VirginiaEddie

Lately I like to get drunk. I've always gotten drunk. Stinking, sloppy, roudy, raunchy drunk ever since I was old enough to lie to my parents about where I was going and what I had done. Say 15. But lately, at 31, living in a one bedroom apartment with a boyfriend and barely paying my bills and mentally dodging the 20,000 dollars of debt I owe to department stores , a rum and coke tastes pretty damn good at 1 p.m. It tastes almost, debt free. Ahhh. I'm talking about weekends of course. I'm no longer one of the cool kids who has her weeks off.

That's right, my 8-4 job keeps me sober during banking hours. But today it occured to me when my boss was walking towards me with her disappointed face, would work be better drunk? It doesn't matter because I wouldn't be able to pull it off. One second I'd be slipping rum into my soda, the next I'd be laughing and talking to people that ignore me because they have corner offices or I'd remove that button down sweater you're supposed to wear over a tank top, or maybe I'd even order a pizza to my desk. I don't know. I'd probably fall out of my ergnomic chair and take too long to get back up because I'd be paralyzed by laughter. Either way, you get the point, it would be awesome.

It would be nothing like today. My boss, let's call her Stephanie, met Fidel, the man who moves people's offices at the company. He's nice, intelligent and atleast six feet tall with muscles. I'm 5 '2 and 110 pounds on a fat day, but apparently much more qualified to move her things from her old office to her new office. All by myself.

While Stephanie stayed on the phone in her Nanette Lepore suit, I trudged in and out of her corner office with poster boards, or boxes or a stack of binders. These are the moments when you're life flashes before your eyes. Forget near death experiences, it's these slow, drawn out about degrading experiences that really make you realize how amazing you are. I thought of it all; my master's degree in English that I thought useless until I decided it made me too good to transport boxes. Or my fabulous boyfriend who tells me how smart I am. Yes, I am way too smart to be a facilities worker. I even thought about my mother and how she made all natural dinners for us and was always there when we got home from school. It's these things that keep you from being taken advantage of. 

I say no to rape. It was 5 p.m. when I decided to leave without saying goodbye. That's an hour later than my schedule requests, and an hour closer to when I have to be in the office to test an obscenely early video conference so that when she shows up France and New York are already there, on camera.

Hopefully by the end of the day, after I've taught myself to do more things impossible, I will have a chance to talk to Stephanie, mano y mano. I want to tell her that I have a college degree, not a GED, that I start night design classes at SMCC, and even maybe that my father is an architect.

I'm thinking there comes a time when you have got to make yourself known. Otherwise no one will ever know you. You have to explain to people who you are so that they don't mistake you for someone else, or even worse, no one. Here goes a nothing. A shot please.