YOU'RE SINGLE BECAUSE YOU SEND THE WRONG SIGNALS

And when I say wrong, I mean OFF THE CHARTS wrong.

I had the misfortune of landing my worst job as my FIRST job, rather than nicely stuck in the middle of a career as it is for some folks. Not only was it in a place where I fit in about as well as a goat at an AA meeting, but I had been dumped by my boyfriend about 1.2 hours before beginning said job. Needless to say I was on the brink of a mental breakdown.

My first day I was taken around by one of my coworkers and introduced to everyone. He mentioned that I would be working in the same court as Jenny, so I should meet her. He emphasized how smart and nice she was, and how she would be a really great teacher for me, but also seemed to indicate there was something a little off about her. I figure this out when I walked into her office and was told to sit and wait for her to return from court.

Jenny's office was an animal mausoleum. She had random pelts of various living creatures nailed haphazardly about her office, in places a normal attorney would put say, a law degree or bar license. Instead, she had an entire mountain lion skin, most of a beaver, a few other unrecognizable pelts, and a rabbit fur being used as a doily with a girly lamp and candle resting on it. Even this did not prepare me for what I was about to encounter.

Jenny walks in to her office, and true to my coworker's word, was very nice and welcoming. She was, however, somewhat off-putting...perhaps this had to do with the 3 inches of black eyeliner, bleach blonde semi-straightened hair, or the skirt so short I would feel uncomfortable wearing it in Vegas. To put it bluntly, she looked like some sort of crazy streetwalker who happened to have clothing that matched and didn't have holes.

At first, I thought the eyeliner was a mistake. Perhaps she slept in it, perhaps it had been smudged since she put it on. It was literally about a centimeter thick both above AND below her eyes, and not in a smooth and calculated way - more of "a Parkinson's patient did my makeup" way. Her skin was caked with too tan foundation, and her lips lined with a darker color than she used as lipstick. Overall, a ginormous disaster.

When you see a person dressed and made up like this, you automatically make assumptions - she's a hard partier, she's a slut, she's had every guy in the office, she uses her sexuality to get places. Sadly, for Jenny, NONE of these were even remotely true. Turns out, she was a VIRGIN, loved Jesus more than life itself, and rarely if ever drank alcohol. She was also incredibly smart, graduating at the top of her class in law school (which, as a former law student, I know just how hard that is).

I still can't quite get over the disconnect. This girl would wear leggings as pants. Leggings as pants TO COURT. Her top would be a tank that extended just to the edge of her butt, so it wasn't entirely covered, thereby giving everyone a good view of her ass in a thin layer of legging. She only wore black, but she'd wear sparkly silver open-toed party heels with most things. And on the days she decided to wear a skirt, well, let's just say she couldn't sit down in court, or bend over. She even admitted she had them tailored shorter than they came.

So one night another coworker goes out with Jenny and her friends to a bar downtown. She's dressed reasonably, but Jenny and company are all dressed in very tight, provocative outfits with the caked-on makeup and obviously fake hair. One guy, I was told by the coworker, actually came up to them and told them they looked like whores - instead of getting upset, they were adamant that he had no idea what he was talking about - they looked "classy."

Further proof that she had no concept of the fact that she looked like a crack whore was given by another coworker who met her for brunch one Sunday. Jenny was wearing what she wore to church that morning, which was as short and tight as the shit she wore out drinking. The worst part was, SHE TAUGHT SUNDAY SCHOOL. CHILDREN. I can only IMAGINE what their parents thought when they came to pick them up and saw what their supposedly Jesus-loving teacher was wearing. She literally looked like she'd woken up, not brushed her hair, not fixed her makeup from the night before, and came to church in whatever she wore out because she'd slept at some dude's house.

Now I don't know Jesus too well, but from what I've heard I don't think he really feels too enthusiastic about revealing clothing. And since Jesus was literally this girl's LIFE, I'm surprised this fact missed her by a mile. That, and if you don't consider CHURCH or COURT to be a conservative occasion, when WOULD you consider wearing something more covering??

It was pretty obvious that this girl would attract the wrong kind of guys. The ones at the bar that saw her and thought they could take her home if they bought her a drink, then send her on her way in a cab when they were through with her - not the good Christian boy she was actually looking for. And the good Christian boys, well, nothing screams "I love Jesus" more than short skirts, overdone makeup, and the collecting of dead animals.

Something that is important in both my degrees - advertising and law - is "KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE." Who do do you want to attract? If it's not guys in Affliction shirts with 20 STDs, don't dress like you're probably not wearing panties.