I was staying at my friend Margaret’s apartment–Margaret is a childhood friend that I worked with at a swim club when we were in high school and college–and we met up with two of my new friends from work, Kristen and Emily. We went to two different bars near Fenway Park–GameOn and Landsdowne Pub–and had a pretty great time, with the standard amount of drinking, outrageous dancing, and hilarious next-day stories that any fun night out is bound to contain.

After closing time at Landsdowne, Margaret, Kristen, and I shared a cab. Kristen and Margaret just happen to live down the street from one another, so the cabbie dropped off Kristen, and then drove to drop Margaret and I off a few blocks down. When the cabbie stopped to let us out, I got out of the cab and Margaret paid him, since Kristen had paid Margaret’s cover at Landsdowne. (As I write this, I realize that I owe Margaret money for that cab ride. Sorry, Marge!)

Margaret slammed the cab door and the cabbie drove away, moments before I realized that my purse was still in the back of the cab. Margaret and I jumped and waved our arms, but the cabbie kept going.

It was 2:30am. I had left my purse in the back of a Boston cab. I didn’t remember the cab number or the name of the cab. My purse contained all my cash, my ID, my debit card, my credit card, an unsigned blank check, and my phone. Margaret had to coach a swim meet later on in the morning.

We didn’t know what to do, and we were far too tired to do anything about my purse at the time. We went inside Margaret’s apartment. I discovered that I had luckily taken my CVS-brand of hand moisturizer out of my purse before we went to the bars, so even if I lost all the money I had to my name, I would still be able to ward off dry skin. We went to bed.

I woke up the next morning with a headache, in addition to a dawning realization of the severity of my predicament. Someone could use my credit card to spend all the money I’ve earned so far on my first job. And I was alone in a friend’s apartment, wearing my clothes from the night before and sleeping on a sofa chair.

Margaret had woken up at 5am to go to work–she is a swim coach and had to attend a meet. Neither of her roommates were home, they didn’t have a landline, I didn’t have a cell phone, and I didn’t know the password to Margaret’s computer. I spent the morning eating Margaret’s roommate’s low-fat bagel slices with peanut butter and being afraid of the roommate’s two very large dogs, one of whom tried to bite me whenever I leaned in for a sympathy snuggle. (Margaret, if you and/or your roommates are reading this, you need to buy better snack foods. Your lack of chips, crackers, cereals, cookies, or any type of snack is absurdist and un-American.)

Margaret came home around 2pm. Before we could Google “Boston cabs lost and found,” Kristen called Margaret’s cell phone. She had my purse.

Kristen had texted me earlier that morning, and the cabbie answered. He drove to her house to give her my purse (without accepting payment for his miles driven). Margaret and I met up with Kristen and I was reunited with my purse. Nothing was stolen: all my cash was there, my blank check, my cards, etc., and there were no credit card purchases. I thanked the cab gods that I am blessed with the dumbest luck ever.

Two days later, I found this drawing–which I have never seen before–on a scrap piece of paper, wrapped around my Gettysburg ID card and tucked away inside my wallet.

I found this gem, a product which so perfectly embodies the sales motto of “keep ‘em coming back for more” in terms of product-customer relationship:

"Whatever you're crying about... it probably will only get worse."

Because what better way for a tissue company to keep their customers coming back to their product… than to keep customers crying.

Let it all out, readers, let it all out. I’m here with you.

Also, if you’re wondering, I have decided to devote myself once again to this blog. I apologize to my loyal readers (hi, Mom!) for my absence. I got a job as an Editorial Assistant for First-Year Composition at Pearson Higher Education textbooks in Boston, and having a full schedule was a little difficult to get used to again. However, I’m going to try to blog more often, perhaps writing shorter posts, in order to stay in the habit of writing regularly. Let’s see how it goes!

The end of the trailer for También La Lluvia features a paraphrased version of the following quote from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States:

The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.

(Harper Perennial, 2003; page 443)

Zinn begins Chapter 17 of A People’s History, entitled “Or Does It Explode?” with this assertion, in reference to the legacy of the black revolt and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter gets its title and primary extended metaphors from the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over–

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

This film's answer to Hughes's question? "Explodes. Definitely explodes."

The 2010 Spanish film, También La Lluvia (English translation: Even the Rain) uses this quote not only because the plight of indigenous peoples in North and South American can be compared with that of African Americans, but also because the film is, in part, inspired by Zinn’s book.

También La Lluvia tells the story of a fictional Spanish film crew that travels to Bolivia in 2000 to film a feature film about Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” and violent acquisition of the New World. The first chapter of Zinn’s A People’s History relays this account in a way which privileges the indigenous peoples of the Americas, in outright defiance of the traditional historic narrative of Columbus’s legacy.

Zinn quotes directly from Columbus’s log on his first encounter with indigenous peoples, the Arawaks of the Bahama Islands:

They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanges for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

–Zinn, 1 (emphasis mine)

Columbus reported back to his commissioners, the monarchs of Spain, that he would be able to obtain extravagant amounts of gold. Finding too little gold, Columbus decided to pay off his dividend in slave labor. Zinn explains:

Columbus… wrote: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So the fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards to prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows non of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.

–Zinn, 4-5

Happy Columbus Day, America!

I quote this extensive section of text not only because the Spanish filmmakers in También La Lluvia shoot a few scenes which dramatizes these historical events, but also just in case any of you out there were wondering why people say Columbus was such a bad guy.

Filmmaker Sebastian (played by Gael García Bernal) and his producer, Costa (played by Luis Tosar) have chosen to shoot their film in Bolivia–despite the fact that Columbus never went there–in order to save money by employing the impoverished locals as extras and laborers.

In the midst of shooting, the “Cochabamba Water Wars” break out, and the film’s main indigenous actor, Daniel (played by Juan Carlos Aduviri), takes on a large role in organizing the protests. Thus, the fictional aspect of También La Lluvia (Sebastian, Costa, and the rest of the crew filming the Columbus movie) begins to interact with a modern-day example of a real indigenous uprising.

Between January 1999 and April 2000, the people of Cochabamba–one of Bolivia’s largest cities–took on a multinational cooperation that the government had hired to manage the city’s water supply. This new set-up threatened to raise the local water bills to a rate that was simply unaffordable for the majority of the population. In protest, the people of Cochabamba held a general strike that essentially shut down the city for four days. Violence increased and the police and the army were sent in to stop the protesters. After many casualties and much destruction of the city, the protest was declared a victory. However, even as water prices returned to their previous rates, many community members still do not have access to water today.

