How are you, Chuck? OUTSTANDING!

I figured something out today.

I like to be in control.

Of every possible situation in my life.

Except...you know...in the throes of passion.

But even then I get to choose who throes me.

I walked into work today to do the closing shift at The Department Store (now to be called TDS) and ran into a coworker by the restroom. I asked her how the day had been. She replied with "it's a world of suck."

I asked her why and she ominously proclaimed that it shall all be explained once I get to my counter.

There has been a new TDS development. Whenever we answer the phone, we have to say...

"It's an OUTSTANDING day at TDS! How may I help you?"

Seriously.

Are you serious?

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I simultaneously threw up my breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and shit out my two mugs full of Birchwood Blend french press. Imagined barf n' shit is never a good way to start a work day.

It's an OUTSTANDING day at TDS!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!??!!??!??!?!

They want to turn us into robots where literally the customer could do all of the following during a single transaction:

1) return a three quarter empty jar of moisturizer because it didn't make her look like she was eight years old again
2) take a shit on the floor
3) smear SUCKA! on the mirrors with the shit
4) howl like a monkey while calling us shallow cunts.

And she could dance herself out the automatic doors, rubbing her crotch with fistfuls of exchanged money, with ne'er a glance from management or security.

We would just have to smile politely, tell them her behavior was OUTSTANDING because apparently WE'RE NEVER ALSO ALLOWED TO SAY NO TO A CUSTOMER!

Never say no.

Rapists abound applaud TDS' newest developments.

To TDS, their employees are nothing but expendable robots who could be replaced because we don't like to force people to open credit cards (that have a 26% interest rate) after they've already said no (twice) and we don't like to answer the phones sounding like we run a children's television show on PBS hosted by my insipid, uber conservative, hyper Christian Uncle.

Outstanding.

I really couldn't figure out why this whole "Outstanding!" thing bothered me so much until I realized that it makes me incredibly embarrassed.

Which is rich coming from this girl.

BUT I realized that I like to be IN CONTROL of embarrassing situations!

Here...


Or here...


Here even...


All at work. All looking like an asshole. AN ASSHOLE BY CHOICE!

All my coworkers made fun of Outstanding! All day. We prank called each other just to point and laugh as we all tried to suck down our pride to answer the phone sounding like a douche-bot. My friend Brian said it was disgusting. My dad said "oh fucking shit" and then laughed at me.

It just sounds really really stupid. Say it out loud. "It's an outstanding day at TDS. This is [insert name] at [insert department.] How can I help you?" Do you really want to say that? Can you say that without sounding lame? Or laughing at yourself? On the other hand...do you really want to sit there and listen to a salesperson say it? What if you have to be transferred from Guest Services to a certain department? Because THEN you would have to sit there and listen to that shit TWICE?

I want to be proud of what I do. I'm not. Most of the time this doesn't really bother me because I live a very rich life outside of work. I have music. I have art. I have theatre. I'm not a starving orphan in Darfur. I'm a middle class white girl who collects too many trinkets and likes to eat food with a lot of taste and texture.

Sometimes, I really hate saying that I only work in retail for cosmetics at TDS and I'm not working on a show right now. It's that shitty, judgmental part of my personality coming out to jerk off on the ridiculous expectations I have of myself. It’s just that…I spend 35 hours of week in a mall. That's the majority of my waking week. That sucks. I've spent more time in a mall this past year then I have my entire life combined. That's scary. And sad. I hate malls.

The good news is when I move to New York in September, I'm TOTALLY gonna be a part time dog walker. With a fistful of leashes, pride means nothing and joy comes in the form of a personable pup with short legs.

I still think make-up is fun. I love my bright red lipstick and swishy dark brown eyeliner. I love dressing up and taking my time to look good. I love doing make-up for my friends, especially for my friends in a band or when my friends get married.

It's just that...I loved Bobbi Brown for so long and always wanted to work for her line. Just like that night I worked at First Ave, I've gotten the make-up thing out of my system and am ready to move on. To what? I don't know right now.

