The Diary of Ashley Spencer: One Lucky Working Girl

Unexpected things can come up out of nowhere, like an unwelcome zit on a usually-perfect nose, causing dramatics and disaster. My zit of the week came in the form of a dead car.

The first days of my internship breezed by in a chaotic whirlwind. I met my new coworkers (I’m still trying to memorize everybody’s names) and explored the company kitchen, with its stash of M&Ms, trail mix, nuts, coffee, and soda. I showed up sometime before 8:30 a.m. every day, freshly showered, wearing my big-girl-job-in-the-city clothes. I checked my email, sipped my cup of joe, and got ready for the day ahead of me.

It feels good to be doing what I was programmed to do. Before I got my internship, it was almost waiting for my life to happen, like a child waiting by the window for her favorite parent to get home (you have a favorite, right?). Now that I have my job, I try to do everything perfectly. Even when I'm at home, I think about work. I dream in media lists, I count newspaper circulation numbers to get to sleep, and I plan my outfits and lunches in advance. I am a well oiled-machine!

Upon getting off the train after a day of work, I was looking forward to the comforts of home: the stir fry dinner my mom told me she was making, my fuzzy blankets, and even my obnoxious tiny yap-yap dogs. After walking to my car, I noticed that I had left an interior light on in my rush to catch my early morning train. So I did what any girl would do: I said the S-word and then prayed to the big man upstairs.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Ashley.

I inserted the key in the ignition. “Please work!” I said to him.

I turned the key and nothing happened.

Except the some weird clicking noises. This was not good.

Bad things happen. And sometimes a lot of bad things happen on the same day, and one zit turns into a breakout. When I stuck my hand in my bag, fumbling for my cell phone, it was nowhere to be found. I had left it at home.

I walked back to the train station and dug for change for a pay phone. But the train station didn’t have a pay phone. That shouldn’t come as a shock. When’s the last time someone used one of those, anyway? Luckily, I found a guy waiting for his ride, and after deploying a little charm and a smile, I got him to loan me his cell phone so I could call my mom.

She showed up and was not happy with me, to put it mildly. She does not know how to jump a car. My father was out of town. My brother said he had better things to do then help his own flesh and blood. He had to hang out with his loser friends and watch movies or something. (Note to brother: if you’re reading this, don’t ask me for anything, ever, unless you offer to compensate me monetarily. Also, I am expensive.)

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, a cop pulled up. He noticed my visible distress and assured me he would help. He was like the Proactiv cream to my zitty car situation. And he did it! He got my car started! It only took about an hour. He had to go back to the police station to get the right car-jumping stuff (don’t ask me, this is all above my head), but he saved me.

The moral of the story is this: bad things happen and you make mistakes, but most of the time, you’ll get lucky, and everything will turn out fine. Sometimes luck comes in the form of nice, attractive police officers, and that’s always awesome. Oh, here’s another lesson: learn how to jump a car before you grow up. Because your dad might be out of town and your brother might be a giant piece of poop. If you learn how to do it yourself, you won’t need to rely on men in uniform, luck, or prayers to God, who probably had bigger fish to fry.

Have you had any life zits this week?

Related post: The Diary of Ashley Spencer: Getting It