The Indoctrinated Mind of a Mag Crew Agent
Retiring a crew car
Honest, ambitious, kind-hearted. Concerned for others, with deep empathy for the human experience. Capacity for authentic connection, capable of seeing and accepting others for who they are. Cursed with invisibility and a painful yearning to be seen and heard, to hold some sort of value in this world…to, at the very minimum, feel secure and understood within my family.
But family is not important — people back home don’t care! Wasn’t it made obvious time and time again, when my cries for love and recognition were neglected by two parents who were incredibly stretched thin for years? I was the easy one who tucked away her troubles and chased praise for the good she’d done.
Then that notion was reinforced and repeated by a new set of people who saw value in me, who said they truly cared, who taught me there’s a reason my family back home hangs loosely at the end of the chain, number five out of five. And next are friends and lovers, they are number four. They’ll either make or break you, so choose them wisely but don’t get too close. Intimacy will hold you back, love is bad for business.
Wealth and success are of the utmost importance, but impossible without this experience, without us. There’s no future for you elsewhere. You left home for a reason, so there’s no reason to go back. The crew is your family now, highballs will always have your back, to share the wealth and ensure your success. Because of that, they are number three.
My heart slowly made its way to my sleeve, for I thought these people – my new family – were safe and really accepted me. Always be positive, there’s no reason to feel down, sadness will get you nowhere – negative emotions are too much. You’re too much…but you’re also not enough the way you are, and we can help you grow. Too much negativity, too dramatic, too many needs – get rid of it all! All you need is a ducket! All you need is #1, yourself, but #1 is nothing without number two.
You wouldn’t be here if not for number two: the Business. Business is everything, and without your five Ds, three Bs, two Ts and Es, without your ducket becoming an extension of yourself, there are no sales. Without sales you have no worth, and there is no business; without the business you have no purpose…
When we say, Worry about #1, it doesn’t mean take care of yourself, it doesn’t mean show up as you are – it means quit caring about everyone else – outta sight, outta mind! It means, get organized, get your shit together, and go out to have a new high day, because that will wipe your woes and worries away!
Taking care of business and working overtime…making that cash money…that will solve any-and- everything. Because without money, this rockstar lifestyle disappears. Quota = success = value and worth.
Do whatever it takes, have determination! Be nothing less than 110% dedicated to this! Devote your heart and soul completely to the business and the business will take care of you! How bad do you desire a positive outcome? Are you driven – do you have what it takes?
Give it all of your effort, energy, and enthusiasm. It’s all about your timing and technique. Be brief, be brilliant, be gone – on to the next one, and the next one, and so on…a Roadrunner never ever stops.
Quota quota quota, here I come! And I’m sellin’ sellin’ sellin’, everyone! And when I get my quota-quota, then I’ll have some fun…singing Roadrunners, we are number one!
Remember your ABCs: Always be canvassing. It’s our job to get people to do something they normally wouldn’t and make them feel good about it, to take their mooonnneeey, lovin’ it hooonnney, that’s a Roadrunner’s job is takin’ your money.
Joneses are lucky to have you on their doorstep, you make their day. And you are lucky that you no longer have to be a dumb, miserable Jones who doesn’t exist in conversation unless they buy a magazine.
We aren’t lying to them; we aren’t trying to sell them magazines. There is no such thing as try anyway. We are selling ourselves, so are you worth buying? Are you winning your fucking contest today!?
Don’t have any money? Don’t want to buy a magazine? Ah, I don’t want you to buy a magazine, and I don’t need your money, I need points to win my contest…so I can go to college to be a therapist or open a rock and mineral business, and make something of my damn self.
How can I keep telling these lies? Start a business, meaning owning a mag crew someday? And didn’t I drop out of college to join a traveling sales crew and make something of myself?
Indeed. And all I had to show for it was poor health and sheer physical exhaustion, a heart ripped apart by years of psychological and emotional abuse, and a shoebox packed with travel brochures and tickets, cheap souvenirs and photos, and a stack of quota cards showing me that I worked more than eight hours a day, six days a week, almost every single week, for two years and nine months.
The most important possession unexpectedly came years later, a gift hiding in one of many boxes of my newly deceased mother’s things: a piece of notebook paper filled with my handwriting, urging her and my dad to trust and respect my decision to hop on a bus and travel the U.S. with a stranger, because “I’m searching for a life I can enjoy.”
And did I find it? No…not really…but I sure as hell could convince you I did. Because what sane, young woman would complain about falling in love and making cash daily, all while seeing nearly forty states, and Mexico, before the age of 21?
Shouldn’t I have felt lucky to be worthy of that experience of freedom and travel, and whole-heartedly enjoyed the life which made that possible?
No. And despite what I was fed and the beliefs I held inside for nine long years, I discovered – in my own letter, where it all began – the truth.
While I was outta sight, outta mind, immediately discarded by the crew upon my departure, people back home held me closely in their hearts all those years I was gone. While the business only cared about what I did and could do for it, my real family cared just enough to save my goodbye letter and make extra copies, to pay my phone bill so we could stay in contact, to check that I was alive and say they missed me, and to welcome me home with open arms and help in small ways so I could start building a life I no longer felt desperate to run from.
And for that, they no longer dangle loosely at the bottom of a chain, they hang tightly, secured, at the very top...next to me.
***
This piece was written to Prompt Four in the Writing to Reckon Journal: For Survivors of Spiritual, Religious and Cultic Abuse — December 2023
