for when you need to find your path, fast!
Okay, that’s one year. Thank you for following this blog and for all the nice emails. I hope you had as much fun reading these as I did writing them.
I am cooking up other projects, so check out my regular blog now and then at andreauptmor.blogspot.com.
love, Andrea
When the doctor says, does it hurt when I do this?
When the specialist says, when did you first notice this?
When the oncologist says, do you want your wife in here?
When the lawyer says, who will get the house and garden?
When the mother-in-law says, who will raise the children?
When the friends say, how much longer does he have?
When the nurse says, are you comfortable?
When the doctor says, on a scale of one to ten, how much is it?
When the family says, can he hear us?
When you say, what happens after this?
When the fiancée says, lilacs or lilies or roses?
When the realtor says, what’s your bottom line?
When the insurance man says, how many drinks per week?
When the wife says, what do you think of the suburbs?
When the daughter says, when it’s hot out, do chickens lay scrambled eggs?
When the son says, how fast do you think I can eat this corndog?
When the vet says, how long has he been scratching like that?
When the coworker says, how many blondes to screw in a lightbulb?
When the boss says, just how much are we talking here?
29 Times the Answer Is “I Don’t Know”
When the grandma says, who stuck their finger in the icing?
When the teacher says, what’s the capital of Alabama?
When the dad says, do I smell pot?
When the girlfriend says, who’s that on the phone?
When the ex-girlfriend says, whose voice is that?
When the coach says, who brought the flask on the bus?
When the customer says, which aisle is the ketchup?
When the pal says, which movie looks funnier?
When the mom says, how late were you out?
When the counselor says, what do you want to study?
Collecting vinyl records was at first a way to get laid, then a reason to spend Saturdays rummaging through flea markets, then the entire essence of your selfhood. You have crates stacked in your study, alphabetized and sheathed in slick polyethylene jackets. They are much too valuable to listen to.
You cannot imagine leaving this collection in your will. Your son cannot take care of anything. He will melt them in the attic or let his fat wife make clocks out of them.
So when you are eighty-nine, you gravely burn them. In the backyard. The smell is omnipotent.
The Savilian Chair of Astronomy at the University of Oxford in England must at least make an attempt to be a classy kind of guy. He must walk with the swagger of a fellow who spends his evenings with an eye nestled on a telescope, a guy who has seen every corner of the universe and yet manages to remember the minutiae of earthly life. He irons his pants so there’s a careful crease prancing down the front of the legs. He runs his index finger across the crystalline pleat as he watches the moon pirouette across its velvety canvas.
After unthreading your collarbone from your chest skin in a particularly rough rugby match, you spend some time in intensive care. A doughy nurse named Peggy checks on you frequently; the two of you become acquainted, then smitten, then married. By now your clavicle has healed, though your hands fly up and touch your chest protectively every time Peggy comes sailing into your arms. You have two kids, one of whom grows up to be a rugby player himself, though not as successful as you in your heyday. He never gets hurt, though. It’s a pretty good life—B-plus, you’d say.
You are attacked by a grizzly bear. Twice! Both times you were hiking through Yukon territory in Alaska. Both times it was your birthday (22 and 34). The first time you were square dancing along the path, so it was your fault. Bears hate square dancing. Big Mama charged and would have bitten your entire nose off if you hadn’t been carrying a can of toxic Bug-B-Gone. The second incident was a run-in with Mama’s vengeful son, who had been awaiting your return. (“Brown bears never forget a face,” you often wink at dinner parties, much to your guests’ delight.)
It’s tempting to sell your Oscar statuette from your work as a Sound Engineer on the critically acclaimed Temptress of Oceanville to pay for the post-intellectual-copyright lawsuit debt, but remember Law 13 of the Oscar Contract: you cannot sell your award without first offering to sell it back to the Academy for $1. And the Academy is no sucker—it always takes the deal. If you try to sneak onto eBay and get caught, the bills from the second lawsuit (as well as the devastation of having your golden man confiscated) will only serve to double your prescription drug costs.
The currency exchange/bakery was born from a simple dream in which the perfect name woke you from your slumber—Need the Dough—and after securing a small business loan and painting the walls of 243 Main Street a fresh yellow, you made the dream a modestly successful reality. Every day it’s donuts, check cashing, and a flash of pride when you light up the punny sign from whence it all came.
You toyed briefly with the idea of adding a spices section and changing the name to Thyme to Need the Dough, but all your friends agreed that would just be loquacious.
100 Word Life Plans 