by Patti
College straight out of high school seemed extremy unappealing to me. I mean, I had been in school for a bajillion years already - in a row. Couldn't a girl catch a break? So I decided to take a year off and escape to San Francisco, and completely corrupt my best friend in the process by forcing her to cancel her enrollment into college and come with me. And she did. Because that's what friends are for.
But before we could execute our escape plan, we needed money. My friend snagged a coveted job as "traffic and smile director" at a TCBY yogurt shop at the mall. A job at the mall gave me the shivers, so instead, I decided to audition for a job as a singing telegram girl. And I got it! My career in entertainment was off to a great start! While my friend toiled away at the mall, doling out yogurt, directions and smiles, I drove from office to office and restaurant to restaurant, dressed as a crazy "bag lady", a belly dancer, Polly Darton, the hotpink-clad country singer, and my singing telegram company's version of Mae West - Red Hot Mama. My mom or dad would often come with me - after all, there I was, crossing into foreign territorities dressed like an idiot on a daily basis. Somebody had to protect me - from myself.
Potential dangers aside, I couldn't believe the money I was earning by simply making a fool out of myself. The possibilities were endless! It was even tempting to cancel my escape plan altogether, and just stay in Oregon and sing telegrams the rest of my life, but alas, a plan was a plan, and also: I kind of made my best friend quit college, so I had to see it through. Armed with our hard-earned dough and a truckload of boxes, my parents drove my best friend and I over the border to California, and across the Golden Gate Bridge right into our dreams. We stayed the year we promised ourselves, and sick of Top Ramen and waking steep hills, I came home after that year.
I enrolled into a local college and got a job at a record store - you know, back when they STILL SOLD RECORDS. For those of you post-vinyl, they look something like this:
And that is when I went straight back to the singing telegram company to ask for my job back. By then, it had transferred to a new owner. She was a cool, young girl who lived in a huge, industrial loft in a gritty, artsy part of town. She operated the company right out of her loft, and I would often hang out with her during the day in between "appointments" just to feel immersed in her coolness. All of this made me feel even closer to my dream of being "an Artist".
During this time, I met M, and he would often accompany me on my singing telegrams ventures. Smitten by my gumption, he was happy to be my assistant, blowing up the balloons for me and serving as my "bodyguard" while I delivered my telegrams and made people laugh. He started becoming concerned by some of my appointments; the ones that had me venturing into bars late at night in the middle of hell, and always did his best to accompany me so that my chances of being murdered were somewhat lessened by his evil stare - something for which my parents were grateful. After running out of gas not once but twice while dressed as a belly dancer, he suggested I either get responsible about filling up my tank, or find another job. But nobody put baby in corner, and even though I risked my life walking down the expressway alone dressed like Jasmine from Aladdin, I refused to heed his practical advice.
One night, in the middle of a telegram, the man that I was singing to suddenly grabbed me and lifted me in the air, and started spinning me around, drunkenly singing out of tune right along with me. My company had a strict policy against customers groping us, and my boyfriend? An even stricter policy. Except this time, M was in the car waiting for me, so I didn 't have his handy evil stare to drive away such madness. When I came out and told him the story, his eyes grew intense and his mouth became a line. He didn't have to say it again. My heart knew he was right. I had been thisclose to danger one too many times already, and I sadly had to admit to myself the end of an era had come: It was time to hang up my feather boa.
You and me, kid? The girl from then who dared to dare? We had a good run.
