The Beginning

Once upon a time, I found myself at Hooters.  I had graduated college a few months before and just returned from a fantastic European adventure with my younger sister.  I was also unemployed.  Applying for several professional positions both before and after returning from my post graduation trip, I'd had little luck in my job search.  I was feeling the effects of the recession first hand.  So while I continued my less than successful job hunt, I had fun enjoying myself as if college had never ended.  And that is how I found myself at Hooters on a Saturday morning.

Hooters had opened just a month before.  I'd applied before leaving for my vacation but hadn't even received a second interview.  Unfortunately, my first interview not only followed a horrible attempt to change my hair color from blonde to brown, but also an intense sunburn that left my face peeling.  Needless to say I looked nothing like a Hooters Girl.  I wasn't surprised when they didn't call back.

Several months after my horrible first interview I ended up at Hooters that Saturday morning to take the complimentary shuttle bus to the local college football game.  So there I sat with two of my very best guy friends drinking Big Daddies and Clearwater Punches waiting for our ride to the game.  I was in white short shorts, tan and less than sober.  Luckily, my less than soberness allowed me to let my personality shine through - naturally.  So I was in white short shorts, tan, less than sober and extra bubbly.  Apparently I was Hooters Girl material.

Getting on the bus the general manager, who'd interviewed me a few months before, stopped me. 

"You'd make an awesome Hooters Girl," the manager beamed at me.

"Um, really?!"

"Oh yeah!  I'd love to have you on staff.  Stop in on Monday and we'll get you started."

It seemed that with my hair a perfect shade of brown and my generally clear skin not peeling awkwardly off my face I was actually exactly what Hooters had been looking for all along.  Go figure.  And that was it, I came in the following Monday, tried on a uniform and was scheduled to train the next day.  I'd gone from Hooters reject to Hooters Girl in no time at all.  Over a year later I'm still here.  Thanks, Big Daddies, I owe you one.

Fearing St. Nicholas

Yesterday began the first of my Christmases.  This is correct, Christmases.  You see I am of Dutch heritage.  I am so much of Dutch heritage that I have both a Dutch passport and a Green Card totting father with an accent.  I have wooden shoes and delft dishware and enjoy a nice wheel of Gouda cheese.  In addition to these Dutch traditions, I also celebrate St. Nicholas Day and consider this my first Christmas of the year.

In The Netherlands, Christmas itself is taken in its religious connotation.  It is not about presents, reindeer and portly, jolly old men.  Christmas is a time for church and family.  Instead, like many Europeans, the Dutch do their gift giving on St. Nicholas Day.  Now before I go on I would like to make it quite clear that St. Nicholas  - or Sinterklaas if you prefer a little Dutch in your life - and Santa Clause are not the same person.  St. Nicholas is not a synonym for Santa whatsoever.  In fact, when I was younger St. Nicholas was a frightening figure while Santa seemed to be a pretty awesome dude.  St. Nicholas was the ying to Santa's yang.

Here's the deal on St. Nicholas.  St. Nicholas is obviously a saint.  He was a pretty cool guy who had a tendency for leaving coins in people's shoes.  As such, over the years it became the tradition to place your shoes by the hearth to receive the saint's many gifts.  Now he's not just going to leave you shit; you have to do something for him in return.  So you leave hay or carrots in your shoes because the white horse St. Nicholas rides over the rooftops gets pretty effing hungry.  So if you're good, and you've left some treats for the pony, you'll get some presents and candy and all the good things that such holidays are meant to bring.  YAY!  If you're naughty though, instead of gifts you'll receive some sticks.  Now I'm sure none of this seems remotely frightening.  It's what comes after all the sticks that is really messed up.

If you get sticks this is a huge warning.  Basically, if you get the dreaded sticks you better shape your shit up or else what happens the next year will really, really suck.  If you are naughty the next year St. Nicholas's helper, Zwarte Piet (I'd explain what that means but I'll just tell you some would say it's somewhat politically incorrect), will scoop you up and drag you to Spain in a bag.  Once you get to Spain you will be forced to make toys for all the good kids for one year.  Way worse than coal in a stocking.

