Okay. Now I know what the hardest part of my job is going to be.

It's dealing with the daggone helium balloons I have to inflate and tie out on the sign in front and at the gate!

Today, for my first day "solo" (I was by myself until 2:00 in the afternoon when, alerted by mysterious Cosmic Waves that my boss had just come in with lunch for both of us, hordes of potential buyers showed up with extensive lists of questions)......

I got there on time, the gate was open, I got the front door open, nothing was on fire, I successfully retrieved and dealt with the phone messages, opened up the units for show, located the correct sequence of buttons to turn the computer on and let out a LARGE spider which, for some unknown reason, was sitting in the middle of the conference table. He wasn't bothering anybody, but I have the feeling that my boss is the kind of woman for whom that would be beside the point.

Then I went to fill the balloons for the "balloon bouquets".

First of all, the balloons are ugly. They're supposed to be extra sturdy, but I don't think they really are. I don't know who picked them out but they are the ugliest shades of each color imaginable. Highway worker orange, ickey account-spread-sheet navy blue, halloween-dark-red...the white is okay, I guess. But white's hard to ruin.

Still, this is what I had to work with, so I blew them up in the laundry room of the sales office. After each one was inflated, I had to tie them at the bottom and this is where the wheels sort of came off.

Pre-MS I had really really strong hands. Other women used to ask me to get jar tops off, or open soda bottles. I couldn't blow up a balloon because of asthma, but I could easily tie them off. Today, however was a whole different story. It took me half an hour to get ten balloons done. My fingers got completely caught in the latex and my hands were turning blue with the effort. I broke two fingernails and a record for number of swear words muttered under my breath.

I tried to streach each balloon at the bottom and not fill them so much, but I was no match for them. The uber-boss was very specific. Each balloon bouquet had to consist of 5 balloons. I finally rested my hands on the top of the washer between each attempt and in that way got all 10 balloons blown up.

You can guess what happened next. One hit the sprinkler fixture up above and popped, scaring the crap out of me and also the cousin of Sir Spider of the Conference Room. He descended into my hair with an audible thud. After much running around on the part of both of us he jumped off and headed for safety under the water heater. I went into the hall bathroom to put my hair back up, re-apply my makeup and put a cool paper towel on the back of my neck.

I decided that I didn't know how to count and proceded outdoors with 9 balloons, the keys to the building and a pair of scissors to cut down the dead balloons from the previous day. They were lots of fun getting through the fully decorated lobby with all its glass vases and nick knacks.

Then I couldn't get out the door. I looked at it. It said "push". That's what I was doing. I guess the lock mechanism was stuck (or, who knows, maybe I was really that weak. What a crappy thought!) Finally by sort of rushing it football-player-style I managed to burst out onto the sidewalk with 9 ugly balloons in tow.

Holding the key between my teeth - yeah, THAT was sanitary - I raised the scissors and attempted to cut down the previous days balloons. Of course, the only breeze of the day kicked up at that moment and I was beaten about the head and shoulders with the balloons du jour. When I could finally see again I made another attempt.

The scissors were so dull that they didn't cut the ribbon. I tried again at a different angle. Still no luck.

"You have got to be s******* me." I said, out loud to the scissors.

Finally, I stood on the new balloon ribbons, thus getting my knees battered, and used both hands to operate the scissors. Success!!

You know, when I was going to be an insurance underwriter, I learned that sales people have one of the highest rates of alcoholism among all fields of work. I'm starting to understand why!