The International Case of the Pronounced Mandible
It's pouring out, and Studly Boss finally conceded that we should cancel tours for the rest of the afternoon. I'm at home, with my feet up and the fan pointed at me, enjoying having nothing to do right this moment. It's my first day off in two weeks. *is virtuous*
I promised asakiyume that I would start blogging about my worklife more often. She is overseas having an adventure right now, but this may amuse the rest of you too.
Tour Guide; Or, Oh My God I Feel So Sorry For You
Some highlights of my workdays with Historical Hysterical Tours:
--Standing in H. Square, dressed up in my giant red tea-cozy dress and brown silk bonnet, totally failing to sell tour tickets, and vying with my co-worker to see who can come up with worse slogans for our company. (Historical Hysterical Tours: Because Go Fuck Yourself. Historical Hysterical Tours: Better Than A Root Canal. Historical Hysterical Tours: Get That Cameraphone The Hell Out Of My Face. Historical Hysterical Tours: We're Waxworks, You're Delusional, Seek Help. Historical Hysterical Tours: So Good You Will Literally Have A Heart Attack.)
--Finally having an answer for all the idiots who make sadface at us and go, "Aaaaren't you HOT IN THAT?!" Which, sidebar: don't say this to a historical cosplayer of any sort. Everybody says it, it makes you look like a jerkass who wants to tell us our lives suck and then rub our noses in it, of course we are fucking well hot but the job has good points too, and you're not helping. However! Having a joke makes all the difference. Having a joke that turns the pressure back on the first speaker and lets you laugh together is pretty much perfect. This is it:
*eyebrow* "I'm hot in anything." *smolder*
You can add "...baby," but it isn't necessary. Of course, you have to pick your audience for that one. Obviously not for use around kids or anyone who looks like trouble. The perfect audience is the maternal woman who stopped to tell you how sorry she feels for you. They get the joke fastest and they laugh the most.
--A nice strong rainstorm will wash Harvard Square clean for the moment. It will never be entirely clean, but our noses will have a break for the next few days. My memories all seem to link smells with experiences; I can tell that whenever I think about HHT in later life, I will remember friendship, teamwork and the smell of stale piss in all the doorways on the square.
--My ideal audience: a big family on one of my tours, led by a bouncy woman who laughs at all my jokes and whose enthusiasm is contagious. She's like the living example of our target audience, middle-aged women with tasteful jewelry where the earrings match the bracelet, wearing fanny packs and giant Bermuda shorts and carrying guidebooks, with their friends and disaffected husbands in tow. The kind of woman who did a liberal-arts degree twenty years ago and feels the need for Culture. I see this woman all the time with minor variations. The other perfect-target-audience demographic for me is the aged married couple from the UK, where he is a skinny old professor like a British answer to Doc Brown, and she's the witty broad who has to remind him to put his pants on before leaving the house. I must have made friends with this couple a dozen times in the last year, and only the slightly different accents (Scottish-subset-Highland, Scottish-subset-Glasgow, Welsh, Yorkshire, London, West Country) reminded me that they weren't the same two people every time.
--My co-workers are cool. Most of them are recent college graduates five to ten years younger than I am, and this is their first job. It's a good thing that Studly Boss is a responsible person and treats them well, because they're all so damn earnest and energetic that a less scrupulous person could probably make them work for nothing. I like them all and have a protector-complex towards them. Not that I am great at being a knight in shining armor, but I have had more practice at defense against creepers and dangerous nutjobs.
--Hey, I'm actually getting better at shutting down crazy people who approach us while we're selling tickets! First a negative story, then a positive.
When we do ghost tours, it's always in pairs. One person gives the tour, and the other accompanies them to the square half an hour ahead of time to sell tickets and make change. There was this awful encounter a couple of weeks ago on an evening when I was selling tickets for my friend's tour, and a slender young woman with scars all over her arms marched up to us and started telling us about her life and hard times: how she was the only tomboy with three girly-girl sisters and if anyone did anything to hurt them she would fucking cut him... We didn't try to shut her down. I may have actually encouraged her, because it was heartbreaking to hear her and I couldn't stop boggling. I think were were both speechless for a little while there.
