A Sudden Reappearance With No Explanation Offered or Available

“We really don’t want any purples, blues, pinks, greens…” she laughed at the very thought. “Just keep it natural.”

I could feel my face slowly drooping despite my best efforts to remain stalwart. This was a crushing blow; full focus was required to keep that fact secret. The HR Rep really didn’t need to know that throughout the previous year I had enhanced my ever-shortening hairstyle with highlights of more than just the aforementioned colors.

It was a mere month and a half prior that I had finally given in and settled with a singular, as-normal-as-I could-muster hair color— more for the benefit of my fretting family and boyfriend (at the time) than for the sake of the job hunt. Some nonsense about my hair falling out before I hit thirty.

Brother challenged me to a dye free summer, a 20 oz coke at stake, so I picked up some cinnamon red at the local convenience store as a final hurrah before accepting. The repeatedly bleached sector of my hair remained a much lighter tone than the rest, unfortunate indication that it really was time to give it a rest for a few months at least.

But this! This was too much. I had just been sentenced to social normalcy for my foreseeable future. I felt grimmer by the moment, as Ms. HR went on to outlaw nail polish, visible tattoos, facial piercings, and colored shoelaces. I must have paled upon the realization that my lifelong intentions of sporting a shiny little nose ring had just been significantly delayed, as a fellow Grocery Store trainee cast me a sympathetic glance. The plan had been to spend the first of my hard earned money on said piercing, a celebration of disproving the skeptics and landing the perfect first job.

Granted, I should have gotten a job much earlier than I did. But it was easier to survive off babysitting gigs and two sets of graduation money (a hefty round last year after high school, another smaller yet significant dose after getting my associates in May). I’ve been reportedly looking for work since the summer of ’07— the lengthy search consisted of three bouts of frenzied online application submissions and two visits to a neighborhood coffee shop. I just didn’t feel a sense of urgency— I’m on good terms with the padres so there was no fear of getting kicked out upon adulthood, I had a sweet car with insurance paid until September, I had managed to stretch that graduation money farther than anyone thought possible, and my babysitting clients always seemed to call at just the right times.

A month ago I discovered some news. My favorite store was packing up shop and moving across the street, meaning some major sales. I decided to take stock of my monies before heading over there, and was met with some appalling numbers. The totals were grim. Low-ish double digits grim. That’s when it all hit me. At eighteen years old, I had no money, no work experience, no savings account, no plans beyond a whimsical “someday I’d like to be an anarchist baker.”
I’ve always been full of explanations— I’m focusing on school, you’ll complain that I’m gone too much, the economy sucks and there are no jobs to be had, my boy is rich and he’ll take care of me. But I was out of excuses- I had a degree, there was no way to pretend my parents wouldn’t be overjoyed to have me earning my keep, I was an adult with a whole slew of new job opportunities, and I no longer had a boy.

So I hauled my sorry self out to Grocery Store the next day and wandered back to the bakery department. Mustering all my self confidence, I introduced myself to the bakery manager, filled out an application, and left with instructions to call HR if I didn’t hear anything by Monday. By Tuesday I was in an official interview, answering unnerving questions like “So why are you just now looking for a job?”

Thursday I took a drug test, the next Monday my negative results were rewarded with a promise of being put on next week’s schedule (Monday and Tuesday, 3 – 11 AM) and an official Grocery Store hat and polo. The shirt was unfortunately huge, but the hat… I paraded that sucker around like a gold medal.

Friday was training day. Despite the disappointing discovery that Grocery Store training had nothing to do with learning to make bread, suspicious videos pleading with me to not join a labor union (I never would have thought to, I don’t even know what one is but I’m certainly looking into it now), and the heart-crushing news that I had to look like a normal citizen, I had absolutely no doubts that becoming a part-time baker at Grocery Store will prove to be one of the best decisions I’ve made to date.