After a rather stressful midterm season, I decided to reward myself with a mentally detoxifying massage. What I got, however, was nothing more than the realization that there are still people in this world crazier than I am.
“So,” my masseuse “Janet” began innocently enough as she worked on a stubborn knot in my shoulder, “what are you in school for?”
“Journalism,” I told her.
“Ha! Good luck!” she mocked. This was a very popular reaction of late.
“No, I’m sure you’re great,” she said a second later, apparently reconsidering. “Fantastic, even. Actually, you should work for Oprah. Oh my god! You have to work for Oprah. I love her! Don’t you? I read her magazine. But I don’t buy magazines. I hate them, actually. But I bought her magazine once.”
“Yeah, Oprah’s pretty cool, I guess,” I answered, wondering if they taught the art of shutting up in massage school.
“The thing is, though, you’re what? Eighteen years old?”
“Twenty-two,” I corrected.
“Whatever. You’re young. You have no idea what you want to do. You’re going to graduate and be like, ‘Wait, what do I do now? I hate my major and never want to do anything in the field again. Ever.’”
“I don’t hate my—”
“Of course you hate it. When I was in college, I did an internship, and that was how I realized I didn’t want to go into marketing. That was really smart. Doing an internship. If you had done an internship, you would’ve realized you hate journalism,” she suggested.
“Actually, I’ve done a bunch, and I still want to be a reporter.”
“Oh. Weird. I’ve never heard of that before. You are an extraordinary case. EXTRAORDINARY. You should go on ‘Oprah.’ Or, wait, even better … you should work for her!”
“I’ll look into it,” I muttered.
“You’re not going to make any money as a journalist. Let’s see—as a waitress, you’d make, like on average, I don’t know, $14 an hour with tips. With an entry-level job, you’d make probably less than $30,000. I wonder how much more that would be than just being a waitress?”
Jane was silent for a moment, thinking to herself. I savored it.
“Silly me! Thinking I could figure it out in my head. I’ll have to use a calculator.”
She abandoned her post near my right calf and started rummaging through her drawer until she found her calculator. She punched in a few numbers, mumbling disapprovingly to herself.
“I mean, if you account for taxes and everything, $30,000 is more like $25,000, which is less than $14 an hour, full-time, for a year!” she announced.
“But you have to account for taxes for the waitress,” I offered.
“Are they still taxing waitresses?” she asked.
“I believe so.”
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Flip over so I can rub your neck.”
Her hand grazed the side of my breast as I rolled onto my back.
“Wupsies! Haven’t done that in years!” she squealed. I pulled the sheets tighter around my body.
“So where’s your boyfriend from?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.
When I told her Grand Rapids, Mich., she made a face.
“Trash! Total trash! You’re dating trailer trash. Eeuw!”
“Actually, my boyfriend grew up in a really nice area and went to a reputable high school.”
“But aren’t there, like, trailer parks in Grand Rapids?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, did he like living in Grand Rapids?” she asked, making a point to snarl the city name.
“Yeah, he liked it, but there weren’t a lot of Jews there, so that was kind of hard for him.”
“Oh my god, Kiera!” she scolded. “That’s the most derogatory thing I’ve ever heard! You can’t just run around calling people ‘Jews.’” She paused and patted my head. “You’re all set. Be sure to give your friends my number.”
If you want to work for Oprah, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
