It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman (3 page)

We were deep in the second game when I went to Super Dave to win. The host, John Davidson, read the question: “What causes the most household accidents: doors, stairs, or bicycles?” While Super Dave showed a pretaped bit where he performed a stunt he’s known for, like getting shot out of a cannon or signing an autograph at an auto trade show, I tried to imagine exactly how a bicycle could cause a household accident. Were there people showing up in the ER because they’d been tooling around the master bedroom on a ten-speed and accidentally crashed into an armoire? This seemed
like the least likely answer, so I was pretty sure it was either that or doors. I never once met a door I considered a troublemaker. But then Super Dave said
stairs
and he sounded so positive about it that I went temporarily insane and agreed, even though it went against all my training.

Of course, the answer was doors. Bastard.

That square that didn’t get the O left me open for a block, but luckily, my opponent didn’t have my special ops training and lost the next question, leaving it wide open for me to take the square back. This time I did not fall for any Super Dave trickery, and I won the second game by sticking to my guns and not agreeing that as a child actor Shirley Temple made more money than Jackie Coogan or Mickey Rooney. That had to be false since who’d ever heard of Jackie Coogan? Sure enough, I was right.

Finally, the moment I’d been dreaming about for weeks was almost upon me. I was told to grab a key and choose one of five brand-spanking-new shiny Buicks positioned on the stage almost like a pyramid, which I would then get to try to start—right after the commercial break.

I went with my gut and chose the bright red Buick Skyhawk right out in front like the first pin in a bowling triangle. The producers placed me behind the wheel of the car with my “good luck” celebrities. From watching the show, I was led to believe that the contestant got to choose which celebrities would come with her or him for moral support, but this was not the case. Garry Marshall was standing next to me, leaning against the car, which I had nothing against—I loved
Happy
Days
as much as the next girl. But, somebody named Andrea Evans was perched on top of
my
car like she was posing for a girlie calendar in a mechanic’s garage. This didn’t sit well with me, but I didn’t have time to get truly riled up about how I would explain to my friends watching that I’m not gay or a soap opera fan and I had nothing to do with picking her because just then I noticed that the key I had in my hand wasn’t even an actual car key. It was a skeleton key. I felt all the color drain from my face. This fake key clearly wasn’t going to start the car which meant
I didn’t win
. I’d already lost and now to add insult to injury I was supposed to sit there glowing like an expectant mother knowing I would not be leaving with my Skyhawk? It was almost too much to bear.

I didn’t know what to do with the key, so I rolled down the window to ask Garry what he thought.

“Um, hey, Gar?”

“Yeah?” he answered in his heavy New York accent, clearly surprised at being addressed by a contestant.

“Look.” I showed him the key. “This isn’t even a real key. Do you know what I’m supposed to do with it?” Garry looked at the key, intently assessing the situation. The poor guy had no idea. He was just there to promote
Pretty Woman,
not to figure out the ins and outs of the game show business.

“Just fake it,” was all he could come up with.

Fucking directors.

We came back from commercial and John Davidson boomed, “We’re back with Stefanie and she’s about to see if she won a brand-new Buick Skyhawk.” Ha.

“Stefanie, start the car!” So I looked down at the ignition and did my best impression of someone starting a car. I figured if nothing else I should really try to sell my performance since Garry Marshall was watching and could possibly put me in his next movie. Then I sat waiting for a
wah wah waaah
noise. Instead, I heard some sort of sound effect that vaguely mimicked an engine turning over. But that was impossible. I was in the car and knew it definitely hadn’t started. This was followed by balloons dropping from the ceiling and the audience cheering like they were in the front row of a Madonna concert. What was wrong with these people? Hadn’t they ever seen someone lose on a game show before? That’s when my new best friend Garry leaned in through the window.

“You won the car.” And that’s when I screamed. This was unbelievable! I’d really done it.

I vaguely recall filling out a bunch of legal paperwork with my name, address, Social Security number, and other information, presumably to get the “getting my new car” ball rolling. I was smiling so hard my face hurt, loving everyone like I was on ecstasy—“Good luck, cowboy!” I shouted when I saw that Big Red was making his way to the podium. “Go easy on Lisa!” I shouted to Tom who was sitting on a crate near the coffee table for the crew. Tom gave me the thumbs-up as if to say, “You done good, kid.” I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my mom she was off the hook.

Mom was nonplussed by my coup.

“Huh.” It wasn’t a question. “You simply won a car.” Again, not a question.

“Yes, Mom. I won it. Isn’t it exciting? Now you don’t have to give me any money. I did this myself.”