Don't worry, I never awoke to the dreaded sticks in my wooden shoes.  Rather I got epic things like an American Girl Doll.  Basically, St. Nicholas freaked the eff out of me, but luckily I was a fairly wonderful kid.  Years later, St. Nicholas is still sending me gifts.  Ironically, they come from my mom in big brown boxes right to my door.  Go figure.  This year however I have just moved and my mailbox is currently being rekeyed.  This has meant that my gifts, which were delivered on Saturday, have been just out of reach.  There is nothing worse than knowing your presents are there just waiting to be unwrapped and you can't get to them.  I feel like I'm twelve and I did the whole "can we open one present on Christmas Eve" thing and mom said no.  Not even fair.

Tomorrow I'll finally get in there and discover the awesomeness that awaits me.  I know it will contain a chocolate letter (it's tradition to receive the first letter of your name in chocolate) and other sorts of sweet goodness.  Luckily, it has been below zero thus preserving all my yummy treats within the confines of that metal mailbox.  Don't worry presents I'm coming!

Back to Blogging

Good news world!  It's December and contrary to my worries, I am not homeless!  Yes, I have found a comfortable little studio (excuse me, "Junior One Bedroom" according to the brochure) that I have decorated in a style befitting a young Hooters Girl/aspiring lawyer.  I have a pink paisley shower curtain and graphic black and white photography gracing my walls and now I even have internet.  Finally the world has righted itself and though my closet is small and I lack the amazing piece of furniture called a couch, I feel at home.  Back to internet not only means back to society and CNN.com it means back to blogging.  My dear blog, I have not forgotten you.  Please forgive the neglect.  I promise you several rousing stories to make up for my absence.  I promise to try and give equal time to both you and your stepbrother, Facebook.  I promise to be as close to awesome as possible.  I'm good like that.

You and I - Again

A better version of the song I recorded for my friends' wedding. All instrument parts and vocals are me and were recorded in my bedroom using my laptop. Epically fancy I know.

Oh and my legs...

Moving Time - Again

I am about to be homeless in twelve days.  That's right, homeless.  No, I am not being evicted and I am not a bad tenant.  The situation is much more depressing (or much more humorous depending on how you look at it) than that.  Let me start by saying that my current lease is not so much a lease as a month-to-month "agreement".  Let me also state that I totally and completely love my current living situation.  Yes, the whole thing is most unfortunate indeed.

My landlord has been in a long-term relationship for the past several years.  Now one may wonder what my landlord's personal life has to do with my living situation.  In fact, his personal life seems to have a lot to do with my living situation.  You see, on Halloween, my landlord and his girlfriend decided that enough was enough and they would no longer be seeing each other.  It just so happens they live together.  You can probably see the issue here.  So on the first of November we were told we had until the first of December to relocate.  Well actually, the two of us on the main floor were told to relocate and the two in the basement can continue to inhabit the house - lucky them!  Suddenly, that whole "convenient" month-to-month thing doesn't seem so convenient.

So what's a girl to do?  Play "Parent Trap" and get my landlord back together with his ladylove?  Move in with the other displaced roommate you say?  Nope, Cor is moving in with his parents and I am certainly not Hayley Mills or Lindsey Lohan (even in her cute, innocent, nonlesbian years).  So the two downstairs have a place to live and Cor has a place to live.  Shit, that leaves me in a dire predicament.  After asking, looking, crying and begging it seems that finding a place to live is less than easy.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that I am in a college town and it is the middle of the semester.  Basically, no one is moving right now so openings are few and far between.  On top of few openings, those that are available are either shit holes or way out of my price range.  I'd live in a shit hole, but because I'm looking at studios and will be living alone it seems less than prudent to live in an apartment with a door that would be no match for a toddler with a sandbox shovel.  Just my thoughts.

