It’s All Relevant! Kind of.

I’ll do anything to not write a real work resume.

Relevant Work Experience:

2006 or 2007 I think? ~ Coat Check Girl in the freezing basement of a shitty, corporate nightclub in NYC.

I sit, surrounded by coats, my teeth chattering through a spurious smile. My tip jar half empty and rattling to the beat of Cascada’s “Everytime We Touch”. Surrounded by coats, but alas, alack, I could not wear one. Coats, coats, coats and not a sleeve to spare. For you see, I had to wear a small top that would show off my tits which were much better at the time. Ay me, this was a Tits and Teeth job. And I had both of those.

It was a frigid, torturous existence in the basement coat room. I was twenty and scared of the men. The business men, the bridge-and-tunnel men, the touristy men, the frat boyz-2-men. They negged me and I didn’t know what that was. I wasn’t their type (see picture below), so the negging was fierce. “You’d get more tips if you smiled more.” “You’re too young to look so exhausted.” “Turkey’s done, sweetheart.” (about my nipples).

I’m surprised the manager kept me around. He could’ve hired a vivacious young woman who loved the club’s atmosphere and music. Someone that enjoyed conversing with the clientele. Someone that didn’t have big, puffy, dark circles under her eyes. Someone who wasn’t obsessed with the character of Masha in The Seagull, who always wears black because she is “in mourning for her life.”. Maybe it was easier just to have a coat check girl that kept showing up, even if she wasn’t a great fit. Or maybe he was afraid that if he fired me, I’d use my razor-sharp nipples to slit his throat. Or maybe it was because I became a very skilled coat checker.

Skills acquired on the job:

How to match an idiot to their dumb coat.

How to hide in some coats for a minute at a time.

How to survive the pain of living.

How to do a very accurate impression of a drunk person searching in their purse or wallet for something that isn’t there.

How to comfort a drunk, crying woman from Long Island who “took the train all the way here to get stood up, like a joke or somethin’.”. What you do is, you find her coat she lost the ticket for. You help her put it on. And then you redefine cold shoulder and give her yours to cry on. You say, “It’s gonna be okay, Brenda.”. Then she says, “Your arms are fuckin’ freezin’!” and she wraps you in her coat and you cry too.