My Experience of Fine Dining

So this week is "Richmond Restaurant Week," which means that a bunch of restaurants make a three course meal for $25. So, naturally, I'm there. Since my roommates and I are all really indecisive, I enlist a coworker to select the best restaurant on the list for us. He immediately picks one, and I see there's salmon on the menu, so it's a done deal. My roommate and I set out for our bargain meal.

I'm wearing black jeans, a striped black t-shirt and a cardigan. My roommate has an orange t-shirt and jeans on. "Should I put something nicer on?" She asks before we leave. I'm starving so I say, "Nah, we're fine."

Lesson #1: never let me decide what's an appropriate outfit.

We get there and a girl is standing outside in a little black dress and high heels. Her boyfriend/side salad/ random man she took to dinner is in black dress slacks, button up and a tie. We paused outside contemplating if we should go in. Then a lady with a blazer and jeans head in, so we sack up and enter.

Lesson #2: don't follow the one person's lead who is wearing jeans.

Every patron looks like they belong to a country club. Since we already arrived, we went up to the hostess, who says "Do you have a reservation?"

Lesson #3: make reservations.

We don't, but lucky for us, there's a tiny table in the tiny bar area behind a pole. It must be reserved for the degenerates that wander in during restaurant week.

We sit down, minimally embarrassed about our pathetic attire and decorum, until the waiter comes over to remove our menus to lay out the white table cloth, which really highlighted how out of our element we are.

So then the waiter speaks. Not only is this an uuber fancy Italian restaurant, but apparently it only hires real Italian people. Accent required.

My roommate orders wine, so naturally I don't want to be that girl, wearing jeans in a white napkin establishment and order only water. Even me trying to order wine was like the first time I've ever drank before.

"Uhh do you have anything like a Pinot Grigio?"

"Yes, we have a Pinot."

Of course they do, they're a fancy Italian restaurant.

So you'd think that would be the end of the ordeal, and you'd be wrong. My roommate was telling me about how her work friends are doing something at Maggianos, the chain Italian place I love because they give you a whole new entree to bring home with you, and different waiter stops and goes,

Maggianos?! That place is like McDonalds!

Lesson #4: the restaurant you go to as a treat to yourself may be the restaurant someone else goes to where they're slumming it.

My Recent Failures as a Saleswoman

On a whim awhile back, I became a makeup saleswoman. And I suck at it. I make petty sales to family and friends, but do nothing more to expand my network. And now I don't want to do it anymore. So, what does a twenty-something do when they no longer want something? Sell it on eBay! It was brilliant in the beginning. I was listing quite a few products and moving them at low prices while still making a bit of money. Then I got cocky. I decided people would get more into it at auction and end up paying more from bidding wars, so I dropped the price and opened it up to bidding.

My notions were totally incorrect. I lost money on the first one. But I didn't want to give up that easily, so I tried again. And lost even more money on the second. I was done with trying to auction off my product.

Or apparently not, as one more got sold at an even lower price. Fanfreakingtastic.

I literally am practically paying some lady for taking it off my hands. And on top of that, eBay randomly charged me $6 for listing fees or something ridiculous. It basically took all the money I made from that last sale. I am apparently in the giving mood with how low I charged for some really good products. So now I am really really done auctioning off my product.

But for the record, in the future you can buy something from me at full price on my website: www.marykay.com/sara.woznicki