So I was up against it in 2022. Up against it in a way I hadn’t been before. 

I was broke. Broke as a joke, as my barber likes to put it, annoyingly.

I had been living off savings since EP went off the air in 2015. I consulted for game companies from time to time. I was making ends meet, just barely.

Then COVID happened. Then my consulting work, because of COVID, dried up. My savings, which had once been an enviable amount of money, ran out of my accounts like sand through an hourglass. I needed to do something. Something that would staunch the dizzying outflow of cash.

I’d usually wake up in the mornings with a cold knuckle of nausea in the pit of my stomach. Was my life falling apart? Is this what a life falling apart looks like? And feels like?

Yeah. Sounds about right.

For two weeks or so I stumbled through the rooms of my life, paralyzed by this situation. I was vulnerable – – truly vulnerable. I was a 50-something-year-old man who, only a few years back, had enjoyed great success. I assumed that I would always be on top. What a damn fool I was! The world had changed. People’s values had changed. And part of what paralyzed me was the woeful feeling that I had bet on the wrong horse, committing myself to media, the way that I had. I had wanted to be a great writer. A solid TV host. A journalist of great substance! And all of those things, which were at the top of my “Success Ladder” for almost 20 years, were losing value with each passing day.

I simply could not do what I had always done. Could not command a respectable salary any longer. No one was willing to pay me to do what I was quite good at.

What I did was this: I groused and I grumbled, 24-7. I had a tough time getting out of bed in the mornings in 2022. Being distant from people (see: COVID) certainly didn’t make my situation more tolerable. Meanwhile, the goddamned bills were piling up. My credit score, which had once been in the stratosphere, was plummeting like a stone to the bottom of a cold lake.

I needed to earn money somehow.

That’s when I stumbled on an online classified ad for a bartender position at Nordstroms department store. I thought to myself, I can grit my teeth through a few shifts, placating shoppers with mint juleps or Tom Collins, or whatever. I realized that if I wanted this bartending position, then I needed to be aggressive. Needed to step up and take charge of this situation. So I sussed out who the manager was (*Naomi Byrne) for the restaurant group at Nordstroms. I sat at my computer, the now-familiar ice-cold pig’s knuckle of nausea throbbing in my lower abdomen. Started typing an email to Naomi. Halfway through, I realized that the email was, in fact, a cowardly gesture. That there was another road for me to take here, and that road, folks, was the high road.

I found the phone number of the restaurant at Nordstroms. Clock said that it was 10:45 on a Monday – – which meant the restaurant would open soon. This was a fine time to call – – just before opening. I dialled. Asked for Naomi. 

The polite man who answered the phone told me that Naomi was, unfortunately, on vacation. I asked him when Naomi was coming back. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Call back tomorrow. She’ll be here.”

I thanked him. Hung up. Then I sat at my desk for a moment, lost in thought.

This is when an unexpected thought occurred to me out of the blue: What if I didn’t call tomorrow? What if, instead of calling, I simply showed up at the restaurant? “Hi Naomi, I’m Scott. Your new bartender…”

Now, that would be bold, wouldn’t it? That would be aggressive. I knew that this was what I must do.

I went to the closet and attempted to cobble together a semi presentable outfit from my old TV clothes…

[*Pseudonym]

Also published on Medium.