The Guinness Record for turkey-plucking goes to Vincent Pilkington of Cootehill, Republic of Ireland, in 1980. His time: 1 minute 30 seconds. You have always fantasized about surpassing his greatness. This is your year! Turkeys have over five thousand feathers on them, and it’s easier to remove them if the bird is dipped in hot water first. You can use your bathtub for this. Don’t tell your wife. Wait until she goes to the bank, and then shove aside her jasmine bath foam to make way for the carcass. Man, your wife—she’s a real pain in the ass.
Archive for November, 2008
You never thought you would be the kind of lady who would have a heart attack, but you are and you did! You had a mild heart attack in the grocery store and somehow a representative of Bayer aspirin finds out (friend of a friend of that cousin who wears scrunchies around her wrist, even though her hair’s too short for ponies) and he calls you, this representative does, and asks you to do a commercial about how you never thought you would be the kind of lady who would have a heart attack, but you are and you did.
Pastry chef, left-handed, third-floor apartment, vegetarian, wheat allergy, one-eyed Maltese named Reggie, affinity for Debra Winger movies, woodpecker-like laugh, socially liberal but fiscally moderate, trick thumb, not a fan of talk shows or soaps, been to every state once except Alaska, Idaho, and Florida; raised Jewish but perusing Hinduism idly, and by idly I mean a book from Borders with a flower on the front, a book that seems unimportant now but will come into play later in life in a grand, sweeping way, like something out of a movie; not a Debra Winger movie, but almost as good.
A life on a farm in southern Mississippi is the one you should aim for. You should grow peaches, plums, and pears. On your porch there should be a wooden swing. The swing is painted white, but the paint should be chipping off, and you should run your plum-stained fingernails underneath, peeling it off bit by bit. You should have a few sleepy cows. In the evenings you drink warm cream in your tea. Afternoons should be hot, always, filled with long swims in the pond to the west. Your braids should be heavy as you walk back home, dripping.
Receptionist: rubber bands, spreadsheets, manila folders, envelopes, pencils, white-out, scotch tape, spiraled phone cords, headset, coffee-stained carpeting, fluorescent bulbs, elevators, ceramic mugs, purchase orders, phone rings, paper clips, scissors, binders, expense reports, petty cash, webmail, faxes, wpm, qwerty, files, rolodexes, knee-lengths, a-lines, knee-highs, shoulder pads, flats, prescription glasses, lipsticked teeth, gold hoops, tupperware lunches, appointment calendars, long days, feeling empty despite all the things around you, hanging folders, tight throats, counting the objects around you, making it to sixty-three before going somewhere private to cry, tissues, mascara, moisturizer, private bathrooms, cans of air freshener, puffs of mountain-fresh scent.
Lawyer!
Pick a type of law that seems fun:*
accident/personal injury
asbestos
bankruptcy
business/corporate
civil rights
criminal
divorce
elder
entertainment
immigration
intellectual property
medical malpractice
mesothelioma
*None of them are fun, not even “entertainment,” which very misleadingly has nothing to do with balloons, roller coasters, or corndogs. So pick something that won’t bore you to tears.**
**They will all bore you to tears, especially mesothelioma. What does that word mean, anyway? Pick one that will make you rich.***
***None of them pay well. That’s an old wives’ tale. Just pick one that doesn’t smell like pee.****
****NOT elder law.
Do something wretched and go to prison. Wear an orange jumpsuit. Pace your cell and wonder how you could have done something so wretched. Begin to consider things carefully. Eat your breakfasts slowly. Chew oatmeal with all of your concentration. Feel your footsteps on the cement floors as you walk back to your cell every day. After ten years, begin to smile again. Read the canon, finally. It’s not as tedious as you expected.
Get released after sixteen years. Go on a long walk and watch a man in a puffy orange coat walk the coastline. It’s a rainy day.
Have a life crisis, or two. Stay up all night frantically trying to center yourself within a metaphor. Decide to think of 1) life as an ocean, 2) these crises as waves, and 3) yourself as a starfish who was peeled from her slick rock by the current and is now bobbing along toward shore. Bob along for 100 days before shedding the marine analogy. Relax. Spend one afternoon as-is. Be in New York when this happens, on a sidewalk. There are trees, and clouds, buildings, garbage cans. You are wearing sneakers. A dog walks by wearing a blue sweater.
When he was little he only wanted to be a cop, a cop of the fiercest breed, one who wore polished shoes and swung a billy club from his hips. A real tough guy, like in the movies.
His mother watched him practice through the window, clomping down the sidewalk in her patent leather heels, swinging his hips and waving a baton. She said, why do you have to be like that? Can’t you be more like your father?
So he grew up to be a banker, but it never felt exactly right, like a pebble in his shiny shoe.
When she was little, all she wanted to be was a princess and a bank robber. They said it couldn’t be done! They said it was absurd. Then they said, stop chewing on the banister, why do you have to be like that? She liked the word absurd. She chanted it as she shot her cap gun into the air and watched smoke cough into the sky above the backyard. Absurd sounded like a magnificent dragon with purple wings. She was only 17 when she put on her princess hat—cone-shaped, ribbons streaming from the tip—and walked to the bank.
