First Impressions

I guess I wasn’t surprised that there was blood. I was just surprised at how much blood there actually was.

If I could travel back in time, back to my apartment in October of 2008, I would make a packing list. Hell, I would make two packing lists. One list would be for clothes: t-shirts, underwear, slacks, dress shirts, ties, running shorts, socks, shoes, and sweatshirts. The other list would be for accessories: computer, phone, phone charger, watch, iPod, and toiletry bag. Hindsight being 20/20, I might even add a sub-list to the toiletry bag to include specific hygienic items I’d need to look and feel my best as a representative of the University of Portland. This sub-list would include your basic daily toiletry items like a toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, nail clipper, deodorant and soap. And this time, I would add shaving cream and a razor, and I would put a giant star next to those last two items, underline them, and set a reminder in my phone five minutes before I was set to leave my apartment so that I wouldn’t forget.

I don’t have the ability to travel back in time though, so in October of 2008, my first fall recruiting trip as an Admissions Counselor with the University of Portland, I embarked on an adventure I wouldn’t soon forget without the two items I will never again leave behind.

The first thing I remember about that day was waking to the sound of the most obnoxious alarm clock I had ever heard. Most hotel alarm clocks are set to your basic “beep beep” tone but for some reason the Holiday Inn Express felt like throwing its inhabitants a curveball and freeing us from our slumber with the highest pitched screeching sound actually audible to the human ear. The stale hotel air pierced my nostrils and the flashing lights cast from the television that I had failed to turn off the night before painted the walls and disoriented me. I walked to the bathroom in a daze, brushing against the wall with my hand for guidance until I instinctively found the door handle. I opened the door, flipped the switch, and after enduring that tumultuous period when a rush of blood stabs your temples while your eyes adjust to the light, turned on the faucet and splashed water into my face.

I fumbled through my Dopp kit for my toothbrush and toothpaste because that is the first exercise I do every morning and I wouldn’t dare change my routine on account of new surroundings. Once my pearly whites were fresh and smooth, I reached for the floss and gave my gums a turn. I discarded the used floss, closed the lid on the container, and placed it comfortably next to the nail clipper in the front pouch of my toiletry bag. I then reached for my razor, typically the last item I pack because I always shave before a work trip, but came back empty handed. My eyes darted to the top plastic sleeve of my Dopp kit where I keep my razor. The sleeve was empty. My razor was not there because I did not make a packing list. Shit.

My panic was brief, thankfully, because on the back corner of the countertop to the left of the sink there was a sign notifying occupants that if they had forgotten to make a packing list and needed any number of basic toiletry items, they could simply call the front desk and once the item’s availability was confirmed, run down to the lobby and grab it.

I was surprised to find a quality shaving gel in the small toiletry packet given to me by Vanessa, the morning-shift front desk clerk, and equally surprised by the lack of quality in the single blade razor. The plastic handle could have been snapped in half by a gentle breeze and the metal blade appeared jagged and untrustworthy. Nevertheless, I was a beggar and had to move forward with the not-so-choice offering which was the cheapest way the Holiday Inn Express could afford to appear classy.

I walked back to my room and prepared to shave just as I had done hundreds of times before. When my face was lathered with foam and ready to be smoothed, I took one last hard look at the single blade that was set to exonerate my stubble. Here goes nothing.

The first downward stroke reminded me of the summer day I spent sanding my parents back deck. It was loud, scratchy, and took a good chunk of its surface with it. After a few more terrifying strokes, my rosacea no longer seemed genetic. The clock wasn’t about to stop ticking toward my appointment though, so I powered on.

My neck is chalk full of trouble spots for even the most visually stunning Gillette Mach 5 turbo razors, so needless to say I was a little anxious to see how the Holiday Inn Uni-blade would maneuver around my jaw line and Adam’s apple. I was delighted to see stubble falling off the blade and into the sink as I rushed water over the razor after every pass, but disheartened by the increasingly plum color of the pool of water that collected near the drain. I actually closed my eyes after a few swipes trying to trick my brain into reflecting an unblemished image, but every time I opened them I received a harsh reality check. My neck was scraped and sore, my cheeks were irritated, and my mustache was next.

I remember thinking that if I could just finish the job, I’d have enough time to apply lotion to my face and that the aloe would do just enough to cover up the blood, scrapes, and burns, or at least enough to ensure I wouldn’t look like a complete fool. It was this hurried thought that ultimately proved to be my downfall. With one swift swipe of the cheapest razor blade on the U.S. market, I gave myself the deepest non-fatal cut in the history of modern man.

