My second trip to California Cryobank went much the same as the first time, except that instead of giving me the option of movie or magazine, the woman (yes, a woman this time), went right ahead and slapped down a DVD whose name I don't recall. What I do remember, though, was that the production values were terrible. Lighting, camerawork, set design; it was one of the shoddiest movies I have ever seen the first eight minutes of.
I completed my second audition and went back to the main counter. While filling out a few forms, I asked a few questions about the important stuff: Money.
The potential was substantial. If accepted as a donor, I would receive $75 a visit, which if you're an efficient worker is like $300 an hour. If I donated eight or more times in a month there was a bonus, for good performance I guess. Bottom line, I could be pulling in $11oo a month for a few hours of work.
There are limits, though. They required at least 48 hours abstinence before each visit, so the best you could do was a Mon, Wed, Fri schedule. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't an "all-you-can-donate" reverse-buffet style deal. With the right diet and exercise I could've donated my way to that '57 corvette I've always wanted.
I went home and waited on tenterhooks. After a few days I again saw California Cryobank in my e-mail. With bated breath I opened the message, and read the same thing I'd received so many times over the years, from colleges, companies, and girls: Thank you for your interest, but I'm afraid you do not meet our current needs at the time.
I couldn't find out why. For whatever reasons, they don't release the cause for rejection which, frankly, sucks. What if you have some terrible defect? I'd sure like to know now, before I fertilize something more sensitive than a plastic cup. It could be anything from poor quality to simply a glut of donors. However, I'm sure we all know the reason I wasn't accepted: TOO potent. Not every woman out there wants quadruplets.
Anyway, that little chapter in my life is over. I got a much less ejaculation-centric job at Borders, working at the coffee shop there. I have since quit that job, because it was a terrible, terrible experience. You'd think, "Oh, a bookstore. I'll bet it's a great, laid back job full of intelligent, learned, well adjusted people." Not true. It was an irritating job full of people the Real World wouldn't cast on basis of being too abrasive. Thank God they were screwed up enough to be entertaining.
First off, whatever affirmative action for gay people is, Borders is raising the bar for it. I don't know what the percentages are supposed to be - 1 in 10 or 1 in 15 or whatever - but at the store straight guys are most definitely in the minority. By a lot. I mean, they might make up 30% of the employees. I don't know how this happened. Of course LA is pretty flamboyant - in the way that the Pacific Ocean is pretty wet - but there's more going on than that. And before anyone starts demonizing me, I'm not making lifestyle judgments. I'm just agape at this statistical anomaly. I'd be the same way if it were, I don't know, albinos or something.
Not that the straight guys approach anything resembling normalcy. There's a guy who stuffs his jeans. It's a constant source of debate among the other employees. I haven't looked too closely, but I'm pretty sure he's got, like, a burrito down there. I know some people are born lucky and all, but there is no way this could be real. Plus, his jeans are so tight that if that dachshund-sized bulge really were his penis, he'd be in constant agony. Trust me, I know.
The reason I know is NOT what you all were just thinking, though I thank you for the kind thoughts. I know because I just bought a new pair of jeans, and they are a little tight. Those of you who have been with me since the beginning may rest assured that I did buy them at Target, and they did cost $24.99. I was a little hesitant at first, since they are quite snug. However, that might not be a bad thing, since one of my co-workers at Borders had described me as having the "perfect ass." Of course, this comment came from one of the guys; I'm still waiting to hear it from a female. In all the months I worked there, I think the nicest thing a girl ever said was, "you're kind of funny, when you're not being a jerk."
Anyway, the point is not how cruelly underappreciated I was at Borders, the point is that I have this pair of jeans, and they're a little snug, and so when I sit down I have to be very careful not to scrunch, pinch, or constrain myself. It's not easy, and I can only imagine how difficult it would be with genitals the size of a yam, which is what this guy at Borders is trying to pull off.And really, what kind of girls is he trying to attract? Assuming a girl would think that whatever he's displaying is the genuine article, I'm pretty sure she'd be horrified, not attracted. What this guy is displaying isn't something that would make women swoon, it's what you'd plug a levee with in a hurricane.
In other wackiness, there is of course there's the guy who's determined to ask out every girl working at the store until they all reject him. Wait, that was me. Back up. Well...there was another guy doing the same thing, a guy named Michael, and he got a lot further down the gauntlet than I did.
I learned from a source that one day Michael decided to compare his attractiveness to that of all the other guys in the store. He gave himself a "7, maybe an 8 if I worked out." Now first off, let me explain something about the ratings. Much like the Richter Scale, the distance between every point is significant, especially in the higher numbers. And while it's easy to move from a 3 to a 4, moving from a 7 to an 8 is no mean feat. It takes a lot more than a few trips to the gym, that's for sure. And Michael, while not obese, is certainly...soft. He's got that perfect, angle-less face blending smoothly into the neck, uninterrupted by jaw. Basically he looks like he's made of Silly Putty. So "7, maybe an 8," is perhaps a bit generous. I also learned that he had the audacity to give me, in all my glory, a 5.
A 5? That's ridiculous. Yes there are certain situations where I would accept that rating: For example, if someone were using a 5 point scale. But this guy's working with the standard 10, and going back to the Richter Scale analogy, he's a freeway-toppling 7 or 8, while I'm merely knocking a few pictures off the wall. What an atrocity. It's like Thomas Kincaid calling Picasso an "alright" painter.
After a few months of that, I got a new job, teaching Karate, which is a little more interesting than jockeying lattes. Turning in my two weeks to Borders was one of the best experiences I've had out here in LA, and there's stiff competition for that award. Plus I got to call everyone's bullshit when they pretended to be sad that I was leaving. Here is a representative goodbye conversation:
Person: "Kenny, you're leaving!"
Me: "Yep."
Person: "But you'll come back to the store, right?"
Me: "Probably not. When I burn my bridges, I try to do a really thorough job of it."
Person: "So I'm never going to see you again?"
Me: "Possibly not."
Person: "Aren't you going to miss us?"
Me: "I've always been good at moving on quickly."
Person: "Well, I'll miss you."
Me: "No you won't."
Person: "What do you mean?"
Me: "You won't miss me. You just might be a little upset that there isn't another employee disaffected enough to give you free mochas."
And lest you think I was being a jerk, let me assure you that I'm still in touch with the two employees I had any contact with outside Borders. Everyone else I only saw at work. Now I don't work there anymore and we don't see each other. That's what happens. Things change, people move on, and the relationships forced upon you by shared employment mercifully dissolve. I don't reminisce about people from Borders, and I don't think anyone there misses me. Except for maybe that guy who thinks I had the perfect ass.
