May 22nd, 2011 5:50pm - Feeling like Death

Last Thursday night, my friends and I went to a gig. I've never said that before, and I feel unbelievably cool in referring to it as a gig. It makes me feel worldly and artistically cultured. The lead singer in the band was another realtor in my office. Granted, 99% of the people in my office are well on their way to knitting, birdwatching, and geezerville, but this man was the sprightly young age of thirty-eight. I bribed some friends to come on promises of booze and interaction with AARP members.

Think Sebastopol (northern California). Warehouse + vintage clothing store + indoor stage + bar + restaurant + outdoor patio with large naked women = the Aubergine. If I'd previously known about the large naked women, I would have used that as leverage.

Instead of behaving myself and sipping on beer, I chugged coke and rums and threw back shots like a college student. I dirty danced with our receptionist and kissed my mom on the mouth. At one point I dumped an entire coke and rum on a forty-year career realtor in our office.

When we got back to our place, I was drunk, tired, and wanted nothing more than to get into bed, pass out, and snore my way into oblivion.

Instead, my friend Traitor insisted we continue the irresponsible debauchery of our lives and go to a bar.

"Absolutely not," I replied.

Traitor: "Let's go to Belve!"

Pakistan: "Absolutely not."

We went to Belve.

The next morning, I woke up at 9:30am, stumbled to the bathroom, and vomited. I could hear Pakistan puking in the other bathroom.

A few months prior, my mom had called and told me that she had a surprise waiting for me at my house. I hoped that it would be a car. It was a breathalyzer. I breathalyzed myself and blew a .16.

I straggled into the office at 10:30am, puked twice, and looked at myself in the mirror. I had put on a shirt thinking it was a dress and looked like a hungover hooker. I glanced at the time and ran out of the office, puked, and went to show a house.

When I breathalyzed myself (while driving) at 2pm, I blew a .1. I was slightly concerned, but texted the feat to Traitor and Pakistan.

By 3pm, I was feeling faint from not having consumed anything by alcoholic calories in the last twenty hours, and bought a vanilla milkshake. It was fantastic going down and fantastic coming up.

I felt mentally handicapped all day. At 5:30pm, when I went to go home, I realized I had locked my keys in the car.

April 11th, 2011 10:30am - Breaking in with Children

I´m a Realtor, and I try not to excessively intoxicate myself downtown while it´s still light outside. I monitor this with the breathalyzer that my mom recently bought for me. I don´t want clients or potential clients seeing me in public as a drunken shameless hussy. If it´s dark outside, my logic is that inside the bar people won´t know me. I was fully embracing this theory at Russian River Brewery, downing pints of a beer called Damnation, and arguing with my friends why the concept was superior, regardless of the fact that there are, in fact, lights inside all bars.
¨I don´t care, it´s dark and it´s okay to get drunk,¨I slurred and flung my arm in the general direction of the window. An hour later I blacked out. I awoke the next morning naked and in the process of a booze death recovery. My muscles felt like I´d been in a fight with a mailbox, my mouth tasted like I had consumed a rotting rodent, and I had mascara smeared across my face, which was nicely complemented by drool on my pillow as well as the lower half of my head. My saliva was in my hair. I groaned and glanced at the clock. It was ten-fifty in the morning, and I was supposed to show a house at 11am. I looked up the address, and the house was twenty minutes away. I called the clients and told them I was on my way but running a few minutes late. I threw on a dress, sunglasses to cover my drunk eyes, and perfume to disguise the smell of copious amounts of beer. I got to the car before realizing two things.
1: I didn´t have shoes.
2: I didn´t have my purse.
I ran back inside, doused myself in perfume, grabbed shoes and purse, and drove across town. I realized that I had left the address back at my house, so I called my mom to look it up. She texted me the address, and I didn´t feel like a complete failure as the addresses progressed and I got closer and closer to my destination.
Sonoma Mountain Road was like the goddamn Yellow Brick Road: it just kept going and going and going. I almost drove off the road twice in my haste to not look like a completely late asshole to the clients.
When I got to the end of the street, there was no For Sale sign in sight, and the address my mom had texted me didn´t correspond with any house on the street. It was 11:27am, I was over twenty minutes late, and I couldn´t find the house. I couldn´t call anyone because there was no reception. I couldn´t harass anyone through my window because there was nobody to ask. Every aspect of my life was in pain, demolished by my boozehag self. My eyeballs hurt, and the backs of my knees felt like they´d been attacked by a violent gremlin. I drove back down the street with the distinct impression that I was driving a loonybin. Seven minutes later, I saw a For Sale sign and the clients´monster van. Their youngest child had named the vehicle. They had four children.
I pulled up and jumped out, repeatedly apologizing. I noticed Child #3 lying spread-eagle on the ground crying. Child #2 had a stick in his hand and was playing a game that can only be called ¨Stab the Sibling¨ with Child #1. Child #4 smashed his head against the side of the house in ten second intervals. I ran up the steps to the front door of the house, only to notice that there was a combination lockbox on the front door. Combination lockboxes are almost extinct and technically illegal to use. The Listing Agent hadn´t provided any combination in the description of the house. I called the Agent, with no response. It was 11:38, I was almost forty minutes late, and I couldn´t let them into the house. We walked the perimeter of the property, tried all the doors and windows, and came to the conclusion that we were officially locked out. At this time, I realized that I was going to get violently ill. Within a minute. I handed the dad a bobby pin and a credit card. I said that I was going to continue to look around the house, and he should try to break in. I galloped around the side of the house feeling that the alcohol from the night before had eradicated half of the brain cells from my skull. I looked around, and then projectile vomited over the fence and into the neighbor´s yard. I struggled back to the front of the house to discover that the dad had broken into the house through the garage door.
The house was an absolute cesspool. Carpet had been torn up, walls had been punched in. Doors were missing, as was one of the bedrooms. Electrical outlets and light fixtures had been removed. The roof leaked. One of the kids walked into the bathroom and sprinted out seconds later, screaming. The other three followed suit. When questioned, they were all crying about different things.
Child #1 was in hysterics over the largest shit he´d ever seen, Child #2 over the excessive amounts of vomit. Child #3 had to pee, and Child #4 was crying because everyone else was.
I returned home and got directly in bed. Once there, I thought it prudent to breathalyze myself. I blew a .1. It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon.

