Tag Archives: Careers

Favorite Fairytale Follow-ups!

Let’s play “Where Are They Today?” with a special focus on our Career Edition!

Snow White: This fair maiden no longer has skin as white as snow since she overcooked herself in a tanning salon to prepare herself for the huntsmen, (the Queen’s hunky assistant who saved Snow White’s life by hiding her in a forest, instead of killing her) on their wedding day. Ms. White now works in the field of sleep disorders (actually many Fairytale characters find the subject of sleep to be the bane of their existence!) and runs a clinic specializing in insomnia, oversleeping, nightmares, and F.F.F. (FatalFlawFruit) which is a common syndrome rendering victims helpless if they should fall into a deadly slumber after biting a Red Delicious apple. The handsome prince, (whom Snow divorced after trying to make her marriage work for 2.5 years) is currently a member of a 12-Step group for people compelled to kiss the lips of individuals impersonating corpses in glass coffins. It’s called “Dead End Relationships Anonymous.” (As of yet, there are no specific 12-Step groups to address the addictions of the individuals inside those glass coffins.) Meanwhile the seven dwarf miners saved up all their sick and vacation days and so it’s — Off to Bali they go!

Cinderella: Cindy has designed an entire line of shatterproof acrylic shoes, after getting a shard of glass deeply embedded in her heel from those fateful slippers. Her unique tagline is, “From flip-flops to stilettos, one thing is perfectly clear . . . someone with a foot-fetish will need to be transparent about it from the very start!” Her two wicked step-sisters briefly dabbled as adult film stars, but eventually settled into a housecleaning business called “The Merry (Scary!) Maids” and they have a sideline company throwing fancy balls and inviting everyone with the exception of Cinderella. So far they’ve dribbled lacy basketballs, rolled sequined bowling balls, hit velvet tennis balls, and kicked pearlized footballs in front of appreciative audiences whilst Cinderella remained banished from every court. Instead Cindy contents herself staying home watching her handsome prince bake pumpkin pies whilst trying to control their rodent problem with humane traps.

Sleeping Beauty: This ambitious early-riser (who only answers to Aurora now) finally cured her narcolepsy at Snow White’s Sleeping Disorder clinic, and has a lot more on her mind these days than just pricking fingers. She sews elaborate baby christening gowns and shows up at the events to monitor the blessings that guests bestow on the innocent little tykes. The gift of Song, the gift of Beauty, the gift of Charm, the gift of Huggies diapers are all permitted, but lest someone try to utter “the gift of a Spindle on a Spinning Wheel,” and you haven’t seen real revenge until you’ve seen this slumbering beauty wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty also divorced her prince of a husband because she couldn’t get past his dragon breath which he unfortunately picked up whilst slaying one in her honor. Meanwhile Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather have taken their bumbling stand-up comedy on cruise ships, billing themselves as the “The Three Stooges Wearing Rouges” going extra heavy with blush on their cheeks. It’s really quite humorous how they make-up this work! Evil Maleficent never responded to the official “What are you up to these days?” survey, but she is thought to have gotten involved in the movie sequel industry.

Rapunzel: Rest a-sheared, today we find Rapunzel straightening out her life and towering over the other princesses on Amazon simply by marketing a reformulated ladder she calls “Hairway To Heaven” and you can guess what it’s made out of! Handymen the world over are loving this new shiny, full of body, replenishing way to climb up on rooftops, change ceiling lightbulbs, and hang Christmas decorations under any condition(ers). See you on QVC Rapunzel!

Rumplestiltskin: This conniving shyster went from spinning straw to gold to writing legit Baby Naming books which consistently rank in the top three on the New York Times Bestseller List. His secret? He takes three common words and strings them together (Rumple/Stilt/Skin) until they sound so exotic and mysterious that even a Queen might not guess the name. Rip/Van/Winkle was a big fan until he fell into such a lengthy sleep that a good samaritan brought him to . . . (wait for it!) Snow White’s Sleep Disorder clinic. . . where he met up with The Princess and the Pea (who was there successfully curing her inability to get a good night’s rest on green produce!) and the rest they say, is Happily-Ever-After History!

