Hair nets

Picture this:

I am an early-twenties girl working at a Casey's gas station. I like the way the bell operates on the doors when customers come and go. Ding. Ding. Dingggg. I like the way Joe says, "Heyyya! How you doing there little lady?" I particularly like the way fountain orange soda tastes at 4 AM (workers get fountain pop for free). I even like my little elastic gloves I wear throughout my shift. They are nice, and they make the hot dish water not so hot.

I don't mind working alone for hours at a time, or the flour that speckles my true red Casey's apron. I don't mind sweeping after my shift or making pizza dough. I don't mind Joe harassing me if the doughnuts are not shelved by 5:30 AM. I don't even mind the visor.

BUT I DO NOT LIKE MY HAIRNET

It wasn't so bad at first. The first time I tried it on, I kind of liked it. It kept my hair all in one place, and not one customer has complained of hair in his pizza. Not one. So way to go, hairnet. The hairnet and I were doing well together until one day.

I was in the middle of making eighteen medium pizza crusts. It was about 6:30 AM. I know this because at that time I always make eighteen pizza crusts--eight for breakfast pizzas and ten for lunch pizzas. After they are baked they get placed in little "pizza boats" and set on a silver platter (not kidding). From there it sits rotating in the pizza warmer. I have a door on my side, and customers have a door on their side.

Once, a little kid and I (the kid was shoving a doughnut into his mouth) stood for a moment with both our doors open. He stared at me. I stared at the kid who had doughnut icing on the corner of his crooked smirk. It was a very surreal experience...the fact that you can stare at someone through a pizza oven.

Well anyway, this time I was making my pizzas, and in between a few pizzas made, I popped one in the oven and continued my process: cook, slice, label pizza boats, place pizza on pizza boats, place pizza boats on sliver platter, place silver platter on rotating pizza oven rack.

I didn't have a visor on that day, so my hairnet was especially visible. I shrugged it off. People won't see me anyway, I thought. And so I thought nothing of it.

Between the fountain pop machine and the sub sandwich fridge there is a little space where people who want to look in the kitchen while they are filling up their 32 oz Casey's cups can look (just in case the workers are yanking out their hair and placing it in the food). I must have been on breakfast pizza #4 or around there when I heard someone filling up a fountain drink. He was tall and had a very long tie on. So polished. So neat. So cute.

Not always, but sometimes I can be a flirt when I want, so while he was watching I took my pizza dough from pizza #4 and began stretching it out, spinning it, flipping it, and forming it true Italian style. You're doing good, I told myself. I stretched that pizza out and placed it in a baking tin. Another pizza was ready, so I pulled it from the oven, sliced it (with perfection, mind you--he was really cute), and placed the pizza on the pizza boats, and placed the pizza boats on the silver platter.

And in one dizzying moment, there this tie-guy was on the customer side of the pizza warmer, ready to take a bite of my pizza! And there I was on the kitchen side of the pizza warmer, ready and willing to give him a bite of my breakfast pizza. And he was so tall. He looked at me over the pizza warmer, and I don't think I could have seen a person with bluer eyes or a tie and white shirt ironed so well before. What is he going to say? Is he going to say, "These pizzas look really amazing...and so do y..."

"Nice hair net." He grabbed a piece of sausage breakfast pizza, ate a bite, and walked away.

After he left, I thought of all the things I wished he knew about me beyond what he had observed of me, that I work here in a gas station in the kitchen and I wear an apron and a hairnet. I thought of a few phrases I should have said, much like all the good comebacks you come up with after an argument. #1 "This is a summer job! I will not be here making pizzas for the rest of my life." #2 "I do have higher ambitions in life. I really do. Why, I will be teaching high school English in a couple months. Oh you don't believe me?" #3 "All the visors were dirty today. The hairnet is regulation." #4 "I can look nice!"

But it was all too late.

The hairnet won.

Miss Direction

"Excuse me, sir? I seem to be at the wrong place. This is the third house on the left on 800, yes? Are you Mr. Mulder?"

A man with beads of sweat dripping onto his cutoff T-shirt tilted his head sideways while his wife stood a few feet behind him, her head down and her foot scraping dirt in a circle.

"Ma'am, you're not on the right 800 street. You see, this here section splits off, but if you take a left onto 200--that street runs north and south--take a left, and go to 700--street runs east to west--take a right. From there you'll come up to another stop sign. There's a shoddy little shack on the corner there. Cain't miss it. Ever'body talks about it all the time. Mmkay, then you're gonna take a right, then a left on the nother 800. Mulders life on that road."

I told the man thanks, and leaned my head to the side to wave goodbye to his wife, too. They stood in the driveway, and I watched them in my rear view mirror as I drove away.

