Warning: I am having a moment of self-congratulation.
This is, of course, nothing new. Just today, I have congratulated myself for achievements like getting out of bed only 20 minutes after my alarm went off, putting my hair up into a cute ponytail and tying a sash properly. And that was only before 9 a.m. It’s amazing, the things I accomplish!
I do nothing but astonish myself, all damn day.
But just now, I got back from a little bit of acting like an actual reporter. There is an apartment building, one that I do not have access to but is full of people that must be interviewed if I want my story to come out proper-like. No one was going in or out. But there was a callbox. And so into the fray I jumped. If you have never tried to explain to someone, through a scratchy callbox transmission, that you are a reporter writing a story and you are so sorry to bother them during dinner, but have they been complaining about such-and-such to the city? then you haven’t really lived.*
This is just as bad for me as it is for you, angry apartment dweller.
* and by lived, I mean yelled at by a bunch of strangers. Via callbox.
People who walked by on the street gave me the super side eye, this redhead crouched awkwardly and shouting apologies into a metal box. Let them stare. I actually love that feeling of awkwardness, because it makes me feel like I’m doing my job, for once.
I think something that separates reporters from people with more conventional jobs is the willingness to get up in people’s faces, when they don’t want to talk to you but are packed full of information that you would like to extract. They are like defensive coconuts, full of the sweet milk necessary for your zoning story. Where’s my hammer?
I can’t summon this every day or even most days, which is why I’m a terrible hard news reporter. And honestly, doing this does make me feel terribly uncomfortable, but it’s also incredibly freeing. Especially as women, everything we have been taught — don’t talk to people who don’t want to talk, don’t pry, don’t be aggressive, don’t ignore social boundaries, don’t call strangers on callboxes — goes out the window.
This was the most relevant image result for "intrepid girl reporter." It works, I guess.
But eesh, I will leave it to the more capable, and instead just accept this tiny nugget of satisfaction. And tomorrow, go back to writing about baby animals.
P.S. To the person who landed on this blog by Googling “crushing expectations,” I say, welcome!
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