Always Snoozing! These former lazy princesses have awakened to bigger and better things!

Is There A Doctor In The House? And Someone Else??

images (7)Since my boyfriend is in the medical field, he’s kindly brought back making house calls when his patients are in too much pain to come to his office. I decided this made perfect sense and it should be the wave of the future by ALL professionals. Wouldn’t it be great to never have to leave your home? Here are my experiences from a day last week when I tested the waters. You can certainly benefit by knowing what worked and what backfired.

HAIRSTYLIST – – I called my beautician to tell her I was having such a bad hair day that I couldn’t leave home and then inquired whether she would come to me to work her scissors magic? After a long pause she asked about electrical outlets (was she plotting to shave my head as punishment?) and if I had a basin with a long sprayer hose? We decided I would wash my own hair in the shower prior to her arrival rather than dunking my head in the kitchen sink with the sticky maple syrup dishes from our pancake breakfast. But she soon became extra snippy in my living room, taking off three more inches than I requested, blaming it on my red walls and then I had to vacuum my own hair off my purple couch (yes red walls, purple couch – – my interior decorator does NOT make house calls!) plus I had to tip this very put-out woman extra $$ because my cat triggered her asthma. Other than that, it wasn’t too terribly harried (no pun intended) of an experience.

DENTIST — I explained to the receptionist I had a phobia with rinsing and spitting away from the privacy of my own sink and would the DDS consider making a house call just this once? She said since Dr. Barry lived in my neighborhood he would stop by after his morning run. When I opened the door, my dentist stood panting and perspiring in a jogging suit, carrying a portable aquarium and a large plaque (the kind you hang over a fireplace mantle, not the kind that Crest toothpaste prevents), which read, “The Tooth Will Set You Free!” He eyed my ex-husband’s tool kit, (particularly his power drill) with a little too much lust before getting down to business filling my cavity while reclining (him, not me) in an easy chair in my den. All in all, things went fairly well, but he really set my teeth on edge when he shouted, “There’s no such thing as a tooth fairy, there’s just me — Dr. Barry!” to my youngest daughter as he slammed out the front door. Sheesh.

HOUSE CLEANER – – When I called Merry Maids to ask if they would come to me, they sounded rather mad, not merry. It turns out most of their clients transport their homes to them for a good scrubbing. Finally a disheveled woman wearing a stained apron (didn’t inspire a lot of confidence) turned up on my doorstep, insisting on using my broom, my mop, and finally my vacuum (which was full of my hair from the earlier beautician) and then demanded I fix her a BLT sandwich on her lunch break. I’ve decided that next time we’ll meet halfway in someone else’s place of residence.

BANKER — Though he thought it was quite unconventional, the manager at my local branch came to my door very cooperatively — albeit a bit mixed up regarding how this whole thing should work.  First I had to break a hundred dollar bill for him from the wallet in my purse.  Then I had to take a hammer to my youngest’s piggy bank so he could roll up some quarters. And lastly he asked if he could stash his Rolex watch in my jewelry box for safekeeping?  He left saying it was a pleasure doing business with me, without even so much as offering me a lollypop. 

OB/GYN – Whatever excuse could I come up with to justify not going to my gynecologist’s office? I decided on confessing that all my Victoria’s Secret panties were in the laundry . . . and they bought it! When Dr. Spanky efficiently arrived, he shouted at me to boil some water fast! Was a baby being born? Turns out he just wanted a cup of tea. He then requested two wire coat hangers, which he quickly twisted into makeshift stirrups just a little too adeptly. This guy was slick – – he even brought his own exam table roll of wax paper, which made the appropriate amount of crinkly noise when he covered the nice soft flannel sheets on my bed. I wasn’t surprised when he issued those typical orders – – “Scoot your bottom down please. Just a little more. Stop! That’s too much. You almost fell into your dirty clothes hamper!” However, I was slightly taken aback when he requested I bring him a can-opener for use as a speculum.exam table

PLUMBER: An online ad said “We now make house calls.” I had to call them up and ask what other calls a plumber could possibly make? They told me “Houseboat calls!” If a sailor has a leaky ship, they’ve got far bigger problems than a clogged toilet!

