by Rebecca Maher
I never really got the big deal about aging. All those stupid greeting cards in the stores organized by age and the gag gifts about turning thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty. I’ve never seen one that goes above sixty so I guess they figure if you live that long you deserve to be left alone. The jokes about incontinence, balding, and impotence aren’t as funny when they’re actually true. Wouldn’t it be a gas to give a gag gift that comes in one of those “push down and turn” prescription type bottles to someone with arthritis? Why don’t they make Memory for Seniors? Think of the hours of side-splitting fun while grandma tries to recall the word for comb.
I just turned forty. Now I get it. And it’s not funny. It has really hit me since I joined Facebook. Facebook is like the fucking nightmare class reunion that never ends. You get to see how successful everyone has become and you get to see all the photos from their trips hiking the Alps, sipping wine in the middle of a vineyard as they sit perched on a quaint bicycle with a basket full of grapes, cheese, and crusty bread. I make myself feel better by imagining the mildew that must have surely grown in their showers since they’ve been out globetrotting. I’m hoping that the cherub-faced cheerleader they hired for the summer to housesit is screwing the garbage man on their sofa! I know it sounds wicked. Isn’t envy is one of those numbered deadly sins; I forget how many there are.
My dear sweet husband has always greeted me in the morning with the question “Did you have any dreams?” Lately my answer has been; “Yeah I used to, but then I got married and had kids and the whole thing went down the tubes.”
My dream was to be a writer, a comic, and to travel the world. Actually, I am a writer and a comic. I don’t make any money being either, but I am living a version of the dream. My kids think my impersonations of our dogs are hilarious. I give them voices and make them say things pertaining to certain situations. Like our Lab Phoebe who doesn’t want to go outside to do her business on a frigid January morning. She looks up at me without moving a muscle and gives me this look like “ Naw, I’m good; I just shit in the basement. Catch me later when the temperature rises above freezing.”
I should have been more specific with my fairy godmother; I wanted to be a successful writer and comic so that I can afford to travel the world. In my reality Tina Fey ain’t got nothin’ that I ain’t got. Sure, she’s got those damn Lisa Loeb glasses that make her look kinda sexy; but I saw her on the Young Comedians special hosted by Dennis Miller in the ‘80’s sans the glasses and she wasn’t that great. In fact, Rob Schneider and David Spade were also on the special and they were all pretty bad. Schneider did this bit about Elvis on a fish hook……I know. It wasn’t one of those “you had to be there” things. I was there, it never got any better. Thankfully Rob must have dropped the Elvis bit and was swept up with the rest of them for the following season of Saturday Night Live.
I don’t want to sell myself short, I have been published. I’m not quite sure if that’s the term for it but some of my writing has made its way out into the world. For the purposes of a bio, I have been published. Here’s how it happened. We bought the movie “Chocolate”; don’t ask why, I couldn’t say. Inside the packaging was an entry for a contest for Bacci chocolates. The chocolates have little poems inside the silvery foil. The contest was to write one of these little quips. The grand prize was a trip for two to Italy. I was going to go to Italy as a result of being a writer! My dream come true! Or the closest I was going get with two young boys; one with autism hanging from my apron. This is clever use of poetic license of course, I never wear an apron. Nevertheless, I was determined to win that prize. How hard could it be? All I needed was one sappy line having to do with love or chocolate or sweetness; or some variation of the three. I wrote my entry, kissed the envelope before I inserted it into the mailbox and waited. Weeks passed, maybe months then one day I received a letter from the candy people. Initially I thought it must have been a “thank you-but no” letter. But this wasn’t a book publisher; I doubted that they sent out rejection letters. So I stared at the envelope for several seconds before gingerly opening it with the antique pewter letter opener that belonged to my grandma. I figured it was a more sophisticated way to open a grand prize winning ticket to Italy rather than chewing off and spitting the corner of the envelope into the trash. I wasn’t going to tear it open leaving a jagged, haphazard mess of it and risk ripping my round-trip tickets. I had not, however, been chosen as the grand prize winner. I was the first runner-up. I hadn’t read past the part about the trip to Italy on the entry form, so I had no idea what my prize was to be. The letter informed me that as first runner-up I had won a year’s supply of Bacci Chocolates! That was all it said; no details. What constituted a “year’s supply?” Did they know how much chocolate the average person could consume on a weekly basis and multiply that by 52? Should I call when I ran out mid way through the year and ask for more because I hadn’t yet had my full year’s supply, glutton that I am.
The day of arrival I was gleeful. I won, I won, I had a prize and I was being published. I asked if I would actually see my brilliant literary gift in print inside any of the candies I would be receiving, but they said probably not. It was all right really because I can’t for the life of me remember what I wrote. I think it was something like “the sweetness brushes your lips like the gentle kiss of a butterfly” or some crap like that. I tore open the large cardboard box that contained over fifty boxes of cellophane wrapped silver and blue boxes of luscious chocolates. I determined that I could easily keep ten boxes for myself and still have enough left over for gifts for every birthday, anniversary, and Christmas for the next year. Imagine my shock when two days later a UPS lady showed up with two more large cardboard boxes. I now had 150 boxes of chocolates. I had gained eight pounds since the first delivery two days ago. Part of the problem was there was no variety. The candies were delicious, but let me warn you; when you say “I love jello, I bet I could eat it everyday.” I’d take that bet. Before the deluge of decadent delights I considered myself a chocoholic. Afterwards, I found myself offering boxes of candy to people on the street. I felt so metropolitan as I trudged out to give a box to my garbage man, my mailman, and the bum on the corner as I merrily wished them a Happy Christmas. By Christmas, I had barely made a dent in my cache of chocolates. By spring, I had gained fifteen pounds and the sight of chocolate made me gag. I felt like the King Midas of the candy world. When Easter came ‘round I wept as I filled my kids baskets full of chocolate bunnies, chocolate covered peanut butter eggs, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! I couldn’t escape it. Ironically the boxes lasted for a year, so someone had crunched the numbers and knew how many boxes were “a year’s supply”. Of course, my supply supplied: me, my entire family, every friend, acquaintance, and trick-or-treater in my neighborhood.
So, now that I’m forty and I wonder to myself what have I accomplished? I can say that although I haven’t realized all my dreams; I have had a life that I never could have dreamed of. I have a wonderful husband, two gorgeous boys. And, considering I’m forty, a decent rack. AND somewhere, someone is opening a Bacci candy and reading something I wrote!
Rebecca Maher is an author and performer that resides in, and is native to Trumbull County, Ohio. She is a student at Kent State University and is married with two children. Rebecca’s first play, Pancakes and a Lobster Tank, based on her experiences raising a son with autism, premiered in 2010. She is in the process of booking performances. Presently, a performance of this work is scheduled for the Chestnut Room at Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center on February 12, 2011.
She has recently completed a full memoir, which includes And The Winner Is… and her second play, Anxiety. In addition to her literary / theatrical endeavors, Rebecca is also a stand-up comedian that has performed to audience praise at local venues. To learn more about Rebecca and her work, or book a performance, please visit her official website at www.rebeccamaher.com.