I am SOOOO getting paid for this...

Maybe it's the copy editor in me, but when I'm not exaggerating for exaggerating's sake, I'm a stickler for accuracy. Just ask my fiance what I'm like during a heated game of Scrabble when he tries to play "words" like "ups" ("That's a word! He's got ups," says the fiance) or "ibud" ("It's something that goes along with Apple's iphone," he insists.)


So on Thursday, May 8, I kept my co-workers up-to-date on EXACTLY how many hours were left until it was OFFICIALLY my birthday at midnight. ("Only three hours and 42 minutes left until my BIRTHDAY! WOO-HOO!" I'd shout while doing a little dance I made up. Which probably made me look stupid. But who cares? It was going to soon be my BIRTHDAY!)


Obviously, I was excited about the bit 2-6, though I have no idea why. It's not like I'll now be able to (legally) buy a pack of cigarettes, drink, drive a rented car without the ridiculous fee, etc. Maybe it was because it was just an excuse to celebrate. Or maybe it was because I love getting mail and I was told by several people to be expecting something from them soon.


Whatever the reason, I was stoked when 11:45 p.m. rolled around and I was just about to leave the coffee shop with my two co-workers. I excitedly asked both of them if they wanted to celebrate the officialness of my birthday with a beer, but one said he already had plans and the other had to be back at the store early the next morning. So though both declined, I was undeterred because Jake, the beer-loving college student also known as Brent's former boss' son, was staying at our apartment again between meetings at his soon-to-be summer job, and I knew he'd be up for going out.


So as I sauntered to the door, humming a happy tune, I started fumbling with my keys and looking for the one to the store. And looking again... AND AGAIN.


"Where the hell is my key?" I said out loud. All my other keys were there, so why wasn't that one? Thinking quickly, I realized that I had left my keys at the store for two days while I was off work. (I used my spare set during that time because I was too lazy to walk back to the store to retrieve them.)


That meant that one of my co-workers had to have taken the key off my keyring while my keys were at the store. WHAT THE HELL? Why was someone touching my PERSONAL set of keys in the first place?


This would have been a big problem had I not been closing with one of the store's assistant managers. Obviously, he had a key, so all we had to do was use his. Except he lent his to the other assistant manager.


Brilliant. Two people who should have had keys didn't. That meant we had no way to lock up the store, which meant that I COULDN'T LEAVE until we figured out a way to lock up the store.


Here's where it's important to know that people in New York are a lot like people in Toledo when it comes to job commutes. When I lived in Toledo, my door-to-door commute to The Blade newspaper was 30 minutes. That commute was about typical, though there were many, like my dad, whose drives were much longer. My dad used to drive from Lambertville to Detroit (which is more than an hour) every single day to go to work before he was transferred to the much-closer plant in Perrysburg (still about 30 minutes, though). This was normal. Everyone drives in Toledo, so it's just a given that you'll have a (sometimes long) commute.


So even though I walk everywhere in New York - including to the coffee shop, which is three blocks away (yep - I was being REALLY LAZY) - I have come to realize that like in Toledo, people travel quite far to get to work. Except here, people travel far via train instead of car. Brent's commute, for example, is three blocks of walking to the subway station, 10 stops on the subway, and then another four blocks of walking to get to his office.


At my store, we have people who commute from every borough in the city as well as New Jersey. Two of my co-worker's commutes are two hours each. One, who commutes from Brooklyn, has to switch trains twice before he gets to a stop closest to the store. That means that if he's scheduled to work at 4:30 p.m., he has to leave his house at about 2 p.m. or earlier to make sure he gets there on time. Then he doesn't get home until around 2 a.m. Talk about a horrible commute!


I tell you this because there are just a handful of people who have keys to the coffee shop. Two were at the coffee shop without their keys, one lives in Jersey, one was home in the Bronx, one didn't answer her phone, etc. etc.


So that left us with the undesirable option of waiting for the people who deliver the milk and pastries at some point during the night because, obviously, they use a key to get in and drop off the products. Up until this evening, I'd never left the store past midnight, nor gotten there before 4:30 a.m., so I knew they came during that four-and-a-half hour period, but I just didn't know if they'd show up at 12:05 a.m. or 4:25 a.m.


And since none of us are ever supposed to be in the store alone, that meant that it was me and the assistant manager ringing in my birthday by sitting in a dark, empty store by ourselves. Waiting.