CONCLUSION– With all these professionals coming into my home, the last thing I wanted to hear was my doorbell ringing and “Avon Calling!” cheerfully shouted from my front stoop. That did it! I was going stir crazy cooped up inside these four walls and needed to get out into the big, exciting world ASAP. I called my boyfriend excitedly to confirm our date night was still on for dinner out, followed by the The Phantom of The Opera at the theatre downtown.

“Are you serious, Stephanie?” he asked wearily. “I’m exhausted from all the house calls I’ve made today. All I want to do is bring in Chinese and watch a movie in your cozy living room.”

I knew it.  House Call Dating.  What’s next?!

Breaking Up With Your Accountant Doesn’t Have to be so Taxing!

photo-32Good help is hard to find.  But that doesn’t mean we must stay monogamous.  Here are some of the entries from a journal I kept to inadequate individuals I paid good money to.

THE ACCOUNTANT:   I mean c’mon, once in a while I’d like to see how someone else crunches my numbers.  Wesley my CPA,  is the only one who has ever seen the inside of my tax shelter and in 2014 when I reported my earnings, he winked and promised,

“Next year we’ll definitely ‘income’ simultaneously!”

Mmmmmm.  Still it’s not like we’re married or even engaged.  And I wouldn’t be cheating on my taxes either.  Just him.

THE HOUSEKEEPER:  It was awkward coming clean with Winifred (Wynn for short) but she’d been sponging off me too long.  I planned to wipe away her mirror streaking mediocrity in one fell swoop.  When she stated, “I don’t do laundry.”  I would simply retort, “I don’t do Wynndows!”  I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.  Wanting a clean slate,  I gave her $100 “good-luck” money — as she departed, I noticed Wynn tossed our dog $20.  “It’s only fair I wish my partner (and his tongue) good-luck as well,” she said.  “Every night, he’d wash the dishes while I’d dry.”  Ugh.  I should have just left her a “Dear John” letter on top of the toilet.

THE GARDENER:  Even though I love it when he talks dirt to me, I began to plant the idea in his head that I would soon be asking for my garage door-opener back. I didn’t want to soil his reputation because I knew if there was any mud-slinging, I would be the one losing ground. So this morning as I was pining away, staring at my neighbor’s lush lawn, I casually remarked that it was mowed using the newest “cutting hedge technology.”  He took offense and reminded me that “the grass is always greener.”  I felt great re-leaf when he didn’t try to get at the root of our problem and instead simply withered away — out of my life (and yard) forever.  I will miss his anti-coil hose with the pistol nozzle.

THE DOG-GROOMER:   Trickier because I needed to convince her my two-year-old Shih-Tzu (Breed Name itself causes embarrassment because it sounds like sneezing and swearing in Japanese!)  needed a change of pace.

Me:  Please don’t be blue.  It’s not You.  It’s my Shih-Tzu.

Groomer: (french accent)  What makes your dog  say “Adieu!” Why did things go askew and now it’s me he wants to eschew?

Me:  First of all, Gesundheit and Bless you!  Maybe he just wants something new?  Or maybe there’s such a hullabaloo, your shop is like a zoo?  Or maybe he doesn’t like your view?  Or perhaps for a male, you make him look too Fru-Fru?

Groomer:  Yeah?  Well Screw You!  AND your little dog the Shih Tzu, too!

I think she was auditioning for the witch from Oz.

