Down Home Country

This Easter I was planning on spending all day in bed when I had a friend invite me to go home with her to South Carolina (don't worry, I've rescheduled the day in bed). And while at first I thought this was a bad idea because I'm not in college anymore, and it's always awkward at other people's families reunions, I decided to go because I was so lonely I was afraid that Nigel was going to start talking to me (and you'll be happy to know that while my sanity is still intact--for the time being--I've decided to embrace my spinsterhood and take awkward "family" photos of him and me and send them out as Christmas cards). And, as it turned out, it was just going to be my friend, her brother (who I know) and her parents.


It was on this trip that I realized that I am a city girl. 


I always thought of myself of at least small-town-scrappy, but let's just be honest and say it: I have no place living in the country. I always thought I knew country, mostly because I know so many people who believe that being "country" consists of nothing more than barbequing, listening to country music and lusting after cowboy butts. 


There really weren't even that many cows. There just wasn't much of anything else either. The town's name was Ninety Six (written out, no hyphen), and it had (yes I wiki'ed in the car) LESS THAN 2,000 people in it as of the last census. On the way there, Liz pointed out the main attractions: the Fuji factory and the Piggly Wiggly. I've heard of a Piggly Wiggly before, but there's something about hearing "I've got to run down to the Pig" that is just odd. I asked her what they used to do for fun in High School, expecting some tales of country shenanigans--cow tipping at the very least--and she said "either went to band practice or stayed home. What? There really wasn't anything else." The "What" was in response to my incredulous look.


Upon arrival I was given the grand tour, consisting mostly of a kitchen that rivals my house. The next morning, we planned to go to Star Fort (apparently a relic from Civil War days and something about a dirty double-crossing, honorless, no good Yankee) when we got the news. "The cicadas have come out for the first time in 13 years!" I didn't get it. Apparently, cicadas remain underground for a certain cycle of years, this swarm's being 13. They were swarming the side and back wall by the thousands. The lawn, they assured me, looked like it had been aerated from side to side. Then her brother added "Well, they do make pretty big holes coming up. After all, they really are just locusts."


We remained housebound for the rest of the trip.


We broke this only twice--once to go to church and once to see a new litter of puppies across the street. The puppies were 4 days old and adorable. The child who owned the dog explained in a very strong accent how the only way the mother would leave them was to go fishin' with him and "then that crazy dog, why she just jumped right in."


Church was an experience of its own. I was hoping that I would hear somebody "testify" with a really strong accent and I was not disappointed. As soon as the meeting ended the entire congregation came over to a) Greet Elizabeth, by name, and inquire into all details of her current life, most of which they already knew and b) Find out who I was (luckily her brother maintained the proper--ie, 3 feet--distance from me on the bench or I would have been accused of becoming a member of the family). It was after everybody started filing out for Sunday School that I realized why things looked so weird: Not a single person in the room had had recognizable plastic surgery. Sure, maybe a finger or tooth or two were replaced here and there (though not according to my observations, but I suppose anything's possible), but there were no tummy tucks, face lifts or botox in sight. I was so unnerved I had to sit down.


During Sunday School, nobody could say Svetz, even after I spelled it for them, so they just started calling me Sister Lisa. That was when I met the woman I referred to on Facebook: Sister K. Sister K opened an animal rescue center and told the most appalling stories of abuse, neglect and plain torture. Apparently, (and according to her, so don't hate me Southerners) most of the South still doesn't realize that are consequences for their behavior, and she's spent a good amount of her time in court to make people pay for their crimes. The best, however, was when she told me that the biggest dog fighting ring in her area was trying to steal her dogs for bait. After a few foiled attempts, she tracked them down, moseyed on up with a 9 mil in her hands and a .45 in her belt and very calmly explained that if they ever went near one of her dogs again, she'd kill them. They protested "You can't kill us. You'll go to jail" to which she replied "Yeah. But you'll be dead." They've never bothered her since, apparently figuring (and correctly I'd bet) that she would have held to her word.


When we left that afternoon, after eating almost nothing for 3 days that came from a store--and I mean not even pre-ground flour--I permanently secured my place on the City Girl List by exclaiming (as we passed a pack of vultures) "They look just like they do on Snow White!" And honestly, that's alright with me. Darling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue.

Top Ten Reason Why I Love My Job:

1) My boss/es are awesome. Seriously, if I ever need to negotiate anything, I'm just going to let them do it.

2) Some of my coworkers are canines.

3) The non-canine coworkers are not insane, rude, snotty or otherwise and can dance really well :)

4) I get to do my job in a place where 40  degrees is considered earth-shatteringly cold.

5) I get to tell people "Yeah, I smelted that."

6) I get to look at crazy/cool/gorgeous and/or historic tableware/jewelry.

7) I get to eat off of crazy, cool, gorgeous and extremely historic silverware, cause we haven't melted it yet. They have spoons like on Ever After.

8) I'm the only person not on Lent in the office, so I get to eat everything that someone gives us that has meat/milk/eggs in it.

9) I know what good jewelry is now.

10) I'm good at it--which is probably a first for me and a profession you can make money at.

Apparently

Apparently, my breasts know more about gold than I do. At least, I assume so, since my last customer spoke exclusively to them.