March 20th, 2011 4:50pm - Porn in the Office

In sixth grade, my teacher assigned some friends and I a presentation on deforestation. The only computer in the house was in my parents' room. We gathered around the computer, I typed in www.deforestation.com, and hardcore porn popped up. We were eleven, we had never seen porn. There were penises in vaginas and penises in mouths and penises up asses. Our mouths dropped faster than a pedophile's pants at the park. One of my friends gasped. Another cried. I heard my mom walking down the hallway. I tried to exit out of the site but nineteen porn pop-ups littered the screen and the computer froze. I ran to the bedroom door, slammed it shut and locked it.
My mom was smacking her hand into the door yelling for us to open it, I frantically pressed control-alt-delete to no avail, and my friend was still crying. Another friend started screaming and let my mom into the room. I catapulted my eleven-year-old body across the screen and shrieked, "It's not our fault, it's not our fault." My mom tore my body away from the computer and looked into a frenzy of particularly raunchy sex pop-ups. She wailed like a dying mother.
That was in sixth grade. Last week, a fellow Realtor wandered into my office. My mom's boyfriend bought her an iPad last Christmas. Recently he bought her an iPad case with a built-in keyboard. iPads are fantastic tools for Realtors, because we take them with us when driving around clients. If clients have any questions about other properties, the iPad delivers like a god. My colleague shook his hand at the iPad and asked me to show him the tricks.
"Please just show me a few things. Like how to get on the Internet. Show me the good stuff," he said.
I am the youngest Realtor in our office by fifteen years. As with most Real Estate offices, the agents are old. They don't have hearing aids, but ninety-nine percent are members of AARP with Viagra and wheelchairs looming in the near future. And our office might as well be in Japan, the walls are so thin. When I clicked the Safari button, a porn site popped up. Again, there were vaginas and penises and asses and mouths. There were videos. My colleague covered his eyes and started screaming, "Why is there porn? Why is there porn? Oh my God, my eyes, oh my God, why is there porn?"
I replied by repeatedly shrieking, "It's not my iPad! It's my mom's! It's not mine, it's not mine!"
Within seconds half of the agents in the building were in my office. We were both still yelling. I thought one of the elderly women was going to have a stroke.

February 16th 2011 11:45pm - I Scream when I Drive

My senior year in high school, I was awarded "Most Likely to Fall Asleep in Class." A few characters in my graduating class of four hundred provided a great deal of competition. However, I obtained the final honor by procrastination and persistence in my sleeper reputation. That, and I drank.

I almost earned the distinction of "Worst Driver." I made the final three, but ultimately my dear friend Pills conquered my efforts. The morning that our graduating class voted, she had made a left-hand turn on a red light. An oncoming car honked, she accelerated through the turn, the other car swerved, and she drove headlong into a line of idling vehicles. I couldn't compete with that.