THE HANDYMAN:   Phil was difficult to give the Ax. Two months ago, I Hammered home the idea there would be no more Screwing around in my household. I made a gut-Wrenching plea never to see Phillip’s Head around these parts again.  Yesterday I opened my door to see him on a ladder changing the porch light bulb, proudly brandishing his Tool.  “What part of ‘Fired!” don’t you understand?” I shouted.  He proceeded to fix my oven.  Feeling compassionate, I asked if he’d consider building me a maple desk.  “Oh boy, I wood.  I wood!”  He appeared quite Level-headed, so off we went to the lumber store and I think we’ve Repaired our relationship, too.

THE CHIROPRACTOR:  I didn’t want him to give me an attitude adjustment so I decided to just bend over back-wards and play it straight. Besides I’ve been in pain and didn’t want to cut off my nose to spine spite my face.  But last night I slipped up at the disk-otheque  and accidentally danced with a new chiropractor who promised he’d always be at my back and call.

THE MANICURIST:  She used reverse psychology on me.  Said I nibbled on my cuticles too nervously and she’d had enough! What biting sarcasm!  Then she claimed my nails were such a mess, she’d rather file her tax return.  – –  maybe I should fix her up with my Accountant!  (See #1 above.)  After calling me “Dishpan Hands” I couldn’t take her insults any longer so I mentioned hating the perfume she wore.  “You’re soaking in it,” she said slyly.  You gotta Hand it to that Madge!

 

Men At Work (Never Date These Guys!)

blog 1What are the worst professions to have a relationship with?   Most of you know I’ve been divorced twice now and careers seem to have caused a lot of tension in the union.  When a Creative Writer (me) marries a Technical Writer (him), she should be prepared to have her entire life edited.  The first red (literally red!) flag was when he took his red pen to our wedding vows. But I’ve had my grocery lists, daily planner, and tooth fairy notes to our kids proofread as well.  Love letters that I thoughtfully composed were returned to me with the comment, “Couple of run-on sentences, but otherwise a great first draft!”  He told me “i before e except after c” so many times, I finally changed the spelling of my name to “Stephanei,” just to irritate him.

The husband before him was an engineer.  Not the easygoing kind of engineer who makes the train go, “Choo-Choo.”  No, he was an   Electrical Engineer  that designed chips, (nothing to do with salsa, by the way)  but I can’t talk about his career because he holds some sort of Top Secret Security Clearance, which I always suspected means he just runs a big hush-hush yearly sale at Walmart.

Here then, in no particular order, (and certainly not in the order that they dumped me!) are the different fields of work I’ve had the experience of dating and my “sparse and neutral” comments that follow.

Vague, Vapid, Volatile, Vexing Vocations

 

Owner Of a Merry Maid Service – – And these weren’t just joyful women who cleaned during the Christmas season either.  This fastidious man had a Maid Brigade of housekeepers at his beck and call – –  so of course, he could never find out that he had a messy girlfriend.  Or that the song playing in my house was “Another One Invites the Dust!” Or that my one and only use for a  broom was being swept off my feet.   I scrubbed more surfaces in that one hour before he was due over my condo than a surgeon does in a lifetime.  (Note: I never dated a surgeon)  I even discarded old, tattered recipes for Sloppy Joes.  Days before our dinner date, I wore white gloves so I wouldn’t fingerprint my glass table or mirrors.  And then it happened.  With just ten minutes before his arrival, my vacuum broke.   So I did what any girl would do hoping to impress a Neatnik.  I got out the salad tongs and ran them over every rug in every room in the house, making those telltale tracks for that “just Hoovered” look.  Of course when it came time to serve my first course, there were gold shag carpet fibers tossed in with his lettuce.  Yes, not only was I a slob, but I was an outdated one who needed to redecorate.

Did you know these work as a vacuum in a pinch?

Did you know these work as a vacuum in a pinch?