Then today I found the perfect little place.  Light, airy, cute and all utilities included.  I walked back into the property management company totally relieved as I requested to put in an application.

"Oh yeah, um, I forgot to tell you before I gave you that key, but some girl is already pretty much renting it.  She just has to bring her deposit in before closing today.  Basically that's like nine-tenths rented pretty much."

Mother effing douche fuck.  Sweet, that information would have been really great before I'd imagined how cute my antique, green velvet sofa would look against the west wall.  Thank you so freaking much for that consideration.

So if posting stops suddenly in December you'll know why.  I don't have wireless Internet in my car after all.

A Hooters Uniform Emergency

It's Saturday morning and I'm opening.  Getting to the restaurant I have a clear mission, purchase nylons and a new top.  Yes, I said purchase.  Besides my first two uniforms - one in the traditional white and orange and one black - I, just like every Hooters Girl, am required to buy any additional uniform items.  A Hooters uniform must be immaculate, not a run or a stain or faded logo.  As you can imagine, in a restaurant specializing in saucy hot wings, stains happen.  Runs are even more common.  On this particular Saturday I had a run and a faded top.  That was a quick ten dollars.

Nylons are easy.  I'm tall.  I wear the biggest size.  I know this.  I insert my four bucks into the nylon vending machine (yup, nylon vending machine) and out pop my size D nylons in "ultra tan."  Nylons in hand, I grab the manager to unlock the merchandise closet and he grabs me my usual size tank top.  Then I run to change - nylons on, shorts on, top on.  Something, however, is horribly, awfully, uncomfortably wrong.  My usually awesome fitting top is not fitting so awesome.  Rather than showing just enough cleavage and easily tucking into my shorts, the tank shows no boobage and is unbearably short.  In fact, I can hardly tuck the shirt into my shorts at all.  Looking in the mirror I note in horror that I look as if I've shoved my size C breasts into a top designed for a tween.  I am every pedophile's dream.

"Something is really wrong with this top," I say to the manager as I desperately attempt to pull it into position.  He doesn't even have to say anything; I know he agrees with me by the look on his face.  Marching back once again to the merchandise closet, I start looking through the tank tops.  The thing about Hooters tops is that are never, ever, never the same.  You could grab fifty marked the same size and each one would be a different length, width, thickness and cut.  For some unknown reason there is nothing uniform about the uniform.  Knowing this fact I wasn't concerned as I reached into the bin.  We'd just received a new shipment of tops so there had to be at least one that fit properly.  But looking through the tops I start to notice a trend.  These tops are all high-necked and short as shit.  I'm talking short enough that they all look like Hooters uniforms for little girls.  Can you say inappropriate?

Reaching deeper and deeper into the plethora of tops I start to panic a bit.  What if I can't find one that fits?  What if I am too tall for all the new, not at all improved tops?  My height curses me again as I realize that while some tops are better in the cleavage area, they are all shorter than hell.  I am sure I am effing screwed.  Then, in the very, very bottom of the bin I find the oddest thing ever: a Hooters top in a size medium.  This is like finding a white elephant.  Medium and Hooters don't go together.  In face medium is not a word I have ever heard at Hooters.  I can already tell it's far too wide, but it's long and at this point length is what I'm after.

I run to change into my last ditch effort at a top.  Thankfully, it tucks right into my shorts and shows off my cleavage just right.  Unfortunately, other than the length, the top is quite obviously too big and as such it wrinkles and gathers around my body in a less than flattering way.  I realize that I have no other choice.  I have to wear the ill-fitting top or wear a belly shirt.  I am not Sporty Spice, I don't do belly shirts.  So I rock the shit out of my wrinkles.

Don't worry.  We're getting new tops this week.  We've been guaranteed they won't look like total crap.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Hooters Girl Does Law School

"So basically, I've come to the decision to attend law school next year," I say, ending the usual spiel on my life plan.  Generally, the conversation begins with "you must be a student here at the University" and ends with me regaling my guests about how patent law really is totally awesome.  Then one of two things happens.  Either I am praised for my amazing foresight for future job security or I am laughed at.

