With the end of our two-month trip in sight (PS: If you’ve been following us since August and still haven’t caught on that we’re in Costa Rica, you’re officially fired from reading our blog), I’m starting to think more and more about what I’m going back to.

Hopefully, I will still have the following items upon my return:

One (1) Husband, tall

One (1) Apartment, shoe-box sized

One (1) Car, Volkswagen

Two (2) Cats, disinterested

However, once I’ve done a quick survey to ensure that said items are in their proper places, the game plan gets a tad hazy.  One of the major burning (huh-huh) questions I know I’ll have to face is:  What in the sweet Sam Hill am I going to do for work?

A little part of me always expected that some amazing job opportunity (like, oh say, National Geographic travel writer?) would magically present itself–without requiring any effort whatsoever on my part, mind you–while I was over here developing multiple overlapping farmer’s tans and writing drug-fueled rants.  But with only four measly days left here, I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that such is not the case.

So now what?

An easy-going and understanding husband Chuckles may be, I doubt he’ll suffer in silence while I spend the next 20 years slouched on the couch staring off slack-jawed into space while systematically inserting rows of Chips Ahoys into my face.  At best, I think I’d have about a month tops before he shipped me back to the wife factory for a functioning model.

And, when I really think about it, as tempting as it may be to feather myself a cozy little couch-nest out of Kleenex, socks and Pop-Tart wrappers, I don’t really want to do that with the rest of my life anyway.

Or do I?

Nah, I guess not.

Which means there’s going to come a time—and soon—that I’m going to have to put myself back on the market.  The job market.

Job hunting is the most torturous form of dating ever invented.  You spend hours upon hours each day primping and preening your resume to make it as attractive as possible, you buy uncomfortable new shoes and wear your hair in a bun (a bun, for gods sake), you attempt to exude an air of confidence and capability and togetherness to hide the fact that you’re egregiously ill-equipped and criminally underqualified to operate in the adult world.  You spend your mornings poring over the interwebs, screening for the few job ads that aren’t clever euphemisms for telemarketing positions and mail order bride scams, you “put yourself out there” and “network” and “mingle” and “make contacts” and “follow up”, you exchange firm handshakes and cards and wait with increasing agitation for calls that never come, you try to appear available—but, hey now, not too available–and brag about yourself without seeming like you’re bragging about yourself, all the while desperately (but, geez, not too desperate) trying to find a long-term relationship with something decent and presentable and complimentary that you aren’t ashamed to tell your parents about.

Sure, he’s gay, but at least he offers a good dental plan.

And job interviewers never ask about the qualities that really matter, anyway.  All they ever want to know is where do I see myself in five years and what are my applicable qualifications and why do I have so many gaps in my employment history, yadda, yadda, yadda…  Do you think even once I’ve been asked if I know any good knock-knock jokes or am able to bake a mean Apple Cinnamon Brown Sugar Bread?  Have any of them have ever bothered to query as to whether I’ve had the dedication and fortitude to watch every single episode of Sex & The City?

If the world were fair, I would be able to list the skills and qualifications that really make me stand out, like:

1. I invented my own dance called ‘The Crab Waft’.  (Trust me, it’s huge in Japan.)

2. I know fancy words like ‘ineluctable’ and ‘ingenue’.  (Feel free to bask in my vocabu…lar…um…ical? prowess.)

3. I can pick up small objects with my toes.  (You say you dropped your pencil there, bossman?  I am on the case.)

4. I can crack both my shoulders.  (It’s gross, but in an impressive kind of way.)

5. I am one bad mammajamma at crossword puzzles.

6. I always remember to clean the dryer lint trap.  (Except when I don’t.  Which is sometimes.)

7. I can eat really, really spicy food.  (Indian and Thai food, you are my biznitches.)

8. I have never appeared on COPS, To Catch a Predator or Sixteen and Pregnant.

9. I know all the words to Pearl Jam’s “Black”.  (Anyone who can understand Eddie Vedder can negotiate their way around any international language barrier.)

10. I’m really good at catching a Frisbee.

Just give me a jaunty bandana and call me Bandit.

11. I’ve never once passed out.  (This could come in handy in some work-type situation, I’m just not sure what that is just yet…)

12. I know the difference between “affect” and “effect”, “compliment” and “complement” and “then” and “than”.  I also know that “alot” and “misunderestimate” aren’t actual words, and I almost never end a sentence with a preposition.

13. I know how many “I knows” you have to sing in the middle of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”.

Granted, there is the slight risk that I could lose out to someone who can hula hoop, play the harmonica, and do a one-handed cartwheel but, c’mon, I’m a pretty qualified candidate, right?

I’ll be accepting salary offers now, National Geographic.