Thus, También La Lluvia explores the parallels between Columbus’s exploitation of the indigenous peoples in the late 1500s to two modern-day examples of indigenous exploitation: the real-life multinational corporation’s injustice toward the people of Cochambamba in 2000 and the fictional-yet-realistic depiction of white filmmakers’ decision to use indigenous peoples as cheap labor.

The director of También La Lluvia, Icíar Bollaín, is interviewed on the inspiration for this film as well as how she and her crew worked to avoid becoming yet another parallel of white exploitation of indigenous peoples while filming this movie here.

I watched También La Lluvia as part of the Providence Latin American Film Festival last weekend, and I think it’s excellent: solid acting; tremendous story;  beautifully shot; well-paced; an intelligent and interesting plot; and overall incredibly important, thought-provoking themes.

I was especially interested to see how the Spanish filmmakers were portrayed after reviewing The Help and thinking about Nelson George’s discussion of the tropes Hollywood often uses when dramatizing the Civil Rights movement (especially the decision to depict an African American struggle through the eyes of a white character). It’s true that in También La Lluvia the audiences’ perspective into the story is guided by the white filmmakers, but director Icíar Bollaín refuses to allow Sebastian and Costa to become stereotypical white heros.

The 2008 Mexican film, Cinco días sin Nora (translated as Five Days without Nora but also billed as Nora’s Will), is a competent and quirky melodrama, guaranteed to please any movie-goer who enjoys character-based stories with subtle yet revealing moments carefully distributed throughout.

Praised in the states by both Variety and Leonard Maltin, this film is the only feature-length film by director Mariana Chenillo to date, but despite a simple story and modest budget, it never feels amateur.

Cinco días sin Nora follows José (played by Fernando Luján), a curmudgeonly divorcé who finds himself in charge of the funeral arrangements when his ex-wife Nora commits suicide. However, Nora has timed her death very carefully, forcing José to unwillingly host the Passover celebration for Nora’s mourners, as burials may not occur during Passover as per Jewish bereavement traditions. To the dismay of his and Nora’s family, José, a firm non-believer and staunch opponent to organized religion, entertains himself by feigning ignorance of Judaism in order to frustrate the self-serious rabbis who take charge of Nora’s funeral arrangement. In the midst of the not-so-quiet chaos bubbling up in Nora’s apartment, José finds a photograph that his ex-wife neglected to hide prior to her suicide, a clue that suggests Nora had an extramarital affair before she and José divorced.

I found Cinco días sin Nora enjoyable, though very different from what I expected after watching the trailer, which makes it seem like a dark comedy. In fact, I believe that every morbidly humorous moment in the entire film is accounted for, so if you want to chuckle at all during this film, don’t watch the trailer before you see it. If you don’t mind all the jokes spoiled for you, go ahead and enjoy the trailer and then see the film and cry. In the theater. Like I did. Because what appears on the surface to be a cynical and off-color romp with death is actually a concise melodrama which explores the pain family members must endure when a loved one suffers from mental illness.

I’m so happy to have happened upon this little film by merely a lucky coincidence. I recently subscribed to LivingSocial, a company which sends daily emails to alert subscribers to special deals happening in their city locality. A week and a half ago, I received a LivingSocial email about the 19th annual Providence Latin American Film Festival, an event that went on last weekend. Through the email, I bought a deal on tickets to four festival showings for $14. Cinco días sin Nora was one of ten films competing that I was able to see for this lowered ticket price. I wouldn’t normally promote a product or company on my blog, but I feel like LivingSocial provides a great vehicle to build excitement about local arts. There’s no fee to subscribe to the emails, and though this is the first deal I’ve bought–thus far the other emails contained deals I wasn’t interested in, like discounted spinning classes, gutter-cleaning services, and other miscellaneous offers–I think that it’s totally worth it to have an extra “spam” email to delete every day if once and a while you get to see a really cool and relatively unknown film… cheap!

However, they weren’t just inviting me for a second interview; they were inviting me to job shadow a current employee in the position for which I was being considered. For “half a work day,” as my first interviewer had explained to me, a time spanning from 1pm to 7:30pm. Clearly, that’s a strange work day for what I thought was an office job, but I went along with it, because Oh my God someone wants to give me a job!

That evening after my first interview, I received two emails: one congratulating (and/or mocking) me on my successful interview, and the second explaining preparations for the following day of job shadowing. Neither email was from the young man I interviewed with; rather, they were both from a woman whom I had not met. It was then that I realized that I should email my interviewer to say thank you, but that I couldn’t because he didn’t give me his email address. In fact, he hadn’t given me his business card, so I didn’t even know his last name. That morning on the phone, the receptionist had said I would be interviewing with either a John* or a Brad*, but, after checking my notes, I saw that my interviewer was named Allen*.

 (*Note: the names in this piece are changed to protect the privacy of the individuals, but mostly to protect me if this crazy company finds out that I’m writing about how crazy they are. A little paranoid, I know, but I’m trying to be “professional.”)

Okay, so I had an interview with a phantom interviewer and was receiving emails from a woman who worked for this company but that I had never (and would never) meet. Whatever, that’s not the strangest part, because the emails were very obviously just a template from a mass email that they send to everyone who’s gullible enough to seriously consider working for this company.

I look at the first email, which says congratulations and here are some frequently asked questions about our company. The most important FAQ, to me, is, “What is the salary for this strange and secretive job?” To my surprise, the email answers me, “The compensation for the entry-level position ranges from $32,000 to $40,000.” WOW. I am suddenly really interested.

The second email tells me about my job shadowing adventure for the next day.

Email: “Please forget the heels; you’ll want comfortable shoes for a little bit of a longer day!”

Me: Thank you, automated email, for assuming that I wear or even have the ability to wear heels. I felt like it was addressing me as if we were “girlfriends” or something. “No heels today, girlfriend! Wear your walking shoes! Let’s get vodka spritzers after!”

Email: “ We appreciate your punctuality but we ask that you please arrive NO EARLIER THAN 10 MINUTES BEFORE your appointment!”

Me: Please stop yelling at me. Like any normal person, I am freaked out when capital letters, bold, italics, underline, or exclamation points are used unnecessarily, and using all three is clearly excessive. Also, it’s condescending: it makes me sounds like a small child in a fairy tale who is tempted to do something because they are told overzealously not to do it. What horrible Satanic ritual will I accidentally walk in on if I show up to the office fifteen minutes early?

