Beware of the little blonde! Her makeup is deadly.

Earlier this week, while rushing to make it to my temp job on time, I was stopped by NYPD for a random bag check. I've seen this on the subway platforms before: Puffed up, macho police officers standing behind a table, stopping people to check their bags for... drugs? Bombs? An inappropriate abundance of lip gloss? I don't know. All I care about is making sure they don't stop me so that I won't miss my train. Such would not be my luck on this sweaty early Summer day when the black long sleeved shirt and jeans I picked out that morning were all wrong for the humid heat. Was that what made them stop me? Long sleeves and jeans on a hot day? Did I look as if I might be concealing something in my sleeves? Or was it the heavy eyeliner I was wearing? Maybe I looked like an emo kid who might blow up the SoHo station. Or maybe it's just that I'm a cute little blonde with big boobs and the officers wanted to get their rocks off?

One of the reasons I hate traveling is because of the ridiculous security checks in airports. Whenever I'm in one of those lines, stripping off my coat, taking off my shoes, emptying my pockets into plastic bins, I feel like a crazy person. For one thing: Um, hi! COULD IT BE ANY MORE VIOLATING? I don't believe there is anyway to make "random" bag checks truly random. Unless they check every single bag, the person getting their bag checked will feel as if they are being discriminated against. At least, I feel discriminated against. It doesn't help that usually I'm being checked by a man and usually he fondles my most personal feminine items. The urge I have to rip the heads off of people who are sifting through my dirty underpants and tampons is primal, I tell you. Primal. One time, a male officer made me open my suitcase and then he dumped it out all over a table and sifted through my clothes, shaking out each item individually. He picked my dirty underpants out of the pile and waved them around in the air as if they were flags. "What are you doing?!?" I shrieked. "Protecting America from terrorism," he said. Last time I checked, terrorism wasn't living in my panties. Paris Hilton's panties? TOTALLY DIFFERENT STORY.

Police check points in the subway are no better. The minute that officer eyeballed me I had to remind myself to take deep breaths. A gloating smile and, "We need to check your bag, Miss," caused me to clench my fists and bite my tongue to keep from snatching my bag away and screaming, "GET YOUR FILTHY FINGERS OFF MY PURSE, YOU PIG." What would have happened if I'd refused to let him check my bag? Don't I have a constitutional right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure? But I didn't say anything. I noticed the last person checked, a pretty woman collecting her purse from the table, noticed her perky figure and long blonde hair, and then I realized the officer was staring at my chest. And leering at me. I blinked through the red I started seeing and placed my bag on the table in front of him. 

"What is this all about?" I asked, trying not to raise my voice.

"We're doing random bag searches, checking for explosive materials. That's why I picked you. Because it's random." Sneered the twenty-something cop who looked like he'd spent the last five years eating all of his meals at Dunkin Donuts. 

"Really."

"Don't you know what 'random' means?" 

"No, gee! Why don't you tell me, officer?"

Officer Cliché frowned. At least he understood sarcasm. "We're protecting the public from terrorism." 

"Terrorism."

"Yeah, terrorism. Ever hear of 9-11?"

There is a panic button at work so that if I ever have a gun in my face I can call for help. The one time I hit that button it took NYPD an hour and half to respond. AN HOUR AND A HALF. I'm glad to know that if I ever have a gun in my face the NYPD will not help me, but instead, they will spend their days checking the purses of cute girls in subway stations. After all, you never know what might be hiding amongst the lip gloss and mascara. Tampons can be very dangerous.

I <3 Cops

Today is the second day at my new job. I am the proud new Monday and Tuesday evening receptionist at a nice little Non-Profit in Manhattan. I don't know about you, but I can't pay my rent on only twelve hours of work a week, so I'm still looking for another job (let me know if you hear of anything.) I like this new job, though. It is very very very busy, and while my responsibilities are few, (I answer the phones, transfer calls to voicemail, babysit the therapists and run credit cards - literally, that is all I do) I am busier here than I've been at any job I've ever had. Including Starbucks. But I love that. It makes the time go by fast and makes me feel like I'm useful. I like feeling useful. But while I'm still the new kid on the block, it can get a bit hectic up in this joint. Like tonight for example. At seven o'clock I was starved for dinner, three phone lines were ringing, two people were on hold waiting to be transferred, five people were in line to pay for their sessions, a therapist was whining at me because someone was in the room she was assigned to and when were they going to be done and why couldn't she just see her client in the library, and someone had accidentally locked the door to the waiting room so that there were three other clients piled up by the door, wondering why they couldn't get into the waiting room. I was slightly flustered, but I was managing. If I could just transfer these calls and finish this transaction, I'd be able to run across the lobby and unlock the waiting room door. Suddenly, this therapist who I've never met, comes behind my desk and starts feeling around by my knees.

"WHOA!" I yelp.
"Oh! Sorry! There is a button under here that will unlock the waiting room door so you don't have to get up. Here it is!" And she pushes it. And pushes it again. And the clients by the door push on the door. Nothing. She pushes the button again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

I assign an empty room for the whiny woman who needs a room, run the last three credit cards and then I jump up, run across the lobby and unlock the waiting room with my keys. And I breathe a sigh of relief because I actually got through that without having a heart attack and now maybe I can go take my fifteen minute dinner-and-pee break.

Forty minutes later the phone rings.

"Good evening, Blankety-Blank-Not-For-Profit."
"Trish! Are you alright? I just got a call that the alarm went off." It's my supervisor on the phone.
"Oh, wow. I have no idea why. Everything is fine." I say.
"Well, check the alarm panel because they're saying it was set off." I check the panel, I can't tell that anything is wrong, I assure her that I'm fine and we hang up.

Five minutes later the phone rings again.

"Good evening, Blankety-Blank-Not-For-Profit." It's one of the other girls who works in the office.
"Are you ok? Is everything alright? The alarm went off!"
"Yeah, Mary just called and said the same thing. I have no idea why."
"The alarm company said you hit the hold-up button."
"The what?"
"The hold-up button under the desk. Maybe you hit it with your knee?"

And then, of course, I remember the frantic moment forty-five minutes earlier when the nice helper therapist kept hitting the button to unlock the waiting room door, and I realize she must've been hitting the hold-up button. So I explain the situation to the girl on the phone, we hang up, and I begin to wonder why, if the hold-up button was hit so many times in a row, the police never showed up. Fifteen minutes after that, the Boss Lady calls.

"Patricia, what is going on there?"
"Oh, Janet. Everything is fine." And I tell her how the button accidentally got pushed. And she reprimands me for letting one of the therapists behind my desk and lectures me on how I am never, under any circumstances, to hit the hold-up button unless there is a gun in my face and someone demanding money. That's why it's called "a hold-up button." And then we hang up.

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER THAT, NYPD shows up. A full hour and twenty minutes after the hold-up button was frantically pushed many many many times, three uniformed NYPD officers with the faces of pimpled teenage boys saunter into the lobby, meander over to my desk and stare at me. I stare back. By now I've forgotten all about the alarm and I don't know what the hell they want, but by the looks on their faces I'm thinking they want cookies. Or dog biscuits.

"Can I help you?" I ask.
"Uh.... um.... I think... wait. Uh.... did your alarm go off?"

Oh jeez.

The moral of this story is that if I am ever held-up or otherwise threatened while I'm here in this office building all alone late at night, I can be sure that the NYPD won't show up until I'm laying in a pool of my own blood and guts, cold and dead. I am just so glad that I pay all those city taxes. What is it that money is used for again?