“What about the taxes? Does the show pay for that, too?” Had my mother always been this big a buzz kill? I wondered to myself. Come on, taxes? Taxes were for grown-ups. Adults with decent jobs and houses and things like that. The government was interested in people with money. They weren’t wasting their time on twenty-one-year-old kids who went on game shows and won a car they sorely needed. My mom was so naïve.

A few weeks later, I took possession of my Skyhawk. It had no mileage! It also had no leather interior and no air-conditioning, because air-conditioning was three thousand dollars extra. “Yeah, no thanks. Just the car, please,” I told the dealership when they called with the news about how much the additional things would cost. Who needed a cassette player anyway when there were perfectly fine FM/AM radio stations?

Now there was just the question of what to do with my yellow Mazda. At this point it was barely drivable. It also had about twenty unpaid parking tickets on it, which meant that if I just left it parked on the street it would eventually get towed away—a bit anticlimactic for a car that had been with me through so much. But I had no other choice. So I said my good-byes and within two days the car was gone.

The following year, I did receive a form from the government stating that I’d won around fourteen thousand dollars in cash and prizes. I round-filed it along with the letters I
started receiving a few years later from the IRS. About five years later, the phone rang on a random afternoon.

“Hello?” Pause.

“I’m looking for a Stefanie Wimmer? This is the Internal Revenue Service calling about your outstanding bill of eight thousand dollars, which includes interest from the last five years.”

“
Hola
?”

W
hen I saw the ad in the classified section of the paper, I knew it was for me:

“Would you like to make easy money in a relaxed environment with room for advancement?”

Um, let me think…yeah!

“Imagine a fun, creative job that offers flexibility and a weekly paycheck between $500–$1,200.”

I think I’m in love! But not so fast. There’s probably a catch.

“Great pay, great incentives in the exciting world of telemarketing!”

Perfect! I didn’t know what telemarketing was
exactly
, but it sounded right up my alley. I loved talking on the phone and I loved marketing.

“Start tomorrow—have a check by Friday!”

Sold!
The phone was in my hand in seconds and a few
minutes later I’d secured an interview for later that same day. I was optimistic. Seeing as I’d just put down stakes in a rundown apartment just off of Hollywood Boulevard with my best friend, Beth, solely on her dime, I needed a job fast. I’d started my cross-country trek from Massachusetts to my new life with nine hundred dollars cash—a lot of money to me at eighteen. But my funds went quickly on 7-Eleven Slim Jims and Motel Six stays. We’d started the trip with lofty plans to camp out in order to save money, but that strategy flew out the window after the very first time we spent two hours in a campground unsuccessfully trying to pitch our tent. We eventually ended up partially dozing in our car on the side of the road at 2 a.m., paranoid that we’d be raped by the truck drivers we’d brazenly been flashing for hundreds of miles. By the time a down payment was needed for the apartment, I was flat broke and it was up to Beth’s Bat Mitzvah savings account to finance our new place and budding marijuana addiction.

When I told Beth about my golden opportunity, all she said was, “Be careful. Better make sure this thing is on the level.” What was she even talking about? I might’ve only been living in Los Angeles for a week, and I might’ve, much to my consternation, still been a virgin, but I wasn’t dumb. I’d seen a few movies of the week in my time. I knew about
Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway
. I’d heard about these young girls straight off the bus in Hollywood, immediately getting preyed upon by some pimp who wants them to pose for “modeling pictures” and BAM they’re sucked into the seedy
world of prostitution or pornography never to be heard from again.
“Très jolie, Coco. Très jolie.”
Obviously, I was too smart to fall into that trap.

“It’s a phone job. Telemarketing. I’m sure it’s cool.”

“I’m just saying, it might be a scam,” Beth said just before sucking in a huge hit through a blue glass bong we’d received as a “welcome neighbor” gift from the guy in the apartment next door.

“I’ll tell you the real scam:
Bat Mitzvahs.
Chant a little Hebrew for two hundred of your closest friends and family and everyone gives you so much money you never have to sling Whoppers at a Burger King for three months until you finally get moved up to cashier where you are eventually fired for routinely shorting customers a few cents on their change in a noble attempt to help raise your minimum wage.”

Okay, perhaps I was a little bitter. Despite the fact that I was Jewish, my parents didn’t seem to notice, celebrating Christmas every year until I was about twelve. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my mother remembered our heritage, joined a temple and forced me to attend Hebrew school, even though at this point there was no chance I’d be studying enough to have a Bat Mitzvah. She also put the kibosh on Christmas, leaving me irritated and broke at thirteen. But at least I knew the value of a dollar.