Over the years, I've attempted to redress my missed glory. I've been cited for illegal turns, running through stop signs, cutting off officers of the law, failing to indicate a turn, having outdated registration, driving without a seatbelt, and being in possession of an open alcohol container in my car. I once had a warrant issued for my arrest because I didn't send in the processing fee after I fixed my side mirror. However, more than any other violation, I persistently get pulled over for speeding.

It's not that I forget meetings or appointments. I just assume it will take me less time to get places. I pride myself on my ability to leave later and arrive earlier than Google maps tells me to.

My Real Estate office is near the bottom of a hill in Santa Rosa called Fountaingrove. I was scheduled to show three houses located up the hill. Google maps estimated eleven minutes. I mentally allotted myself eight minutes. I got caught on the phone and sprinted to my car five minutes before the viewing.

I planned on tearing out of the parking lot and flying up Fountaingrove. Unfortunately, I was driving a 2000 Toyota 4Runner. The car had four cylinders and a lot of weight. I floored it and leaped up the hill at a steady rate of 15mph. A gorilla could have outrun my car.

Seven minutes later I was late and the hill leveled out enough to gain some speed. A bicyclist prevented me. The guy was swerving all over the road. My five-year-old cousin can ride in a straight line. He wobbled to the left and then would suddenly jolt to the right. Every time I tried to pass him, he lurched directly in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes three times to avoid hitting the nutter. The fourth time he wavered to the right, I smashed the accelerator to the floor and inched past him. The sun glinted off his red helmet and into my eyes.

"Get the f*** off the road," I screamed at him out my open window.

There was a sidewalk. I failed to comprehend why he couldn't use it.

Three minutes later, I opened the door to the house and turned on all of the lights. I was sweating and breathing like a rapist. I was wildly thankful that my client wasn't there yet. I looked out of the window to see a bicyclist ride up and dismount in front of the house. He wore a red helmet.

February 8th 2011 9:30am - A Gate and a Pair of Heels

Heels make legs look skinnier and more toned. Heels accentuate calves and provide a booty lift. Walking around in heels all day can shed an additional six hundred calories. I can't wear heels. I limp, I grimace. I look like a hunchback.

However, as a Realtor, I have to look professional. I sometimes wear those goddamn torturous heels.

Earlier in the week, I had taken a client's house key to get a copy made.

"Please bring it back, it's my only key," the seller begged.

I assured her that of course I'd bring it back.

I drove the twenty minutes from her house back into the center of Healdsburg, but then a crises erupted with another deal and I drove in a mad frenzy to my Santa Rosa office. It wasn't until five hours later that I realized I still had her only key.

Four days after that, I returned to the seller's house with the key. She lived eight miles out of Healdsburg. Those eight miles comprised a windy and narrow road lined by cliffs and massive trees. It took twenty minutes to get from her house to a normal street and civilization.

I called the client to let her know that I was coming. When I arrived, the gate was padlocked. The gate wasn't electric. It had to be unlocked and opened manually. I parked outside the gate and could see the house in the distance. I jumped up and down, I waved my arms wildly in the air, I honked the horn like a crazy person. I flashed the headlights. Nobody came down from the house to let me in. Fifteen minutes later, it was getting dark and my vision was rapidly diminishing. With my 20/400 vision, I can barely see in daylight.

I decided to hop the fence. Except that the fifty thousand dollar fence was too narrow to get my foot in and the spikes across the top prevented me from muscling my way up. A tree grew nearby the fence. How I visualized getting over the fence required gymnastics and flexibility. My limbs have the pliability of a sixty-year-old man, and I was wearing heels. I propped my back against the tree and leveraged myself to the top of the fence. I stepped down on the narrow horizontal strip of wood and hung onto the tree so I wouldn't die. The only thing I could do was jump. I jumped. My right foot caught the spiked top of the plank and I plunged five feet to the ground. I fell directly on my knee into a mush of leaves, dirt, and roots.

As I started hobbling up the quarter-mile long driveway, the seller got into her car and drove down.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I meant to open the gate for you."

"Oh, that's okay," I replied. "I just tried to hop the fence."

She looked at the grass and dirt stains covering my arms and legs. I had bark stuck to the back of my shirt. Some twigs and leaves were in my hair.

"You hopped the fence," she said. It wasn't a question.

I waited for her to say that I could get in her car and she'd drive me up to the house. She didn't ask me to get in the car. She nodded and continued driving towards the gate. I assumed that she was opening the gate so that I could walk through it on my way out. I sighed and staggered like a cripple up the long-ass driveway. I struggled towards the house and handed her the key when she had parked and gotten out of the car.

I wobbled back down to the gate, my body scratched and bruised, and my feet in agony.

When I got to the bottom, the gate was still padlocked, and my car was still outside the gate.