Today I was Called 'Sir'

Today I was called 'sir'.

First, let me say that I have a complex about my appearance.  Although I have feminine features, I grew up constantly being told I look like my dad.  Sure, my father is handsome, but as a little girl I didn't appreciate my appearance being likened to a grown man.

One time, I showed a picture of my father, age twelve, to my niece and nephew.  I asked them who they thought was in the picture.

"That's you. Auntie, when you were a little girl."

"No," I replied laughing.  "It's Grampy when he was a little boy."

They laughed, too.  "Wow, you look like Grampy!"

I knew.  I know.  I look like a man because I look like my father.  To offset this, I've always tried to be girlie.  I put barrettes in my hair, I wear make-up everyday and I prefer skirts over pants.

A couple years ago, I was cast as Mr. Mushnik in Little Shop of Horrors.  I had originally intended to play the role as Mrs. Mushnik, and prepared my character to be a cougar, intent on coercing Seymour into partnership through more seductive means. After a few weeks, the director decided he wanted me to play a man after all.  I was hesitant at first, but then decided to embrace the reverse sex role.  I practiced my voice, my posture, my gestures and even developed my "man face".

I nailed it.  Some of the stage crew who showed up mid-production didn't realize I was a woman until they saw me half-dressed in the green room.  The audience was dumbfounded I was actually a woman when I revealed my sex as we mingled post-performance.  Even my husband, the love of my life, thought that when my character came on stage that it was just "some guy" before he realized - Good God!  That's my wife!

To make matters worse, the time it takes for me to transform into a man is less than 10 minutes.  I don't know which is worse - that I can convincingly look like a man, or that I can convincingly look like a man in such a short amount of time.

This brings me back to today, when I was called "sir".

I wanted to buy a soda, something I don't have very often, and usually give in to when I have a craving.  I stopped into a gas station and retrieved a Diet Pepsi from the cooler then approached the counter with my item.  The temperature outside was nearly 40 degrees, not bad for early December, so I felt I could get away with wearing my down-filled white vest with faux fur trim instead of a bulky winter jacket.  Because the turtleneck I was wearing was purple, I selected purple eyeshadow for my make-up that morning. The young man at the counter scanned my soda and asked: "Is that all today, sir?"

Sir?  I turned around.  He must have been talking to a man behind me who just wanted to put $20 into his tank.  There was no one there.  Slowly returning my gaze back to the cashier I asked him with confusion:"Sir?"

He cleared his throat: "Is that all today?"

"Yeah," I answered quietly.  He told me the total and I fished around in my purse (purple as well) for the exact change.  I was replaying his question in my head.  Had I misheard him?  Which word could I have misconstrued for sir?  Was he just being a jerk?  Did he misspeak and hoped to correct himself nonchalantly?  The puzzled look on my face was inevitably too much for him to bear and he confessed the situation.

"People hardly ever listen to what I say.  I ask them: 'How are you today?' and they answer: 'That's all, thanks.'  So I just started saying nonsense to see who was paying attention.  I saw the confusion on your face and thought, Oops!  She's paying attention!  Better be careful what I say."

I laughed, relieved.  He didn't think I looked like a man after all.  He was simply doing an experiment in attentiveness.

As I left the store I began thinking more deeply about this.  We encounter so many people in our lives but because we are preoccupied with work, family, illness, finances, appearances, we loose sight of them even though are standing right in front of us.  That clerk was not a member of my family, nor was he an old acquaintance; he was some guy who worked at a gas station.  And I was just another person coming in to buy a soda.  We could have had a simple transactional exchange: without friendliness and without ever acknowledging each other, too wrapped up in our own interests to care about the person with whom we are interacting.

Mother Theresa is quoted saying: "Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier."

That is the person I want to be.  The friendly customer, the kind coworker, the thoughtful friend and the loving aunt and wife.  I want to be the positive energy that makes people feel better about themselves and feel better about their lives, if even for a moment.  I think if we all take a moment to put down the phone, look someone in the eye, genuinely smile and have even the simplest of conversation it will offer warm sunlight into their day and ours. 

Today I was called 'sir', and because of it, I was made aware of the disconnect I have with people.  It made me feel more self-conscious than looking like a man.

Ladies - Stop Using Your Foot to Flush

Don't be an ass - use your hand to flush.

Lately I've noticed women flushing the toilet with their feet.  I see one foot lift, hear the swirl of the bowl, then watch that foot settle back into place.  What's more, they dispense the paper towels before washing their hands so they don't have to touch the handle post hand wash. They then use their damp paper towel to turn the faucet off and open the door to the bathroom to make their escape from the apparent diseased bathroom.

This germ-phobic nonsense has to stop.

You know what's gross?  That I flush a toilet whose handle has been manipulated by the bottom of your scuzzy shoe.  The bottom of your shoe has a cornucopia of germs, much more than the hand you used to wipe does.  And brace yourselves girls - you expose your hands to just as many germs when you open the stall door. 

BOOM!  I just blew your efforts out of the water!  You aren't unlocking the stall and opening the door with your feet, right?  Chew on that for a minute.  I wipe myself - flush the toilet with handle of pestilence, and then open the door.  Yeah, that same door you open.  With your hands.  In fact, there are plenty of things you touch every day that have more germs than toilets, including your cell phones.

Save me from the germs!

