Directing a Synchronized Swimming Team

Many people believe that Fridays are the best day of the week because they’re the start of the weekend. Statistically, Fridays are the best day of the week to ask for a raise and buy into the stock market. If days of the week were people, Fridays would undoubtedly be Chuck Norris. Typically the world is just a better place on Fridays – ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ right?

But sporadically a rouge Friday comes along; a bad Friday who has been spending far too much time with insufferable Mondays...

Last Friday was rogue. It was cold. So cold, that by comparison the inside of my refrigerator could be accurately described as “somewhat balmy.” And I had a job interview which meant I had to venture outside into the cold to catch the bus. It also meant I was heroically wearing high heels in public – footwear I generally reserve for dire emergencies like a date, or weddings, or death. My walking speed in high heels is drastically reduced. As a result I was running late. So I was scampering down the High Street... in high heels... in temperatures so frigid the only cohesive thought I could produce was “Is hypothermia completely fatal?”

Fortunately I caught my bus and made it to the interview on time. Unfortunately the prolonged exposure to the extreme cold had altered my brain’s ability to function as normal in an interview. Consequently this interview didn’t go quite as planned.

Usually I approach a job interview with a suave, engaging professionalism that communicates the message “Hire me because I’m brilliant and just what you’re looking for!” But not this rogue Friday! No! Forgoing my usual approach, I submitted the two unsuspecting interviewers to a creative verbal montage of mortifyingly colourful proportions.

Frostbitten and totally out of character, I tossed my standard rehearsed interview responses aside and answered questions with bizarre examples. These shocked ladies’ eyebrows had never known such frequent activity. For reasons still to be determined by an MRI scan, when asked to explain in 30 seconds why they should hire me, I responded with “Well I am hard-working, a strong team-player, intelligent, good at problem-solving, resourceful.  And I am SO organized; I could direct a synchronized swimming team without breaking a sweat!!!”

Unbridled bewilderment (mine) mingled with mental gasps of surprise (theirs). I rendered the lady interviewing me speechless. The lady taking notes giggled in the corner and wrote that one down word-for-word, undoubtedly for future enjoyment. Mortified, I wondered whether I’d ever be capable of emitting believable dialogue again. I'm not saying that I was 100 percent linguistically over-creative all the time, but statistically it was right up there with ‘hallucinogenic drug addict’.

Mercifully, the interview ended shortly thereafter and I left. On my way home I went shopping for some retail therapy to soothe my battered self-esteem. I purchased chocolate (obviously!) and an over-door hanger; a chrome device with many hooks upon which you can hang various items such as towels, night gowns, belts, or Possums. It can also be used to effectively invoke the *f* word in public.

I was standing outside a store window-shopping with my chrome over-door hanger snugly nestled in my left arm, when some pleb strode past me and got himself successfully hooked onto my over-door hanger. I was swept off my feet (literally) by a young man who used the *f* word more regularly than vowels, so the ensuing conversation went something like this:

Him: Bleep, bleep, bleeeep! You stupid bleeping bleep!!! You bleeping ruined my bleeping jumper!

Me: Easy there tiger - YOU walked into ME!

Him: Bleep, bleep you bleeping bleep. Bloody watch where you’re bleeping goin’! Bloody bleeper.

Me: Do you know you talk in Morse Code?  (This was followed swiftly by my hasty exit to ensure the enraged man didn’t assault me with my own chrome over-door hanger)

So it was a tough Friday. But the good news is; I got the job! Perhaps they were awed by my creative linguistic free styling. Or, perhaps they have a company synchronized swimming team in dire need of my skills.