see that Princess bottle EMPTY, ya’hear?) and working on your egg sandwich-making. Not that it needs work, just—working on it.

Oh, I’m fine. Getting by, one midnight snack at a time, one sleepless, meatless, longing and thought-provoking day at a time. My nails need a painting and I’ve been itching for a back massage. The good news is, well…the good news is…

…we’re merely weeks, a dozen chocolate bars and a bucket of reduced fat ice cream, a large half-pepperoni-half-pineapple pizza and one all-nighter away from being utterly content. It’s going to be beautiful, and profound, and ridiculous—you can count on that. And we will gain 10 pounds. Count on it.

I can’t wait!

A few things before I sign off:

• My closet is your closet, excluding undergarments

• There’s a bag of meatballs in the fridge. They’re yours. Feel free to add them to your cereal.

• If someone calls the apartment looking for a robot, take a message.

• If someone calls the apartment looking for eight pounds of maple syrup, it’ll cost them $3 with free delivery within the U.S.

• If anyone asks what happened to your roommate, tell them I’m on tour and will be back in 2019.

• I did not count the Oreos in the pantry, so feel free to smuggle.

• In the event that my submarine does not make it back to shore, you are entitled to inherit my duvet cover, laundry money, and that giant bottle of Redken conditioner under the sink. (I know you use Garnier or something comparably soft and seraphic, but you might be able to sell it on Craig’s List.)

• I love you the way mothers love children, dogs love bacon-flavored treats, leprechauns love their lucky charms, and hamsters love those crazy wheelie-bobbers. I do not love you like old men love little boys, or the rugby team loves the rugby team. That’s just not right.

• I am sorry I just compared love to bacon treats, leprechauns and hamsters.

• I really miss you.

Your long-lost kangaroo sistah from another marsupial,

jenny

P.S. I’m concerned about you falling asleep in the tub. Careful or that WalMart soap will put a spell on you.

P.P.S. Do not, under any circumstances, go to Mexican Village without me. God knows that place is crawling with double-popped collars and you’re not ready to experience it on your own.

P.P.S.S. I’ll forewarn you, I’m going through Starbucks detox right now. This may or may not have an adverse effect on my mood, resulting in bouts of drinking pickle juice and watching MSNBC. I’m sorry.

This is just…insanity.