Not My Type by Melanie Jacobson

choice.”
    I nodded in understanding, and she stood and offered me another handshake. “I really hope you’ll consider it, Pepper. I know you don’t love the whole online dating thing, but it’s a great opportunity for you to develop your writing voice. I’ll walk you out, and I hope it isn’t for the last time.”
    I stood and followed her, returning the smiles of the salesgirls on the way out. The guy in the Homestar Runner shirt offered me a brief nod and turned back to his digital wizardry.
    All the way home, I ran the offer through my mind, trying to decide what to do. I really wanted to quit Handy’s, but considering that only two weeks before I’d been convinced that any type of newspaper job was impossible, this was a pretty good place to start. If I couldn’t convince myself to love the idea of online dating, maybe I could approach it as a chance to mine for comic gold and it wouldn’t be so bad. Far more people had done far worse things when getting started. Probably.
    At least these dates would be a free meal every week. I hoped.
    By the time I pulled into the driveway at home, I had my mind made up. I rushed in to change into my Handy’s Dandy Sandwiches T-shirt and rushed out again before either of my parents could come home and ask me about the interview. I needed time to figure out a way to break the news of my impending online dating adventures. They would hate the idea more than I did.
    Oh well. At least Ginger would love it, if only because she’d have one more reason to make fun of me.

Dear Coach Sweeney,
Thank you for teaching us first aid and CPR in tenth grade. I realize that we were inattentive, rowdy, and obnoxious, but some of it stuck. If I had known then that I would actually need that stuff, I would have paid way more attention. Still, enough stuck that I could use it when I really needed it. Also, I’m really sorry I named the CPR dummy Cootie Carol. I was trying to get a laugh, not deter almost the entire class from refusing to give her mouth-to-mouth. But hey, the Red Cross says straight compressions are better anyway, so really, in the long run, it all worked out fine, right?
Finally, I thought I’d pass along a small lesson from my real-life first-aid experience. I think you should warn future classes that even though you can do the Heimlich maneuver on someone much larger than you, it’s hard. And also embarrassing. But it will work, thank goodness. It just puts the kibosh on a second date is all.

Sincerely,
Pepper Spicer

Chapter 5
    Fridays were becoming action packed by Pepper Spicer standards. Then again, up until my dad’s thank you challenge, leaving the house to visit Redbox and grab a bag of Funyuns would have counted as a big night. By those standards, tonight was epic.
    I had a date.
    Aaagh!
    “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ginger said. She and Rosemary watched from Rosemary’s bed as I got ready for my first Real Salt Lake gig. My mother was downstairs, probably trying to figure out how to lock me up without violating any laws. I’m sure my dad was waiting at the foot of the stairs with an argument designed to make me change my mind while convincing me that it was my idea to stay home.
    “I can’t decide if it’s cool or lame,” Ginger added.
    “Definitely lame,” I said. “But I have to do it if I want the job.” My stomach churned with equal parts of panic and dread. Even before Landon, I hadn’t done much dating. I’d met him in a summer class at BYU before I started my official freshman year, and we’d dated until the week after I graduated, a measly week before our (second) wedding date. Of course, there had been a short breakup somewhere in the middle when he called our first wedding off because it conflicted with the South by Southwest Music Festival and he’d scored a gig fronting a local band that made it into the semifinal competition.
    After that, I had this crazy idea that our relationship wasn’t going anywhere. But I think