However, the strangest discovery I happen upon (which is in no way Satanic, I don’t think) is that the two emails list two different company websites. Hmmm, this seems suspicious.

Alright, so I click on the first one. I am immediately accosted by funky, bleepy-bloop music blaring out of my laptop speakers. It sounds like the most annoying cell phone ditty ever devised by the likes of mankind.

Note: I hate when websites have background music that turns on automatically. It’s a sure-fire way to get me to X out of your website and never return, and it also happens to be the best way to embarrass me in a library.

But I need to use this website to learn something about this mysterious company that I’m job shadowing, so I turn off the volume on my laptop and browse the site.

Except that the site doesn’t give any information. It’s just a collection of corporate buzzwords, eye-catching gifs, an “inspirational” youtube video about “going the extra mile” (complete with an analogy comparing businessmen to Olympic athletes), and links to the company’s blog that contains only two posts spanning a timeline of five months. One of those two posts contains the exact same FAQ I received in my first email, word for word.

Furthermore, the site offers little help in solving the Mystery of the Anonymous Interviewer: no employees are mentioned in the site’s “Contacts” page.

Now I move on to the company website linked at the bottom of my second email. Except—surprise!—the link leads to a page titled “SECURE CREDIT CARD SETUP PAGE” that asks for my name, address, credit card type, credit card number, expiration date, and verification number, and also assures me that my IP Address will be submitted for security purposes.

I scream and X out of the window.

But, oh my God, $40,000? That sounds so great!

ACT 2, SCENE 2: THE NEXT DAY

INT. COMPANY OFFICE – 12:50_PM

I arrive exactly ten minutes early for my day of job shadowing. In the reception room, there is a young man who looks about my age: sitting, waiting nervously, trying not to think about how awkward he looks in his dad’s old suit that’s two sizes too big (I assume). I see this man as my comrade; together, we face the quiet, dysfunctional absurdity that exudes from our desperate pursuit of an unknown job at a ridiculous company. I know we must unite or else perish in the nonsensical jargon of this corporate prison.

I sit down next to him and strike up a conversation.

Me: “Hi, I’m Kelly.” [Extends hand as a friendly gesture.] “Are you here to job shadow today?”

Awkward Applicant: “Huh? Ehhh, uh-huh.” [Receives handshake tentatively, flopping hand limply from the wrist down.]

Me: [Pause.] “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

A.A.: “Uhh, [mumble-mumble]…”

Me: “Nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

A.A.: “Uhh, [mumble-mumble-mumble]…”

Me: “Oh yeah? That far, huh? Hmm, so have you recently graduated or…”

A.A.: “Uh-huh…”

Me: “Oh yeah? What did you study?”

A.A.: “Ehh, [mumble].”

Me: “Oh, cool. That’s interesting…”

A.A.: “[Grunt.]”

So that’s pretty much how our conversation went. At first I thought that maybe this guy was really “in the zone” and didn’t want to fraternize with me because I’m the competition for this job. Except that he was slouching in his chair, shoulders hunched, chin out, and staring blankly at the wispy ends of his bangs that fell into his eyes; he definitely wasn’t in the “I want to get a job/make a good impression on anyone” zone.

Then I realized something: Awkward Applicant was here because he was an applicant who had made it through the first interview, just like me. I wasn’t so flattered that these people wanted to give me a job anymore. They probably didn’t even think it was weird that I had said “pensive” because they were just so thrilled that someone had enunciated something.

A door off of the reception room opened, and employees started filing past my new stoner zombie friend and I into a conference room at the end of the hall. In the bustle of pant suits and sensible footwear, I happened to notice that all of the employees looked very young—probably in their mid-twenties—and fairly attractive. Now, I know, at least from NBC’s The Office (which is probably as close to “the business world” as I’ll ever get), that it is, perhaps, unusual to have an office full of young hotties, even in the shining, beautiful world of network television. And there were a lot of employees that filed out of that tiny office, and I mean like clown car a lot. Probably forty or so. Maybe more. All young and good-looking, like they were some sort of co-ed football team in a league for attractive people. (My apologies, I’m still searching for a good metaphor for a large group of hot, diverse twenty-somethings of both genders. Email me if you have any suggestions.)

But I didn’t really have time to think about “Hey, what does it say about a company when they employ not a single person over the age of thirty?” All of my prospective co-workers were already in the conference room, drinking the blood of a first-born or something, and “Allen,” my interviewer from the day before, was speed-walking over to my fellow applicant and me and flashing his high-beam smile our way.

“Allen”: “Hey guys! How’s it going?! You excited for today? [Short pause for us to respond; it doesn’t really matter what we say, “Allen” keeps plowing on ahead.] Now, here’s what’s gonna’ happen: the staff just finished their morning meeting, and they’re getting really to congratulate each other and recognize some individual and group achievements. It may start to get a little bit loud, you know, a little bit crazy [wild, celebratory hand gesture], but that’s something that you’ll have to get used to around here!

“You see, here at [COMPANY NAME REDACTED], we really like to keep the blood pumping, keep the positive energy flowing, so we take time every day to recognize are achievements, you know? And I have to be really honest here, it’s one of the great things about working for this company! You know, who else takes time out each day to celebrate their staff? No one! So like I said, it’ll get a bit loud, but I’m gonna’ go in there and join them, and when they all come out, the team leaders you two will be shadowing will greet you, and they’re gonna’ be psyched. So I really want you two, as prospective employees, to really match their enthusiasm and show them that same high energy because they’re really excited to meet you and you guys are gonna’ have a great day! You’ll be interacting with customers, building relationships, promoting our clients’ product, and really get a feel for what it’s like to work for us! And I’ll see you back here at 7pm, we’ll have a little interview, see how the day went, and let you know if you’re ready to join our team!”

And in a brief moment, Allen was gone.

Looking back, I think that this was the moment that I really realized what a crazy and absurd situation I was getting myself into. These people were obviously some sort of cult, they clearly relied on performance-enhancing drugs that had infiltrated corporate culture, and they appeared to be a super-happy and super-nice version of all the businessmen in American Psycho (if that’s even possible).

Awkward Applicant and I sat in silence, staring vacantly ahead at the water cooler and a plastic plant.