I will say here that if I was to be stuck in the store with any one of my co-workers, it would have been with the guy I was stuck with, so that was a big plus.


Here's how the rest of our evening went:


12:01 a.m. He sings "Happy Birthday" to me. I enjoy feeling like a kid being sung to at a birthday party.


12:15 a.m.: Our Bronx-living co-worker tells us via text message that this is the supposed time the milk guys show up, so we wait near the door for their arrival.


12:25 a.m.: We figure they should be coming any minute, but get comfortable on the cushy chairs we have at the store to wait anyway.


12:30 a.m.: I am hungry, so I start munching on a sandwich that was supposed to be thrown out if we hadn't sold it that day. I figured that it was still good, seeing since it was just 30 minutes past its expiration date.


12:40 a.m.: We remember that a few days prior, someone had tried to break into the store by throwing a brick at a window. Repairmen had come and replaced the window with wood while a new window was being shipped. We try to see if we can pry the wood away to squeeze out of the store through the window. We learn that we cannot.


12:45 a.m.: We rate the girls who walk by the store dressed in clubbing/bar-going attire, and discuss if they are better than/lucky to be with the guys they are holding hands with.


12:55 a.m.: We stop rating the girls because tonight - and most nights in New York - all of them seem to be a 9 or a 10 or even an 11, so it's pointless to decide whether that girl in the miniskirt and too-high heels was better looking than the previous girl clad in a miniskirt and too-high heels.


1:05 a.m.: We get thirsty, so we raid the refrigerators, try all the different juices, and tell each other which ones we like the best. One tastes like sand.


1:10 a.m.: We start telling jokes and laughing a lot. We really do have fun together.


1:15 a.m.: I ask him "truth or dare?"


1:16 a.m.: He chooses "truth" and I ask him a question I've been dying to know, and he's been skirting the answer to. But since we were playing "truth or dare," he has to be honest and I learn a valuable piece of information.


1:20 a.m.: I choose "truth" and he asks me who I hate at at the store. I honestly tell him that I hate no one. This leads to a conversation about our co-workers.


1:22 a.m.: He starts telling me store "secrets," like who supposedly is dating who, etc. I learn more valuable information.


1:40 a.m.: He gets excited over a garbage truck that he thought was the milk delivery guys. I laugh at him.


1:41 a.m.: The conversation turns to the very serious topic of Sept. 11 because I've always wanted to know what that day was like for a New Yorker. His story fascinates me.


1:55 a.m.: I announce that I am really cold, so my co-worker gives me his sweatshirt and tries to stay warm by tucking his arms inside his T-shirt. I remember why I like my co-worker so much.


1:57 a.m.: We get hungry again so we find snacks. We eat them.


2:01 a.m.: We are both really tired, so we start getting slap-happy and contemplate seeing who can drink an entire bottle of syrup. Luckily, we don't follow through on this idea.


2:05 a.m.: We think about playing musical chairs, and tell our Bronx-living co-worker this information via text message. (He is useful for late-night conversations, but not late-night getting-on-the-train-for-a-long-commute-to-save-us missions.)


2:06 a.m.: We nix the idea to play musical chairs for three important reasons:
1. There are only two of us, and therefore no one to start and stop the music.
2. We don't have any music.
3. It's a dumb idea.


2:08 a.m.: We think every truck that goes by is the milk delivery guys, and therefore set ourselves up for disappointment over and over again.


2:16 a.m.: The phone rings and we both race for it like it holds the answer for our salvation. I answer it formally as if it were a customer calling at 2:16 a.m. for some reason: "... this is Erika, how may I help you?" My co-worker laughs at me.


2:17 a.m.: I hear our Bronx-living co-worker ask in astonishment "You're still there?" just as I hear my co-worker shout "THE MILK GUYS ARE HERE!" I relay this information into the phone as excited as I would have been the second I found out that someone had thrown me a surprise birthday party. Which no one did, apparently.

2:18 a.m.: I refrain from hugging the milk guys while asking them "Where the hell have you been?" They tell us this is an early time for them to be at our store. I stop being mad at them.


2:19 a.m.: My co-worker and I practically skip out of the store and part ways near my apartment building with a hug. I feel a kinship with my co-worker for sharing this could-have-been-horrible-but-actually-turned-out-to-be-pretty-fun experience that kicks off what I hope to be a great 26th year of life!