Moms Night Out; the Nose
Stories from the candle mines
I’m writing this at 10 at night with a slice of cold, droopy thre hour old pizza in my hand. We had a big event: Moms Night Out. I wasn’t sure going in if it was some sort of Event, in the proper sense, but it appeared to just be a group of women from Park Slope who were leaving their kids at home for the night. Moms Night Out.
The Moms had a wealthy feel about them: wealthy in that annoying way, where you feel like they probably own a brownstone, but they try to say that they bought it before the neighborhood was “good” although what they really mean was in 2014. They’re 40 and trying to suggest that they bought their brownstone in the 90s so they aren’t really rich, but they didn’t, they bought it 10 years ago with their money from working in finance or something. (Perhaps their money from working in a non-profit while their husband works in finance.)
A lot of people who come to make candles feel wealthy, but often in a way makes it clear they don’t feel particularly self-conscious about it. They are happy to be rich and living on the upper east side. This is the life they’ve always wanted for themselves (at least until they turn 36 and leave to have children somewhere else.) They wear that particular Upper East Side wardrobe with a weird fur vest (popular on women of all ages, and has been in rotation since I worked up there in 2016), and carry expensive little purses and have very shiny hair, with the roots touched up. These women were not like that.
These were women with Jobs. Working women. The jobs might be in non-profit management, but that is a job. (Should it be? well…) These were women who have normal struggles, like how hard it is to find good nannies, and which summer camps their children were accepted into. Working women’s problems.
Moms Night Out got two pizzas and 8 bottles of wine for their group of 13. At the end they offered us a full untouched pizza and about 5 ounces of wine. Thanks, ladies! The pizza offering was particularly galling, like we are some group of teenagers watching their children who should be grateful for their generosity.
They began as a small group, gathering around to discuss how difficult it was to interview at private schools. How tortured they were by the decision to send their kids to private schools. How they didn’t want to, of course, but well, now that they have gone to private pre-k it’s just easier, you know, to keep them in. How many days it was best to vacation with kids (four days or five?). Which resort on Turks did they like best.
When I lead an event I usually call everyone over, give a little instruction session, and then set people loose to start smelling stuff. This was a bit difficult, since they didn’t want to listen to what I had to say, but also wanted a lot of help from me. Challenging but entirely manageable.
After they finished making their candles we became invisible to them. This often happens at events, but this was a profound shift. As I came up beside one of them, cleaning with great gusto so that they might take the hint and move, one of them bumped into me and was shocked. Where did I come from? Mostly I would bump into them and they would somehow not even feel it. I was reminded of my first day working in food service, on Valentine’s Day in 2012 when my senior in the kitchen told me that once you had on the uniform you were invisible, and demonstrated it by walking directly into someone, who neither looked mad nor apologized, they just kept walking, as though they were run into by the wind.
I used to be visible to them, to some degree. At my last job these could have been my coworkers. The conversation about Turks came directly out of the least sympathetic union call I ever had: the senior members of the communications department, all making over 120k, calling me, earning half that, into a meeting so that I could argue that they were underpaid. I was prepared to make the case, but it was tough when they opened the call by discussing their favorite places to go during “ski week,” whatever that is. It’s hard to say someone isn’t being paid enough if they have gone on enough skiing vacations with their children to have opinions about which is the best resort.
My coworkers Jay-lah and Angie will probably never be visible to them. Too Spanish, too brown, just not the right style. Jay-lah’s obvious extensions will never let her be taken seriously by them. I’m white, I look right: I dress at work specifically to appeal to this type of woman. Tidy muji shirts, neutral colored slacks. My pants are neither too tight nor too loose, my jeans an acceptable dark navy. This is the uniform of the King of Candles. Jay-lah has started adopting a wardrobe similar to this because she is smart, and she knows that this is what the Founder wants to see. The Founder’s house is all white. The Founder likes white.
The moms, of course, offered to help us clean up. As we were closing at nine they said “oh, where can we put the trash? let us help you!” They did not, of course, tip. They left us a pizza that probably cost around 30$, which none of us wanted, but they could not leave us 30$ to split between the three of us for our trouble. Parties never tip, but they do sometimes leave us a bottle of wine. This time we got neither.
As the moms were leaving they offered us their untouched pizza. “You can have it, we’ll just throw it out otherwise.” My coworkers were shocked by the waste. “I can’t imagine being that rich” Angie said a few times. “That’s such a waste of money.”
