The Toasted Tomato

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a very bright woman who used to work in admissions at Centre College. Part of her job was reading admissions essays from applicants to assess if they would be a good fit for the incoming class. She told me the best essay she ever read was about a kid cleaning out the frozen yogurt machine at his summer job.

A day later, I came across a very interesting statistic from Pew Research Center. Their researchers had found that just 35 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds had summer jobs in 2017. Compare that to 58 percent in 1978.

At once, I thought of all of the great personal statements that would never be written because teens were spending their summers bingeing on Netflix instead of clocking into work. And then it made me think of how sweet a summer job really can be.

I got my first job at age 15 after Dr. Gene Kaprowy marched his daughter into Medicine Rock Café and asked to speak to the manager. The request produced a leggy blonde named Loralyn, who asked if she could help him.

“This is my daughter,” my dad said. “You should hire her. She’s a hard worker.”

Mortified, I stood there like a deer in headlights, only able to process that my dad was suddenly, inexplicably speaking in short, declarative sentences.

“Give her your resume,” he said to me.

I shakily handed over a nearly-blank piece of paper, the contents of which were my GPA and the phone numbers of a few moms for whom I had babysat.

Loralyn looked down at the paper, appearing to inspect it carefully. Then she looked at me and squinted.

“Can you hustle?” she said.

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It’s been six weeks since I’ve written about getting my hair cut off. If I’m honest, I feel relatively pleased with myself that I haven’t mentioned it in 42 days, given how much space it occupies in my brain. But the look I was sporting after I woke up this morning was enough to make it impossible for me to stay quiet any longer.

To catch you up, I cut off all my hair in February, much to the disapproval of my hairdresser. My intention was to look svelte and European. Instead, I look like I have a dollop of whipping cream sitting on top of my head.

Several realizations have taken place as a result of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decision.

First, the most immediate problem: bed head. Whew, I had forgotten how real a phenomenon this is. I mean, I’m sitting here right now, and my hair looks like a claw lying in wait to attack. The more my hair grows out, the bigger and more menacing it becomes. The other morning, I actually thought I heard it growl. I’ve definitely heard it hiss.

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This week represents the last of my four-part experiment of writing on location. Once again, I am sitting in the car with the laptop on my lap. Once again, I’m not parked directly in front of the place I want to go, lest I be misconstrued as a stalker. For I could stare and stare and stare at the place I want to go to today for hours.

Because: cupcakes.

A few weeks ago, we arrived home from a weekend getaway to a note from our incredible dogsitter, Meg. It had been a stressful way home as our flight was canceled in Chicago due to a freak spring blizzard, and we’d had to rent a car and drive home instead.

But, as always, Meg’s update note was laying on the kitchen counter with its nearly-otherworldly penmanship:

“I hope you had a great trip. There is a little treat for you in the fridge.”

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Week No. 3 of Canuck in Kantuck writing on location.

OK, full disclosure: I am not actually writing inside the Verizon Wireless store. Instead, I am in my car in the Verizon Wireless parking lot, but not parked too closely to the door because I don’t want them to think that I’m crazy or, worse, plotting. Instead, I have a rather soulless view of the nearby Lowe’s.

Anyway, let’s back up.

On Saturday, I dropped my phone while attempting to put it in the fanny pack I wear when I walk the dogs (don’t judge).

I drop my phone on the floor by accident so often that I didn’t even think of it, just placed it in my pack (don’t judge) and Tilly, Fitz and I went on our merry way.

When I returned home, I saw that my phone was dead. So I plugged it in and tried to restart it.

That ingenious attempt didn’t work.

Long story short, my phone was irretrievably broken, and I needed a new one.

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Week two of Canuck in Kantuck writing on location! Insert flamenco dancer emoji (my favorite one forever and ever) here.

I am sitting in Minneapolis airport after a lovely Easter visit with my family. It is 8:30 a.m., which meant a painful 4:15 a.m. wakeup in Winnipeg. I will go ahead and hazard the guess that it meant the same for a lot of people around whom I’m sitting, which makes it doubly, possibly triply impressive how loudly the guy in front of me is talking on his phone.

There are many, many subjects upon which you could comment when it comes to airline travel. In fact, watch Netflix comedy specials enough and you’re hard-pressed not to listen to a comedian complain about his or her time spent in airports.

But how people behave with their cell phones while traveling merits a whole podcast. Possible even a Planet Earth episode. And certainly the remainder of this column.

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Writing on location month! For the next four weeks, I will bring my laptop wherever I go and write about wherever I happen to be.

So here I am at Sonellex, typing away on my laptop with very blue water bubbling around my feet.

How to describe this little place? The word “efficient” immediately comes to mind. This is not the kind of spot that you go if you want a 20-minute massage involving three different kinds of unguents. It’s more the slam, bam, thank-you variety, which is just fine by me because one reason why I don’t like going for pedicures is that I find it very dull.

However, as I write, I realize there are aspects to a visit to the nail salon that are positively fascinating.

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It was like any other weekend when we visit our best couple friends Sean and Hannah in Knoxville. Time at their house always means we reunite our perfect Boston Terrier doggies, who spend the time affectionately (usually) biting each other’s throats.

We learned pretty quickly that Fitzi, our boy, is fascinated by their neighbor’s yard and needs to be kept on a tight leash whenever he goes outside to potty. Otherwise, he will run up the neighbor’s back porch and proceed to bark at their back door as if incensed he hasn’t already been invited inside.

I knew this and yet didn’t know it enough while I was helping to sweep Hannah’s kitchen. The floor quickly gets dirty with the dogs coming in and out of their back yard, which is fenced in. I had a pile of dried mud and dog hair swept up and was in the process of knocking out the dust pan out the front door. I had gone back to retrieve the last of it and, seeing his opportunity, Fitz slipped out the door I’d left open.

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With no one to blame but myself, I am suffering from the worst hairdo in, nearly, my life. Every day, I walk out the door with a wince, wondering to whom I might run in. Every morning, I brush it knowing that, no matter what I do, it will explode when it dries, leaving my head looking like a peony.

To be clear again, there is no one to blame but me. Certainly not my beloved hairdresser Kathy, who, for nearly a year, gently tried to talk me out of cutting off all of my hair. But six weeks ago, I was firm.

“Let’s do it,” I said, sounding disturbingly like Tone Lōc.

“Really?”

“It’s time.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m too old for long hair.”

“I hate to tell you this, but you don’t have long hair. You have a bob. A short one.”

“Still.”

“Still what?”

“What am I waiting for? Life is short.”

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So, I didn’t listen. I kind of knew I should have, but I didn’t because, well, I didn’t want to. And so, I have a big problem on my hands. And it’s possible that the problem might be multiplying this very second right here in this house. And there’s not much I can do but wait. And clean. And listen for a SNAP!

Because, yes, we have mice in the house.

Judging from the amount of mouse poop I found in the closet where I kept the dog food, a healthy lot of them. A battalion at least. An army, more like. A big, hungry, greasy army of vermin that I could step on at any moment.

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One of the highlights of my day-to-day is an ongoing text conversation between my friends Julie and Jessica.

Julie and I can especially rely on Jessica to inject effervescence into our day by regularly updating us on everything from her shopping purchases to celebrity gossip to makeup tips to funny memes to the latest in hip slang to her yoga class to how much she really, really loves Aldi.

But last Tuesday morning, she was decidedly deflated after losing her wallet.

She had been picking up a kombucha in Lexington (see what I mean about Jessica?) and had her wallet in her pocket. But it must have fallen out when she got into her car, because when she got to the office, her wallet was gone.

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