Afterwards, I came to my senses and realized I had let her stand there and horrify my friend for ten minutes, while I was supposed to be doing my job and selling tickets. Nobody showed up to buy tickets anyway, so that was OK, and we went and had ice cream together and relaxed. But afterwards I asked Hot Girlfriend of Studly Boss (she needs a better alias) what I should have done to get out of the situation gracefully. She and Boss both said, "Well, there's your problem right there. 'Get out of the situation' and 'gracefully.' You can't do both." HG's usual approach is to interrupt the talky person by going, "AWESOME! Look, we gotta sell tours! Have a good night! Bye," and then walk to the other side of the street if necessary.
Last night, I had a chance to practice. This time, I was giving the tour in character (spiritualist, medium, and seer), and my other friend Pinky was selling tickets for me. Pinky is basically an anime character: humongous blue eyes with sparkles on them, masses of black hair, pale clear skin, high squeaky voice. She's 22, painfully earnest, a romantic, and kindhearted, and she can't bear to hurt anybody's feelings. Unfortunately, scary nutjobs approach her a lot (though it hasn't discouraged her from the job). I had to send a couple of them away. One was a guy who started creeping on her. He ignored me because I was the weirdo in the turban, kimono and sunglasses, so when I saw Pinky looked uncomfortable I came over and got in his face: HI HOW YA DOING? WHAT BRINGS YOU TO TOWN, HUNH? He dried up and blew away, problem solved. I out-weirdoed him.
The other encounter was with two tiny ancient Russian ladies who squeezed our hands and complained about dishonest American political figures. They asked Pinky who her favorite Russian actresses were, and neither she nor I could remember any. (There's that blonde woman from Night Watch, but otherwise I know zilch about Russian cinema.) Then one of them told me...
..."You have a pronounced mandible."
She looked me right in the eye and said it in a concerned voice, like this was something I should get a doctor to look at, instead of just the fact that I have a big chin. (And I do. I have a righteous chin.) At least, I hope that's all she meant. If I had insect mandibles, you would tell me, wouldn't you? To be honest I don't even know if that was what she meant or if she was failing to find the right word in English. I collapsed on Pinky in fits of laughter, which seemed to surprise the serious old lady, so perhaps it was a misunderstanding. We do not know and may never find out.
Anyway, then I realized that Comrade Petrova and Comrade Svetlana were planning to stand there all evening unless I did something about it, and I used HG's line on them, verbatim. It worked like a charm. They shook our hands again and ambled off into the bookstore, leaving us free to sell tickets (twelve Bible camp students plus their counselors: a good evening's work).
That's all for the moment, as chores beckon. Well, not so much beckon as loom, but I am a responsible buffalo.
I promised asakiyume that I would start blogging about my worklife more often. She is overseas having an adventure right now, but this may amuse the rest of you too.
Tour Guide; Or, Oh My God I Feel So Sorry For You
Some highlights of my workdays with Historical Hysterical Tours:
--Standing in H. Square, dressed up in my giant red tea-cozy dress and brown silk bonnet, totally failing to sell tour tickets, and vying with my co-worker to see who can come up with worse slogans for our company. (Historical Hysterical Tours: Because Go Fuck Yourself. Historical Hysterical Tours: Better Than A Root Canal. Historical Hysterical Tours: Get That Cameraphone The Hell Out Of My Face. Historical Hysterical Tours: We're Waxworks, You're Delusional, Seek Help. Historical Hysterical Tours: So Good You Will Literally Have A Heart Attack.)
--Finally having an answer for all the idiots who make sadface at us and go, "Aaaaren't you HOT IN THAT?!" Which, sidebar: don't say this to a historical cosplayer of any sort. Everybody says it, it makes you look like a jerkass who wants to tell us our lives suck and then rub our noses in it, of course we are fucking well hot but the job has good points too, and you're not helping. However! Having a joke makes all the difference. Having a joke that turns the pressure back on the first speaker and lets you laugh together is pretty much perfect. This is it:
*eyebrow* "I'm hot in anything." *smolder*
You can add "...baby," but it isn't necessary. Of course, you have to pick your audience for that one. Obviously not for use around kids or anyone who looks like trouble. The perfect audience is the maternal woman who stopped to tell you how sorry she feels for you. They get the joke fastest and they laugh the most.
--A nice strong rainstorm will wash Harvard Square clean for the moment. It will never be entirely clean, but our noses will have a break for the next few days. My memories all seem to link smells with experiences; I can tell that whenever I think about HHT in later life, I will remember friendship, teamwork and the smell of stale piss in all the doorways on the square.