Let's be realistic - what does it matter if you touch the handle of the toilet when you're going to be washing your hands in 10 seconds anyway?!  Do you think some brain-eating amoeba will absorb into your skin and kill you?

Consider this as well: your phobia of germs spreads more germs for others.  Because you feel it's necessary to dispense the paper towels before you wash your hands the knob of the paper towel dispenser now has germs it wouldn't see at all if you had washed your hands first.  Bitch.

At the end of the day, your obsession to be germ-free spreads the germs a little more for everyone else.  So stop flushing the toilet with your foot.

I Long for the Yesteryears I Never Experienced

I'm watching the Andy Griffith show.  I'm also halfway through a bottle of wine.  I don't know if they are related.  Anyway, as I watch this show, I think how ridiculously wholesome it is.  Was life in the 50's really this innocent, or was it exacerbated through the TV world?  It's like today's TV programming, but paradoxically it's completely the opposite.

"Too much wine, tipsy Miss Alyson?" you might be wondering.  No, please allow me to explain.

We exploit common behaviors on TV, but these behaviors might not be a genuine reflection of our culture.  I recall traveling in Up With People back in 1998 and in staying with some host families in Sweden, they asked me about the authenticity of The Jerry Springer Show. 

"Is everyone in America like this?" I was asked.

"No," I'd reply with my head hanging low.  What miserable ambassadors these people were to my culture.

Sadly, there is some truth to the people on The Jerry Springer Show, and to anyone, really, on reality TV.  There are a lot of white-trash, smack-talking, uneducated, low moral people in our country.  Sadly, still, people want to emulate them.  Why? Because their behavior is rewarded.  I suppose I could act like a smart-ass, over-sexed, ignorant catty bitch and make lots of money by acquiring my own TV show, but is this the type of character for which I want to be known?  NO!  I want people to reflect on my time on this earth and think back on me as a respectful, kind, thoughtful, giving, loving and intelligent individual.  Making a quick buck by selling oneself out is no different than prostitution in my book.

Back to Andy Griffith.  Were the people of his era genuinely that wholesome, or was it an exaggeration of the way most people were known to be?  I was born in 1979, and I feel the generations in which I've lived have been one debacle after the other.  I wish I were a wife of the 1950's.  I could be a stay-at-home wife, cooking, cleaning, knitting, sewing, gardening, reading, walking the dog and feeding the wood stove.  I'd have a warm meal and a cold drink ready for Matt when he got home from a hard day's work.  I would volunteer at the library or at church, I'd have shallow friendships at the salon, and see my family and girlfriends as often as I like.  But I live in 2013.  An undefined, rat-raced era filled with people dizzy by overstimulating media and the insatiable urge to have their every immediate desire fulfilled.

Furthermore, if people really do emulate those on TV, if trashy reality TV shows were banned and replaced with wholesome characters with good morals, would the face of our society change?  Media is very influential, and TV plays a major role in this.  This is why I blame Mary Tyler Moore for destroying the housewifely lifestyle that I should be living.  More on that later.

It's time to pour another glass of wine.  I'd love to know your thoughts.

The Best Interview Ever

I don't want to cause confusion.  This blog isn't about the best interview I ever gave, it's the best interview I ever conducted.  And it isn't because the interviewee was stellar and impressive, it was because of the sheer irony of the interview.  Here's how it went down:

I used to work as a secretary for a hardwood flooring store.  It was a pretty good gig, except for the solidarity but when we ran ads for flooring installers there was plenty of foot traffic.  Although experience was preferred it wasn't necessary.  I would stress this to the applicants, saying it was easier to train installers to our level of standard when there was no preexisting experience, but they always wanted to illustrate that they had competency.  Most of the time they would say they had worked in a construction environment - fine.

"So no flooring experience then?" I would say to clarify to them that their experience and floor installation weren't actually the same thing.

After the applicants completed the application, and if the application was legible and intelligible (there was once a man who misspelled his hometown), I would conduct a preliminary interview.  This one time when we ran a help wanted ad, someone stopped in to apply.  The process was the same as it always had been: he completed the application, I reviewed it, it was filled out intelligibly, so I started asking him questions to further qualify him as a potential employee.  None of this was out of the ordinary. 

It wasn't until he began to answer my questions that it became the best interview ever.  Ready? I asked the applicant why he should be considered for hire and he replied "Because I'm really good with my hands."

I could have believed him because he had an long history of construction work.  But there was something off.  He continued to explain his detailed work history, but my focus was fading from his words and focusing on his hands.  See, language is an interesting thing.  A simple word or phrase can cause a person to take action.  When this applicant said he was good with his hands, I was drawn to look at them.  When I looked at them, I couldn't stop staring...

Staring...

Staring at his index finger whose tip was missing.  The skin of his finger was folded and healed like the end of a hot dog.  He tapped the stub of his finger on the desk as he spoke.  "Yup, I've worked in construction for years, and I'm really good with my hands."

Not that day, I thought.

Needless to say the man wasn't hired.  I did tell my boss about him and we had a pretty good laugh.

"If he loses a finger on a good day I'd hate to see what happens on a bad day," he said.

What can we take from all of this?  When we arrive at a potential employer's location to sell ourselves as a great candidate, we need to choose our words wisely and not try to bullshit our way into hire.  Our lies might not be as apparent as a stubby finger on the guy who claimed to be good with his hands, but if we claim our skills lie where they actually don't, we're not doing anyone any favors.