The conference room erupted in applause, cheers, and whistles. Everyone once and a while we heard a deep-throated “WOOT! WOOT!” or a sexified “OW-OWW!” followed by a wave of laughter and more clapping, occasionally a whistle. Then they chanted some sort of sing-song-y battle cry, but I couldn’t make out the words.

Suddenly, the door of the conference room swung open and the sound of applause, followed shortly by a throng of employees, flooded the reception room. A young, perky woman with long blonde hair, a Barbie-pink blouse, and a beige skirt suit skipped over to me and gushed,

“Hi! I’m Tonya* [*NAME CHANGED]! You must be Kelly!”

“Tonya” led me through the hall, down the stairs, out the building, and over to her car in the company parking lot. She had a petite frame and small, symmetrical facial features. She was pretty in a nondescript way. In conversation, she kept her eyes wide open and her lips upturned in a pleasant smile.

Tonya was one of the company’s leading sales associates. She had been promoted from entry-level account representative to team leader of eight of her coworkers in a matter of months. Next week, she would be moving up to a position of assistant manager. It was the fastest that anyone in the company had gone from entry-level to assistant manager.

Tonya programmed an address into her GPS and began to drive. She handed me a company brochure that listed that month’s top sales records from offices all over the country. Her picture was in the brochure because she had won some type of award.

Me: “Um… if you don’t mind my asking… where are we going, by chance?”

Tonya: “Oh, well, we’re going on sales calls, of course. You’re shadowing me to see a normal day at work here, so after our morning meetings—which is the part you missed—we go out into the field for the rest of the day. Wherever we happened to be assigned that day.”

Me: “So… we’re going to people’s homes?”

Tonya: “Of course. Every week or couple of days we ‘work’ a different area of our zone. Our company covers all of Rhode Island and parts of southern Mass. Today our ride will be about forty minutes; sometimes it’s longer, but not by much. Sometimes we work right in Providence so we don’t have to drive far at all!”

Me: “Oh… Allen told me—uhh… I just thought that you didn’t do a lot of door-to-door stuff?”

Tonya: “Nope, this is what we do in the afternoons. In the mornings we have professional development and we all get together to celebrate the achievements of the day before.”

Me: “Right; the achievements… So… uh, you have to drive a lot during your workday, huh? Umm… does the company reimburse you for gas money?”

Tonya: “Oh well we usually all carpool, so it’s fun. Today since I’m with you, I don’t have my whole team in the car because I need to get you back early. But usually we all share rides and stuff. The team’s really great; it’s like a family.”

Me: ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Okay, so they sort of lied to me. The job is being a door-to-door salesman. You drive all over the place—sometimes two hours round trip—and you knock on peoples’ doors to bother them and try to sell them stuff. Plus you waste your whole paycheck on gas. And then the next day you get together with your “teammates” (who you feel a blood kinship/love for) and you congratulate each other on how many people you duped into buying stuff from you while you were invading their privacy.

Tonya: “Yeah, my team is really close. Everyone who works here is really young and cool. We go out together a lot. Like on Thursdays—every Thursday we go to this one steakhouse after work and get dinner and drinks. And, you can, like, “challenge” someone each week, to see who makes more sales? And then, if you win, you get to, like, pie them on our Thursday team bonding!”

Me: “You mean, like, you throw a pie… in their face? At the restaurant?”

Tonya: [Laughs.] “Yeah, we have a lot of fun together!”

So this company is definitely a cult. I’m really glad I clarified that “to pie” your co-worker in this context isn’t slang for some sort of sexual ritual that I had never heard of. No, you just throw a pie at them in a public place. It’s cool though because you’re with a huge group of young, attractive people who are all wearing business formal attire and occasionally break out into chants, so the restaurant management doesn’t mind that you’re being loud and obnoxious and getting pie everywhere.

“Tonya” was very nice and sweet and easy to talk to, but my day of job shadowing was pretty weird because selling stuff door-to-door is super-awkward. She kept referring to a big packet of Excel sheets all stapled together that she carried around, which sparked the following conversation:

Me: “Wow! That’s a lot of houses to visit!”

Tonya: “Oh, well, we don’t visit all of them, only the ones that the list tells us to.”

So I looked closer at the list. It was a spreadsheet of every residence in the entire network of neighborhoods we were walking through. Tonya’s sales company promoted a certain communications conglomerate that provided phone, internet, cable, and wireless services. This list contained the phone, internet, cable, and wireless provider for every home on the block, and we only went to homes that didn’t have the service that her company was promoting. So, FYI, companies know everything about you even if you don’t buy anything from them.

I felt guilty and weird about knocking on people’s door and bothering them in the middle of the day in order to sell them a product that they didn’t ask for, but Tonya was really, really good at it. Clearly, she’s the company’s best sales associates. Except I don’t understand why she’s so good at selling, because she didn’t really say anything too persuasive about the product.

Basically, the following claims made up the basis of her sales pitch:

• “Our service is really good.”
• “We’re, like, really, really good.”
• “Your internet will be, like, way, way faster with us.”
• “Your TV picture will be better with us. Like, super-clear.”
• “You’ll save a ton more money with us.”

That’s it. No details, no explanations. And people were persuaded by her! I couldn’t  believe it. Sometimes Tonya would ask for their most recent phone, Internet, and cable bills and try to figure out their savings by switching to her company. I don’t mean to be too critical of her, but she would take an inappropriately long time looking at the customers’ bills and adding the numbers up. I can’t really fault her for this, because I’m certainly not a pro at Adding in My Head in Public and I probably would be nervous, but if I had this job I would practice with flashcards or something to get faster. Because sometimes Tonya’s adding was clearly wrong.

But that didn’t matter. She was pretty, friendly, and smiled at the customers so the customers waited patiently while their uninvited and unexpected visitor sat on their couch and added up their monthly bills wrong. And then they bought the product she was selling.

Even though this experience with Tonya was a little strange, I started thinking that possibly I could be really successful at this job. If I was watching the best sales associate at the company, how hard could it be? She was obviously a little bit spacey, but she won customers over with absolute ease. I could totally do this!

Tonya and I talked amiably the entire day, and, like I said, she was very nice, easy-going, and friendly. I enjoyed chatting with her, even though we often had small conversational misunderstandings and semi-awkward differences in perspective. Again, I don’t mean to be cruel, because Tonya was very generous for allowing me to shadow her and for being so welcoming to me, but she was constantly saying things that reinforced the idea that if she was such an awesome sales associate, then I could easily be a super-super-super-awesome sales associate. For example:

Me: [Asking about Tonya’s previous jobs, which was something in the military] “So, where did you work?”

