Sirenita

I held a summer job briefly during the start of my college career in which I painted children’s tennis shoes. It was a job entirely without merit or dignity. I mostly painted dinosaurs with puffy paint, all day long, every day. When my paychecks were handed over to me, I had to go to a Safeway to cash them, which always caused the cashiers to say “TWINKLE TOES. You work for a company called TWINKLE TOES? Are you a stripper? Or what, exactly?”

After about two months of this, the orders started coming in for more shoes than I could keep up with and so another painter was hired. She was blonde, about my age, and a coke whore from Los Angeles originally. She bemoaned the lack of clubs in Santa Cruz and the fact that nobody even recognized her designer shoes. Mostly, she didn’t paint anything the way she was supposed to, but she DID talk a lot. This is one of her stories:

“So like, I was out? With my boyfriend? And we were going to a club and I looked TOTALLY fucking hot, kay? I was like wearing this red Lagerfeld dress with cutouts along the sides and it was so fucking great. I mean I looked fucking GREAT.”

“So like, we were waiting outside the club to be let in? Because the bouncer? Had to decide if you were cool enough to get in? Which was like no problem for me but my boyfriend was all worried and shit because he had sucky shoes on. So like we were standing there? And an old bum? He started panhandling everbody.”

“And like everybody was being TOTALLY mean to him. But I felt sorry for him? Because he looked so sad? And like when he got to me, he totally didn’t even ask me for money or NOTHING. He only wanted a HUG. Like, that’s all he asked for - ‘can I have a hug?’ “

“So I totally felt sorry for him and I said, “SURE you can have a hug.” So I got out of line? And I hugged him? And it was like this big long hug. And then I got back in line and everybody was like, ‘WHAT. Is on your DRESS.’ ”

“So I looked and it turned out that old bum? When I hugged him? He TOTALLY had spooged all over the front of my Lagerfeld.”