The Police Officer – – Being a writer, I kept insisting he growl, “Throw the book at her!” in his meanest voice.  He was also disappointed when instead of racy bedroom fun with his handcuffs, I wouldn’t unlock them until he admitted that highway patrol officers really DO have a quota for giving traffic tickets.  I also worried that there would be telltale evidence around my apartment, so I wore those same white gloves (see above with the cleaning business man) in case he decided to lift my fingerprints off a wine goblet.   It was at that point that I thought of having a threesome.  The officer could frisk me and proudly announce to Merry Maid Guy, “She’s clean.” What a turn-on.

The Magician – – This relationship started off bad – – He was the entertainer on a cruise ship and his first trick of the evening was making his wedding ring vanish.  Meanwhile the only thing I ever learned to make disappear was the midnight chocolate buffet.   But still he persisted in dating me, sadistically refusing to teach me his secrets while enjoying my frustration over how the sawed-in-half lady’s pedicure always stayed so pretty.   But I got even with him – – one Father’s Day, I replaced his Presto-Change-O color growing necktie with a boring paisley one on sale at Sears.  Before the big cocktail party in his home, he asked me to make sure he had a full deck of cards – –  so I covered his patio with Get Well, Happy Birthday, and “Congratulations on Your Retirement” Hallmark greetings.  Next I velcroed odd items inside the hem of his costume that would come loose at inopportune moments.  Maybe he didn’t have anything up his sleeves, but out of his pant legs tumbled rubber bands, gluesticks and pieces of duct tape.  For his grand finale, he pulled a rabbit out of a hat . . . with a condom on its tail.  Needless to say, at the end of his act (as family and friends clapped half-heartedly) he bowed out of our relationship in a puff of smoke.

That would be the last time he pulled out a coin from underneath my dress.

That would be the last time he pulled out a coin from underneath my dress.

Barney Rubble – – Before he was married to Betty, I went out with him a few times until his laugh drove me berserk.  Okay,  so I was just seeing if you were paying attention my Dear Reader!  And also if you believe I’m old enough to have lived in the Stone Age.  But I’m not in that generation;  it was really his son, Bam-Bam I went steady with.  And I was literally quite broken-up when he broke up with me using that club of his.

The Accountant – –  This guy put an ad on Match.com saying he was looking for his female counterpart – – the perfect Bookkeeper.  I dragged my entire series of hardbound Nancy Drew’s out of the garage and lined them up alphabetically against a handsome shelf on my living room wall.  He wasn’t impressed.  When I learned foreplay would consist of balancing my checkbook for hours on end, I knew we were finished.

The Chiropractor:  His best pick-up line – – “Don’t worry baby, I got your back.”  But when he found out I was too scared to let him adjust any part of my body, he told me I needed an attitude adjustment and walked (perfectly straight) out the door.

The Attorney/Professional Chef:  If that isn’t a winning combo, I don’t know what is.  He thought I was cute when I asked him if “that was a docket in his pocket or he was just happy to see me?”  But eventually the burden of proof was on me to show him I could cook.  Exhibit A was charred beyond recognition, and my kitchen smelled so bad, he had to ask, “May I approach the stench?”  But when I couldn’t even make a decent cup of coffee, that caused a latte of problems and was grounds for a break-up.

Orthodontist – – An unful”filling” relationship because he never appreciated my biting sense of humor.  There were just far too many puns to be made in this relationship, so I braced myself for getting on his nerves.  But as it turns out, many romantic moments were ruined as he gazed into my eyes and inquired if I ever thought of doing a little something with my endearing overbite?  Ignoring what I blatantly told him I thought of doing at the moment, he instead suggested a retainer.  A retainer??!  That’s when I fantasized about another perfect threesome with the Lawyer!   He could sue the orthodontist for incisor trading and as a witness, I could solemnly swear to tell the tooth and nothing but the tooth.

Owner of Kraft Inc. – – It should be quite obvious after reading this blog, my perfect match is with a man who appreciates cheesy writing. It seems I have become a bit obsessed with puns lately.

 

What’s your profession and which ones have you found you are quite incompatible with?