The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race by Sara Barron Page B

their fine-dining style.
    There was, however, one exception to this rule. The exception’s name was Janet.
    Janet was the pastry sous-chef. She ate cakes and tarts all day, and yet was tiny like a Kewpie doll: big features on a big head, atop a shapely but minuscule body.
    Janet and I were different insofar as Janet enjoyed a decent level of at-work popularity. She was not only tiny like a Kewpie doll, but also sexy like a kewpie doll; if you were into that doe-eyed, small-waisted sort of thing, then yes, you would have thought Janet was sexy. In addition toher winning physical appearance, Janet gave away scraps from her pastry department—misshapen cookies and so on—whenever her fellow staff was hungry.
    These factors made Janet a popular lady. She had no real reason to be sympathetic toward me. Nonetheless, the first time she saw me mishandling the dinner rolls, she said, “You need tongs for that, right? It looks really hard!”
    And I replied, “Yes! Thank you! It
is
really hard!”
    Janet was herself heterosexual, and she’d recently been broken up with by a guy who liked to skateboard. What Janet liked about me, I think, was that I was willing to listen as she obsessed about her breakup.
    So I would listen.
    And listen.
    And listen.
    In a different situation I might’ve had less patience, but as the incompetent roll-chucking busboy, I didn’t have much choice. I was desperate for a friend.
    Janet and I would go out for drinks after work, and I’d sit and listen as she discussed various self-help platitudes: how it’s good to take the road less traveled, how everything happens for a reason.
    My mood and energy level depending, I might try to get Janet off the subject of the guy who liked to skateboard, and onto the subject of how likable I was if only you took the time to get to know me. While I was occasionally successful, mostly I was not. Mostly, she’d ignore my attempts and stay on her own favored topics: how times of pain are times of growth, how it’s good to stay positive and be brave.
    Janet and I drank mostly at dive bars. One night we were at a spot of such description when she chose to read aloud a poem.
    “It’s called ‘Warning,’ ” she said, and unfolded the piece of paper onto which the poem had been transcribed. Then she started reading:
    “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.”
    The poem continued on in this vein, describing all the while the joie de vivre the author would embrace when she was older. The twist at the end was the valuable realization that maybe she, the author, could stand to implement some of that joie de vivre into her
current
life.
Now
. Do you get it? Before it was too late.
    The poem had the overall effect of forcing me to consider how I, too, might be entitled to just a bit of joie de vivre, to just little bit more fun.
    You
are
entitled
, I thought.
Sara Barron: You DESERVE it
.
    That subtle pat to my own back felt really good, and prompted me to think I liked the poem.
    “Wow,” I said. “Thank you. That was … great.”
    “It
was
, right?”
    “It
really
was.”
    “I love how it teaches you to just, like, grab life by the balls, you know? I mean, here I am, young and single. It’s a wonderful adventure, in its way.”
    I’d spent plenty of time young and single, and while there
were
occasional fireworks unique to the experience—flushing once a day; un-judged excessive scratching—I’d found it mostly dull. The thing was, though, Janet had just read aloud a poem in a dive bar. A conversation in which I mentioned phrases like “sad reality” or “fundamental solitude” didn’t strike me as wise or worthwhile.
    “Being single
is
awesome,” I told her. “You’re going to love it. You’re going to grow.”
    “Totally!” she said. “I feel so, like, hungry for new experience.”
    I nodded along, mostly in rhythm to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” which, for one reason or another, was blaring through the bar speakers.
    And