Mystery Woman

If you ever saw me from a distance, the first word you'd probably come up with to describe me would be "mysterious." Wait, no, I think it would be "galkdoatl." Yeah, I made that up. It's a word that means "ho-hum, yeah, seen it all before, next" in the language of my home planet.

I AM mysterious, though! I AM! Well, OK, I've done some secret shopping. That's really the extent of the mystery.

I started secret shopping to make some extra money when I was pregnant with Hutton. A friend of mine did it and gave me the information. Very mysteriously, though. She sent it to me in coded letters delivered by strange men in dark sunglasses. Yeah, I made that second part up. She just gave me some websites to check out.

Soon after signing up, I was off, sneaking into nondescript fast food restaurants, scoping out the scene, jotting notes in code in lipstick on my arm. Once again, I made that second part up. Enough of that.

The best job I'd have to say was when I did a mystery shop at a local sex shop, while pregnant. Pregnant women in sex shops -- there's nothing better in my opinion!

Anyway, I dropped out of the mysterious world of secret shopping for a while, but saw an email about a certain ubiquitous coffee shop and thought, "Hmm, I drink coffee. I think I could get paid for that." And I signed up. I very stupidly signed up for seven shops in one afternoon, which I performed last week. I was doing great until Harrison feel asleep in the car after shop number 4. Fine, Harr, we'll go home and I'll finish later, I thought. Except later I had a splitting headache, and had to take two boys with me, instead of one. I struggled through, then had to write up the seven reports on my computer that evening, still with headache, now with added nausea. Good times. And the reports were slow-going: "Describe the person running the register, listing height, hair color, gender." Next question: "Describe the register partner's height." Next: "Describe the register partner's hair color and length." Yeah, I already covered that in the first question. Let me repeat myself. And then do it again six more times.

Of course, I didn't learn from my mistakes, and have another afternoon of seven jobs on a Saturday next month. I'll be able to go solo, though, leaving the boys at home with Hubby. All the same, I think I'll start signing up for two jobs per day, max. Or maybe I won't. I'm mysterious that way.