Tuesday, January 30, 2007

My Drive to Work

Once upon a time (three weeks ago) I had an interview with some corporation. I didn’t really tell too many people and I wasn’t very excited about it. It was actually a ‘mock interview’. It was set up through my school and meant to give me interview practice. The thing is, they really do hire from these interviews. So I showed up at the correct time with my updated resume. I get ushered into a tiny room with two people. I have come to refer to these two people as ‘the sharks’, ‘the corporate sharks’. The woman was named Buffy, that’s right, no shit, Buffy. The guy was named…umm…I never did get his name, however, the sight of his receding hairline flanked by stiffly gelled spikes of mousey brown hair will forever be singed into the dark crevices of my forever developing self respect. The interview went horrible, needless to say. I couldn’t force myself to do the (what I have come to refer to as) ‘corporate whore dance’. I stuttered, sighed, yawned and basically picked my nose. They tried to convince me to beg them for a job and instead I got up, thanked them for their time and asked them if they would be needing that copy of my resume. That was (basically) that.

Once upon another time (this morning) I was driving to work. Happy, late, excited about getting to Starbucks and generally looking forward to my day. I came upon a stoplight and realized that there was a car waiting to pull out of a dry cleaning parking lot and into the flow of traffic. I was feeling generally jovial so I didn’t inch up the extra feet and sincerely smiled at my fellow motorist, giving them the okay to pull out. EEERRRRRKKKKK- Stop the flipping press- it was him, Mr. spiked, receding hairline. He looked at me and I looked at him. He had a slightly confused look of recognition on his face and I looked like I just swallowed a guinea pig – a dead guinea pig. Thus began my ultimate race to the grand finale of who will have a better life. This instruments of this race were cars, Peachtree Street, morning rush hour and of course, my imagination! We even did a pit stop in the same strip mall, him to withdrawal money from the ATM and me to get my coffee. We were back in our cars and racing each other again within five minutes. I pulled back into the flow of traffic from the southerly end of the strip mall parking lot and he chose the middle exit that actually has a stoplight. Much to my beguilement, I was stuck waiting at the light on the main street while he was pulling out of the parking lot under the protection of the stoplight. Nonetheless, I caught up and it was on again. Eventually I realized that I was grossly exaggerating the situation of sharing a morning commute with this individual. I had turned the whole thing into this sick contest (at times reaffirming) of who would have the better life. While I was inside Starbucks I was imaging him walking in and apologizing for his (and Buffy’s) foolishness. I imagined myself saying to him, “oh that’s fine really, for the best in fact. I have found meaningful employment with something I actually GIVE A FLYING SHIT ABOUT”! AT this point I realized that I might be taking things a bit far. In the end, who won the race you ask? Well, Peachtree Street veers off to the right at the intersection of Roswell road and Roswell veers to the left. We were headed in different directions. I was fine with that, it was the only way it could have been.

1 comment:

Marian said...

Uh. No. I'm pretty sure you have won the race darling. Perhaps that stuff about veering onto seperate paths makes for good writing... but c'mon now... if you win the rat race, you are still a rat. The only way to really win is not to play. Besides, Doll, I know you... winning matters. And you have won.