I Don't Have a Happy Place by Kim Korson Page B

scanning thewant ads. I decided to put a temporary pin in my hopes of being discovered. I was a college graduate now and it was time to focus on making bucks and differences, like Brokaw said.
    My new plan was to be a casting director. I chose this vocation not only because I could always pinpoint what actors would be fitting choices for roles but also because a friend in college said I looked exactly like a casting director, due to the glasses I wore on a chain around my neck.
    The newspaper scouted for paralegals and construction workers and dental hygienists. I checked a few times but not once did I see any small paragraphs saying anything remotely like
    Do you like Broadway, movies, and television? Like, really, really like them? Can you sing the entire score of Pippin ? Spot a Fosse shoulder from the back of the mezzanine? Can you list all the Huxtable kids in birth order? Do you know who Miles Drentell is? What street Archie Bunker lives on? If this sounds like you, don’t even bother with a resume. Stop looking, we’ve found you! You’re hired!
    Obviously I didn’t really expect this ad to be in the paper, except I did. Alas, if my new career in the arts would not be found in the newspaper I’d go to the next best source: the Yellow Pages. I opened the book to a random page, for starters. Pest Control . I flipped to another. Mold Inspection. Private Investigators. Farm Equipment. Golf Course. Tree- Stump Removal. Garage-Door Openers. Funeral Flowers . No wonder these things were always left stacked in the lobby. These giant books were unusable.
    Dejected, I took a break from the harrowing job search by making up a game wherein I’d imagine needing to do something important, like fix my pencil sharpener or buy a pig, then tryfinding the heading it would be under. This proved fun for half an hour until the reality of my lack of employment, and employability, sank in. I wanted to shout out my window, Why is this all so hard? But I turned on reruns of The Cosby Show instead.
    My luck changed the next morning, when half the street was barricaded because they were shooting a movie. A parking notice stapled to an electrical pole gave me my first lead in show business. I ran home to make the call.
    â€œCasting,” said a woman’s voice.
    â€œOh, hi,” I said, going for winsome-yet-professional, someone you’d really enjoy having around your water cooler. “I would like to be a casting director, please.”
    â€œOh, well, yeah, we’re not hiring right now,” said the voice, sounding rather impolite. Right before hanging up, she added, “But feel free to check in again some other time.”
    How rude , I thought. I spent the rest of the day watching television and imitating the woman’s voice out loud during commercials.
    The next morning, something came over me. I decided to call back. The same woman answered, sounding equally rude and busy and, quite honestly, annoyed at my calling. She did the same two-step about not hiring and I wondered how businesses such as these stayed afloat.
    I’d like to say I called every morning for the next two weeks because I was scrappy, but really I kept at it just to bug her. On the fifteenth day, another woman answered the phone. Her voice sounded deep and clipped and, if possible, even more uncivil. I told her why I was calling.
    â€œYou know,” she said, sighing, “Bettina called in sick today.” Bettina, I assumed, was the unsavory character who usually answered. I prayed she had shingles. “Why don’t you come on in today?”
    â€œ Today ?” I was wearing a robe and ALF was just starting.
    â€œSure. I guess we could use the extra hand, so why not?”
    I spent the next two years working at Casting & Co., convinced I was doing them a favor by taking the job.
    JOB DESCRIPTION (AS THEY EXPLAINED IT)
    Maintain headshots and resumes: Make sure we have at least ten of each actor on file. If