Page 2 (1/2)

We’ve both been dicked over by vanity sizing

"Are you going to get those?" Less Than Zero asks, nodding at the jeans I have on

"I guess," I say "I ot barfed on at work"

"God," Less Than Zero says, wrinkling her chipmunk nose "Where do you work?"

"Oh," I say "A dorm I mean, residence hall I’m the assistant director"

"Rilly?" Less Than Zero looks interested "At New York College?" When I nod, she cries, "I thought I knew you froe last year Which dorm?"

"Um," I say, aardly "I just started there this summer"

"Rilly?" Less Than Zero looks confused "That’s weird ’Cause you look so familiar…"

Before I have a chance to explain to her why she thinks she knows me, my cell phone lets out the first few notes of the chorus of the Go-Go’s "Vacation" (chosen as a painful reet any--vacation days, that is--until I’ve passed my six months’ probationary period at work, and that’s still another three months off) I see fro ht?

Except that it probably isn’t I e students is super fun because they’re so enthusiastic about stuff a lot of people don’t even think about, like freeing Tibet and getting paid maternity leave for sweatshop workers and all of that

But a definite drawback about working at Fischer Hall is that I live right around the corner from it Which makes me just a little more accessible to everyone there than I’et calls at home from work because you are a doctor and one of your patients needs you

But it is quite another thing to get calls at hoe and no one can find the refund request forms and they want you to coh I do realize to soht sound like a dreah to where you work to be able to drop by if there’s a se crisis Especially in New York Because , and I do it on foot (four more minutes to add to my daily exercise quota)

But people should realize that, as far as dreaet paid 23,500 a year (about 12,000 after city and state taxes), and in New York City, 12,000 buys you dinner, and e on, vanity sized or not I wouldn’t be able to live in Manhattan on that kind of salary if it weren’t for et to "live in" because at New York College, only residence hall directors, not assistant directors, get the "benefit" of living in the dorm--I mean, residence hall--they work in

Still, I live close enough to Fischer Hall that my boss feels like she can call me all the time, and ask ht sunny Saturday afternoon in Septe for jeans, because the day before, a freshman who’d had a few too many hard lemonades at the Stoned Crow chose to roll over and barf the for his pulse

I’to offerto ask me to take some semicomatose drunk twenty-year-old to the hospital (likely)--when Less Than Zero suddenly shrieks, "Oh my God! I knohy you look so familiar! Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Heather Wells? You know, that singer?"

I decide, under the circus are going badly enough, considering the size 12 stuff, and now this I totally should have just stayed hoht new jeans online

"You really think so?" I ask Less Than Zero, not very enthusiastically Only she doesn’t notice my lack of enthusiasain "You even sound like her That is so randoh, "ould Heather Wells be doing, working in a dorht?"

"Residence hall," I correct her automatically Because that’s e’re supposed to call theedly fosters a feeling of warht otherwise find living in so called a dorm too cold and institutional-like

As if the fact that their refrigerators are bolted to the floor isn’t a dead giveaway