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CHAPTER 1
MY LIFE IS AWESOME! AND GREAT!
I! LOVE! MY LIFE! MY life is awesome and great! I have all the things anyone would ever want! I have awesome friends! I have an awesome partner for life! I have a window to look out of! It is under the roof that is over my head! You would love my life too if you had it, but you don't, because I do! I! Am not trying to say that I don't ever cry! Who could say that? No one but a very repressed person! That is why I would never say that! I am only trying to say that even though I sometimes cry, like when my aunt dies or when my awesome life partner is sad, that doesn't mean that my life isn't awesome and great, because it is! My life has many feelings and one of them is being sad! Being able to be sad when sadness comes is part of what makes my life so awesome and great! I have tried to be happy when I am sad and that has only made me sadder! And sometimes angry! So I don't do that anymore! You shouldn't either! It's unrealistic! If you are reading books like How to Be Happy or buying fancy stationery or bubble bath because you think it will make you happy, it won't! Don't do it! Fancy stationery is nice and so is bubble bath but these are special treats! Do not think they are anything more! They aren't! Plus, you cannot learn how to be happy from a book! Except if it's Jonathan Livingston Seagull! Then you can!
Let me tell you something else! I don't have lots of money! I'm not saying I wouldn't like more money! Send me some! I am just saying that sometimes when I have money I am happy and sometimes I am still sad and sometimes when I don't have money I am also sometimes happy and sometimes sad! Sometimes when I have money or when I don't, I feel jealous! Or suspicious! Or bemused! These are just a few of the many things that are part of my awesome and great life of feeling! You might ask, how can anyone be happy when there are so many problems in the world! And I would say, those things make me sad too! But I am still happy! You know that old cliché where if you don't eat your brussels sprouts your parents say something like, "There are children starving all over the world," and you're supposed to be grateful and eat your brussels sprouts, except usually it doesn't work and you just mope in your plate and push your brussels sprouts around so it seems like you're eating them gratefully and feeling sadness for the starving children worldwide but really you are neither eating them nor grateful? Well that is not me! I am grateful! Also I like brussels sprouts! They are actually quite flavorful, especially with lots of butter! Many things are good with lots of butter! Like artichokes!
You might be saying, "I cannot relate to your awesome and great life!" But listen to this! Not so long ago, on top of these awesome things, I also had a good job! Except I was fired! I was not feeling so good about that! I had feelings of rejection and uneasiness! Mixed with surprise! I thought I was a competent worker, but in my review they gave me only a seventy-three percent competence rating! Did that stop me from walking out of there with my stapler and my ivy plant and my head held high? No! I believe that my positive attitude alone put my competence rating at no less than eighty percent! And that is respectable! Most importantly, though, I am a person who sees opportunity in times of trouble, and I knew that this was the universe's way of telling me it was time to pursue my dream of being on reality television! You might say, "That is a foolish thought," but I would say, "Maybe, maybe not!" I believe that when you have a dream of being on reality TV, as I did, and a chance comes, you must take it! So I did!
Unfortunately, it is not as easy to become a star of reality television as you might think, but I did not let that stop me! My first choice was to go on that show where you race around the world! Called Race around the World! Wouldn't that be so much fun, I thought! But my life partner wasn't as into that as I was, so I didn't! Because it would not be so much fun to be on so many airplanes without him! This was when I remembered that I am an awesome singer! So I drove to the closest place where they had tryouts for Be a Famous Star! Which was not so close at all, it was all the way over in Gary, Indiana! That was sure interesting! You may not know that there are long lines of people who try out for Be a Famous Star! But there are! Or that it is very cold waiting in the long lines in the parking lot of the U.S. Steel Yard in Gary, Indiana in March, but that doesn't stop people from coming! Not even people in wheelchairs! Not all of these people can sing, though, which I thought would be to my advantage! But it really wasn't! Because the judges did not think I looked like a famous star! One of the celebrity judges said my voice was not bad! The mean one asked me if I was planning to keep shopping at the Rainbow Stores! I thought that was especially mean because what is wrong with the Rainbow Stores? They have good prices and contemporary styles! I asked him if this competition was about looks or about music and he laughed like I should know it was about looks! I boldly asked him if I shopped somewhere besides Rainbow Stores would they send me to Hollywood? And do you think he said yes? No! I had more feelings of rejection, but remember when I said there were people in wheelchairs? Well, one of them was waiting for his brother to audition after me and he saw my look of rejection and said "Sorry" to me and I thought, someone in a wheelchair feels sorry for me? That can't be right! I asked him why he was in a wheelchair and he said he had a rare disease whereby he could not bump into anything or he would have severe internal bleeding! I said, "That is so terrible! Have you ever tried to go on that show where they give people miracle cures?" And do you know what? He said to me, "You will not believe this but I was rejected from that show!" And he was right! I didn't believe it! And what else is unbelievable is remember he was consoling me! That was when I knew he was an especially nice person! I said, "That does not make any sense! Who could need a miracle more than you?" And do you know what he said? He told me that they chose to go with a blind woman! A plain old blind woman! I said, "That does not seem very interesting!" He told me that she had also recovered from cancer and that gave her the edge! I said, "Too bad you didn't recover from cancer!" And he said, "I know, right?"
