“Look at it this way: you’ll be going into your office looking all relaxed, tan, and hot. Everyone will hate you. You like that.”
My guy always gives the best pep talks.
Still, after a week in Vegas, where I woke every morning to breakfast in bed and had a vague drunk going by 10 a.m., it was going to take more than envious hatred to get my day started.
The transition to reality was slightly easier for my guy. He had been required to work for a portion of our Vegas trip, though “work” is relative, of course. It was the kind of work that only served to confirm my envy of his job: where I work for a company dominated (I use this term loosely, mind you) almost exclusively by women, he works for a company of men – old school men, to be specific.
It was a group I had no problem endearing myself to, despite being 1) the only female in attendance and 2) a democrat. The tumbler of Jack in my hand certainly didn’t hurt, nor did my penchant for somewhat salty conversation.
At the very least, it was preferable to my own job-related outings, which I have started to feign illness – food poisoning, stroke, face-eating virus, whatever – to get out of.
It’s just so much work to socialize with female colleagues. Discussion usually revolves around topics that I have no point of reference for: daycare, the genius of movies like Mama Mia, and why Vince Vaughn is “fake boyfriend material”. I’d wish someone would explain the concept of “fake boyfriend” to me if I didn’t fear a desire to chew my own hand off in response.
Food, too, is an ordeal. Ordering it (no, a kid portion bunless cheeseburger is NOT on the menu), eating it (is it really necessary to save half a side salad to take home for dinner?), and especially paying for it. Because it’s not enough to split the bill: these women will insist on individual checks for group meals, then each pay their individual bills with a combination of cash and credit, and spend 45 minutes huddled over a phone calculator to determine the exact amount each person should contribute for the tip – which is also paid by both credit card and cash.
In contrast, my guy’s boy’s club will order one of everything on the menu and an endless supply of drinks with two or fewer ingredients (that being ice and alcohol), and stick whatever poor schmuck is left standing with the bill. Sure, it’s a bit ruthless, but at least you don’t have to worry about what’s getting spit into your food by a pissed off server.
My superiority is easy to maintain in such settings; it’s when I’m left to my own devices that I seem to regress into a simmering nitwit.
While my guy spent his mornings in Vegas dealing with a work-related convention, I’d eventually emerge from our hotel room slathered in sunscreen and ready to suck down my morning alcohol allotment by the pool. It was a routine I had fantasized about since the previous February, when outrageous snowfall made beach combing seem a viable career choice.
All the elements of my fantasy were in place: the heat, the sun, a poolside lounge chair and a table littered with empty drink glasses and a half-read Bukowski novel. What I did not envision was a biblical plague of grasshoppers.
My guy and I disagree on the actual amount of grasshoppers needed to constitute biblical proportions – he thinks I’m too generous in my estimate, but he’s never emerged from a blissful mojito-soaked catnap to come eye-to-eye with three of the fuckers.
I concede that I may have over-reacted just the slightest bit. The others by the pool likely didn’t appreciate the crazy lady shrieking and wildly slapping at the ground with a flipflop in each hand. And if those horrid winged beasts hadn’t started flapping dangerously close to my hair, I wouldn’t have had to make a mad dash to the pool, where I may have plummeted into the deep end – my inability to swim notwithstanding.
I really don’t care to recall what happened after that, but I do take solace in the fact that the MGM Grand had four other pool areas staffed by entirely different lifeguards that I could relocate to for the remainder of my vacation. Even so, I still eyed the greenery, convinced it was teeming with more grasshoppers than the casino was slot machines and walkers.
Despite all my best efforts, logic, and reason, it seems I am still a girl, and a particularly squeamish one at that.
That post-vacation Monday morning was indeed a dreary one. My guy was right to complement my hard-won tan and my besting my coworkers, but to get me on my way, he would likely have been better served to assure me that my route to work was, in fact, grasshopper-less.
…A few Vegas pic. Click the thumbnail for larger image.
