A JOB TO FORGET
Hot Dogs and The Vegan: The Big Face Off — When Glamour Turned Gross in Under 7 Days
All that glitters is not gold
The headline in my brain flashed with bright lights as bells pealed,
“Small-town Awkward Girl Snags Big City Glamour Job!”
My body tingled with nervous excitement. Me! I was the small-town awkward girl who struck gold.
Somehow I was selected to be part of an elite group working in the big neighboring city, Philadelphia.
My teen years were only recently tucked away — still young enough to be properly naïve and impressed by little things.
I’d be joining people who commute over a bridge (a bridge!) to an exotic location, the big city, filled with dazzling jet-setters.
Over the river and through the streets, to skyscraper land, I go!
The city avenues bulged with traffic, pedestrians, professionals, and mini-celebrities. Be still my heart.
As a small-town suburban girl from New Jersey, Philadelphia represented freedom.
Goodbye hum drum life and hello sophisticated future.
Philly, the City of Brotherly Love. Discovery. A community teeming with cultures, art, and theatre.
High-rise apartments and 5-star restaurants are peppered throughout banking districts.
The thought of rubbing elbows with superior beings of supreme success took my breath away.
Me.
My fingers trembled as I donned my uniform for my first day.
The black outfit was sleek, trendy, and a bit sexy. This attire was a far cry from my green Girl Scout dress complete with matching sash, weighed down by an over-achiever’s hand-sewn badges.
I marveled at my slightly racy image. A rebel lived within me.
The thin but sturdy strap slipped around my neck and I adjusted the flat tray to rest across my waist. I was ready.
Pride oozed from every pore.
I was the newest addition as a Player Cigarette Girl, little ol’ me.
Job duties focused on marketing the new release of Player cigarettes — handing out sample boxes to spread the word.
“Regular? Menthol? Player Cigarettes, here!”
One day of training had my head in the clouds and my eyes twinkled with great anticipation.
I absorbed the frenetic energy of the hustlers and bustlers.
Would I be discovered? People will see me, really see me. Maybe I can start as an extra in a movie shoot.
What if Channel 6 asks me to intern at the Action News desk?
Yes, please.
That first day energized me and fueled my dreams.
By the end of the eye-opening second day, my finely-crafted vision showed signs of wear and tear and the edges of my mental picture began to yellow and curl.
The beauty rapidly faded.
Rude awakenings. Beeping horns, flashing lights, concrete, asphalt, three-piece suits, and vagrants took center stage.
I hadn’t noticed the grey landscape the day before. The horizon blended with block buildings.
The elites were too busy to stop. No one wanted free samples. City people have grit and skepticism coursing through their bloodstream.
They also sport strong elbows.
Entrepreneurs rush — brimming with self-importance — past the trashy nobody, the street hawker with a sad little tray, and put me in my place.
How do I fail at a job when the product is free?
My dream was unraveling at warp speed. I needed a creative approach. Time to switch gears, maybe even deviate from what I was instructed to do.
Regret for my decision to take the job became all-consuming. When my loathing cup runneth over, I turned the hate toward myself.
But, I am not a quitter.
Survival instincts kicked in. I refused to return to the home base each day with my tail between my legs and cigarettes on my tray.
How hard could this be?
I set my sights, ducked down alleys, and smoked until my blackened lungs snapped, crackled, and popped.
The street of strangers void of eye contact echoed my loneliness.
Vendors, though, could be found easily at every corner.
We were one and the same; they quickly became my people. Idle chit-chat and concocting grandiose plans to ‘stick it to the man’ filled my shifts.
We derived our own currency, a personalized bartering system. Three free samples of Player boxes got me a hot dog.
Those dogs were addicting — diamonds in the rough and worth much more than some measly cigarettes.
Being pummeled daily by the assault of exhaust fumes at the intersections was offensive with one exception.
That same exhaust was the secret ingredient that elevated all street food from basic fare to gourmet delicacies.
I’ve yet to replicate the deliciousness of a Philly hot dog sold on the corner.
Holding the bun-filled favorite behind my car to capture the essence of expelled fumes was a line I couldn’t cross.
I learned to blow through my Player stash in the first few hours of my day through trading.
I acquired a beautiful scarf of rainbow colors, lightly woven with strands of sparky threads, for 5 boxes of menthol samples.
Oh, I was chic. I felt momentarily pretty, rich, and savvy.
Once my inventory was smoked, hawked, and traded, I was stuck filling the hours before pick up.
What was left to do but the Vegan vendor?
He was a naturalist through and through. I wasn’t familiar with vegan commitment.
His stand of two card tables had scant offerings including tired lettuce and wimpy carrots, cucumbers, and brown.
I wasn’t well versed in vegetables back then and my memory fails me now.
So, yeah, brown was displayed on his table.
He drank juice meals. Was he super healthy or simply dirt poor? Bizarre and intriguing to a meat and potatoes girl.
The man-boy was a foreigner to me and not necessarily in a pleasant way.
Yet, I couldn’t stay away.
Scruffy and unkempt, earthy smells of soil and roots clung to his skin and hair. Distaste tickled my nose.
Curiosity pulled me to him in an unsettling way.
I was fascinated. I had tapped into an underground population my family and friends would never encounter.
All growed up, I was.
He had a one-room apartment close by. A tired stained futon and a leaky sink with one cabinet took up the limited space — aside from a small bathroom, I suspected hid behind the sheet tacked across another doorway.
I succumbed to canoodling.
We were mid-kiss when an overwhelming scent hit me, causing me to recoil and stiffen in revulsion.
Eggplant. It just had to be. I despise eggplant.
Double whammy. Being smacked in the face by both an unpleasant odor and reality jolted me from my ill-fated fantasy.
Clarity burst through my haze.
This job was a sham, the vegan was a joke, and I hated trying to fit in a world I didn’t belong.
Nothing was exotic, people were rude, the job was far from glamourous, and in the 80s being a vegan had the air of a special kind of cult.
“I eat hotdogs every day.”
He paled.
Just like that, game over.
I exited his hovel, quit my job that day, aimed to lose the few pounds I gained from the pseudo-gourmet street offerings, and vowed to treat myself better.
At least I had the scarf.
Over the river and through the streets, from skyscraper land, I go… back where I belonged and armed with a life-long lesson.
All that glitters is not gold.
Epilogue: The rainbow scarf disintegrated in the washer. It unraveled much like my big city dreams.
This story was written in response to The Memoirist Pub June prompt offered by the real glamour girl, KiKi Walter.
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