I Hate Gloria Estefan

I went to my cousins' house this afternoon to take the next step in the master plan that involves about ten of the biggest music geeks I know and a 160 Gig hard drive. (And there you were thinking I had no substantial plans for the summer, huh?) I hand off the hard drive to my cousin Dan, wish him luck with his phase of the project, and dive in the pool. I surface, climb up onto the sapphire-blue floating mat, and prepare to do absolutely nothing. And then I hear it...

Gloria Estefan.

My cousins' neighbors have deplorable taste in music. Not only that, but they're loud, and they whine with those accents that give New Yorkers such a bad name in the rest of the universe.

Ow, my fuckin' gawd.

Somebody shoot me. I have one hour of relaxation, and this is what I have to deal with? I couldn't decide what was worse--the accents or the Gloria godforsaken Estefan. Is it just me, or does every one of her songs sound exactly the same? You may have noticed, I'm pretty anal retentive about my music, but for some reason, every one of this woman's songs is lumped in one mental file so that when I hear one of them, I actually have to run through all of the lyrics before I can recognize which one I'm listening to. And sometimes, I accidentally slide from one song's verse to another one's refrain--they all seem so damn interchangeable.

And why would I actually know the lyrics, even confusedly? Funny you should ask that.

My former boss, Peter, a guy as big as a house, has a soft spot for tiny little lovely Gloria. A big ole soft spot that compelled him to force his entire staff to listen to this woman's equally over-emotive torture-ballads for at least 40 hours per week. We'd be cleaning theaters between shows...listening to Gloria. Taking inventory...listening to Gloria. Counting deposits...listening to Gloria. Kicking people out of the damn theater...listening to Gloria. I had nightmares to the soundtrack of Gloria.

Now, Pete was very good to me, so I try not to complain about his quirks and miscalculations. But this was unbelievable grating. And what was even worse was that the rest of his musical tastes were not just tolerable, but actually good. I've actually turned mixed tapes that he made into play lists on my iTunes. But this freaky Gloria obsession? It should have been one of Dante's circles of hell.

After midnight some random Saturday night. Several thousand dollars spread across the desk, awaiting counting. For some reason, there are no other managers or supervisors in that night, so it's just he and I. I realize that I am about to embark upon an hour of sheer unadulterated torture. At least an hour. I remember the moment in slow motion. I see the CDs sitting on top of the safe. I remember that he has her complete oeuvre. Solo and with the band. In English and Spanish. He's pissed off at someone else, and he's about to take it out on me by making me complete all these inventory spreadsheets while listening to cats in heat--I mean, Miami Sound Machine.

I lose my grip. I beg and plead. Please, please, please. Everyone else is out right now, dancing to something worth dancing to. I'm here. I'm stuck here. I'm working the midnight shows. Please, please, please don't make me listen to Gloria FUCKING Estefan again! Please! It's bad enough that the stockroom's a mess, I have Goobers out the wazoo to count and we've got a bunch of goobers doing God-knows-what in the theaters and you're going to lock yourself in the office and I'm going to have to deal with them!

Don't think of him locking himself in the office as a sign of bad leadership. Pete's idea of management training is no training wheels. Just get out there and deal with it.

Or maybe, it was just me he enjoyed throwing to the wolves.

Oh well. It's amazing how fast you can learn to swim if you know that no one else is going to rescue you.

PLEASE! NO MORE GLORIA ESTEFAN! I'M BEGGING, I'M PLEADING! I'LL BE ON TICKET-COUNTING DUTY FOR A MONTH! JUST MAKE IT STOP!

He tells me to go outside, cool off, and get some Slurpees while I'm at it. When I return, I still have to count everything in the building. And double count the mess he would make of the money. You see, as brilliant as the man is, he has a certain small-number-threshold of accuracy. As in, if it was less than...let's say...$5000, then he would do something ridiculous. Big money, he never fucked up. Small money? It was as if it wasn't worth getting right. So double-counting would turn into triple-counting...and he would think it was damn funny. Because he could sing along with Gloria. So you'll pardon me if I can't stand the woman more than would seem reasonable for just not agreeing with her artistic choices.

But at least Pete paid for the damn Slurpees. And, most importantly, it was less time I'd have to sit there and listen to you-know-who.