Okay, story time

So like seven years ago I was working at a Burger King and then I got cinderellaed and then I lectured at Yale about how much it sucks to be poor, because this is apparently information that’s worth money

(I still don’t get it. Never will.)

Anyway so I was keynote at this fortune 100 company and this dude read my bio about how I was service class and he had Advice.

Guy was about my age, early thirties. Nice suit, no tailoring. Most expensive shit on the rack, I’m sure.

So he corners me over the lunch buffet. This dude is gonna change my life. He explains to me how even at my age if I really put in the work I could turn my life around.

I am the KEYNOTE.

So he tells me he could “get me into finance” and I’m wondering is he trying to get in my pants because, again, he’s paying to hear me talk and this has to be a pickup line because nobody this silly lives past 23, dudes with this little sense of self preservation die early

Turns out

(I did not even smack him)

He took a class once

At Cornell

About social work

And he learned

In his class at Cornell

About how there’s multiple ways to measure intelligence

And actually service workers are great multitaskers

And he thought that would translate to finance and that he could get me an entry-level job

I asked dude what kind of finance and I’ve never told @TBPInvictus this story but I 100% thought I should record the conversation to play back for him later

My dude, the finance expert, said “banking”

I about came out of my skin because this motherfucker thought there was just, like, “banking.” Not retail, not lending, not even commercial

Like dude was gonna set me up as a teller for wells or some shit

Anyway so his boss drifted over thinking his employee had really impressed the keynote

And I’ve just come up, I don’t know how mad I can be around the rich people, I’m trying to be polite (I learned since then)

So the only thing I can think of is asking the boss does he have a job for me

Boss man is old money. His daddy was a banker I’m sure. He looks at me, with my tattoos and my cleavage and my earrings, and he’s thinking to himself “how do I not offend the entirely uneducated brassy loud-ass woman who’s the centerpiece of this retreat because LOL NO”

Anyway so me and boss dude chat about applied quantitative easing for a while

Original dude, I remind you, thought “banking” was a thing

So I look at original dude and deadpan ask him “what, in your opinion, is the prime prime rate”

Cause I’m a writer an I can use one word in two ways in one sentence

Anyway so THAT DUDE. “I’m gonna set you up” dude

That guy

This fucker emailed me tonight asking about some poor people shit

And that, friends, is how I remembered to warn you not to mix bleach and ammonia

Cause some absolute numbers lived past their early twenties and YOU CANNOT STOP THEM. THEY CANNOT DIE.

But they can sure as shit kill everyone else.