Last wrapping up of The Story So Far...

So, yeah. I'm a waitress again. I'd thought I was sick to death of it, and maybe when I got here I'd actually try to find a grownup job. Destiny had other plans, I think.

At one point during the apartment hunt, I was looking at this place in a complex, for $500/month. The woman running the place made me fill out an application, and give her ten bucks for a credit check. I didn't have any of D's pertinent info with me. (I have to look up my own driver's license number every time I need it. I usually know his date of birth and his mother's maiden name, but that's as far as I go, without having it written down in front of me.) I explained this to the woman, and asked her if she wanted me to bring D's application home with me, and then mail it to her or something. She said she would just do the check on me, and that should be fine. I shrugged, and gave her the ten bucks.

She called me a few days later, and told me I had excellent credit, but she couldn't rent to me because I didn't have a job. I thought, Well, thanks for telling me after I've already filled out the application. I said, "OK, I'll call you back."

The next day, I was in Cowtown, looking at a few other apartments. None of them panned out. One said he wouldn't allow pets, under any circumstances. One turned out to be way the fuck on the edge of town. One was asking about twice the rent I thought we'd be able to handle. It was starting to look like the only place we could conceivably live was in this complex that wanted me to have a job. I panicked.

I walked past a place called Kristina's. Small diner type deal. There was a help wanted sign in the window. I walked in, and walked out with a job. (At the time, I thought about what a strange parallel it was. My first week in NowhereLand, I had walked into Chong's Country Cafe, introduced myself, and Chong had said "OK. When you start?" This time, I had walked into Kristina's, and a man with a heavy Greek accent said, "OK. When you start?")

I raced over to Jack and Anne's house, and called the woman running the complex. I said, "OK. I have a job now. I start at Kristina's Cafe on July 3rd. Can I have the apartment?" "How much will you be making?" I hadn't thought to ask, but I said, "Well, waitress wages. About $2.30/hour, plus tips. But my boyfriend will of course look for a job as soon as he gets to town, and--" "Wait, there's going to be someone else living with you? You never told me that. I'm going to have to do a credit check on him, too, you know!"

I gave up. This was a clearly insane woman I was dealing with. Better to live on the street than deal with her constantly. When I told Jack about it ten minutes later, he asked why I hadn't reminded her she'd said my credit check would be sufficient. I'm basically a wimp, I said. Besides, even if D. did have a job, there's no telling what new conditions she would come with. ("I vill only rent zis apartment to ze von who can bring me ze heads of seven purple dragons from ze highest mountaintops!") She didn't want to rent to me, screw her. I didn't want her stinkin' apartment if she was going to be that way about it.

It turned out that there was a new listing in the paper that week. A better, and cheaper apartment. I snapped it up. (It was funny. After dealing with the Clearly Insane Woman, I was asking him all sorts of paranoid questions. He thought I was nuts. "OK, now I do have a cat. What is your policy on pets?" "Well, I don't really have a policy. How about, when you move out, I'll look around, and if there's significant damage, we'll work something out?" "I have a boyfriend. He'll be living here too. What's your policy on that?" "Huh?" "Nevermind. Do you need to do a credit check or anything?" "Why, do you think I should?" "What about parking? Do I have to pay extra for parking?" "Um, there's a driveway. It's right outside the door. It runs down past the house, and connects to the street.")

Anyway, so I had this job now. A waitressing job. I thought for a few days that if I found something else right away, before I'd technically started, I could go back to the plan where I try a real job. But then I decided to wait, and see how working at Kristina's turned out. As I may have mentioned, job interviews scare the hell out me.

I thought it would be exactly like Chong's again. Maybe $20 in tips a night. But it is Chong's On Crack. Instead of only one waitress sitting mostly by herself for eight hours, there are almost always two waitresses on. They each make about $30-40 in a five hour shift. I made $60 on Sunday morning. That's roughly equivalent to the tips I made at the casino. And D's making more at his job, so it doesn't even matter that my base pay is smaller. We can live in the style to which we are accustomed, even with a car payment, and slightly higher rent, with me working there.

This is good. I like working there. I get to be busy all night, but it is a smaller place. I realized that even though I'd always said I feared a Dilbert job, I had one at the casino. Imagine Dilbert in nylons and a tuxedo shirt. That was me. There were roughly 20 people in my department (waitress) and we bitched about what the departments in immediate contact with us (cooks, bussers, hostesses...) did to us constantly . There were bizarre directives handed down from people I never even met. There were even daily meetings and acronyms. Scary.

July 23, I think.

OK, this is getting out of control. My computer was dead, again. I really do want to keep up this journal. Honest I do. Anyway, the above was written two days ago, in WordPad. I've decided that I like writing offline, and then taking the completed entry to DiaryLand. I'm not entirely sure why I've decided I like this. It seemed like a good idea at the time, or something.

It occurs to me that I've gotta start coming up with new excuses. No one is going to believe my computer is really so crappy that it won't stay functioning for even a week.

previous--next