Saturday and Sunday we had brilliant luck furnishing our place. We hit up some yard sales and got a table and some chairs and some other cool knickknacks. We drove to goodwill and sprung for new mattresses still wrapped in plastic. The only problem was we had no sheets. We ordered some but they decided they were going to come in the mail for a few days so we deflated the air mattresses and slept on top of the plastic wrapped ones. SO much more comfortable but SOOOO much louder. Every time I moved the plastic crinkled and woke me up.
My boss was this 43 year old guy named Rob. A very large dude with a curly eggshell mullet with the tips blonded out. He was one of those guys who seemed almost too nice to the point where you don't really trust him because he's being so supportive. I realize that was his job and he was sposed to be that supportive in order to get people to stick with the job so I tried my best to be friendly back. He did have two ukeleles in the office and let me play them whenever we had a break so that helped.
The job is simple: Be funny and charming and convince people that they need to sponsor a child for about a dollar a day. For their $30 a month the child gets food, clothes, medicine, shelter, and an education and in return for your sponsorship you get a package with a picture of the kid, info about the area, stationary that you can write to your child and they can respond in their own hand, and a big warm, fuzzy, feeling that you've done some good in the world.
The first day it was me and the only other guy who signed up learning the pitch and practicing it. To me it was a script or a comedy routine and after 4 or 5 run downs I pretty much had it. The other guy, who looked to be my age but was in fact fifteen years older than me, couldn't seem to get it down. I helped out where I could telling him to pretend it was a story he was telling me instead of a bunch of information. That seemed to help a bit but he still couldn't remember the info. I found out after that he had other things on his mind like having to go see his attorney later about a car crash he was involved in and after that his physical therapist to deal with the back and leg pain he was experiencing from being hit as well as having pain from two teeth that needed to be pulled out of his mouth. Tough guy for dealing with all that AND trying to do this job.
Second day we got put in the field. We met at the office with the three girl who make up the rest of the team, Maya, Monique, and Kacie. All wonderful human beings and a handful of fun. We rode the bus to our respective spots together and Rob set Monique, the other guy Terry, and myself up downtown each on a corner and said "Do Work." I drank about 6 cups of coffee that day and didn't get a single signature. Rob loved my enthusiasm and dancing (once the sun went behind the buildings it got SO cold and SO windy SO DAMN FAST! and i still didn't have long pants so i had to keep warm somehow!) and said I'd get it eventually there was no doubt.
I met Dylan at a bar three blocks from our house called Twilight Exit. Pretty funky laid back place. They have two pinball machines, a joust machine, Street fighter, and a photo booth as well as 1.75 PBR drafts from 4-8. I got a beer and a shot of whiskey to warm up and ordered a Twilight Burger because 4 hipsters in front of me all ordered em. (*Note* When I mention hipsters in this blog do not assume they are the same as NYC hipsters. Thus far I have met a lot of people that I would immediately tag as hipsters because of the clothes they wear, of bikes they ride, etc. but the startling difference here thus far seems to be that none of them are assholes. That NYC judgmental bullshit doesn't seem to have made it out here. The closest I've come is my yelling out my window at a guy on a fixie bike and him flipping me off before I made it clear that I wanted to tell him that he had five bucks sticking out of his back pocket and he was sure to lose it. Then he actually rode up to the window and apologized and thanked me. I'm going to an animal collective show on tuesday and I expect it to be flooded with hipsters so I'll further my research there and report back.) Now a Twilight Burger having not read what it was before I ordered it is a big ol burger (that you have no say in how it is cooked. Chef's preference) with grilled onions, covered in two pieces of cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, two strips of bacon, two pieces of jalapeno peppers, and cream cheese.
That's right. Cream Cheese.
So apparently Cream Cheese on hot dogs is a Seattle Pastime (Tried it. Is awesome) and it was so good they started incorporating it into other foods. I thought it was weird too but I tried it at our friend Ricky's place Cafe Racer (go there. is also awesome) and inhaled the damn thing.