You might think I was pretty discouraged by this point, but I was not! Because there are lots of reality television shows! I tried out for many of them! And was uniformly rejected! Even by some game shows! Like the one where you go grocery shopping really fast! That has always seemed like a lot of fun to me! Also, I would like to guess which suitcase has the most money! That show is suspenseful! I even tried out for two whole shows where you have to eat bugs! And I do not think I would like that! That is how much I would like to be on TV! Thankfully you do not have to eat them on the tryouts! So that's good! But they too rejected me! Plus, my awesome life partner was not so happy that I was not spending my time trying to pursue a reality job, and was no longer so interested in hearing about my life's dream! We were experiencing some difficulties in our relationship during which I began to suspect that he was cheating. How I guessed this was by him coming home very late at night over and over again and calling me Rita which is not my name, and also we were getting a lot of hang-ups that said Walker, Rita on the caller ID, which was not the name of any friend of mine, which was when I got the idea to try to get on that reality show where they secretly investigate your life partner to see if they are cheating, and guess what? They chose me!
Of course, it is not so great when you discover that your life partner is cheating! I did not realize that on this show, Catch a Cheating Partner, they do not ever use people whose partners do not cheat! Those episodes go right into the trash! I was very saddened to discover that my awesome life partner, who I did not think was so awesome right then, had indeed taken up with someone else! Who in my opinion was a very trashy ho based on her clothing very obviously not coming from anyplace like the Rainbow Stores, more like the Rainy Day I'm a Ho Stores! Why I feel like I can say this is that when they showed me the videotape of Rita Walker totally making out with my life partner you could see that her skirt barely covered her tired old raggedy ass! More like Rita "Street" Walker if you know what I mean! The good news is that through the disappointing experience of becoming a reality TV star on Catch a Cheating Partner, I realized that being on television was not going to make me happy even though secretly I still wanted to try out for one more show that might turn out more positively, such as the one where you become an intern to a mogul with a weird beard! Because you can win a lot of money on that show and become famous! Except I didn't! Because when the casting director noticed my long resume of TV show tryouts and said something like, "I think you might be avoiding your real life," I suddenly saw that I did have a problem with avoiding real life! My life partner agreed to go to couples counseling and we became stronger than ever after I joined a recovery program for my reality issues! Thanks to my higher power I no longer feel that TV fame will solve all my problems today! Not even! I am now hoping to pursue the growing field of mystery shopping! Because it sounds like fun to go shopping for a job! And mysterious!
You may still be saying, "That is very exciting, but your life is still not so awesome and great!" But let me tell you that there was a time when I did not realize how awesome and great my life was! Sometimes it is not so easy to see during times of trouble like I just told you about! Sometimes you have to just be happy that a tiny cute bird lands on your windowsill! Both because of the bird's cuteness but also because of having a windowsill! That's not nothing! During this time I could often be heard crying to my therapist, "I don't know what to do!" Over and over! My therapist would say, "Do this!" or, "Do that!" and I would say, "No!" And for a time I remained unaware of the awesome greatness of my life!
You might be saying, "If I have a dream of being on reality TV, will I be in danger of addiction like you?" And I would say, "Not necessarily!"
You might also be saying, "What if I have clinical depression?" I would say to this, "That is not what I am talking about! Perhaps medication would be right for you! Try it!"
You might also be saying, "I live in a Third World country! Your life is bourgeois!" Which is a fancy word meaning you have money! And you would be right! If you live in a Third World country it is a whole different kind of hard for you! It is harder to see the beauty in a Third World country, I am sure! But it is there!
Sometimes when I cannot find a parking spot near my house, and I pass by spots that are too small for my car to fit in by about only one inch, I feel frustrated until I remember that I have a car and that it still goes! Then I feel a grateful feeling! Because of having legs to walk a few blocks to my house! I could probably use the exercise anyway! And no longer am I perturbed about the orange El Camino that's been parked in the same spot right in front of my house for many weeks with many tickets on it, which would be such a cool car if it ever went which it seems not to! Unless the guy who owns it just likes looking at it from his window! How would I know? Maybe it reminds him of the good old days when his dad used to let him ride in the back with his dog Sweeney; before his dad became suicidal and threw himself in front of a milk truck! Maybe he got it on eBay for three dollars! You don't know! Which brings me to my final point!
