Post-it Note Diaries

I’ve been attracted to the bright lights of New York City ever since I saw The Muppets Take Manhattan when I was six.

I knew that I had to do whatever it took to make it in the Big Apple, even if it meant living in a bus locker and befriending rats.

I just wanted to be on Broadway with my future best friends.

The secret to New York is you have to put your time in. It’s more costly than any other city, and the currency is tenacity.

I was trying to get auditions and attempting to collect best friends to do shows with. It was slow going.

I didn’t have a lot of money, and was on a strict diet of one slice of pizza for lunch.

And one 16-ounce can of malt liquor for dinner. It filled me up and took the edge off being poor.

I have one can of Crazy Horse malt liquor that I saved from that time.

They don’ t make it anymore because it’s racist.

In my daydreams I crack that dusty can open as an old woman sunning my sagging tits on the French Riviera.

I attempted many jobs to afford real food. But the worst job by far was as a character at FAO Schwarz.

FAO casts actors to walk around the store as characters to create an “experience”—an experience that helps them sell toys for almost twice the price of Toys“R”Us.

Also, seeing Barbie walk around with Alice in Wonderland is incredibly magical. Almost taboo—what are they doing together?

Fairy tales shouldn’t mix. They’re sold separately.

The character I auditioned for was an original one they had created specifically for the FAO Schweetz shop, called Ms. Peppermint Twist.

Ms. Peppermint Twist was there to assist the customers with whatever candy needs they had and elevate the candy-buying experience to an even sweeter level. If that’s possible!

It’s no surprise that I nailed the part. I am Frederick August Otto Schwarz’s wet dream, if he’s dreaming of character actors.

I look like a fusion of Sandra Bernhard and Shirley Temple.

It was only a matter of time before this unique vessel I navigate crashed into a gimmicky toy store.

I had to wear a pink wig, pink sunglasses, striped stockings, and a tutu. I had to wear it all for six hours at a time. I had to act like I was into it.

It was a nightmare. I would never advocate drinking on the job. Unless your job description is pretending to be happy in a tutu as you guide a fat child to choose between Swedish Fish and Nerd Rope.

If that is your job, then I would recommend shot-gunning two Icehouse beers prior to clocking in. That’s right, I said two beers. I could afford it because I was employed.

I did have some artistic freedom. It was my job to come up with my character’s background.

I decided that Ms. Peppermint Twist was an orphan. Her mom had left her in FAO, very much like Punky Brewster, except this sad girl hadn’t found her Henry Warnimont.

Instead, she’d stumbled into a giant cotton candy vat in the basement, which burned her severely and gave her pink hair.

Mentally out of sorts from the trauma of the cotton candy accident, she had allowed the owners of FAO to enslave her to work in the candy shop for the rest of her days.

When customers asked for her story, that’s what she told them, following up with: “That’s why I’m so tired, because I had to stay up all night making the candy for you and now I have to stand here and watch you buy it.”

I never got the actual numbers, but it is my belief that guilty candy purchases increased significantly under Ms. Twist’s reign.

Now, I don’t want to come off as one of those people who complains about working. I will suck it up and work.

And my patchwork résumé will prove that I will take any job. But in order to survive most jobs, you need to have the opportunity to zone out.

Your body continues to work but your mind escapes to a place where you can acknowledge your dissatisfaction. Those soul-saving moments to mumble your discontent under your breath as you toil are necessary.

Imagine if you saw Ms. Peppermint Twist having that quiet moment in the Schweetz shop. It would be unsettling. And so she wasn’t allowed any.

But one day it happened. It was slow in the Schweetz shop. I had just eaten a handful of chewy peach things and my guard was down as I leaned against the counter.

I was reflecting on how I hoped the terrorists wouldn’t destroy America’s oldest toy store, melting me down in a sticky pink wig.

I was thinking about my coworkers: Barbie, who took private en pointe ballet lessons to prepare for the release of Nutcracker Barbie.

And the Toy Soldier who’d impregnated Alice in Wonderland (they weren’t in Wonderland when it happened; I believe they were in Queens).

I was absentmindedly running my tongue over the two cavities I had acquired from the free candy perk when one of the FAO managers—a round, moist man—happened to walk by and notice that my mind was far away from candy.

“Ms. Peppermint Twist, this is not how you sell the candy!”

“It’s like this!” And he began boisterously welcoming everyone within earshot to the Schweetz shop, announcing its goodness and handing out empty candy bags with such overwhelming joy my cavities started to throb.

“Now, you do it!” He turned to me after his minute-long demonstration, panting slightly from the exertion.

“I don’ t know, sir. It’s like watching Meryl Streep. I’m never going to be that good. It’s pointless to even try. I think you should be wearing a wig and sunglasses, sir.”

And shortly after I was laid off from the worst job of my life.

As for Ms. Peppermint Twist, I can only guess that she is still in that basement, giving a hundred percent to the Man.