;)

I think winkers are sexy, confident, and collected. And being winked at is just about as good as getting proposed to... and almost as intimate. (I've never experienced this first had but I frequent Temple Square in Salt Lake City on my lunch break and thus have become very familiar with the process.) Oh... you're winking at me? You chose me out of this room full of humans to make such a personal connection with and to share a secret and a joke? I DO.

So as an ultimate goal to up my sex appeal I've been trying to transform myself into a winker lately. The cool thing I've learned about being a winker is that they are no respecter of persons. You can practice anywhere on anything... which can't be said about most intimate interactions. So I took this gig to work.

Except it was here that I learned trying to transform into a winker overnight is like trying to transform yourself into a habitual swearer overnight. You just end up mixing your words around and looking like an idiot. Son of a damn! Or you do this:

My married, sweet co-worker mentioned that he was overly warm in our office, and asked if I shared his discomfort. I didn't and told him... but then I felt bad for making him feel like the overweight "always warmer than the average worker" guy, so I tried to compensate by telling him that maybe it was because he was wearing pants, and I was wearing a skirt.

"Ya know, good ventilation."

I guess some part of me thought this was a good time to practice my wink (which by the way was still really slow and mechanical), when really what I should have been considering were the implications of my up-my-skirt reference alone was grounds for at least some form of sexual harassment fines. The wink could do nothing but lead to either some kind of soft lay-off or a restraining order.

So it may actually be the winking that is a result of the sexy, calm, and collectedness, instead of the other way around. But maybe now I can start winning friends and influencing people with my new habitual swearing I'm thinking about picking up.

Put the Chocolate Down and No One Gets Hurt!

My biggest fear when I took my job as a receptionist... okay legal assistant... ok I'm a lawyer... was that I would turn into one of those awful front-desk ladies with two divorces and a chocolate fetish... and just in case the boss needed help with gift ideas for secretary's day... she reminds him with clever stickers bordering the form letters calendar at the office:

"Chocoholic!"
"If it ain't chocolate, it ain't breakfast!"
"Chocolate: Here today... gone today"
Or, my favorite,
"Forget love! I'd rather fall in chocolate!" Well guess what. That's exactly what's going to happen. Because of that sticker.

Well I ran into an interesting situation last week. We had a large basket full of chocolate poker chips as a part of a promotional for the firm. The chocolate was about as tempting to me as chili in July but other people didn't seem to mind and the goodies went FAST. Although to break the ice when co-workers come up for more chocolate, they'll inevitably make a chocolate joke about the diminishing pile... to which I always find myself playing along, "I know, it's like they're CALLING to me!" "... oh is it choc. o'clock again already?" "I'll be with you in a second... I just have to take this chocolate." They LOVE it.

So in a couple of days I had inadvertently become the self-proclaimed choco-crazed receptionist I hate, short of only a few stickers and probably a couple of bra sizes. But I still hadn't eaten any chocolate. I realized then that I've been resenting the wrong person this whole time. It's not the crazy lady in the office who loves chocolate... she doesn't even LIKE chocolate; it's the crazy PEOPLE in the office who LOVE a chocolate joke. It probably started with a basket of candy after a trade show, and ended with a new sticker for the 'receptionist' at every holiday because "she LOVES chocolate," and I'm sure THAT all began with a poor receptionist at some sticker making factory whose boss thinks she, and every other society-created, chocoholic receptionist nation-wide only need an hourly wage and some cocoa reinforcement to keep her a happy and productive worker... or better yet... human being.

Trick-or-Swag

The law firm I work for has been out of town at a business expo/trade show for the last few days. While there, I realized something horrifying about myself. On a horror scale it was a little more horrifying than when I found out (about a couple of months ago) that college degrees don't automatically qualify every American for an income of at least $40,000 a year; and a little less horrifying than the time I came home on break and realized that my brother's and my tooth brushes were the same color. The horror that has come to my attention is that I have not progressed in maturity or personality since pre-pubescence trick-or-treating and here's why.

The similarities between trick-or-treating and trade show swag grabbing are unparalleled. It starts with the child (me) visiting the home (booth next door), with the one sole purpose of scoring free anything.

"what do you do?"
"I'm a receptionist"
"Oh great, hey we have really good credit programs for low-income households"
"Thanks, can I have a tiny Snickers?"
"Sure, here's my card"

But as we know getting free things like Snickers doesn't satisfy that bug inside of all of us to get free stuff, it just wakes it up. So I move on, and get a little more swag savy the longer I'm there.

"Who are you with?"
"I'm a legal assistant with an IP firm, these stress releivers are free right? Thanks, see you around."

Business card: averted. Eye contact: avoided.

The next thing I know I'm an "IP Attorney" hula hooping my self-respect away in a contest in the middle of an aisle with professional businessmen trying to make their way around my over-zealous swivels. All for a tacky wind chime branded with "Corporate Alliance: Because Business is about Relationships."

So, just when I think I have grown up and reached adulthood, life takes me to a business expo to show me that I'm no better than an awkward stage nine-year-old on Halloween. Except I tell more lies.

Was This a Good Idea?

I recently spent a few days at home for a friend’s wedding. Other than providing me with an over-abundance of confidence that is sure to backfire on me in the next 24 hours, home imparted an insight into my childish behavior masked by the adult utilities of a better vocabulary and my Mac. Let me explain.

My sister and I were sitting on her couch when we needed something so commissioned my equi-motivated five-year-old nephew to run up and get it for us (why else do people have children?). He wanted to go get it about as bad as we did, until we made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. We used every child’s kryptonite by challenging his self-proclaimed speed. “Owen, show Maggie how fast you are, she doesn’t believe it. We’ll time you.” What a sucker. Or so I thought, until I realized I’ve been falling for the exact same thing the past few months.

The first night I got home my grandpa was in the hospital because of a broken hip, but due to psychosis and morphine, he was incoherent and had to be watched 24/7 so he didn’t yank out his catheter, or other vital/painful tubes. Now I’m not one to jump at a chance to serve a man who isn’t capable of praising/recognizing my god-like charity. And I’m definitely not one to eagerly be on my grandpa’s catheter duty. Until I heard this, “Maggie, this could make a great blog.”

“That’s true,” I thought, “There are probably at least three, maybe four people who would want to read about that,” and by 3 a.m. I was fighting just to get out of there without seeing my grandpa naked.

This isn’t the only time this has happened either. My brother called me the other day with a proposal: “I served a mission with this guy. He’s 30, he’s a total tool, womanizer, douche bag, etc. I want you to go out with him though. I think it could be a really good blog.” Still waiting for that call.

Give a ride to my dad’s life-long charity-case former prisoner? Absolutely.

So not only is my ego more inflamed than a five-year-old’s whose speed has been questioned, but has turned me to the three most demeaning and inappropriate professions in America: Prostitution, cab driver, and CNA. And the worst of these is CNA.