Initially, there was too much blood to see the actual cut. I continued to apply pressure in increments of thirty seconds, but every time I relented to survey the damage, blood immediately escaped from the wound and ran down my chin. I knew the cut was close to the top of my upper lip, but I still couldn’t make out how long it was or how deep it ran. Luckily, I had awoken early enough to allow a buffer zone for any unforeseen circumstance, but the window of time before my appointment was getting smaller and smaller as the seconds passed by and the cut continued bleeding.

Four tissues into my fiasco, I started to panic. I had scheduled an appointment with JK Mullen High School at 8:30am, my first presentation as an Admissions Counselor with the University of Portland. Had this been a less important feeder school for my employer, I may have decided to reschedule at the last minute, but Mullen is a top school that consistently sends students to the Pacific Northwest so I couldn’t risk straining the relationship between the institutions over something as trivial as a young professional’s cosmetic mishap. I decided to keep tending to the wound in the hopes that at some point either the laws of science would kick in and the wound would scab over or I would bleed to death and forfeit my accountability for a no-show.

Finally, one hour after viciously slicing the most essential body part of any successful verbal presentation, the cut had finally cauterized itself and an ugly scab on my upper lip was my body’s less than subtle reminder that I was, indeed, an idiot. But this idiot had a presentation to give and no more time to waste, so I grabbed my things and headed to the car.

I pulled into a visitor parking spot in front of the main office and took a minute to compose myself. I took three deep breaths, looked into the mirror to confirm this wasn’t a bad dream, and then lied to myself and said, “it’s not that noticeable.” I gathered my materials, placed two just-in-case tissues in my pants pocket, and walked into the main office building.

“Hello. You must be with the University of Portland,” the secretary said.

The very instant I started to respond, a paralyzing panic struck me. I hadn’t spoken to anyone since I cut myself just an hour and a half ago, and hadn’t so much as opened my mouth in the thirty minutes since the wound had scabbed. The inconvenient placement of a large scab on your upper lip, a body part that tends to move around quite a bit when you talk, meant that there was pretty good chance this bad boy would open up the second I introduced myself. I inhibited my vocabulary just enough for the secretary to still be able to understand me, and two minutes later I was being escorted to an empty classroom.

“Thanks again for being here. The students will arrive in just a moment.”

I thanked her with a head nod and a weak smile. Knowing I had less than two minutes before a sea of prospective students flooded the room, I quickly accessed a mirror on the wall of the classroom and practiced a couple of introductory sentences to see how my scab would hold up. I could only imagine that if speaking with as little movement of my lips as possible felt this awkward, it must look downright pathetic. One thought that occurred to me was to scan the closet looking for any type of puppet that might act as a good dummy for the ventriloquism act these students were unknowingly about to witness. I realized I looked ridiculous enough as it was though, so I decided to go ahead with the original presentation.

One by one, enthusiastic prospective students filed into the classroom and eagerly introduced themselves. I was already self-conscious of the giant dried spot of blood on my face, so the students’ double takes provided extra salt in my embarrassingly literal wound.  I was shocked that no one asked me about the obvious cuts all over my face, but I ended up having fun guessing what the students were hypothesizing. I was convinced they either thought that I was attacked by a stray cat in front of the school or had gotten into a disagreement with my last audience. They kept their comments to themselves but their smirks revealed their inner thoughts.

I’ve heard that you use seventeen muscles when you smile, but my guess is that you use seven hundred to deliver a forty minute presentation. I tried to minimize my oral muscle use, which caused my voice to drop an octave and maintain a steady monotone. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of my improvised Ben Stein impression but I couldn’t risk stretching my lip and opening up a sieve.

The first twenty minutes went surprisingly smooth as my scab help up and the students appeared interested. They listened respectfully but didn’t ask questions, either not knowing what to ask or too embarrassed to ask it. My lips were getting dryer and dryer the longer I spoke so when I licked my lips between topics I made sure to make a pass over the wound, applying just enough moisture to prevent a crack in my natural band-aid.

My presentation is typically divided into three sections, and the length of each section varies on a number of factors including perceived levels of interest. I normally don’t get questions during the sections discussing the city of Portland or the fundamental principles behind a University of Portland education, and this group was no different. These students, not uniquely, reserved their questions for the third and final section of my presentation, which covered admissions policies. Typically, the first two sections would last a bare minimum of 15 minutes each, but considering the circumstances, this day would be a little different. I had made it to the last portion of my presentation in 18 minutes.

