Marta and I started off our Friday night at Jordan’s furniture looking at mattresses and bedroom sets. This is already funny if you know about our fear of domestication. Our worst case scenario for the next ten years is that we get good jobs, make good money and buy houses and cars and find husbands and make children. We have these fantastic dreams of travel and adventure and we are afraid that the simple life will creep up on us a little at a time, taking us over until we are tethered to a materialistic and mundane existence like mosquitoes on flypaper.
Dramatic, maybe, but if such domestication is indeed some sort of virus to be avoided, I’m afraid shopping for furniture has got to be a pretty serious symptom. Suddenly, you have these not-so-mobile objects to be responsible for and the more you pay for them, the worse you’ll feel about leaving them.
But there we were, looking at beds and mattresses to furnish the new apartments we’ll move into in the next month. We went from bed to bed, pushing on the tops with the palms of our hands before tentatively sitting and then laying down on them. Every one of them felt like some sort of magic wonder cloud compared to the Alcatraz style “mattress” I’ve been sleeping on these days.
Here’s the tricky thing about shopping for stuff that is already out of your price range: the numbers all start to seem the same. A $600 mattress set is the same as a $1400 mattress set because you don’t have either amount of money. The kind gentleman in the fakie doctor’s coat who works there prescribing expensive bedding to shoppers explained the various financing options to me.
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me I don’t have to pay for this baby for a whole year?” I asked, patting a Beautyrest. Luke, the “Sleep Technician” confirmed this. At first, this was exciting news. I paused and thought about all the wonderful nights of solid, restful sleep I could get. I made my own little Simmons commercial in my mind where I could see myself sleeping with this dumb-ass grin on my face because I am so happy on my new free-for-a-year mattress.
Luke walked me over to a little machine near the door where I could type in my information and get preapproved for this sweet deal. I very nearly fell for it too, but just in the nick of time I saw what he was doing. I realized that he is not Luke the Sleep Technician at all but Luke the Prince of Darkness trying to trick me into financing expensive purchases one at a time. A mattress today, a house with a while picket fence tomorrow. I don’t THINK so! Nice try, gypsy!
Suddenly, I didn’t remember why we came to this Jordan’s Furniture joint in the first place. I tactfully declined the credit approval thing for the moment, saying that we’d like to look around some more first. I took Marta and we made a B-line out of there. That’s a lie. We didn’t make a B-line. It was more of a scribbly, loopy, crazy line because as soon as we got out of the mattress section, we were in the bedroom furniture section and everything was so pretty that I forgot about Luke the Sleep Technician Devil and his no-payments-for-a-year mattresses.
Soon, we lost all sense of time, purpose and self, wandering around with our tongues hanging down to our chests, talking nonsense and saying things like “Oh that set would be so great for a guest room- but I think I would want it in the darker wood.”
Occasionally we’d catch our reflection in the mirrors of the vanity tables and we'd think that those girls looked vaguely familiar. Were they those feminist world travelers who wanted to live modest lives in far away countries? We didn’t know, but we did know that those little girl bunk beds that looked like pink houses were adorable and I was just sure that little Ella and Alexandra, my unborn, yet apparently named daughters, would fight over the top bunk.
Before I had the chance to slap myself across the face for thinking this way, someone came on the loud speak to announce that the store was closing. I pretended not to be devastated and Marta and I made our way to the car, making a quick detour to look at oriental rugs.
We sat in the car for a moment plotting our next move. The night was young- 10pm on a Friday- and we weren’t ready to go home yet. We pretended to think seriously about it for a few moments, as though there were many options at that hour besides going to a bar. We decided not to resist the inevitable but thought we would shake it up a bit by going to a bar in a different town- we are adventurers after all.
Some cocktails, some live music and a little dancing are quite a sufficient antidote to the poison of a trip to Jordan’s, I discovered. Later that night, I crawled into bed on my uncomfortable mattress and had no trouble getting or staying asleep. I woke up gently at 8:00 in the morning surprised that I had slept through the night.
This started me thinking about some other mattress financing options. Instead of figuring out how much my monthly payments would be to sleep soundly on a new Beautyrest, I started calculating how much I would need to spend on vodka for the same effect on my old mattress. That way, I wouldn’t get myself into debt AND if I suddenly decided to flit away to Europe or North Africa or somewhere, I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving behind an expensive mattress or bringing it with me. And a new alcohol problem is easy enough to pack, I figured.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
“I’m not sure you’re $130,000 smarter…”
“I’m not sure you’re $130,000 smarter…”
Says my boss the other day in discussing how much I just paid for my college education. I looked at him incredulously for a moment, trying to shame him into feeling badly about his insult while stalling for time so that I could think of a clever comeback. Apparently I had evicted all of my clever comebacks and leased the mental space to information about the Peloponnesian War and so I had to resort to rolling my eyes at him before walking away.
This is actually pretty typical of my interaction with Mark. He attempts to provoke me with an insult so blunt my brain short circuits in trying to respond and I half smile and walk away briskly. Somehow, Mark got it into his head that I’m “badass” though, so actually, my lack of response works to my advantage. I’m pretty sure he just ends up thinking I’m cooler than him.
Unfortunately, Mark’s annoying little comment weaseled its way down through my cerebellum. It really didn’t have to weasel much. The way is paved with my heightened sensitivity about the future now that I’ve graduated and have no idea what I want to do next.
On the upside, I do have a real job. For the last year, when I haven’t been kicking and screaming my way through the last classes of my undergrad degree, I’ve been working at a shop that restores really important vintage European racecars for rich people. The title I get to give myself on my resume is “Administrative Assistant to the Vice President.” The Vice President is Carrie, Mark’s wife and I administratively assist her in making sure that things run smoothly in Mark-town so that the Ferraris and Porches run well and look shiny, which is actually an enormous amount of work.
Basically Carrie and I spend our days running around like crazy women trying to get impossibly rare parts that were supposed to be here yesterday to arrive no later than tomorrow. This means we spend silly amounts of time on the phone trying to coerce old men in
And while there is a certain amount of gratification involved in all of this, and while I know that some people would kill a puppy to hang out with some of the cars I walk by everyday, I know that this is not a long term plan for me.
The tricky part is that I don’t really have any other solid plans in the works, per se. I’m still getting used to the idea that I am even employable. I graduated last month from college with a double major in Communication Arts and French, and quite frankly, I have no idea what that makes me qualified for. Usually when I tell people my majors, they say something like “Oh great! So you can communicate in French!” People who say this think they are being funny and generally seemed pleased with themselves for being so clever to make this connection. It mostly makes me want to go Mike Tyson on their asses and rip off some ears and this worries me that I am becoming a mean, angry person.
There are no “communicating in French” positions on the horizon as of yet and I wonder about Mark’s irritating comment about the money I just shelled out, and will continue to shell out for my education as my damn loads come due.
I would feel a little better about my situation if I had some idea about what I want to be when I grow up but as yet I do not know and I’m actually not sure I’m $130,000 smarter either.
Maybe it’s because I am in this time of transition right now as I plot my next move, but I feel like I am on a layover on what is turning out to be a very expensive trip. I’m one of those travelers who relishes a good layover too. Some people hate the interruption and wish they could fly non-stop, but I like to stop and look around. You get to hang out in a bright, shiny airport and eat $15 airport turkey sandwiches while you people watch and read trashy magazines. I’m always in a good mood waiting for my next plane because I know I am going someplace I want to be. I guess the difference in my current situation is that I don’t know where I’m headed. For now, I am just going to relax and pay attention.
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