In my search to find activities to rid my days of similarity and monotony. I thought I might pickup an internship. I was going to be a 27-year-old intern which sucks even more than it sounds. I had an interview with a guy who ran his own media company and seemed legit enough. He wanted me to help him out with a strategy plan for a product launch. Cool, I can do this. The product was a pelvic exerciser or a kegel ball. (wtf, whhhyyyy not something normal). I did some research and it turns out this is real. Women actually purchase miniature balls that they insert and then “flex” with. Eff it I’m not going to the gym anymore I’m just gonna hang out with this miniature ball lodged in me and cruise around…wha? Besides the obvious uncomfortable nature of the product itself, the man I was meeting with and the events that led up to the interview deemed to be ten times more awkward than anyone could have anticipated. Even me.

It’s Monday morning and I have all my notes and ideas together to pitch this kegel ball…(wtf, why>?) and I’m heading into the city via Sydney buses. I enter this rather grandiose building so my fears of possibly being kidnapped or traded into human trafficking have now subsided. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the correct floor, through the correct lobby up through only a specific bank of elevators behind and under the invisible bridge in which you must pay a toll to the guy on the right, not the left. Ughh finally here and I greet the receptionist (I feel sorry for you, I’m sorry). “Hello I am here to see Anton.” “Ah yes, AN-TONE. one moment.” “AN-TONE? I’m pretty sure it’s Anton” she looks at me like I’m about to get the guillotine (did you know it was spelled like that? ca-ching$). “AN-TONE.” ahh ok…whateves. She says someone will come and get me and take me back to his office, (why? she can just tell me where it is and I will go). I think this will all happen pretty quick so I just stand amongst her instead of sitting down, big mistake. Carlos or whoever takes 10 minutes to come up front and get me. That whole 10 minutes I stood around her, hovering like the biggest weirdo on earth eating  mints from the dish on her desk. He arrives and she says,”Hey Carlos, can you take her back?” (shit its time…the guillotine.) I follow Carlos back and of course AN-TONE is not in his office and must have come up front so we start walking back thinking we would run into him and don’t and then he walks back to the office..and so on…after 15 minutes of a weird fucked up Pac-man game where I am Mrs. Pac-man, AN-TONE is Mr. Pac-man and fuck it Carlos can be one of the wiggly ghosts..here we are and we meet in the hall way. As I am walking towards AN-TONE I feel a snag in my shoe. Wait, that’s no snag. My bare toes are now touching the carpet, shit these cheap shoes I bought from Rubi….the entire sole has fallen off and my toes are clenching to it for dear life. I crease my foot around the remainder of the bottom of my shoe and walk behind AN-TONE to avoid any notice on his part. We walk into his single office and there is one chair and one shitty old Dell laptop. He asked me if I brought my computer….excuse me what? my computer?  yes, I casually tote around my whole computer as well as my herb garden just in case my lunch may need a little jazzing up. What? No. “Oh you didn’t?” Ok ill just work on my iPad and you can use my computer. Great, grand, wonderful.

So we chat for a bit and he shows me the Powerpoint he’s been working on about the pelvic exercisers. He continues to go into a whole explanation of the insertion, the benefits of the pelvic exerciser as well as a brief anatomy lesson of the female vagina. Thanks AN-TONE, got it. He then says he has to leave so he will be gone for the next 3 hours and I can work on the strategy plan. THANK THE LORD. As a perfectionist (or someone with O.C.D) I take one look at the Powerpoint and wheel back (in the one chair in the office) in disgust this needs tidying up bad or at least a more fluid color scheme. After sprucing up the borders I have realized 2 hours have gone by and I have done nothing to the content except change the target audience. FUCK.. AN-TONE enters and asks to review what I have done. I quickly click through the slide show and with perfectly good reason he asks, “So what have you been doing…” “Well, see I just did that and look here this looks good, and I adjusted that image so it lines up with this.” (wtf I blew it). He’s like, “Ok well I’m a little worried cause I need to present this tomorrow.” “Yea sure no worries, I’ll really step it up now.”

After finishing up he still didn’t look impressed and continued to insert bright pink kegel balls all over each page to distract from any content. I come to terms with the fact that this is probably not going to work out, whateves it was an internship. Then I remember my shoe….he leaves again on an important call which sounds more like a plea for someone to hang out. When he comes back we say our goodbyes and I walk out grazing my toes on the bottom of my heel, it’s no use…I will have to walk with one normal step and one really high step to keep from the sole flapping all over the place. I finally make it to the front door by reception and it is locked, bigtime. Shit, fuck I cant leave and I’m walking around like peg-leg Johnson who just desperately needs to get back to his ship. I find some unsuspecting loner in the computer lab (why is there a computer lab in the office building? to play number-munchers perhaps?) and ask him, “Hello, sorry butttt how do you exit?” He says just walk around to the other side and there is an exit door. (The other side? fwarks, my shoe, it simply wont last). I made it out after doing one more circle around and into the elevator going down accompanied by one guy that aggressively stared at my bare foot. That was easy, now it’s time to face the largest lobby you have ever seen in your life. Which happens to also be the epicenter of the most fancy people you have ever seen you life. I am walking through the long-ass lobby with a solid limp and the sound of the flap of my shoe shortly follows. People know whats going on… they look, they judge, they bow their head in disgrace.

Turns out my flatmate works in the building in lobby 2 which is still 3.2 km away but it is still a warming thought to be around a familiar face. I hobble in her direction and finally reach her desk and explain to her my shoe situation. She hands me  a stapler and I go at it. My shoe is now seamed together by a strand of staples and stapled so tightly I need to curl in my toes to fit into my newly tailored shoe. Being a size 11 this is like squeezing Paul Bunion’s foot into Thumbelina’s nighttime slippers. It’s uncomfortable to do and uncomfortable to watch. Finally, I am able to leave with some sort of dignity and a fully bottomed shoe. Today sucked. But not as much as having to do a presentation on kegel balls.