Not always right

Is it just me, or are people getting stupider and stupider these days?

I work at a precious metals refinery. Like it sounds, we buy precious metals. So yesterday I got a phone call from a customer who asked me what we would pay for a triple band ring. That being rather vague, I had to ask some follow up questions:

Me: "What karat of ring is it?"

Him: "It's, uh...I don't know what karat it is."

Me: "Okay, well we can't give you a quote without that information, but just as an estimate if it was 14 kt it would be--"

Him: "No, it's not 14 kt. How much for a triple band ring?"

Me: "Again, I can't give you a quote without knowing what type of metal it is, but if you brought it in, we'd be able to give you an accurate estimate."

Him: "Okay, thanks anyway."

Ten minutes later he calls back.

H: "How much for a .11 karat ring?"

M: "I'm afraid there's no such thing as .11 karat."

H: "But I need to know how much it would be."

M: "And I'm still going to need to know what gold karat it is."

H: "It's not gold."

M: "So it's...silver?"

H: "Yeeaaahhh."

M: "Okay, well, an average silver band would weigh about 5 grams, which would give you about $4.00."

H: "That doesn't sound right. It's not that small. It's point 11 karats."

M: "Wait, you mean weight? As in, .11 carats?"

H: "Yeah."

M: "Okay, well, give me a minute."

At this point I assume that he has a small jeweler's scale and has weighed it in diamond weights--carats--because he couldn't figure out how to change the scale to grams or pennyweights. Not being all that familiar with carats since we don't do gemstones, I Googled the conversion factor. I was sure that something had gone wrong, however, when I saw the results of my search.

M: "Uh, sir, .11 carats turns out to be less than a thousandth of a gram."

H: "Okay."

M: "You can't have a ring that weighs less than a thousandth of a gram. It's physically impossible."

H: "That's what he said."

M: "That would mean your ring weighed less than 1/2,000th of a penny."

H: "I called the jeweler I bought it from and that's what he said."

M: "Oh, the stone in your ring weighs .11 carats! Unfortunately, we don't buy stones of any type, we'd only be able to buy the metal, and I'd need a weight on that to give you an accurate quote."

H: "It's point 11 carats!"

M: "Again, that is for your stone. We cannot buy the stone from you. The metal itself has an entirely different weight. Did the jeweler tell you a weight for the metal?"

H: [getting really angry] "No. Look, don't you have any point 11 carat rings around the shop that you could weigh up for me to see how much it would be?"

I had absolutely no words for this. Apparently this man believes that every ring in the world with a certain stone size has the same weight. And even if that were true, and assuming that we carried anything (being a refinery jewelry doesn't last long around here) why would we carry such a crappy ring? At this point, I decided to stop arguing with him.

M: "No. We don't. You'll just have to come in to get a quote on it."

H: "Fine. Goodbye."

20 minutes later, I'm working on another order, so my boss answers the phone. A few minutes later I hear my boss say "Sir, .11 is not a karat."

House Living

I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I had been reincarnated, I could tell you this much about my former self: She had a staff! And no, not a "the staff of Ra" type staff, but a "tell Cook we'll be dining out tonight" type of staff.  A hairdresser, personal shopper, maid, cook, gardener and possibly driver. This became all too clear to me this weekend. I finally cleaned the whole house at once for the first time and all I could think was "Couldn't we send somebody?" Life is too ridiculously busy when you've got to do everything for yourself. So I've decided I need to get a staff. But how? I'm concavely broke, and live in a  place that wouldn't fit all these people anyway. To go for the real deal I'd either need to (a) Marry rich or (b) invent/steal something. Therefore in the foreseeable future, looks like I'm going to have to settle for the lite version. How do you even advertise for that? "Single woman seeks maid, must have excellent hair care experience, as woman is inept and will leave it looking like it does upon waking. Light cooking included."And when I say "light" I mean the Hungry Girl Cookbook "400 calories or less". I'm thinking my best bet is an immigrant who wants to be legal, and who will take a lower salary in return for sponsorship. And non-abusive management, but I think that's a given. Honestly, hats off to single mothers right now. I'm having a hard time doing all this with just me, but those of you with kids, all we can say is "Wow".

Maybe I wouldn't be feeling the pressure quite as badly if I didn't have to go to a laundromat. I haven't done that since college, and I remember it being a lot easier than it is. A lot cheaper, too. It cost at least $10 a trip to do my laundry, and that's with leaving my clothes damp. And it takes hours. And a bunch of trips back and forth since I broke the handle on my laundry basket by trying to do it all in one. I don't think I properly appreciated the beauty of sitting around the house playing video games while waiting for the laundry to finish. Or going someplace while it was running. Or not loosing socks in between the car and the building. It would also help if my cat didn't feel the need to christen newly cleaned blankets by vomiting on them.

Having a townhouse is a little daunting to me. Before, I always just had to decorate my room, because I didn't have a living room, or the one time I did, my roommate did all of that. And the kitchen too, come to think of it. Besides, decorating can get really expensive. When it comes to decorating I've always been comfort above decor, so it's probably not going to look really great no matter what I do with the walls, but the plain white look is starting to wear on me. For now, I finally unpacked the last suitcase (that had been sitting in the living room with all my books in it) so we're going to call it good.

Well, happy days until I actually write again.