all-american reject

Okay, try to understand that I am having a bad week. So what I did this morning isn’t too far out of line considering what’s been going on.

When I woke up this morning, before I even had my coffee, I found out that I did not get the big important job I’ve been planning my life around for the last few weeks. It went to someone else. No fat salary, no great benefits, no free medicine, financial security, accommodating schedule, sign on bonus…nothing. I received an email from human resources that said they’ve filled the position with another candidate and in closing she asked if I would be interested in future openings in other departments. It was all very politically correct, so I had to read between the lines to get the real message. I will translate for you now what the email really said: Thanks for your time but you suck. We don’t want you and here’s why: your hair is stupid, your suit looked dumb, you have a kid and you should know better than to talk about that in an interview, you weren’t able to answer a simple question about reverse phase chromatography without stumbling so we don’t think you’re bright, and in closing you are a loser and not qualified to lick the bacteria off our lab floors let alone run a department. Suck it.

I had to go outside on the back deck to deal with my immediate reaction because it scares Joey to see me cry. I crouched down next to the grill and let myself feel every bit of disappointment and rage and I gave myself ten minutes to fall apart. Then I pulled myself together and went back into the house, where Joey was waiting for me completely naked and carrying his diaper in his hands (the diaper that ten minutes before was securely fastened around his bum). I guess the good thing about having a toddler around the house is that I can’t indulge in self-loathing for too long because they don’t give a shit that mama got rejected. They just want to play and strip naked and sing the alphabet and as long as that happens and no one is crying, all is right with the world.

But anyway, that’s not what I was going to talk about. It’s just the background leading up to what I did next. Seeing as how traditional job searching has been nothing but a fruitless time suck lately, I couldn’t bring myself to look through any more job postings. I decided instead to take an inventory, I mean really look into my soul and try to figure out what it is that I have, some skill or talent or quality that I can market in exchange for some cold hard cash. I know what you’re thinking, but I wouldn’t make a good prostitute strictly based on the fact that I have an intense gag reflex and that’s not exactly a great job skill in a field where the things you have to do are highly likely to product gagging. Body odor makes me gag, sex with ugly or old men makes me gag, and the thought of contracting delightful sexually transmitted diseases makes me ...well, not gag, but definitely queasy. Anyway, I’d be a very unsexy whore with all the retching and dry heaving, and throwing up on your clients is not exactly the best way to build a solid customer base. No, I decided to do something equally lucrative, but not quite as repulsive. I decided to sell some eggs. From my ovaries.

Obviously this is not the logical next step most people take after receiving a blow to their self esteem. I guess no matter what happens, or how I’m rejected, I still must think I am the shit. So much so that someone would pay me thousands of dollars for a copy of my DNA in order to grow their own baby me! And despite the fact that I am against this kind of thing (for myself, I don’t care what you do with your own DNA) I decided I could force myself to be okay with it. It was really just a fleeting thought until I started thinking about how I could market myself to potential buyers. I could create a brochure for myself and even include Joey’s picture as proof of the potential final product. So what if I am a failure at life and my offspring eats crayons, no one has to know and it's not like those things will show up in a blood test. I could highlight the positives! I have a nice metabolism and good skin. And the kid? The kid is 20 months old and he can count to 18, identify all letters of the alphabet--upper AND lower case (though only when pointed out individually. In song form he leaves out "D" and sometimes skips from "M" straight to "Q"), and correctly identify most colors (except black which he calls white). Okay so maybe he is not brilliant but he is damn cute and for some people that is more important anyway.

So I typed “sell eggs” into google because I am a redneck and couldn’t come up with a more eloquent search string like maybe “ovum donation” and after a few minutes I received my second devastating blow of the day—I am too fucking old to donate eggs. By one year. And for a brief moment I wished mutant babies on an entire website of eggless people who consider a person who is THIRTY-THREE to be elderly, because hello! Just because a person is 20 years old does not mean her eggs are pristine. She’s probably never even tried to grow one!

Fuck today.

Comments

[Resident EROCK]

Thanks for visiting my blog - I can't help feel like you were blog-thered by my piss poor foul language. If so sorry, if not I'll work on the paranoia and self-loathing. Tomorrow, of course...today I have to get to trimming down that "people to kill" list. You know how it is... Still love the blog. I'll have a link to it on my page today. Others should share, dont 'cha think?

-EROCK

[Mallika]

Oh man, Jaeme, that fucking sucks. Sending my sympathy and good wishes in droves across the invisible highways of the internet.

[sherry]

I'm still trying to catch up on blogs so I only read this today. I'm so sorry the job didn't work out. Clearly they are idiots to turn you down.