Neither of my coworkers wanted the pizza. I didn’t really either, but I also can’t stand the thought of not getting something for free, which is why it is my dinner tonight. I feel like a babysitter, but I do not have the strong teenage stomach of one.
A week before we had an event for an 11 year old. A private party for her and five of her friends. They were very sweet kids, fun and mostly pretty easy to please. I adjusted my opening patter to target the kids a little bit more, while trying to seem like I wasn’t talking down to them. Mostly I left out my lengthy discussion of the history of the amber fragrance family, I don’t think they know what orientalism is yet. They had booked the space for two hours, and because they were 11 and incredibly decisive (flowers! citrus! fruit!) they finished their candles in about 15 minutes. After that the mom hosting the party said they could all make second candles. Each studio class costs 68$ plus tax. I can’t imagine being that rich, I thought to myself. Almost 1,000$ for a 11 year old’s birthday party. That’s most of my salary for a pay period, almost half my rent.
The moms of the girls (no men came) were talking about running routes in Red Hook. I tried to chime in while I was over there, but during a party you are the help, and it’s better not to. I can’t believe I forgot. During regular classes people don’t see you that way quite so much, but when they have booked the space and you are going out of your way to make them comfortable they forget you exist. Valentine’s day weekend we had free drinks, and I think that this made everyone more rude and presumptuous, because we got about 10$ in tips all weekend, even though every class was full. A paradox: the more generous you are to the customers, the more accommodating, the less they see you as a full person.
But honestly, when people ask me how work is, it’s mostly fine. If it weren’t for the terrible hours, and the bad pay, I could do this for a while. It’s hard to explain.
I was working a class the other day and a woman came in who I recognized from class. I went to go say hello to her, and she said “oh, from class!” and then I heard her husband, who hadn’t come to class, say “ah, the nose.”
That’s what my coworkers call me, like some sort of Damon Runyon character, like some low level gangster from a noir novel. I was delighted that someone without knowing this had also used this silly name. That’s what makes it fun. The parties are miserable, but some french woman’s husband called me “the nose,” because her candle sucked, and I made it better. It’s the duality of service. I’m the expert and the servant all at once. Nobody can decide. I can’t either.
I never saw this happening to me. I knew the path my life was on by the time I was 23, except that I was wrong. Employers don’t know what to do with the Nose. I don’t either. I love being the Nose. I love the part of working in service that has the easy forced camaraderie. I have done shots with my manager, and I hadn’t done a shot in probably three years before that. I opened my camera roll the other day and there was a picture of Nelly’s hand that she left on there. My coworker Eduardo brought in beans and rice and roast pork from a party he went to, three sets of tupperwares for us to take home. We all did matching temporary tattoos.
Working in service is fun, it’s you and your staff against the horrible customers, it’s you and your staff entertaining each other when there are no horrible customers. Working in service is monstrous, because you wake up in the middle of the night with a song from the store playlist stuck in your head and you want to give yourself a lobotomy. Someone asks for a match cloche, but with a different color of matches inside, and you have to remove all of the matches from one cloche and put them into another. A woman breaks something, and her friend says “I saw it! it wasn’t her fault!” and you just have to smile and say “no problem” when all you want to do is scream. Between classes Nelly tells me to eat a snack and says “we gotta protect the nose.” When I’m feeling sick she gives me fistfuls of vitamins. You can’t have one without the other: it has to be terrible for it to be good. If we worked 9-5 and could see our other friends we wouldn’t need to like each other so much. But we don’t, and we do.
My friends feel like they belong to an alternate life now. Does that life still exist? Does this one? My friends are the type of people who could come in to take a class from me. I used to be the type of person who could come take a class from me. I would charm them, I would make some light jokes, I would tell them fun facts about scents. When they messed up their fragrances I would come by and artfully fix them. I would make sure that they left happy. When they finished class they might go to a bar and say “wow, that guy has a good nose,” and then leave Red Hook, and forget about it until they told some other middle class couple friends about this nice date they had at the candle store, where they made a great smelling candle. When a their friends come in, and tell me how they heard about us, I want to ask them “did they mention me? did they tell you about the Nose?” but I don’t.
Here’s a recipe.
Eduardo’s Leftover Roast Pork Ragu
2/3 of a container of leftover roasted pork
1/2 a jar of Rao’s tomato sauce
Combine both in a saucepan, heat until just simmering. Eat over polenta maybe, or pasta. Serve with braised kale and white beans, so that you get extra protein and some fiber.