My GPS was saying "Take right at 200. Recalculating. In one mile turn right onto 49. Recalculating..."

I had spent the day listening to my GPS, staying the the correct I-80 lanes through Des Moines and Chicago, taking the correct exit to Indiana, but suddenly I was on tiny little one-lane paved roads trying to find the "Mulder's." Trying to even make sure I was in the right part of the state.

My GPS said, "Now arriving," so I turned into the driveway of the Mulders' neighbors. A lady named Christina opened the door. "Oh! She said, you're staying with the Mulders. Two houses up. I'll see you at the graduation party. Tell Barb we'll be there soon!"

When I knocked I was immediately greeted by Barb, her husband, and son, whose graduation party they were celebrating.

"We are expecting about 150 people. Most of them will want to get to know you. I've got all kinds of people you need to meet!"

Barb and I had been talking for the past few weeks about this trip, and she has been helpful in welcoming me to the area. Others new to the area stay with her, she said.

"Well can I help you set up?" I asked.

Barb had made all kinds of cheesecakes, and apparently it is a specialty. The community gets together on account of those cheesecakes regardless of graduation celebrations.

She had no problem introducing me to everyone who came. I sat at a random table, and suddenly people whose names I knew but hadn't put faces to came and introduced themselves to me. Once they would leave, others came, and this pattern repeated itself a few times. And I smiled a lot. And I said where I was originally from a lot.

"Am I gonna have to make you a photo directory?" Barb laughed when I said I'd never be able to remember all their names.

But the whole time I kept thinking, this is going to be my community. I'm going to be teaching that girl over there...and that boy...and those people will be my colleagues. Last night was just about skimming the surface on getting to know this community.

And the familiarity will come. Until then I'm going to be pulling over asking for directions.

A Moment: (and stuff I don't normally talk about)

There are two people sitting across the coffee shop from me. It is the same shop, but I can see them through two sets of windows. (I am totally creepering, but can I help myself?) I think they are either both deaf, or one is deaf, because they are talking in sign. They are sitting about five feet apart, expressing their words through their hands, mouthing just about everything.

She flips her straightened hair behind her shoulder, and he sips coffee, and their wry smiles never leave.

It’s nostalgic.



It wasn’t too long ago when I sat with one guy at a coffee shop. I was young (or felt quite young), a junior in college—which is really, really young—and I’ll never forget the feeling. It was some bohemian coffee shop on campus, and he had mentioned earlier in a poetry course we were both taking that there was to be a poetry reading that night in the Bean.

“You wanna go?” he asked.

“Mmmm.” I was always incredibly indecisive. “Yes.”

Later that evening he scouted me out in the library. I had my face buried in some British Lit book, a book from a course he was taking as well. (We had three classes together that semester.) He didn’t say anything right away, but stood there for a brief moment, I think, waiting to see if I would notice him. I pretended not to.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Would you like to go?”

“Yeah.”

We sat in the Bean for what seemed like an eternity waiting for this poetry reading to begin, and in the meantime, I looked around at the people there. My poetry professor sat at a couch in the middle of the coffee shop as he was expecting some of his students to show. He did a double take as we sat down. Apparently it is difficult to realize connections when connections happen right in front of your eyes. But in a small Dutch town...

A few people who knew this guy and a few people who knew me looked at us from time to time, ready and waiting to be the first to claim they knew something had occurred between us. And although we both had a really good time, we let very little of that excitement show. I concealed my happiness with nervousness, because here’s what went down:

“I think you should read one of your poems.” He was placing his hand alternately on the couch and on his knee, and I was looking at that.

“I don’t think so. The poems I own are for classmate ears only.”

“But you’re not too shy to read them to us.”

“Right.” It wasn’t true. I had spent days—weeks—preparing for the poems I read in class, and I read them over and over until even my roommates had them memorized.

“So?”

“No.”

Just then we saw our semi-shy, semi-reserved professor step up to the small wooden stage and slide onto a tall stool.

“This is a poem I wrote not too long ago.” The whole room of literary, earthy, dread-lock sporting people who typified the Bean listened carefully. Our professor had a way of reading and articulating himself in a way very few could. He conformed to his poem, to the moment that led it, looking up when needed. He had once recited a poem he had learned in a grad-level class—the inspiration for all of us to memorize and recite a poem—and it was totally out of character for him. He spoke quickly, impeccably matching the whole tone of the bluesy poem. It wasn’t a speech. It wasn’t a performance. It was a moment.

And so there I sat, with this guy, realizing that I too, was in a moment.

Everyone clapped. A few more people performed, regulars to the Bean.
“Go,” the guy I was with whispered. Without thinking, I dug around in my backpack for a poem I had from class. My class binder was there, so I pulled one out, not really caring which one came.