Tonya: “Oh, well, we worked in tents that they set up for us. Like, outside of whichever military base we were at.”

Me: [Pause] “Oh… no… umm, I mean: where, uhh, geographically did you work?”

Tonya: “Oh! Well, I worked in St. Louis, Chicago, Tampa… [Etc., etc., lists a few U.S. cities.]”

Me: “Oh, okay, so all domestic?”

Tonya: “Umm… sorry. I don’t know what you mean by that…”

Me: [Pause.] “Oh… umm… all the places you worked were in the U.S.?”

Tonya: “OH! Haha, yeah!”

Again, I’m not saying anything against Tonya. I’m sure she just temporarily forgot what the word “domestic” means. All I’m saying is that if I can drop that bad-boy vocab word in everyday conversation, then I could probably be a really awesome sales associate.

On the way back to the Providence office at the end of the day, I was feeling pretty confident about getting this job. I wasn’t feeling confident that I wanted the job, as I felt less-than-excited about the prospect of barging in on people every day, plus the whole paying-for-your-own-gas-rule was a cheap move and a serious drawback.

However, none of this compared to the big, unpleasant surprise that Tonya dropped on me on the way back to my final meeting with Allen at the office. Tonya gave me a sheet which listed the specifics of the job’s hours and benefits. This is literally what it said:

• Monday through Friday, from 11am until 8pm
• Saturdays from 11am until 6pm
• Two choices for compensation
  • Choice A: Weekly payment of $300 plus “commission”
  • Choice B: “100% commission”

First of all, those are really strange hours. Tonya said that it was because they needed to catch people when they would be at home. Okay, fine. But second of all, that’s fifty hours per week. Which is a huge problem, because these payment choices are definitely not a $40,000 per year salary, as advertised. Third of all, the compensation options don’t even make any sense.

Me: “What is the commission?”

Tonya: “It comes from the sales you make that week.”

Me: “Yes, but what is the commission?”

Tonya: “Well, if you pick the first option, you get a smaller commission because you also get $300 a week. And if you pick the second option, you get 100% of your commission.”

Me: “Yes, but commission means a percentage of the money made from the sale. How much money is made on each sale and what percentage of that goes towards our commission? The phrase ’100% commission’ doesn’t make sense.”

Tonya: “No, it does, because you get all the commission you made that week if you pick that option. Otherwise, you get a smaller commission plus $300.”

Me: “So what is the commission per sale with each option? How much are you really paid each week?”

Tonya: “Well, that depends on how many sales you made that week, of course!”

Me: “You people are lunatics. I quit.”

Okay, so I didn’t actually say that last part. Instead I just stopped asking questions and kept quiet. And when they offered me the job, I just smiled and said thank you. Then they asked when I could come in to sign paperwork and take a drug test, and I set up an appointment with them that I called the next day to cancel on the answering machine (because no one picked up the phone). I still didn’t have anyone’s contact information so I just sent an email in response to the automated email I had in my inbox in order to reiterate that I had canceled my appointment and was no longer interested in the position.

After all that time spent interviewing and job shadowing, I still was unemployed. And my only job offer happened to be one that I felt I needed to turn down, because I’m 90% sure that it was a total scam.

Hold on a second, let me qualify that.

I’m not saying that I’m unhappy with my degree or that I didn’t love every second of studying literature and creative writing during my undergrad. Okay, maybe I didn’t love every second of my bi-weekly 72-hour ‘benders’ to finish a 30-page paper (approximately) on time, but you get the idea. I’m hugely in love with reading and writing, so that when given the opportunity (like in college), I’m going to spend the majority of my time devoted to these activities.

I’m also not blaming the fact that I’ve received about fifty rejected job application rejections in the past three months on Professor Myer’s Shakespeare lectures. I’m really glad that he decided to talk about the nature of time in Henry IV, Part One rather than how to choose an appropriate cardstock for one’s professional resume.  Maybe it would be nice if I could exchange some of the time I spent reading other undergrads’ stories about frat parties and drunken one-night stands in my creative writing workshops for a lesson in this skill they call “networking,” but alas, I cannot change the past.

Furthermore, the problem my BA in English presents to me in no way relates to my ability to perform or even excel at any of the jobs I’ve applied for. This problem only manifests itself in the job application process, particularly during interviews.

I feel awkward in interviews simply because I hate to seem insincere (unless, of course, I’m being hilariously sarcastic; then I’m okay with being insincere). There’s a certain breed of interviews—joined together by common personality traits of the interviewer, perhaps, or the type of job at stake—that strike me as absurdly insincere. Once an interviewer stops talking about the position’s concrete tasks and responsibilities or the goals and values of the company enters the realm of vague buzzwords, that’s when I start to seem less like an ideal candidate and more like a crazy person.

This happened to me recently. I was browsing job openings on Career Builder and the site asked me to post my resume online. I had already posted my resume on LinkedIn and I knew that doing so on Career Builder would earn me a lot of spam emails, but I went for it anyway. I have a hard time believing that with our current unemployment rate there are any legitimate employers actively searching for recent college graduates, but I didn’t really think about that then and I just threw my resume up online. It was easy and I figured that the best that could happen would be that someone would find me and offer me my dream job, while the worst that could happen would be that someone would find me and steal my identity.

So I posted my resume and received a ton of spam in my inbox. There were a few particularly persistent companies that sent multiple emails and even a few phone calls/voice messages (Aflac being one of them, for some reason… they must have heard my duck impression?).  Two companies called me asking to schedule an interview; I was bewildered and said yes, under the spell of the awkwardness of receiving an unexpected phone call and the flattery of being pursued for a job opening.

The first interview was fine: no-nonsense, no “funny stuff,” no ass-kissing required. It was with a temporary-to-permanent staffing agency in Providence who will send my resume along to the select prospective employers that I specified, whenever there’s a temporary, seasonal, or project-based opening. I made sure that the contract didn’t require any sort of loyalty to this staffing agency on my part and hopefully they can find me temporary work while I continue my job search. Or, more hopefully, I’ll get a job soon and therefore won’t need them.

The second interview was where things became strange. It was with a company that specialized in “marketing and sales” for Fortune 500 companies. The description on the company’s website was vague enough to suggest anything between an interesting advertising opportunity (wishful thinking) or a boring office job, but either way, it would give me some more interviewing experience. I said, “Sure, why not?”

