As I venture out of my house to visit various friends, I often get asked, "Since you don't have a job or any hobbies, what do you do all day?"
At first, I was vexed as to how I spent my time. I couldn't think of a single activity that kept me busy for the 10-12 hours a day I normally stay awake. Although I do put out a few resumes a day, it takes about 20 minutes and sure, there's my recent obsession with Anthony Bourdain (you know I'm hooked since this is my second mention of the too-tanned god in my blog). I DVR his show in advance so I have an assortment to choose from when I do finally wake up at 11 AM. However, that show is only 1 hour, and when you factor in fast forwarding, it's cut down to 45 minutes. But then, if you also factor the chance I fall asleep during the episode, it's back up to an hour.
In any case, this show does not account for my time. Lately, my mom has been scheduling household chores/whatever you call it when people come and do stuff in your house. One time when I was about 13 and my brother was 16, a random cleaning lady came to our door and since we don't have a peephole, we looked out the window to see who it was. For some reason, we assumed she could not see us through the open window. She immediately began saying "I see you, I see you. Let me in! I just want to talk about these cleaning supplies for your mom!" It was traumatic and I have not looked forward to these strangers visiting my house to perform random tasks. Yet, since I don't have that much human interaction throughout the day time hours, I've tried to welcome the strangers with open arms, hoping that while they clean my carpet or install a new cable jack that they will offer me a job or their hand in marriage.
I always wonder if the guys will be the Jim Carrey type, you know, freaking weird and obsessive, or the James Franco, hot guy trying to get his acting career in order while making an extra buck cleaning carpets kind. So far I haven't seen either of these types, which is neither a blessing or a curse. But with this in mind, I ponder how I should present myself and what topics to discuss.
Though I want to have a heart to heart with these men (why are handymen always men? I'm not complaining, but it does make a sit down discussion about Oprah over crumpits hard to get into), I am met with the ultimate question of how I should treat them. Do you offer them a cold drink because of the labor intensive work they are doing or do you offer a warm drink because it's cold outside? Is it inappropriate to ask them to open jars that you can't pry open? Would it be weird to ask them to scratch a place in your back you just can't reach? So many questions and there's no Marie Claire guide for etiquette with handymen and I often feel lost in this new realm of social interaction. When I was younger, I could just hide from them but now that I've officially come of age, it's my responsibility to show them common courtesy and take the reins in explaining what needs to be done.
My first question being, do I dress up for my scheduled visitors? I often have to get out of bed before I really want to, so I'm tempted to stay in my sweats as I attempt to seduce these men into matrimony. Yet, since I'm 23, sweats seem an unfit match. They are either too old or too young for a person of my age. I'm drawn to think, what would Taylor Swift do? I'm assuming she has numerous men come into her house for various activities and that she does not wear sweats for any of them. Keeping this in mind, I've opted for jeans the past few days. As I struggle with what outfit is appropriate, I also wonder if I should put on make up.
I usually assume these people think I'm around 15, so I'm okay with not putting on my smokey eye I use for the club, but should I be putting on some sort of foundation or mascara? For some reason, I equate this situation to the one I run into when going to the gym before 4 pm (after all, any self respecting girl has a touch of blush on before 4 pm...right?).
I usually wear make up when I leave the house, but if I'm going to the gym, do I really need to waste it just to later wash it off? The same applies to the cable guy. I'm not actually leaving my house, hell, I'm barely leaving my bed, so is make up a prereq to his arrival? Again, I think, what does T Swizzle have to say? Although she inevitably has a make up artist preparing her for even the accidental encounter with the pool boy, I know she's dabbing on some lip gloss before she hits the snooze button. Since I don't have my own personal assistant handy, I take the poor girl's option and just wear last night's make up for my early morning cable call. After all, I want to look like I had fun the night before but also like I care enough to be made up.
While I sit here and write this, a solid hour has gone by and I didn't even have Anthony on in the background and I didn't take a nap. I think suffice it to say, we can all agree that today has been productive enough for me and I will now go take a nap.
I hope this answered the age old question of, "What does Melissa do?"
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