I am Stupid, Part One

Before I grabbed my new job as menial laborer with college degree, I was in another menial labor position. Menial labor of the mind. I was a "reporter" for an "online magazine."

Which more or less translates to: lead for the sales team. Before working as a reporter for pay, I had worked as a reporter for free, interning at various local newspapers and magazines. I knew that valid institutions aimed to keep advertising and editorial as separate as possible, as to not pollute content. Well, my new employers threw that model to the wind and decided to make a janky website that was essentially one large listing for business. I did not care about this at the time; all I saw were the dollar (albeit meager) signs and a resume builder with potential.

Desperate? Perhaps. Lesson learnt? Ohyes.

I am banking on the fact that my readers are not wide-eyed bunnies like yours truly. When you hear that job description, I hope a huge, siren-like SCAM SCAM is sounding off in your head. Because all I heard was FREEEDOMMM. Freedom from my boomerang move to my Mom's house, freedom from my unpaid internship, from my post college angst made possible by having too much free time, from going to hometown bars and drunkenly eating my mom out of house and home. When you bundle those motivations together, packing all your heels, furs, and trekking your naivety down to San Diego seems like the smartest move. Like you just pass GO and you get $200. As well as your own place, raise potential, and benefits after 90 days.

But alas, as the days went on and the ads did not sell, your bunny heroine was promptly laid off. And still waiting on $1000 from a job that was supposed to free me from my financial woes.

However, one fairly interesting thing did happen when I was writing glorified Yelp reviews for $800 a week. My job was not the typical 9-5, it was physically cold call businesses with your engaging, adorable self and hope they will let you write a "review" on them.

I was doing alright, getting by. I got to meet a lot of weird, fantastic people in my month of traversing North County San Diego. There was one business owner in particular who was interestingly successful. He had learned of a gap in his market. Although it was small, he delivered rare and difficult to find goods in a clean and precise manner (no, not drugs). What I thought was a charming little storefront was merely a portal to a much larger mini empire. He was king of his niche, and it was eye opening hearing his story.

About a few weeks after I got his story, I had pretty much forgotten about it as I was doing 13 of those business reviews a week. It wasn't until I was called into the office because I had a package that he sprang up in my mind.

I made my way to the office (which looked like a bookeeper's crack den btw) to pick up my package. They were less than thrilled to be harboring this massive white box; my name, their address. I guess it was annoying.

"Please don't list us as your mailing address."
Well, please don't withhold my paychecks.

I took the box and sat with it in the passenger seat of my car. There was his store's return address, so I knew it had to have been from him. I got nervous. All this creepy jack in the box imagery jumped into my head. Just open it. Its not going to be Anthrax, or a horse head. People are not that sick.

So I ripped it wide, nerves grated. As I peeled back the initial layer, I saw the spidery cursive spelling out a name I only saw on Sex and the City or Real Housewives. Christian Louboutin.

Christian Louboutin. I felt like I was unraveling the dirt around some precious fossil as I peeled back the tissue paper. It even smelled nice. Like really good champagne and the make-up remover of rich people. Makeup remover that has flakes of gold in it and essence of diamond. Rich people seem to like things not to make sense.

Pale grey snakeskin print pumps. High heel with 1 inch platform. Classic pillar box red sole.

Size 8.

Holy Crap.

I say holy crap, because those shoes could have paid my rent. And then some. And THEN some. Yes, I looked that shit up. I say holy crap again because the beautiful pale grey Louboutins also got me thinking about all the directions a gal can go in.

I could have kept the shoes. Perhaps worn them to a nice restaurant downtown. Alone. Just me and the shoes. At the sushi bar. Ordering yellow tail carpaccio and a dirty martini. Until some suit who looks like the Dos Equus guy comes and sits down next to me. Alone? Yes. I like your shoes. Thank you. You have exquisite taste. Thank you. Would you like to accompany me on my yacht?

Of course, the yacht accompaniment would come with a little catch. Nothing is free. You'd probably have to go the whole banana to be kept in Louboutins and Rachel Roy dresses. Can you fall in love with living well? So much so that the man, the sex, the slightly dirty things you do to continue your lifestyle become your job? It sounds sort of romantic, and more glamorous than hauling my laptop around, feverishly writing in coffee shops.

Someone once asked me, "Why does this story mean so much to you?" I had talked about blogging it for a bit, I just never had the time to presence to mind to get it down until now. I told him that the shoes, in their eggshell container that smelled like organza silk, peeled back the lid to a lifestyle I had never before even considered: living for and by a man.

I don't want to make this a feminist rant about making my own goddamn dollar. If anything, it is another example of my naivety: the fact that the shoes struck me so much, if at all, speaks to my limited and isolated perspective. My mother sometimes tells me I look for the easier way out, the alternative route. While I agree with her, I know that in terms of carving out my young adulthood life path, I am uninterested, unaware, blinded even by a woman's alternative.

I also knew, sweating in my car, that I couldn't possess the shoes. I know. I AM CRAZY. I am crazy to give them back, to automatically assume that the man's gesture was a slightly risque one, to confess my love of shoes over and over and then simply get off one of the greatest free rides I ever came across. I just felt, immediately, that they could not be mine because when I do receive a gift like that, I'd like it to be from somebody who loves me. Not somebody who uses it (however gracefully, gorgeously, wonderfully) as a bargining chip.

I drove back to Oceanside, right to my sugar daddy's shop. I dropped off the precious cargo with his tattooed salesgirl. No thanks. I mean thanks, thank you times a million, I could have paid my rent or hell, owned a truly exquisite pair of shoes, but I just can't. I can't take them because I don't belong on a yacht or in someone else's silk sheets. I belong in the toil, the turmoil of a young 20 something's plight to work, love, drink, play, eat, own Shih tzus, and make Mom and Dad not that embarrassed. I am not the stuff of fuchsia colored romance novels, or glossed over dramas. I am just a girl who gives back Louboutins.

And I think that is okay. Stupidly moral, but okay.