Besides the Ukrainians, I’m always the last person to arrive and the first person to leave the Badvertiser office. It’s funny though; I essentially adhere to a 9 to 5 schedule, so everyone else’s hours are somewhat of a mystery to me. I’m starting to wonder if they ever even leave.
At 5, as far as I’m concerned, my time’s up. This is what happened the other night, when the clock struck 5:
I wash out my coffee mug, properly shut down my computer, add a few rubber bands to my meager rubber band ball. I am ready for a drink. I decide to visit my roommate Betha at her restaurant, Mexicana Papa, which is right up the street from the Badvertiser office.
I order a seriously overpriced margarita (no free drinks for friends here), and since I’m planning on wheedling a free dinner from Café Gypsy later, I order some chips and salsa to quell my grumbling stomach. I’m pretty bored; Betha can’t really talk to me while she’s working under the militant manager here tonight. Maybe I should have just gone straight to Café Gypsy for freebies.
Next thing I know, Rachel Ray (identity protection be damned for you, Rachel Ray!) is sitting next to me at the bar with her husband. Betha had once mentioned to me that Rachel Ray comes in once a week—lives up the block. Just my luck that I’m here at this moment, sitting by myself at the bar next to my cooking show nemesis.
Rachel Ray clearly desires being noticed, as she dramatically fawns over one of the salsas that she ordered. If she comes here once a week, I’m sure it’s not the first time she’s tasted it. Way to be an attention whore.
I, in spite, haven’t yet acknowledged her presence. I nurse my beverage to make it last, staring at the grout in the tiled counter.
It’s about 6:00pm now, and I am ready to eat some dinner. Free dinner. I ask for my bill, which somehow ended up being $22. But just as I’m about to pay, Rachel Ray accosts me. “Sweetie, is that all you’re eating tonight?”
After years of working at Café Gypsy, I’ve become a patient conversationalist, especially with people with whom I have no desire to carry a conversation. “No,” I explained to Rachel Ray, “I’m going somewhere else for dinner. My roommate works—”
“Oh thank god, I was thinking to myself, ‘That poor girl, if that’s all she can afford for dinner, I wish I would have known and I would have bought her a meal! Good lord!”
“No, it’s not that, I just was coming in to grab a drink and I thought I’d—”
“The food here is just delicious, I was thinking to myself, ‘That girl can’t possibly be just having chips and that incredible salsa for dinner! In a heartbeat I would have pulled out my wallet and…’”
Okay, seriously, it’s not like I’m dressed in camouflage, holding a makeshift cardboard sign explaining my plight, sitting next to a big, bandana-wearing German Shepherd covered in cigarette ashes. But every time I try to interject, she keeps interrupting me with some spiel about what she thought was happening and how she, without hesitation, would have saved the fucking day. Thanks Rachel Ray. Thanks for bestowing your charity and graceful presence upon me, a lowly peasant of the world.
I didn’t know it was possible, but I do hate her more.
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