I went up there during a long break between the go-getters who had already read and those who wanted to but didn’t—like me. And as awkward as the pause was, so was everything about the way my foot caught random chair legs and the ledge of the stage as I stepped up, and so was the way I caught a glimpse of him and then everyone else, me wondering at them who were probably wondering about me—a non-regular Bean goer.

“Um…My poem is called ‘Itinerary’.” I braced my arms against my torso so my paper wouldn’t shake, and just as our professor had done, I tried to create a moment, not a rehearsed speech. Really, there was nothing rehearsed about me up there on that stage reading a poem I hadn’t even proofread.

The poem was about my childhood, about the activity-by-activity moments that guided our Saturdays. Being the children we were, we never premeditated our activities. Our itineraries were guided largely by interest, but dugout mounds and little creeks and dirt piles. Moments.

Like this moment.

Like how this guy had come out of nowhere. Like how the Bean was suddenly my place, not some stereotyped coffee shop. Like the poem I held in my shaky hands. Like life should be.

A moment.

Or rather a series of moments, totally unplanned.



The coffee shop couple two windows away are getting up to leave now. She, with her gorgeous straightened hair, and he, with quite a charming smile, both rise in unison, his hand for a brief moment patting her shoulder.

A moment.

Good Deal

I'm just going to say it straight out: I'm poor. But this is a good thing as it has allowed me to think creatively about the money I spend. Soon (and hopefully very soon) Casey's will direct deposit my wages and I can begin to budget all over again.
In the latest book I am reading, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s" Fisher and Shelly explain that talking about your finances has become a taboo subject. And now I think I know why:

Step 1: Look for stuff at rummage sales

On Saturday I went with Kearsen and some of her in-laws to see what we could find for my new apartment and for baby clothes. I found a desk for $2. It was sturdy. It was the perfect size. But most importantly, it was $2.

Step 2: Modify the rummage sale stuff to make it yours

That same day I went to ACE Hardware. Now because there are a couple chips along the edges and because the desk is not real wood--covered by a glossy film of wood--my ultimate goal was to paint it white.

Step 3: Purchase the things needed to modify the rummage sale stuff to make it yours.

Josh told me he had a sander and I would just need to buy coverings for it. Oh, and I would need primer and paint. Oh, and brushes, too. He told me ACE Hardware was probably my best option. I walked up and down a few of the aisles, just looking. The paint lady was helping someone else, so I filed through about fifty types of white and settled on Cloud White, hoping it wouldn't clash with any other type of white wall it may sit against.
The paint lady finally saw me. "I just bought a desk at a rummage," I began, "and I want to paint it white...and I think I want cloud white. Anyway, it has a glossy film of wood covering over a type of ply wood, I think, and I need to sand it. What do you think would be best?"
She was thinking that this was definitely a newcomer to home improvement. And I was--am. (But I like to think I know a thing or two)
"Okay, first of all, you're going to need to sand it. Go find some coarse sandpaper. Aisle 7. Then I'll get you a quart of primer. Now this primer is oil-based so you're going to need to throw the brush you buy for it away unless you wash it out with gasoline. Then I'll get you your Cloud White paint. You're going to need a different brush for that. I'd say sand it down good, put on a coat of primer, then about two coats of your Cloud White paint. Don't forget to let it dry between each layer."
She proceeded to find my paint while I grabbed my sandpaper ($8). Then I searched for the cheapest brushes I could find (2 for $6). She finally gave me the primer and paint ($12).
"Don't forget," she reiterated, "you need to throw away that brush after you use the primer."
"Thank you." (To tell the truth I already knew half the stuff she "educated" me about. I only couldn't find my way around the store. So take that paint lady.)
Anyway, my total was about $30. So add that to the $2.

Step 4: Ask advice from home improvement professionals (ie. my sister who works at a flooring store and has put a lot of work into their house) about further improvements.

"Would you suggest anything else?" I was putting on my first layer of Cloud White paint.
"Maybe some desk handles."
"Are those expensive?"
"No, they're really cheap."
So today, as my second coat dried, I ran to ACE yet again (and asked a different guy) to find some desk handles. They all said $2.50 and up. I had to buy four. So I took the cheapest ones, after pondering for a long, long time.
When I went to check out the lady asked me if I would like an ACE rewards card.
"No, I don't shop here much."
She frowned. ($10)

Step 5: Put your masterpiece together.

This desk was definitely not $2. More like $42+labor.


I think I like the idea of renovating rummage sale material...beyond the fact that I get laughed at by ACE employees. It makes the artifact mine. But is it the cheap way? Well when you compare the percentage of what you spend to the money you still have left in your bank account, I just don't know.