I arrived at the interview a little late, after getting lost while driving my dad’s Ford Tundra (i.e.; huge pickup truck) through Providence’s labyrinthine financial district, a Mecca of one-ways and construction zones (the office’s secretary gave me directions over the phone). Needless to say, I was a little nervous for the interview.

My interviewer, a tan, broad-shouldered, muscular man in his mid-to-late twenties, greeted me with a firm handshake and beaming smile. He made unrelenting eye contact, gestured liberally, peppered his enthusiastic speech with informal slag, and had tuffled, spiky hair. In his gray suit and stylish purple tie, he looked like some strange distant cousin of the typical Gettysburg fraternity brother: devoid of the familiar beer-soaked flip flops, seersucker blazer, Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses on a lanyard, and basketball shorts, this archetype of a young man seemed more focused, more alert, and dedicated wholeheartedly to some image of corporate professionalism rather than Tuesday “$2 pitchers night” at the local pub.

The interview, in hindsight, was a little bit strange, but I didn’t realize why right away. I handed the interviewer a copy of my resume when he asked for it, and he promptly put it aside in a folder, never to refer to again. He didn’t ask about my prior employment or work experience or skills; he just asked me general questions about my goals and personality, only to cut me off with another question after about a sentence and a half. Sometimes he finished my sentences with explanations of qualities his company admired, mainly “enthusiasm,” “leadership,” and being “eager to learn.”

About ten minutes into the interview, he stopped me again.

Him: “Okay, Kelly, I have to be honest right here, I hope you don’t mind.”

Me: [Nervous; What the heck is he going to say? “Get out of my office!”? ] “Uhh… okay?”

Him: “Have you ever worked as a waitress?”

Me: “What? Uhh… no?”

Him: “No? Never worked in a restaurant? A bar? No? Because I have to be honest here, you strike me as the type of person who’s good with people.”

Me: “Oh, uhh… thank you?”

Him: “Yeah, I mean, I have to be honest, but just from talking to you right now, you seem like you’re great with people, great with conversation. You’d be good at sales, you know? One-on-one interactions.”

And the interview continued on from there, sporadically interrupted by my interviewer halting conversation and informing me that he “needed to take a minute to be completely honest, I hope you’re okay with that.” Every single time he said this, I had a mini-panic attack that he was going to tell me about how I’m all wrong for this job and please stop even trying. And every time he stopped to be “honest,” he complimented me in a different way by telling me of a positive quality I had that he had (apparently) figured out from not letting me finish my sentences.

The only time he spoke about specifics of the job was when he told me which Fortune 500 business his company worked with for marketing and sales.

“Oh,” I said, “I know your campaign. Do your employees go to local residences? I think someone from this company came to my house a few weeks ago to sell that to my family…”

“Well, I’m not sure,” he said. “It might have been us. We don’t do a lot of that type of work. Mostly we go to events and conferences to promote the product to other businesses.”

I could tell that he really didn’t want to talk about my face-to-face interaction with his company. I definitely was not interested in going door-to-door and bothering people in their homes for my work, but when he told me that wasn’t a big part of the job, I was still interested.

We ended the interview by talking about an ideal job candidate:

Him: “We’re looking for a candidate who has a real go-getter personality. A real win-win thinker, you know, someone who always puts a positive spin on things and really ups the enthusiasm and energy!”

Okay, this sounds a little silly to me, but I go along with it. Of course I would describe myself as a hard worker and an ambitious person. I like to engage in friendly, upbeat conversations with new people and I’m always going bring my best effort and attitude to work. But I’m also realistic: if I’m dealing with a difficult, “losing” situation, I’m not going to have a “win-win attitude.” (Example: I can’t say that I’m terribly positive about, say, the current economy or the antics of the GOP.) If there’s a serious problem, I’m not going to insult anyone by acting like there isn’t, which would only serve to imply that I don’t understand the scope of the issue. Positivity is great, but acting overly positive in a serious situation only makes you look like an asshole.

Of course, I don’t say all this, I just smile my best “go-getter” smile and say something positive yet innocuous.

Him: “So, given all that we’ve talked about today, why don’t you leave me with one word to describe yourself that will set you apart from all the other applicants for this position. What makes you different, in one or two words?”

Me: [I hate this question, I hate this question, I hate this question. Quick! Say something good! You have tons of positive qualities and this job seems super-easy!] “Umm… pensive?”

Oh my God, why did I just say that? That was the absolute dumbest thing to say in the history of the universe. Every skill and quality we have talked about for this stupid job has been the opposite of “pensive.” He clearly isn’t looking for anyone who can think (never mind think in a wistful or dreamy manner while gazing out a window and sighing!), he just wants someone to smile and wear a nicely tailored pant suit!

Also, if I wanted to talk about how I have a brain, why didn’t I say “analytical” or “critical thinker”? Even if I said, “Basically, I think I’m probably even too smart to work here and you should just hire me because it seems as though I’m desperate enough to be flattered by an automated email that you sent to hundreds of people all over the internet,” I would have seemed like a more normal person.

In fact, there are quite a few things that I could have said in order to achieve the “pensive” effect. For example:

• “Actually, instead of answering your question, I’m going to recite John Keats’ ‘Ode on Melancholy,’ and then swoon.”
• “Here’s a copy of the Neutral Milk Hotel album In the Aeroplane over the Sea; give it a listen. The last track makes me cry 95% of the time.”
• “To use the parlance of our times, I would have to describe myself as “emo,” possibly a “hopelessly introverted dreamer,” with a dash of “mumblecore.”

But no, I didn’t say any of those things, which maybe would have made the interviewer laugh or something (probably not). Instead, I said, in all seriousness, “pensive.”

After that it was a little awkward. I tried desperately to define/redefine “pensive” in such a way that would make it seem like a positive quality for an entry-level sales associate, and my interviewer, for his part, chipped in to help me make “pensive” seem a little cooler as well.

Then I left the office, wanting to punch myself in the face.

Later that day, I received a phone call from my interviewer, asking me if I would be free to job shadow one of his associates tomorrow because he’s really interested in me for this position.

Still wanting to punch myself in the face, but now shocked that the interviewer also didn’t want to punch my stupid, pensive face, I replied: “Yes, I’d love to.”

We were enjoying a pretty low-key Sunday afternoon at home today, so Kevin and I decided to take a visit to a nearby pet shop to see a hedgehog “in person.”

