A Day in a Life: Part One

 I was looking at some stuff I wrote years ago and came across this piece about one particular day. At the time I wrote this, we were no longer living in the town where these events took place--the worst place I have ever lived--so I had some distance from the place and the events. I am breaking it up and will post the beginning today and instalments over the next few days. I only used the name of the town once in the original essay, but as is clear, I changed it here. Here's part one.

    I was not at all happy.  I had a job interview in the early afternoon with the county commissioners for a job I did not want.  I had applied as a way to stop people from telling me I should apply because it was right up my alley and I would do a great job,  and blah, blah, blah.  At the time I had not yet come to truly despise the town in which I was living, although I did not like it.  Still, I knew that being the director of the county museum would require a great deal of interest in county history and a genuine enthusiasm for the town itself.  I had neither.  We had lived there for almost two years at that point, and while I was not as traumatized as I would later become, I already did not like it and wanted to leave.  I knew that running the county museum would mean long hours, inadequate resources, dealing with incompetent people, and a daily grind that I was not at all interested in undertaking.  In short, it would make me miserable. No matter how many times I tried to explain this to the people who kept urging me to apply, though, it never registered and they kept pestering me. Finally I tried the “I don't have a driver's license” defense.  They assured me that with my perfect qualifications, they would overlook that requirement.  This was nonsense, of course, because driving around the county was a necessary part of the job. In desperation, I decided that the only way to get any peace in the matter was to apply, wait to be told that I did not meet the requirements and leave it at that.  You can imagine my utter and complete dismay, then, when I answered the phone one day and heard someone from the county commissioners office asking me to schedule an interview.  I was actually angry.  Still, I decided to play it out, so I awoke on this Wednesday morning unhappily contemplating my upcoming interview.

I put on a dress and walked the mile and a half to the government building, mentally muttering to myself the entire way.  I got there and was ushered into a very tiny room.  I thought that it was far too small for as many people as I expected.  Shortly, there arrived a breathless and apologetic woman who started going on about my application and how perfect it was.  She was SO excited about my background in anthropology and my experience and all of that, that she had overlooked the fact that I did not have a driver's license.  Her voice got more and more high-pitched as she kept going.  Finally, in almost a squeak, she asked me whether I could get a driver's license.  “I could,” I responded, “But I don't want to.”  I further explained that I had decided not to get a license when we had moved there because I wanted to see whether I could develop a walking lifestyle for myself that did not require a car.  I knew this would be a challenge in a place with very limited public transportation, but still, I wanted to try.  And it was great--I loved it.  I was not willing to give that up for a job I did not even really want.  I do not like to drive and did not want a job where that would be a major part of my duties.  She tried for a few minutes for to convey to me that if I would just reconsider, I would have an excellent chance at the job.  I listened politely, but I was practically jumping out of my seat.  I had been getting more and more excited and happy while she was going on and on, because my brain was gradually registering the fact that this meant the interview was not going to happen.  I'll be honest and admit to a sense of smug satisfaction as well, along with the phrase, 'I told you so,” which I was planning to use as soon as I could get back to my email.  After what seemed like forever, but was only a minute or two, she apologetically dismissed me. I was almost giddy as I floated out of that building.

I'll continue the story tomorrow.

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