It Was Long Ago

A date with The Smithereens








After three weeks, when I didn’t get a call from the Florist, I had resigned myself that flower arrangement was not in my future. By that point I had figured out that I couldn’t type. I had no experience. I hated telemarketing. I had no marketable skill.



The ad I answered was vague. It read something like “motivated person wanted for dynamic business opportunity.” An older or more experienced person might have known immediately that this was a bad idea, but the idealism of youth…


I arrived for my interview in my neat little skirt, white blouse and sweater. It was Fall. I’d followed the directions given to me on the phone to the letter, but I had no idea what the job was or where exactly I had arrived at. I had parked in a huge parking lot that looked like a truck stop. I walked into the building in front of me, which looked almost like a hotel or lodge, but clearly was under construction. But this was 15 miles from my home. There was no new hotel, I’d have heard. In fact, I had heard of no new buildings, yet here it was.


Inside the building I entered a banquet hall. Waiters were milling about setting up tables. This at least made sense to me and as I didn’t know about event facilities, not knowing the place existed made sense to my young mind. I rationalized that the trucks in the lot were probably deliveries or maybe guests? Maybe they were holding events to raise money to finish building?


I stopped ‘a waiter’ and identified myself. He seemed to recognize my name and grunted I should follow. He lead me across the large hall and into an office space. It was sparse: a bare desk, a file cabinet. I thought they really need a secretary and I truly hoped that was not the job as I already knew they wouldn’t hire me for that.


My host walked through this room to a small windowed door in the back. There were blinds and they were closed. He knocked once. I considered if I should sit and wait as I had seen people do on television, but there was no chair. So I stood, meekly behind the man.


A gruff voice growled, “Enter.”


My host opened the door, stepped aside so that I could walk in, grunted my name and closed the door.


I stood in a room that was surprisingly larger than the one outside. It was paneled with dark wood and looked much more like an office, with a desk and two chairs facing the desk. On the wall hung prints of horses. A large gruff man sat behind the desk, another stood just behind the door. The man behind the desk barked, “Sit.” So I did.


He studied me for a moment. I wondered if my wool skirt was too plaid. Maybe I should have worn shoes and not boots that disappeared under the hem of the skirt. I had left my purse locked in the trunk of the car so, I held my keys in my lap trying to remember all the manners my mother had taught. After a long time, the man behind the desk began asking questions:


Where did I live?


How long had I been driving?


What kind of car did I drive?


I found this odd, but I answered respectfully. He went on.


How had I heard of the job?


What was my education?


What other experience did I have?


I tried to answer. Hearing myself as the young and inexperienced person I was. As I still had no idea what the job was, I had no idea what kind of experiences I should try to relate to. My interrogator gave no indications as to what he thought of my answers. Neither did the man standing at ease behind the door. The man behind the desk went on.


When was the last time you cheated on a test?


What? I… Never.


Why not?


What? I …uh. That’s not a right thing to do and why would I? I didn’t need to?


How much drugs do you use?


WHAT? I considered getting up and walking out. Then I wondered if I would be allowed to as I suddenly was very aware that I was alone in a back office with two very large men. I explained I didn’t do drugs, thus how much was a rather moot point, and by the way, what WAS this job?


At this point the man behind the desk gave the barest smirk and started to explain something about the location where we were sitting being under construction and something about recreational vehicles and flyers and did I know of large parking lots where I could leave flyers on cars. I was confused. He went on to explain that I would be the wonderful salary of $2.00 for every flyer I placed out into the world and $4.00 for every call they received as a result of my flyer.


I suddenly had visions of paper flying in the wind.


How do you know if I’ve distributed flyers or …not? I asked. Not to be rude, but truly perplexed. Never mind the math, that I was intuitively doubtful about.


The two men exchanged a look and the one behind the desk gave me a polite smile. He started to nod and then thanked me for coming in. Told me they had several others they were interviewing and they would call me soon. The man behind the door opened it. I thanked them both and left.


Years later I happened to find myself in the neighborhood and pulled into the lot. It still looked the same.