Sir Gates and Dame Winfrey

Lady Buttercup

Is it me?  I’m so quiet; I rarely venture out, other than the dog walks (can’t afford to); I shush my dog; I always smile and speak when I meet someone, and offer help if they're struggling.

No, I’m NOT turning into one of them.  The very individual I hope NOT to become.  I’m in the as-yet unfriendliest RV park I've stayed in: the neighbors; the workers.  That sort of grumpiness develops from the top down.   The ‘absent owners’ of these RV parks care about little more than the bottom line; they are like the Landowners of Olde.  Hell, England hands out titles like lemonade; they might just as well start dubbing folks in this country, since aristocracy is adored and celebrities practically deified.  Sir Gates?  Dame Winfrey?  Better start hoarding those tea bags!

Mid-‘80’s, Sis and I, a couple of ‘Jersey girls with big hair, learned to navigate Manhattan together.  We both began with temp agencies; equally encouraged by Working Girl; now she’s on the top floor of a top firm, and me, well, I chose The Road Not Taken.  My Dad had passed away and I was living with Mom, helping her cope.  Poor woman never even wrote a check.  Hillary, who lives in a neighboring town, needed a challenge after the kids were grown, and wanted to help Mom, too.

I accepted a full-time position in a marketing firm.  The owners were lunatics; and if whoever worked there wasn’t already, they soon became infected, unless they quit.  I was already nuts so my transition was relatively painless, but still I entered and exited their world as two different women.

I worked with the masters of wit and irony; 40 hours a week I was surrounded by smart-aleks like those on Law & Order.  They gave as good as they got, and between them and my early home training, I was well prepared to become the sarcastic individual who writes today.

So Hill and I would meet at the bus stop at 6:30am for the hour-plus ride into the city, cat-napping along the way, and ultimately deposited in the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42^nd Street and 8^th Avenue.  This was before Giuliani cleaned up the city.  If we had enough time (morning traffic often turned the trip into 2 hours), we’d stop in the bagel shop, have a coffee and exchange stories of Big City Life before she’d head up to Park Ave. and I’d schlep down to 10th.

Mine were usually better; she’d be the first to admit.  Like the one about the vacant lot across the street which, when overgrown with six-foot tall weeds in the summer, became a favorite place for the Tunnel Bunnies (Lincoln Tunnel-area hookers) to take their clients.  We were on the 12^th floor; from that vantage point, you could clearly see the crushed refrigerator box with the old rocking chair on top.   I can’t make this stuff up.

You could always tell when something was going on; the entire male heterosexual  population of the art department was pressed against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.  It was embarrassing when clients would ask what they were looking at.

Hillary would just stare; she always thought she’d heard the most outrageous when sure enough, I’d come to breakfast with another.  I think my propensity for keeping my eyes on the ground whenever I walk stems from that time; walking the semi-deserted 5 or 6 blocks to the office, I’d dodge used needles, condoms, and other similarly pleasant items.  After I passed a pile of rubbish which suddenly began to move, I’d walk in the middle of the street as much as possible.  Rather get hit by a car on the way to work.   Going in extra early one morning, I waited at the light next to a topless Bunnie in hotpants.  Just a tad uncomfortable, I never went in that early again.

In the 90's, our company contributed to the British Invasion.  They'd become associated with a top firm in London, and a couple of their brightest came over to enlighten the rest of us.  Amazing how people assume a British accent equals intelligence.  

But once the Russians started coming in, then we really had some fun.  They were so hard working, I used to joke that "This is not slave labor," an expression Boris in particular often repeated thereafter.

I lasted 8 years with that company, which has since declared bankruptcy, but the stories I could tell!  I’m sure I’m better suited for Eastern temperaments, but I prefer the beauty and wild of the West.  Which is why I keep telling people I live alone and travel often enough so as NOT to rub everyone the wrong way.

Vive la Revolution!