I know...I get paid a good amount of non-commissioned money (meaning a very high base pay for retail) to play with make-up all day and shoot the shit with my mostly awesome coworkers. But even that gets really old. Because, in reality, the management is not outstanding. Standing around all day bored is not outstanding. TDS is not outstanding. Though part of me really does believe in Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and its awesomeness in the world of make-up, it's not really all that outstanding. Not for me.

I actually pulled a Junior High moment today when I read the Uncle Tupelo liner notes at work. How I got away with it? I hid it behind the Bobbi Brown Cosmetics newsletter, like it was Seventeen magazine behind my Science book or something. I still managed to reach my desired selling goal, clean, take out the garbage, and close properly. SO EAT IT! Sweet sweetness.

I just want to say "I'm a..." and be excited and proud about that. I don't have an answer for the "..." yet.

I'm done.

With one final point...

There's a scene in Six Feet Under, Season Two, when Ruth the mom is talking to Claire's guidance counselor. He says that Claire is acting that way because she just wants a meaningful life. "Doesn't everyone," Ruth asks. He says, "you'd be surprised."

I can't stop thinking about that one scene I saw two weeks ago. What's my meaningful life?

Luckily...I stopped caring about the Outstanding! shit for about two moments when I was sitting out on a bench on a break. I was reading Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Coca Puffs*" when I got to the chapter about Pam Anderson being the modern day equivalent to Marilyn Monroe (he makes a valid, albeit insane, point.) As I sat there sipping my giant mall employee sized Diet Coke and savoring my mint chocolate cookie from Mrs. Fields (MALLTASTIC!), I read this paragraph in which he refers to the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape...

"My eyes have drifted back to my TV just now, and I spent a few moments looking at Tommy Lee's penis. I realize this is no brilliant insight, but Tommy Lee's genitalia is stupidly huge. In the scene I'm watching right now, he appears to be beating his penis against the steering wheel of a boat. It's oddly reassuring. In fact, it's making me think about Joe DiMaggio again: DiMaggio used his 36-inch, 36-ounce bat to hit safely in fifty-six straight games, and Tommy used his 10-inch, 13-ounce bat to hit Heather Locklear, BOBBI BROWN, and the single-most important woman of our times."

BOBBI BROWN! What the FUCK!?!?!??!!!

I sat there, shocked and wondering...Who the FUCK could he mean? Was it a typo? Did Chuck actually mean Bobby Brown (as in Whitney Houston's husband)? I mean, I know he's not gay but I wouldn't put it past Tommy Lee to take his baseball bat dick out of his leather pants and slap Bobby Brown with it. But that's not what Chuck means. It couldn't be. I know it. Dude...did MY Bobbi Brown, as in my in spite of everything cosmetics leader, actually date Tommy Lee back in the day or something? I thought about it for a moment. There's no fucking way. Because she's little miss natural mother of three married to some rich dude in a big house on the shore and I'm pretty sure he's big mister nasty who fucks a lot of holes AROUND the shore, be it woman, goat, or canned cranberry sauce. So it had to be some sort of typo. But then I couldn't let it go. It was just too TOO good.

The scene played out in my head.

This man....


…would take out his horse cock to hit this woman.


I was imagining what kind of kinky alterna-sex Tommy Lee and Bobbi Brown would have that involved a lot of dick choreography. Sex that was simultaneously skanky and wholesome, a melding of the two worlds. For some reason, doggie style kept coming into my head. This, I could JUST NOT figure out.

I was tripping on my daydream.

I called my roommate and she looked it up on google. We discovered that Chuck ACTUALLY meant this woman...


As in BobbiE Brown from Warrant's "Cherry Pie" video.

It all makes sense now.

It was indeed a typo.

A wonderful, personally significant, ridiculous, perverse typo.

After work, I got in my car, turned up my radio up to blare Uncle Tupelo’s “No Depression,” audibly shuddered to rid myself of TDS nast and peeled the fuck out of that mall.

Outstanding!