Prologue:
When I was eight years old, I wanted to be Robin, Batman's red panty suited sidekick. I ran around the house with a towel tied around my neck, which wouldn't stay put, and pretended to assist Batman in his moral schemes to fight crime and walk up buildings with a rope. That lasted all of three weeks. I wonder how long online masturbating will last?
Chapter One: Welcome to the REAL World, except no Puck and there are no raunchy unaired clips.
I have a Bachelors degree! It's signed, sealed, and will be delivered to my front door step in 3-5 weeks. Right now it is probably sitting all by its lonesome in a mailbox, or patiently waiting in a file cabinet for some minion to stamp it with the University seal. I'm also unemployed, broke off my ass, and in dire need of a life line. Regis, can you hear me!
I have spent the last five years of my life toiling away keeping my grades at the standard level, as to not fulfill my mother's expectations of maintaining a 4.0 in route to become a doctor. My poison of choice was the University of Central Illinois. Go Jaguars! Located in the three street lights and one horse town of Thortan, Illinois. UCI is where dreams are deterred, the sky is overcast three hundred days out of the year, and it's bottomless-bring-the-biggest-cup-you-can-carry night on Thursdays at Hulligans.
I threw all of my class notes into a waste basket and resisted the urge to light the sucker up. I was in my apartment and I wasn't positive I could have an open flame, that and I had a serious fear of fire, and dialed my uber-handsome, very educated boyfriend, Chase Jones. Chase has melt-your-panties-off sapphire blue eyes and has summer tan all year round. There's a hint of Italian, but mostly tall dark and handsome for the rest of his genetic makeup. When he kisses me, I hallucinate rainbows and small woodland creatures prancing around.
"Hey," he answered. I felt my nipples get hard. Even Snow White got hard nipples when Prince Charming was around, and you know Jasmine did.
"Hey yourself, what time are you picking me up?" We had a romantic dinner for two planned. AKA we were going out for pizza and beer at the Heidelberg.
"I can't go, babe," Chase said. For as long as we've been dating, two months and twenty-two days, he's called me babe. I've heard him refer to me once as Callie, but I think he called me Connie first.
"Damn, I was looking forward to greasy pizza," I whined. In this world there are two things I would stop a fast moving car for, a clearance sale at Anthropologie, and Heidelberg Pizza. Can't get enough of shabby chic.
"My family's in town and I'm going to be showing them around." I guess family is a good excuse. I'd never met Chase's family. I had heard of them from other sources, like Chase's roommates, my secret spies. His father was a dry cleaner franchise owner, and his mother made Martha Stewart seethe with jealousy. Chase had specific rules about his order of milestones, and girlfriend meeting parents was somewhere between getting engaged and marrying me. I guess my ring finger will go bare for a while.
We hung up, him promising to call me after they'd left, and me wondering if it would look to pathetic if I could reconnaissance their visit. So, in order to not become psychopathic girlfriend of the year, I got my cute 1950s style purse out and went job hunting!
I've partaken in this event every summer since sophomore year. I had stayed with my parents the summer after my freshman year and I made a personal pact that I would never sink that low again. My father comes home from work, shucks his shoes off, and turns the television on until he falls asleep at eleven p.m. He believes I should be home by nine, have boyfriends meet him first before dating me, and that I should never dye my hair. My mother attests that pimples and freckles are because I told lies, and that I got broken up with in tenth grade by Jack Stein because I didn't go to church. Yeah, I cut that umbilical cord early.
Each summer the mass exodus of the normal, less independently courageous students gives way for many part-time jobs. Being a creature of habit I like my part-time jobs to have either free food or at least 20% additional discount to merchandise. The pay has to be living substantial, and I need at least 30 hours a week or I'll go blind from all the extra time I'd be masturbating. I like to do three things on a daily basis, yoga, run, and masturbate.
I ran through the house looking for suitable attire. Mini-skirts and lace blouses tried-on and then found their way to my bedroom floor. Kitten heel shoes, squeezed into and then kicked off. I stared blankly at my reflection in the five-dollar 5 foot tall mirror hanging in the hallway. I liked it because it made me look slimmer than my jeans made me feel. I come from a long line of Irish Americans. We married and bred only with other Irish Americans and had affairs with Italians. My eyes were green, my skin was pale, and against popular belief, my hair was not red. I'd maintained a size four through most of my college career, although I was basing this on jeans that had been stretched to my perfection. I refused to go pants shopping during the all-you-can-eat-fudge holiday season and I was on intimate terms with the stair master at the student rec. Take that freshman fifteen!
My reflection stared uselessly back at me. My tits were firm and swollen with a strong desire to be held and caressed by Chase, but that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. I grabbed a push-up bra and beige panties that covered most of my ass. In any woman's lingerie drawer she has three types of undies: The every day, usually satin or silk un-seeable through khakis and slim dresses; the PMS variety, large, cotton and able to withstand a nuclear attack; and the kind men imagine to be in our drawers but I only wear when I know I'm getting naked, thongs, lace, etc.
On top of that I chose a stretch knit polo and the khaki pants that brought attention to the prodigy of thirty minutes three times a week on the stair master, my ass. Through elementary and high school I wore a uniform. Insert image of Catholic school girl plaid and knee high stockings. Most men's sexual fantasy was my idea of a fashion nightmare. We got demerits for having our shirts un-tucked and our shoes had to be brown or black with laces. I never figured out how to dress myself in casual circumstances. While other girls were learning how to put makeup on or pairing floral blouses with cashmere, I was getting excited over wearing denim to school on jeans day. Of course our polos were still required to be tucked in. Accessorizing was another story. I went through earrings like underwear and don't get me started on necklaces. Dressing up for the summer job hunt was hard work.
Being a college graduate required composure, skill, and tastefulness that I'd earned with all of those credit hours. Truth is the real world scared the bejesus out of me. No wonder I added an extra year to my studies. I had applied to dozens of advertising agencies across the Midwest my last semester. When everyone else was getting call-backs, I got rejection e-mails, or worse, nothing at all. I had never been outstanding but it wasn't like I sat in the back flicking spit balls. So, in order to maintain the college lifestyle without being in college, I renewed my lease with the aspiration that one day I'd get a bone thrown my way. Until then, it was cloudy with a chance of working the evening shift at Subway.
My car was a 1995 Saturn Coupe. It ran fine and guzzled oil like my grandpa does Guinness. I hopped in and drove to the Thortan Mall. A good place to start looking for fun and interesting summer jobs would have been the independently owned shops on Broadway. But they gave you stink eyes if you weren't in their social network. Thortan mall was where teeny-boppers came to spread out their hormones and dare each other to make eye-contact with the cute Abercrombie and Fitch staff. In Thortan, the only other form of entertainment for the under 18 was flashlight tag in the corn-fields.
I was hoping to make this my summer home away from home. The stores were lit with Florissant lights that caused skin to take on a strange lavender color and the air conditioning unit was set at a constant 66 degrees. Perfect for raging teenage angst, but for the rest of us carbon based humans, it was a good idea to bring a jacket and a water hose.