Kevin, it seems, is a natural caregiver when it comes to hedgehogs:

"Awwwwwwwww!"

Apparently, hedgehogs have only been domesticated in the United States since the 1980s (they’re found in the wild in Europe, Asia, and Africa), so they’re pretty shy creatures when it comes to interacting with humans. Since they roll into a ball when they’re scared (and perceive any sudden movement or loud noise as a sign of danger), you’re supposed to hold them with cupped hands, close to your body.

Kevin, of course, had already learned all this from his previous hedgehog research, so he knew how to handle the little creature in “ball mode.”

"Ball mode," perfectly executed

After a few minutes, Kevin’s new friend warmed right up to him.

"OMG soo cute!": a three month-old African Pygmy Hedgehog

Of course, there’s no way that my family will be getting a hedgehog anytime soon, because we already have two huge and stupid dogs, but it was still fun to see Kev hang out with this little guy.

"He's so nurturing! ... Ladies?"

It seems like nothing can come between a boy and his hedgehog, except for my dad*.

*You know you can always change your mind, right Dad?

More pictures from today’s pet shop excusion:

And the lovely yet idiotic fluffy monsters we came home to:

"We have recently eaten something that belongs to you, but we're not telling what it is, and you'll find the remains of it in-between the couch cushions in a couple of days." --my dogs, to a member of my family, pretty much every day

Source: Google Images

NPR’s David Edelstein calls it “the highest form of middlebrow.”

In the New York Times, Nelson George calls it “a chick flick about ‘something’. “

Matt Zoller Seitz on Salon.com calls it “a white liberal fantasy in historical drag.”

Countless critics, reviewers, bloggers, and audience members have called it “racist.”

And yet many others have called it a “feel-good movie.”

So, what gives? Is director Tate Taylor’s debut feature-length film, based on Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 debut novel, a heartfelt artistic work about a pivotal time in American history, an unintentionally condescending white perspective of black suffering, a Jim Crow apologist’s depiction of Southern domestic life in the 1960′s, or something in-between?

The most effective way to determine The Help‘s value as both cinematic entertainment and social capital is to assess the film separately from each perspective before drawing any major conclusion. I’ve seen the film; I have not read the book. Thus, I will approach the film by asking two basic types of questions. 1) What are the basic goals of the film, and what experience does it provide for movie-goers? And 2) Does the film represent history in an accurate and useful way, or does the film reproduce harmful stereotypes?

First of all, what is The Help? What sort of movie is it, who is the intended audience, and what are the filmmakers trying to convey? Of course, I can’t answer these questions definitively because a lot of factors determine the final product of the film: many, many different people (writers, directors, cinematographers, set designers, costume designers, actors, editors, etc.) and plenty of constraints applied by technology, budget, producers, and other challenges.

However, I can say that the two people with arguably the most artistic control–director and screenwriter Tate Taylor, who adapted Stockett’s work, and Stockett herself–were probably in agreement with the film’s producers about this much: The Help is a major Hollywood production (budget estimated at $25 million), heavily advertised, with big-name stars, intended to be a summer blockbuster that will make a lot of money. It’s a “feel good” melodrama (aimed at women and thus a “chick flick”), that people (women) will go to see, enjoy, and then bring their friends along to see it again because it’s a beautiful-looking little movie that strives to instill feelings of well-being, hope, and togetherness in the audience by telling a story about a group of women who overcome a challenge in order to bring about positive change.

That’s the goal of The Help. It happens to be a “chick flick” because Hollywood thinks that a movie with a large female cast about personal relationships is the only thing that will appeal to a primarily female audience. It’s a melodrama for similar reasons: it is concerned with showcasing and creating powerful emotions,  its focus is on relationships (mainly friendships), and its world is a very small, domestic one. Even though the film happens to be set in a very tumultuous and important time in American history, the story is about the interactions between wealthy, white society women and the black women whom they employ to raise their children and maintain their homes.

That’s where a lot of people have trouble reviewing this film. Either The Help pretends to be more than a domestic melodrama, or people confuse it for something more, but in reality, the Civil Rights movement is simply a backdrop for the film. Yes, it’s important that it’s set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960′s, because that means that black domestic workers Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) have something to lose by telling their personal stories to the young, white writer Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), but the film isn’t really concerned with the reality of potential consequences.

Overall, the film isn’t particularly serious about exploring the complexity of race relations at this time or the tragedies and successes of the  Civil Rights movement. Like I said, The Help‘s focus is much narrower: it’s about the society women of Jackson and it’s about Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter–or rather, it’s mostly just about Skeeter. It’s a melodrama.

And as a melodrama, I would say–to disagree with NPR’s David Edelstein–The Help is a pretty middling example of middlebrow. The costumes are pretty; it’s funny at times; it has a message about being kind to others; and some people in the theatre with me cried. Two of the lead cast (Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer) gave truly great performances; others were also wonderful in smaller roles (Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain). In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis calls Emma Stone’s performance “uncharacteristically wan“; I disagree. I don’t think that the performance was “uncharacteristically” bad for Stone nor do I think her character was noticeably lacking in terms of the overall film. Stone is young, attractive, and can act; she does not, however, demonstrate the talent necessary to breathe life into a one-dimensional character.

In fact, the character of Skeeter–one whom I would deem characteristically wan for this type of middling middlebrow–provides a nice segue into looking at the film from our second, social and historical, perspective. Interestingly enough, we–as an audience–don’t know too much about Skeeter or specifically what she believes, even though she’s our protagonist and narrates much of the film. Instead, the film shows Skeeter as an “intellectual” (graduated from college; writes) and an “outsider” from her friends (single; “unkempt” hair) and implies to the audience that she is a “feminist” (more interested in her career than in impressing a potential husband) and a “liberal”; however, the only reason we know Skeeter isn’t racist is because she doesn’t explicitly say anything racist.

I’m not saying that I think Skeeter is racist; I’m only saying that there’s not really a lot of evidence to suggest that she is a champion of multiculturalism. Sure, the film implies that Skeeter is anti-segregation and pro-Civil Rights because she engages the black domestic workers in conversation and publishes the stories of their experience in her book. But does she really capture their experience? Does she ask how much they are paid? Does she ask what their benefits are like? Does she ask how they feel about this? Does she ask about their political beliefs, or, say, what local politicians they support? No, she doesn’t, because it’s the early 1960s and none of these women could vote without endangering their lives.