So Dylan and I each got a Twilight Burger that came with one side (When I asked the bartender Siral how the fries were she replied "they're good but you want tots." I looked to the hipsters next to me and they all agreed so I went with tater tots instead of fries. Boss move for the win. ) We each killed our food and drinks and at that point, having stood on my feet from 9 am- the moment I walked in the bar at 7 and having to be as happy as a worker at the Wonderful World of Disney made me dead to the world. Got home and immediately passed out at 8. Of course I woke up again at 130 and totally threw off my sleep schedule but that's whatever.
Wednesday I went back to work a bit fuzzy. I got teamed up with Maya to go out on our own. Maya was an awesome 20 year old with long blonde dreads some of which had been dyed blue, she wore tights that had Magritte like clouds on them and had a really outgoing adorable personality. She also wore upper playground gear or some of my favorite artists so we got along pretty well. I kept her spirits up and she kept mine up as we worked the art school crowd in front of Whole Foods on 15th.
The highlights of that day were few but excellent. I met a really cool girl named Margo who had an even more awesome white pitbull named Cuddles who fell in love with me. I hung out with the pair of them for a good fifteen minutes talking and scratching Cuddles before Margo asked if I was going to try to sell her a child. I told her she had been really cool and friendly to me so I wasn't going to pitch her and she relaxed a bit more. Her friend came back and the two of them dragged Margo clawing and barking away from me...I miss that dog.
The second highlight was running into Riley. I met riley the weekend before on the wooden boat ride we took. He was from Sacramento going to Cornish (the art school by whole foods) for Acting and reminded me a lot of my old neighbor Nathaniel in that he was tall, very laid back, had a super deep voice, and loved laughing. We got along pretty well but it slipped my mind to ask for his number so we could each have a friend in this city. And then he walked by. I walked up to him and said "You...I know you". He didn't recognize me and said "yeah okay and kept walking but I could see there was a little *tink* of recognition so I walked up to him. I said, "no...I KNOW you," and instantly his face LIT up, he jumped a foot off the ground and yelled "HOLY SHIT!" then broke into a huge smile and ran up to me. Slapped fives, he gave me a hug and was just so excited to see me as was I. It was really the first time I'd had that experience of seeing a familiar face randomly in a big city here and I assume it was his too so we were both just way hype. We trade numbers and agreed that we were going to hang out.
I didn't pitch Riley either and after he left to go to class and I was still basking in the glow of an awesome hug I started thinking.
"This job is great because I get to walk up to people and do my best to get them to lower their city defenses. I get them to smile, to laugh, just do ANYTHING to acknowledge my existence and then do my best to be charming and make friends with them while I still hold their attention. and the ones who stop are so nice because they already know what I'm up to the second I say 'hello'. But they stop, they hear me out. They smile. They laugh at my jokes. And they know it's coming. The hook. The line. 'Now all I need is your Credit card number." And you can instantly see the corners of their smiles drop a little. Their eyes glaze a bit. The bond has been broken. Their trust in me betrayed. They know me for 30 seconds and trust me enough to tell me their names and let me into their lives a little bit and I make friends with them them and do my best to convince them that I'm being genuine and really want to be their friend and then turn around and let them down. That's the only part of this job I don't like. I'm turning my brand new friends into pigeons. And even though they're doing a good thing and it is a good cause and they are saving lives, on a personal level, I'm still trying to sucker them into giving me their money. I'm selling them a good feeling instead of just giving them a good feeling like I do when I make them laugh...I don't like it."
And as all this swirled around me I just started dancing in this square and asking everyone that passed how they were doing. "How was your day sir? You doing alright Miss? You doin good man? Cool. Keep on bein cool." Every once and a while people would stop and take out their earbuds or stutter step for a second as if thinking "wait, he's not going to try to sell me something?" and I'd just smile and ask them how they were again.
I didn't pitch again for the rest of the day and just kept doing my best to make people happy instead. Maya didn't end up getting any signatures that day either and the other girls I think managed only two total so nobody minded that the new guy didn't get anything done.