--My ideal audience: a big family on one of my tours, led by a bouncy woman who laughs at all my jokes and whose enthusiasm is contagious. She's like the living example of our target audience, middle-aged women with tasteful jewelry where the earrings match the bracelet, wearing fanny packs and giant Bermuda shorts and carrying guidebooks, with their friends and disaffected husbands in tow. The kind of woman who did a liberal-arts degree twenty years ago and feels the need for Culture. I see this woman all the time with minor variations. The other perfect-target-audience demographic for me is the aged married couple from the UK, where he is a skinny old professor like a British answer to Doc Brown, and she's the witty broad who has to remind him to put his pants on before leaving the house. I must have made friends with this couple a dozen times in the last year, and only the slightly different accents (Scottish-subset-Highland, Scottish-subset-Glasgow, Welsh, Yorkshire, London, West Country) reminded me that they weren't the same two people every time.
--My co-workers are cool. Most of them are recent college graduates five to ten years younger than I am, and this is their first job. It's a good thing that Studly Boss is a responsible person and treats them well, because they're all so damn earnest and energetic that a less scrupulous person could probably make them work for nothing. I like them all and have a protector-complex towards them. Not that I am great at being a knight in shining armor, but I have had more practice at defense against creepers and dangerous nutjobs.
--Hey, I'm actually getting better at shutting down crazy people who approach us while we're selling tickets! First a negative story, then a positive.
When we do ghost tours, it's always in pairs. One person gives the tour, and the other accompanies them to the square half an hour ahead of time to sell tickets and make change. There was this awful encounter a couple of weeks ago on an evening when I was selling tickets for my friend's tour, and a slender young woman with scars all over her arms marched up to us and started telling us about her life and hard times: how she was the only tomboy with three girly-girl sisters and if anyone did anything to hurt them she would fucking cut him... We didn't try to shut her down. I may have actually encouraged her, because it was heartbreaking to hear her and I couldn't stop boggling. I think were were both speechless for a little while there.
Afterwards, I came to my senses and realized I had let her stand there and horrify my friend for ten minutes, while I was supposed to be doing my job and selling tickets. Nobody showed up to buy tickets anyway, so that was OK, and we went and had ice cream together and relaxed. But afterwards I asked Hot Girlfriend of Studly Boss (she needs a better alias) what I should have done to get out of the situation gracefully. She and Boss both said, "Well, there's your problem right there. 'Get out of the situation' and 'gracefully.' You can't do both." HG's usual approach is to interrupt the talky person by going, "AWESOME! Look, we gotta sell tours! Have a good night! Bye," and then walk to the other side of the street if necessary.
Last night, I had a chance to practice. This time, I was giving the tour in character (spiritualist, medium, and seer), and my other friend Pinky was selling tickets for me. Pinky is basically an anime character: humongous blue eyes with sparkles on them, masses of black hair, pale clear skin, high squeaky voice. She's 22, painfully earnest, a romantic, and kindhearted, and she can't bear to hurt anybody's feelings. Unfortunately, scary nutjobs approach her a lot (though it hasn't discouraged her from the job). I had to send a couple of them away. One was a guy who started creeping on her. He ignored me because I was the weirdo in the turban, kimono and sunglasses, so when I saw Pinky looked uncomfortable I came over and got in his face: HI HOW YA DOING? WHAT BRINGS YOU TO TOWN, HUNH? He dried up and blew away, problem solved. I out-weirdoed him.
The other encounter was with two tiny ancient Russian ladies who squeezed our hands and complained about dishonest American political figures. They asked Pinky who her favorite Russian actresses were, and neither she nor I could remember any. (There's that blonde woman from Night Watch, but otherwise I know zilch about Russian cinema.) Then one of them told me...
..."You have a pronounced mandible."
She looked me right in the eye and said it in a concerned voice, like this was something I should get a doctor to look at, instead of just the fact that I have a big chin. (And I do. I have a righteous chin.) At least, I hope that's all she meant. If I had insect mandibles, you would tell me, wouldn't you? To be honest I don't even know if that was what she meant or if she was failing to find the right word in English. I collapsed on Pinky in fits of laughter, which seemed to surprise the serious old lady, so perhaps it was a misunderstanding. We do not know and may never find out.
Anyway, then I realized that Comrade Petrova and Comrade Svetlana were planning to stand there all evening unless I did something about it, and I used HG's line on them, verbatim. It worked like a charm. They shook our hands again and ambled off into the bookstore, leaving us free to sell tickets (twelve Bible camp students plus their counselors: a good evening's work).
That's all for the moment, as chores beckon. Well, not so much beckon as loom, but I am a responsible buffalo.