Later that day, a pleasant blond woman of about thirty who introduced herself as “Genie with a G” looked me up and down, and then asked me to read from a script to see how well I articulated over the phone. I never had a big
interest in acting, but I
had
been chosen to play Dorothy in the local community center’s production of
The Wizard of Oz
when I was in the second grade, so I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. The script itself was one I’d know by heart within a few weeks.

“Hi, this is (insert your name here) from General Business Warehouse. You’re on our preferred customer list, so I’m paying you a courtesy call to tell you about the huge savings I’m able to offer you
today only
on your office-supply needs. Am I speaking to the person who makes the purchasing decisions at your company?”

To no one’s surprise, I was told I could start the next day.

But before leaving, I was led to a back office to be introduced to the owner of the company. I wished that Genie with a G had warned me of what I was about to see. Even just a minimal, “Hope you’re not scared of a little chest hair” comment would’ve been helpful. But I never saw it coming. The door swung open and standing there was a humongous Hungarian version of Brando in his bloated final days. For a second I thought,
How cute, someone dressed up a bear in people clothes!
The bottom of the man’s shirt was fiercely trying to fight free from the waistband of his pants and the buttons on his shirt were pulled so tightly I was afraid if one popped off someone could lose an eye—well, the few buttons that he’d actually buttoned. His shirt was purposely opened almost to his navel, exposing mounds of chest hair. It was a truly horrifying sight. But I didn’t say anything.

First off, we were still a good twenty years away from
it being acceptable for a man to get his chest waxed—this was the eighties, call-waiting had yet to be invented, and many people were still under the impression that Kajagoogoo would have another hit. Second, he seemed downright proud to be hairier than a Cro-Magnon, and since this was the man who would be signing my weekly paycheck of $500–$1,200, I figured it best to keep my thoughts to myself. I smiled widely and tried to maintain eye contact despite the bowl haircut, gold tooth, and huge medallion, which were all equally battling it out for my attention. He stuck out a big meatloaf hand.

“I’m Chubz. Eez veddy, veddy nice doo meet you,” he said in the thickest Hungarian accent since Zsa Zsa Gabor. “I hope doo be zeeing much more of you.”

I hoped not.

The large room where I worked was lined wall to wall with cubicles. Genie with a G brought me over to an empty one and I was provided with a phone, order pad, a book of “leads,” and my script.

“All of this is for me?”

“Yeah,” said Genie with a G. “Have a seat and we’ll get you started.” Wow. It was straight out of the last scene in
Working Girl
! My very own desk and phone! I’d truly arrived!

My coworkers were a ragtag bunch: a couple of rocker types, a part-time Michael Jackson impersonator, a few actors, and a smattering of girls. The girls seemed to be mostly scantily clad fake blondes with big boobs. I wondered if
wearing a tube top helped inspire the sales team somehow. It seemed like the girls spent most of their time chatting with each other about nightclubs and “how totally trashed” they’d gotten the night before, but I was determined to be a high earner. For approximately six hours a day, my job was to call people and get them to buy office supplies by any means necessary. Most calls went like this:

“Hi. This is Donna Kay (we got to make up fake names for ourselves and I thought Donna sounded very professional) from General Business Warehouse. You’re on our preferred customer list, so I’m paying you a courtesy call to tell you about the…hello? Hello?” But within a few days I was able to keep people on the line a bit longer. After my opening, if they were still there, I attempted to take the customer straight to a yes.

“Now, are you still using those Scripto Deluxe ink pens?…Great! Why don’t I just get a gross of those out to you.” That was not said as a question. “And because you’re ordering today I am authorized to send you a touch-tone phone with automatic redial. Would you like one in black, pink, or red?” This, of course, was just a regular cheapo phone with a redial button for people impressed by not having to
re-press
seven numbers, but I delivered it like I was offering to throw in a free cruise to Europe. I’d been given one of these phones to take home the first day I worked there, and the nine button had gotten stuck permanently on its maiden call.

“Just give me your personal address so I can make sure this phone gets delivered straight to your…I’m sorry,
you’re only a two-person office and that’s too many pens you say?…No problem, let’s just do a few dozen of the pens and get you set up with some writing pads. I have down here that you prefer the perforated edges.”

If I felt a call going south after I’d already had them somewhat interested, I was supposed to hand them over to a “closer.” The closers were a bunch of Chubz’s cronies who didn’t seem to have much to do other than eat extremely pungent seafood stews, discuss their rotisserie baseball teams all day, and play cards. But, they had the special ability to offer potential buyers a 25-inch color television set.