Let's say you have an orange El Camino that does not go and it seems obvious that you should feel distraught, especially if you do not have any other car that goes and unlike me you do not have two legs to walk to your house, you only have one! You would have a right to feel many things! You might feel anger toward people who do not have to hop on one leg! Why wouldn't you? You might feel resentful because of there being so many pairs of pants in the world with two legs in them! Or maybe you would feel so tired you wouldn't even try to hop anywhere and so you'd feel super lonely staying home watching two-legged people filling out their pants on TV all the time! You could feel many things that might all be of a despairing nature, and you could feel many other things of a joyful nature! Feelings aren't facts! That is an expression I heard! Here is a secret! You can choose to love your life even if or possibly even because you have a truck that does not go! This is the truth! Believe it!
CHAPTER 2
BETTY THE ZOMBIE
BETTY THE ZOMBIE WANTS TO CHANGE. How her husband knows this is he asked her, and she said, "Eeeeeeeehhhh!" which he finally determined to mean yes. (There had been a long process of trial and error in understanding Betty's speech, but in a climactic moment under the covers, Betty's trademark shout sounded much like her response to his question.) Betty the zombie's husband, Ed, loves her very much, but finds it hard to help her meet her special needs while also not becoming a zombie himself.
The back story on Betty and Ed is they'd been high school sweethearts. Ed was the kind of average-looking guy no one noticed one way or another, the type who might have bumped up into handsome if he'd had any style at all, but he hadn't. Betty was pretty in that sort of way where there's nothing really wrong with her and nothing really outstanding about her, although she did have really shiny hair that she wore in a nice flip. She thought it was shiny because she used Prell but really it was just because. Ed had the locker next to Betty's and noticed her shiny hair one day and she noticed that he was in the A.V. club, which she thought was really cool, which gives you an idea of both Betty and Ed. Even Ed knew A.V. wasn't cool. Ed was also really into race walking, which Betty did know wasn't cool, but she appreciated that he was physically fit. Betty and Ed continued on to Lombard Junior College where Ed dropped out after one semester to go into the family business of rivets even though he had hoped to someday pursue being a television producer. It sounded exciting, although Ed never did know exactly what that meant or how to go about it, and a search of the Tribune classifieds that turned up nothing proved enough to discourage him back into rivets. Betty transferred from LJC to a secretarial school because she was told by her mother that every girl should have typing to fall back on. Betty didn't have much of an idea at that time of what she wanted to fall forward onto, and felt some resistance to the idea of typing for a living, but didn't have any better plans. Plus she was a good girl so she usually did what her mom said even if it made her a little bit bitter inside.
They were married at the Lombard County Courthouse as soon as Betty graduated from typing school. Betty wore a cream-colored maxi-dress she crocheted herself and Ed wore sandals and a daisy in his lapel. That tells you what era it was. It sounds like they might have been hippies but they weren't. They were peace-loving, but you'd hardly have caught them marching anywhere, ever. They just wouldn't have thought of it. Ed, at this time, may have worn sandals to his wedding, but he was also still using Brylcreem.
Betty and Ed tried to have kids right away and they kept trying for a long time, and the long and short of it is that it just never happened. One time Betty missed her period and gained ten pounds and they were hopeful, but it was for naught. It was only because Betty really liked Pringles. They stacked. Betty learned to knit during this time and knitted a lot of hats and booties but mostly she just accumulated a lot of yarn, and then she accumulated a lot of hats and booties that were never to be worn. But still Betty and Ed were more or less happy, considering their childlessness. They got a dog and that helped a little. They called him Boone.
How Betty became a zombie was when another zombie took a bite out of her as she was digging through the remnant bin at JoAnn's Fabric and Crafts. Although Betty and Ed were aware of a recent outbreak of zombies downstate, this woman did not look to Betty like a zombie, so when the woman took this bite out of her she was quite alarmed. At first Betty and Ed did not put it together. Lombard, Illinois was a typically unremarkable suburb. There had been no reports of zombies anywhere in the greater Chicagoland area even, so they at first assumed this woman, who was never caught, had simply been insane. Betty went to the doctor and he stitched up the bite and prescribed some antibiotics, but it wasn't long before the wound began to fester and grow, and when Ed would say, "What do you want for dinner," Betty was having to fight the impulse to tell her husband that what she wanted most for dinner involved a big heaping portion of Ed. So, instead, for a while they ate a lot of steak and Betty would eat hers "rare," which Ed happened to notice was more like if Betty had taken the steak and waved it over the grill for a second, at a height of two feet.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "You Must Be This Happy to Enter"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Elizabeth Crane.
Excerpted by permission of Punk Planet Books/Akashic Books.
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