"Now that is a great joke, Hooters Girl does law school!"

While I'm struggling to smile and say, "No really, that's my aspiration," most of me wants to kick the crap out of my close-minded, stereotyping, douche bag excuse for a customer.  You see, this has not happened once or twice, but enough times to make me feel like I'm living the real life version of "Legally Blonde."  However, rather than pink I get to wear glaring orange and I'm not going to law school with the goal to get back my frat boyfriend - I will gladly accept the hot yet smart law student falling for me in the end though.  Oh, and I'm not blonde.  But if "Legally Blonde" taught me anything it's that I too can overcome adversity and of course rely on the "bend and snap" for all my man hunting needs.  Thank you Reese Witherspoon.

All jokes aside, I find it utterly ridiculous that my job as a Hooters Girl somehow discredits my ability to become a lawyer.  Apparently, there is no such thing as a smart Hooters Girl.  If all Hooters Girls are attractive and stupid and I am a Hooters Girl then it can be logically deducted that not only am I reasonably attractive and stupid, but that girls that are attractive must also be stupid (forgive the logical reasoning thinking, studying for the LSATS is getting into my everyday life).  It seems that God or Buddha or Zeus or whoever handed out a bunch of sex appeal and a bunch of brains, but no one got both.  Sorry, I guess I double dipped.  I wasn't the only one.

My question is, why is a girl that is both beautiful and intelligent such a foreign concept?  Obviously, the answer is that it is possible for a girl to be both smart and pretty.  In fact, there are tons of girls that have killer looks and scored a perfect score on the analogies section of the SATs (go me!).  Yes, a girl can be hot and intellectual.  If this is the case, we are then led to question why a smart Hooters Girl is such a joke.  Evidently, it is assumed by some that all those smart pretty girls avoid Hooters like the plague.  All the smart pretty girls stay away and Hooters is left with a bunch of dimwitted, hot chicks that luckily know enough to sling in orders and scrunch their socks just so.  Smart girls don't demean themselves by working at, *GASP*, Hooters.  This of course is boldfaced lie.

While there are ditzy Hooters Girls, it is my belief that the vast majority are far more intelligent than they receive credit for.  For example, at my Hooters nearly 100% of the girls are in or have completed some or all of college.  Yes, I am one of these girls.  Not only do I don the famous orange shorts, I do so backed by a BS in Marketing.  Am I ashamed to be a Hooters Girl with a degree?  Not in the slightest.  You see, after graduating I did have a marketing job.  I worked at the corporate level for a Mongolian grill franchise doing marketing and design.  I made a lousy $10.50 an hour and I hated it.  Then I was laid off, a victim of that whole "last hired, first fired" thing.  Even at $10.50 an hour they couldn't afford to pay me in the current economy and they let me go.  So I found my way to Hooters.  Not only do I have a job that I love, I make tons more doing it and I've still had the ability to put my degree to work.  No, I'm not talking about marketing myself (cliché shit I've heard before); I'm talking about helping market my Hooters restaurant through social media and innovative marketing techniques.  Yeah, Hooters let me do that.  Hooters let me be pretty and smart.  Oh, and news flash, being smart and witty at Hooters has a direct correlation to the tips I make.  I guess being smart really does pay.

Now I want to be that pretty and smart girl that goes to law school.  I want to be a Hooters Girl and a law student and be proud that I'm doing both.  In fact it is my belief that Hooters will help me immensely in my law school experience because Hooters teaches you about people.  Hooters teaches you to read people like a book and interact based on such observations.  Hooters teaches you about life.  So next time someone asks me if being a Hooters Girl is respectable position for a future law student (yes, that really happened) I will say what I always say: Yes.  See you on Capitol Hill.  Elle Woods and I will see you there in Legally Blonde 2.Ho

100th Post

That last post was my 100th...I should have been more epic.  Damn