On Friday, after almost a week of calls that were mostly unproductive save for a couple that went to closers, I was called into Chubz’s office, where I presumed I’d be handed my walking papers. Instead I was presented a check for five hundred dollars. “Keep up zee good work and next week you make more. Much more.” I didn’t even know what to say. I was giddy.

“Really? Because I didn’t make any actual sales yet. I mean, I’m really close but…”

“I hear you make
many
sales. Eez veddy good.”

“I did? I do?”

“You send calls to closers, they close. You are gifted girl.”

“Oh, great! Thank you.” I too saw huge star potential in myself in the field of telemarketing. I was just thankful Chubz had noticed.

“You have very large breasts.”

“
Oh.
” This was also true, but it had never been pointed
out in such an offhand manner, so I didn’t quite know how to respond.

“I give you a television set.”
Huh?

“Oh, no, no. That’s not necessary,” I said, although truthfully Beth and I had been going crazy because there’d been no room in the car for a television and no money once we arrived in LA. I figured I’d definitely be blowing my first paycheck at Circuit City. But, there was no possible way I was going to even entertain the notion of accepting a TV from my new boss. I mean, sure, I may have been a natural at this whole sales business, but wasn’t it just a little premature to reward me with a television?

“Don’t vorry. I haf whole warehouse full of TV sets.”

“No, Chubz, I absolutely cannot accept a gift like that. But thank you so much for offering.”

The next day, two men delivered a 25-inch color TV set right to the door of my apartment. That night Beth and I celebrated by getting high and watching
Small Wonder
—the show about the ten-year-old robot girl—an extremely under-rated show if you’re stoned.

Monday morning I arrived at work bright and early with a spring in my step. For me, a weekend spent doing nothing more than reacquainting myself with favorite TV shows was more rejuvenating than a forty-eight-hour foot rub would be to someone else. Settling in at my desk, I felt more determined than ever to move some merchandise and prove Chubz right about me.

My very first call of the day, I explained to a patient old
woman that it was National Safety Week and first-aid kits were being offered for half price. That afternoon, Genie took me into her office to tell me I was invited to a mandatory Vegas trip set for the following weekend.

“Wow, is it some sort of sales conference?” I asked.

“Something like that,” Genie with a G answered noncommittally. “Bring something sexy to wear and a bikini.”

Vegas. A mandatory invite. This was a bit odd. Confused, I went back to my cube, but before picking up the receiver to make my next call, I looked around the office. Two different girls in the office used the fake name Bambi. The strangeness of that hadn’t occurred to me before just this moment. I interrupted a conversation about fake nails between Bambi #1 and a girl who went by Darla. “Are you guys going to the sales conference this weekend?”

Bambi #1 stared at me blankly. “Sales conference?”
Shit
. I instantly felt bad. Obviously, she hadn’t been mandatorily invited to the conference and now I’d leaked it. It was probably only for the more successful telemarketers. I’d never seen Bambi make a call, let alone a sale.

“Never mind,” I said as casually as if I’d just asked if she wanted a piece of gum and then realized I was all out. I picked up my receiver and put it to my ear.

“Are you talking about the photo shoot?” Bambi asked.

“In Vegas?” Darla added. Now I was really confused.

“Did Chubz call it a sales conference?” Bambi said, giggling. Was it possible that I was being laughed at by someone who purposely called herself Bambi?

“I didn’t talk to Chubz. Genie just told me Vegas. What photo shoot?” I didn’t want to sound dumb, but I had to know.

“Chubz brings the girls he likes to Vegas to model. I
know
you don’t think we make twelve hundred a week selling pens.” Bambi was definitely laughing now. Bitch. Chubz’s words echoed back to me in my mind, sounding a lot more disgusting than they did at the time.
You’ll make more. Much more
. My stomach was starting to feel a little unwell. The stench from the closers’ office wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, no, I didn’t know there was any modeling involved.” What kind of modeling exactly? I was grasping here, but I just really didn’t want it to be true. I’d kind of been envisioning a successful future in sales and I wasn’t quite ready to let it go yet.

“Oh, God, it’s no biggie, there’s no nudity! It’s just topless,” Darla offered, assuming she was being helpful. The only way I could see someone thinking topless modeling was no big deal would be if that person was used to doing something else…like bottomless modeling! How could I have not seen this coming? How could I have thought that making
no sales
was the sign of a sales savant?