That night I wasn't as exhausted as I was excited. I got home to find out UPS had tried to deliver our internet modem so Dylan and I rushed off to pick it up and swung by Target to get some sheets. We got home, tore open the plastic on our beds, tore open the modem got it all set up and spent the evening craigslisting furniture and torrenting tons of movies. We played a game or two of Catan, a board game I bought for the apartment, and called it a night.
Thursday I woke up and just didn't want to go to work. I was in good spirits I just knew my heart wasn't going to be in it. Dylan drove me to work and I played some ukelele and chatted with the girls before heading up the street to canvass. I was meandering and saying good morning to the university students and then a woman stopped. I think she knew a head of time the whole spiel but asked me what I was doing and seemed genuinely interested. Kind of in a mothering type way just seemed like she was in the market for a new things to care over. I pitched her and after lowering the price from 35 a month to 30 got her to sign up. I told Maya (who was working with me again) and she hugged me telling me she was so proud of me and that I was going to be an awesome canvasser. I stewed in that for a few minutes then ripped my shirt off, threw my Amurika hat on, marched up to the office a block away, put my stuff down on a chair neatly, told Rob I quit, and left without waiting for a response. I went for a walk through the University campus expecting him to run after me and talk me out of it but he didn't come so I swung through the art building and grabbed a bunch of pamphlets and flyers and job listing tags then called dylan to come get me.
As soon as I got in the car and told him I instantly felt better than I had since the beginning of the week. I didn't have to con anyone anymore. I could go back to making friends not trying to sell people a fake friendship. I was elated and spent the rest of the day on craigslist checking up furniture and jobs and redoing my resume. Dylan got home from running errands to tell me he got a job as a construction worker (SO PROUD!) and we went to twilight exit for happy hour.
There we sat down at a table of folks and started making friends. We met a few folks but forgot most of their names. Stuart and Jason were two guys who were carpenters that I met and I picked jason's brain because he was an artist as well. He told me galleries in Seattle don't employ art handlers they outsource to places like Arttech so not to waste my time dropping off resumes (which saved me from hiking all over downtown the following day!) and some other useful tidbits. Stuart then invited us to a party his friend was having. His friend had just got back form Snowboarding in Pakistan and was doing a slideshow of the trip. Dylan and I both agreed to go but ended up getting there after the pakistan slideshow. We saw the 2nd feature which was a vermont trip from july that was also stunningly beautiful and met a few people, made a few friends, and headed out. The whole crowd were snowboarders or somehow involved in something similar and were all really friendly relaxed people and it was great to find that crowd.
Went home feeling like I had a great day and slept better that I had since moving into the apartment.
Yesterday was a great first day of not working. I woke up and made pancakes and dylan set off to drop paperwork off to his construction job he starts monday. I did some resume sending and cleaning and remembered that today (FRIDAY!) was the day that my two big boxes of stuff from my ma were coming! I ran downstairs and taped a note to the front door with my number on it (we have no door buzzer of any kind on our building. the doorbells are outside our individual apartment doors but the front door to the building locks automatically. Stupid right?) telling him to call me if he showed up.
The boxes came about an hour later and it was like christmas morning. I ripped open the boxes to find clothes! Art! Siverware! Blankets! XBOX! MY PROJECTOR! Just elation in two big brown boxes. The only bad thing in the box was a framed print I bought in mexico had the glass smashed. An easy fix. "DYLAN! We're going to Lowes!" Dylan needed to buy tools and such anyway and we decided to mount the projector on the wall permanently anyway so we needed wood and such so we set off. Wood for projector shelf, tools for dylan, as many paint swatches as my pockets could fit for wall decor, a new sheet of plexiglass cut to fit my print's frame, and a few other things later our apartment was looking awesome. I checked craigslist again and found a free couch that had just been put up and I told dylan to call the girl and be charming. We managed to talk her into giving it to us and borrowing her cousin's truck to deliver it for $20 saturday. High fives were had all around.
Skull an cross bones in a heart made of paint swatches.
What does this weekend hold for our two adventurers?
A sofa!
A Flea Market!
MOVIE NIGHT!
MORE FUN THAN HUMANS SHOULD BE ALLOWED HAVE!
Miss you all tons and tons and tons.
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