The call time was 6:30 A.M., which isn't normally a problem because I'm the type of model that has experience working a day job, and also is not a whiny bitch-- the kind that inevitably and incessantly brings up that "Nothing is even going to start until like 10" and "Couldn't they have brought us in a couple hours later?" Ignoring, of course, that this is a job that a lot of people dream about, it's not like we were going in for the morning shift at a god damn McDonald's.
"Good morning! I feel dead inside."
I may be a lot of things, but someone who complains about waking up early just to be surrounded by cool hair/makeup people, model dimepieces, and free fruit platters is emphatically not one of them.
In fact I tend to enjoy getting there early and having my pick of these fruit platters, and thus set my alarm for 5:05 am. I'm not sure why I didn't just set it for an even 5:00, as if the extra 5 minutes would actually matter, but I just did, alright? Why are you reading this blog instead of answering all those emails you have and stuff, huh? GET OFF MY JOCK OKAY!
Anyway you're right the 5 minutes didn't end up mattering at all, because in my quest to calculate the perfect waking time I forgot to actually turn the alarm on. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I should probably be one of those people working on a bionic-appendage-type project, thank you. What was an extra 5 minutes turned into an extra 45 minutes, and I didn't open my eyes until around 6.
And this is where the miracle happens, because the way I was sleeping that 45 minutes was actually treading dangerously close to "Your agent is drilling a hole through your bedroom door to wake you."
"And I'm billing your account for the doorknob."
So what was the miracle? Well, it was still my phone. Just not via alarm. It was a text message.
From my mother.
Yes, that's right, at 6 o'clock in the morning on a weekday my mother was sending me a text message. She had actually texted me late the night before, but I didn't respond-- as you sometimes do when you're a fully-functioning adult away from home. But in mom-logic this clearly meant that I was dead.
So I wake up to this "Hello are you alive?" message, rush to appear ready, rush to the studio, rush up the elevator-- well "rush" in the sense that it was moving at the exact same pace as normal and I just wished it'd go faster, you can imagine serene elevator music playing as my head almost explodes-- and exit into the waiting room. Several other models are still sitting there though, which is a relief. Or at least...
"Have any of you guys gone in yet?"
"No."
...now it was a relief.
Someone then pops out of the back and asks what we're doing up there, explaining that all the shit going down was actually...well, it required literally going down. Everything was being set up on the first floor.
So now not only was I gonna be absolved of appearing like I slept in, I was also gonna roll in with some other models at the same time. What had the potential to be an epic embarrassment was turning into an epic, Matrix-style bullet-dodging.
Exactly the same.
Amidst all of the chaos on the first floor I even manage to find one of the only open chairs, and I soon begin to reflect on my awesome luck. A woman then takes the seat next to me, and I break off my deep-thought-stare to acknowledge her with a friendly hello. She reciprocates, then kindly informs me that I'm in the chair for her to give me a manicure, and have I had mine yet?
And I realize my "awesome luck" was just a facade, that the only thing Matrix-style here was being tricked into the illusion that I wasn't going to have any awkward encounters that morning.
See I don't know if you know this about me (of course you don't, I'm supposed to be anonymous), but I happen to be a bit of a nail-biter. This wasn't really a concern for me-- I probably deserve the tiny stings of pain that accompany having my bitten-down cuticles trimmed. But in my best moments I'd also like to think I'm a model capable of human empathy, and so I felt for this woman who I suddenly and without warning stuck with the worst job of her group of manicurists.
Fortunately this only lasted a few minutes, she laughed as I apologized profusely, and I immediately made my way over for some therapeutic fruit pieces.
Which, of course, were all gone.
BUT, like Neo, I would pull a helicopter up the side of a building this morning yet. Or something. Because as we jumped into our looks and filed into the showroom (if that sounds like something that could also be said by a girl working at the Bunny Ranch, that's because it totally could be) I was informed that for this hours-long presentation that I would be sitting down. That's right, I was basically handed in an Easter basket a better chance of not passing out. And I don't think I need to explain at this point how helpful that is.
I just wonder if my mother had anything to do with it.