When I introduced the last topic, two hands immediately sprung toward the ceiling. I was worried. Giving a rehearsed presentation with a badly cut lip, knowing which words I could rely on to minimize stretching, isn’t as difficult as you may think. Fielding unique questions and the animated expressions that come with them is another story. When the questions have to do with one of your biggest passions? Gamechanger.

“Do you guys have a soccer team?”

Shit.

I was just posed the easiest question to answer. It is also the question that elicits the most emotion because our tiny little school is a national power. I couldn’t hold back. My reaction was prideful and immediate.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

17 muscles shot skyward in unison as my face lit up like a Christmas tree. It wasn’t until the inquisitor’s eyes bulged out of his sockets that I realized my facial tree was now adorned with red tinsel. The corners of my mouth had stretched outward as if pulled by strings and blood began flowing freely down my chin.

My mind immediately brought me back to my own high school days. How would I react if a college counselor, with a face already scraped to high hell, started bleeding uncontrollably and without warning in the middle of their presentation? A famous Adam Sandler skit is the only thing that came to mind. They’re all gonna laugh at you!

I figured I had two choices to combat, or just temporarily deflect, humiliation at the hands of high school students. I could stop my presentation, apologize to my guests, take the tissues out of my pocket and use them to wipe the blood, and then excuse myself briefly to use the restroom and finish cleaning up. I describe this choice first because it is the one that makes the most sense. It also the tactic I chose NOT to employ. No, my brilliant idea was to pretend that there was nothing wrong, that there wasn’t a mass quantity of blood streaming down my face, and to just go on with the presentation. I pulled a reserve tissue out of my pocket, raised it to my lip to apply pressure, and calmly answered the student’s question.

“As a matter of fact, despite being one of the smallest Division-I schools in the country, our student athletes are routinely represented on the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams,” I said in a garbled voice that most likely wasn’t understood by students who were now for the first time hanging on my every word.

The last five minutes of my presentation were spent speaking through a Kleenex tissue to students who couldn’t wait for me to finish so that they could tell their friends what they had just seen. I was actually surprised at how respectful they were in spite of the meatball I threw them right over the plate that they could have, and frankly should have, hit out of the park. Instead, they let it sail straight through the strike zone without even taking a swing. In fact, my favorite part of this whole episode was observing the different strategies the students used to distract their brains from the expected and involuntary point-and-laugh system employed by most hormone riddled adolescents.

The student who had asked me the very literal hard hitting question and then subsequently nearly had his eyeballs jump across the room ended up fighting back a smirk, looking down at his notebook, and scribbling circles over and over again. His friend that was sitting right next to him was looking right at me the minute my scab broke. He simply shifted his focus to the wall behind me, stopped breathing for few seconds, and his shoulders bounced up and down ever so slightly as if every ounce of his strength was now being used to prevent himself from laughing. The emo girl at the end of the table just stared at me, but the girl next to her alternated between looking at me until I looked at her and then staring at the ceiling. My biggest regret of this whole scenario is that, unless a student had caught the footage on their iPhone, this epic high school visit wasn’t making it to YouTube.

I remember wondering what the ramifications of my clumsy visit would be. I knew there wouldn’t be any immediate consequences because I at least I had shown up and given the presentation. The true test would come on deposit day. How many students would we enroll from JK Mullen? I felt like I had just taken a final and now had to sweat it out for a long period of time before I got the results.

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait too long after all. Eighty percent of enrollment confirmation deposits come in the month of April when students have heard back from all of their schools and know where they stand financially at each institution. Occasionally, you get a few deposits pretty early for any number of reasons, from money not being an issue for the family to a special circumstance like an athlete or special scholarship recipient. I soon found out that there was one more exception to that trend – pity.

In November of 2008, one month after the Debacle in Denver, a male student that was present at my high school visit decided that the University of Portland would be his home for the next four years. He was our very first deposit of the year. We were still months away from even mailing him instructions on how to deposit. Not only that, he had attached a check for $20k to be applied to his tuition approximately nine months before we would even come asking for it.

I can only assume that he was so impressed with my steadfast determination to finish the job that he could hardly wait to become the next Portland Pilot. Maybe I should be surprised that the next question after I answered his first one through a Kleenex wasn’t “Where do I sign?”

I’ve been back to Denver about 15 times since that first visit. Every morning I’m there I wake up, walk to the bathroom, open my Dopp kit, and grab my razor. It always makes me laugh. I lather my face up in foam and begin to shave. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression.