Entry 822 – Review Of The Week, (And Oversleeping)

Okay.  Today’s Saturday.  Well, on Tuesday, when I was at the Phoenix Management place, they told us that for a good deal of the day after the morning meeting, we were gonna be "out in the field."  What that meant was that two of the more senior ‘managers in training’ were going to take two of the newbies, (we all went in groups of four,) out to different areas in NJ and try to sell them "sample bottles" of the perfume/cologne.  I was with Isabel, another newbie, and Roxy and Isaac.  We stayed out there, talking to anybody we could get to listen to us.  Well, Roxy and Isaac did most of the talking.  I basically stood back because I didn’t know who to approach.  We were in an area of Newark where at least three quarters of the people spoke Spanish, and only Spanish.  Now, I have nothing against Spanish speaking, actually I think it’s a really neat language to hear spoken, especially the way Roxy was going at it.  But I only know like, six words in Spanish.  I never took a foreign language in high school because as I used to say then, "I have enough trouble with English."  Scary sentiment for a writer to say, huh?  Lol.

Anyway, that made me wonder about this company.  It’s like, why are we doing this when we’ve been told that huge companies buy so many cases a week and all that?  Plus, my mom said that somebody in her office was asking if this was one of those door-to-door things and I was like, "Nah, it’s not."  But Tuesday, I started to wonder.

Well, Wednesday I got up and didn’t feel that good.  My tummy was bugging me, but it was nothing more than just that initial wake up and feel blah kind of thing.  But I used it to my advantage, cuz I really didn’t want to say the entire day, especially if we were going back out "into the field."  So I left after the first meeting.  On the drive back, I was thinking about it and I realized that though this did seem like a great opportunity and I would love to have that kind of money, I really couldn’t see myself getting into selling perfumes for the long haul.  I decided that the next morning, I would go in, get the bottles of perfume that I did sell, (they had a contest for who could sell the most bottles to friends/family.  I sold six,) and then just tell them this wasn’t something I could see myself doing for any length of time and that I felt I should get out now so that they could focus on the people who were serious about it.

I stopped at FunTime and called Rob from there.  He was still asleep, of course, and was saying I should let him sleep till one.  It was a bit before twelve when I called.  Anyway, I said that I’d go in and DDR a game or two and then give him a call back.  So that’s what I did.  Then I went over there, (and was subjected to soap operas,) and we came back to my house.  After me missing the Beatle block (again!!!) because I got to his house right at noon.  They played Help! as the first song, but then I went in his house, therefore missing the other three.  Lol, he forgot his uniform so his dad dropped it off.  Then we watched a few episodes of Third Rock from the Sun, (Rob is SO Harry!) and I dropped him off at work.

Before I’d done that, hough, Mike had come down while Rob and I were in the dining room.  He asked how the Phoenix thing was going and then said that he hoped I’d made the right decision to quit.  I said I had, that I was going to tell them that the next morning and he said "Good — cuz it’s a scam."

Turns out that my dad went online and typed in different things to Google to try and find out about this place.  He finally typed in something like ‘perfume — fraud" and apparently Phoenix was the first name that came up.  So, yeah.  I read the things that he’d printed out and it sounded exactly like what I’d been seeing and hearing the past few days.

I pretty much was depressed the rest of the day, just cuz I felt so stupid for falling for something like this again.  Though I think it was this night, Rob said the sweetest thing to me.  I was talking about feeling dumb and all this and I said something with the words "falling for this" in it.  Or something like that.  I wish I could remember my exact phrasing.  Because he looked at me and said, "Well, you fell for me."  I just got this smile on my face and said after a moment, "That’s not what I meant."  Cuz I’d meant all the stupid stuff out there where people just draw you in to make you give them your money and all that.  But as I thought about it, I realized Rob was right.  I’d fallen for him.  So maybe sometimes I did make a good choice.

I think we ended up hanging out until around two that night even though I knew I had to wake up around eight the next morning.  I didn’t actually get to sleep until around three because I worked for a bit on my novel, Our Strange Duet.  I think I’m gonna go through the Writer’s Market Guide book again and see if there are any places I can send a query letter to.

Well, the next morning, I did exactly what I said to myself I would do.  I got the perfume and told them that yeah, I was quitting.  Then I left.  I meant to go back to sleep for a little while, but that didn’t happen.  I spent some time working on revamping the novel, then Mike and I were watching TV and found old episodes of Full House and Family Matters.  I called Rob around twelve thirty and we ended up meeting up around two.

I drove over to his house to pick him up and when I was at the door he asked me if I still wanted his dad to look at my car and see if he could find the transmission fluid thingy.  So I said okay, if he wanted to, and if he had the time.  Rob went up and asked him and all three of us went outside.  I popped the hood and he’s looking under it for about five minutes.  He, like Rob, found everything except the transmission fluid thingy.  Then he asked what kind of car it was and Rob and I told him a Ford Escort.  He looks for a few seconds longer, then says, "F*ck me, I don’t know."

After that, Rob was gonna go and get his hair cut, so we stopped at the bank on Main Street and then went over to where he gets his hair cut.  We were waiting there for close to an hour for him to even be called back.  He read the conversation between Erik and Celeste, though, and liked it.  And I got to write some more on that, as well as the conversation that’s gonna take place between Crystal and Celeste concerning Erik.

When he was out of there, I couldn’t even look at him without cracking up.  Lol, they’d brought his hair forward so he had bangs of a sort and it was just so funny-looking.  Anyway, we came back to my house and stayed there for a little while, but I wanted to go back out and meander, not to mention Mike’s bird was really making a racket and wouldn’t shut the Hell up, so we went back out.

We drove over to Lake Matawan, where I’ve gone rowing in the summer.  And those two arm-like things that go out over the water?  Well, there was another floating boat-like thing anchored to the one on the rig

ht.  So I ran over there and actually got on it.  Then I convinced Rob to join me and he did.  Lol, he was so paranoid, though.  It was so cute.  Lol, sometimes I would start kissing him on the neck and he’d start to relax but then he’d remember he was on something that was over water and tense back up.

It was while we were at the lake that he said if I wanted him to slep over that night, he’d have to call his parents and ask/let them know those were his plans.  And it was so cute, I was like, "I’d like you to, but only if you want to."  And he says, "Well, do I have your permission?"  I said of course he did!  I wouldn’t be saying that I wanted him to if he didn’t.  Anyway, he went back up on dry land and called while I went back to the boat-like thingy.

He got the okay and we drove over to his house so he could get supplies, (his medication for the next day, clothes, toothbrush, all that good stuff,) and we came back to my house.

I know we just hung out in my room for most of the time.  We ate and watched Third Rock, the third disk, and by the time the last episode was alf over, I was nearly asleep.  We actually ended up conking out around twelve thirty.  Okay, I ended up conking out around then.  Rob still felt, as he was laying there, like he was on that boat-like thing in Matawan, you know, like he was still swaying on it, and couldn’t get to sleep until around three.  I actually remember waking up around two and him telling me that.  I took his hand and was honestly trying to think of something to help him, but I fell back asleep before I could come up with anything.

We woke up the next morning, Friday, around ten thirty.  Even though all Rob wanted to do was go back to sleep.

**There is more to this entry, but I’ll write it later.**