It’s hard for me to view Skeeter as a hero or even an agent of change in this film simply because she publishes the fictional book, The Help. We don’t know her personal beliefs, and we really have no reason to believe that they would be any different from Bryce Dallas Howard’s Hilly Holbrook, creator and main advocate of the “Home Help Sanitation Initiative” to segregate black domestic workers and prevent them from using the bathrooms inside the very homes they maintain.

I have heard that Stockett’s novel shows more of Skeeter’s journey from her unquestioning upbringing in the midst of a society that normalizes racism to her maturation into a young adulthood of personal integrity and social consciousness. However, the film barely hints (aside from a few cut-away reaction shots of Skeeter expressing nonverbal disagreement with Hilly Holbrook’s hate speech) that Skeeter was raised any differently from her peers, and it takes her until very late in the running time to even stand up to any of them.

My issue with Skeeter only illustrates a simple change that could be made to make the film less offensive to anyone versed in the American Civil Rights Movement. By making Skeeter a more dynamic character, The Help would have had hope of engaging with the history of racial relations with an ounce more sophistication than cinema’s run-of-the-mill scatological humor or shots of wealthy, old society ladies (no offense, Sissy Spacek’s character) tittering with laugher behind white gloves. Alas, a “special” slice of chocolate pie is the only justice to be had for over four hundred years of racial intolerance, subjugation, and violence (unjust desserts, anyone?).

All of this being said, if you still don’t understand why people (rightly) have a problem with The Help, I would suggest that you first read the Association of Black Women Historians’ statement on the film. Second, read and watch Nelson George on the history and tradition of Hollywood films about the Civil Rights Movement. And third, have a slice of pie, would ya?

Milton Snavely Hershey (1857-1945) was the only son of a deeply religious Mennonite woman and unsuccessful businessman, born into poverty in southern Pennsylvania. By the age of twelve, Milton quit school in order to become an apprentice, first to a local printer, then to a Lancaster County confectioner.

After founding a failed candy shop in Philadelphia, an unsuccessful candy manufacturing business in New York City, and the Lancaster Caramel Company (which he sold shortly after its initial success), the forty-six year-old Milton Hershey founded the Hershey Company in 1903 in his hometown of Derry Church, Pennsylvania. Here, he built the world’s largest chocolate manufacturing plant, in addition to a model town complete with transportation infrastructure, a public school, and street lined with two-family terraced housing. According to the Hershey Company publicity, Hershey wanted to ensure that happy, healthy workers staffed his factories, so in 1907 he built an amusement park in Hershey, which included a baseball field, picnic areas, a swimming pool, an amphitheatre, and eventually rides, beginning with a merry-go-round.

Hershey chose this particular location for his factory town because it was surrounded by dairy farmland and therefore able to ensure a large supply of easily accessed fresh milk. In 1899, Hershey had developed a cheaper way to make chocolate, dubbed the “Hershey process,” which depended largely on milk as a key ingredient. At this time, chocolate was a luxury product, and the milk chocolate market was controlled by Swiss chocolatiers. The Hershey process created a mass-market product that more Americans could afford. It contained a smaller percentage of cocoa, which is why people accustomed to higher quality dark chocolates often find the Hershey chocolate taste too sour.

By 1906, the town of Derry Church changed its name to Hershey, PA, otherwise known as “the sweetest place on earth.” The Hershey’s Kiss debuted in 1907, followed by the Milk Chocolate with Almonds Bar in 1908, the Mr. Goodbar in 1925, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup in 1926, the Krackel bar in 1938, and the Miniatures in 1939. In 1941, Hershey helped to create a candy-coated chocolate called M&M’s, which originally used Hershey’s chocolate but was bought by the Mars, Incorporated manufacturer in 1948. In 1963, the Hershey Company acquired a company and a new candy that had been introduced by an ex-Hershey employee, thus branding the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup a Hershey product.

Today, the Hershey Company is the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America and boasts yearly revenue of well over $5 billion. Hersheypark has grown into a major amusement park with nine themed areas, over sixty-two rides, eleven roller coasters, a water park, a multi-purpose arena, a stadium, a museum, and a nearly infinite number of gift shops and restaurants.

My family visited Hershey Park recently on the way to drop off my 19 year-old sister, Darcie, at Gettysburg College for the upcoming academic year. Together, my mom, Darcie, my 16 year-old sister Bridget, my 12 year-old brother, and I explored Hershey Park and rode most of the roller coasters.

There are a lot of safety regulations for riding roller coasters…

Unfortunately, there are a ton of downsides to amusement parks that I really hate: the crowds; the hours waiting in lines; the re-application of many layers of sticky sunscreen on an oppressively humid summer day; the panicked and stressful feeling that one must experience absolutely everything the park has to offer (often brought on by an over excited younger sibling, i.e.; Bridget); and the obscenely expensive junk food that would make anyone sick (with or without the super-tilt-a-whirl-up-side-down-free-fall-spinning-cage-of-doom).

I do, however, enjoy riding roller coasters. Like this one, the Fahrenheit, which reaches top speeds of 58 mph, includes a 97 degree negative drop, and goes up-side-down (if I can remember correctly) either three or four times:

However, not even 85 seconds of pure head-bashing, brain-cell-killing terror (see picture below) can make me forget the crowds, the traffic into the parking lot, the lines at the front entrance, the lines for overpriced and over-greased chicken quesadilla, the indigestion which ensued, or the lines for the ride itself. I may enjoy roller coasters, but I’m not normally willing to endure the trials necessary of the amusement park experience in order to ride one.

Of course, I did go to Hersheypark (obviously), and I did “endure” all those things–quite happily, in fact– not to ride the roller coasters (which I admit, were pretty thrilling), but instead to enjoy a fun day with my family. Because who wouldn’t want to hang out with these cuties?

Here are the rest of the pictures that came out well from that day:

Bridget and Darcie about to ride the first roller coaster of the day

"Please don't bring your camera on the ride, miss."

Small children having the greatest thrill of their young lives aboard the "Frog Hopper"

Missing children rounded up at the Lost Kids Corral

Kevin prematurely displays faux-bravery before he embarks on his first roller coaster ride

Obligatory tiny bowling alley

Extremely squeaky and therefore terrifying wooden roller coaster

Kevin's emotions aboard the Wildcat prove difficult to discern: solemn acceptance of a doomed fate? Or a stern yet controlled resentment of sisters responsible for dragging him onto the ride?

Kevin is rewarded for his suffering

Win this game and destroy Angry Bird pigs IRL!