Tag: mean lady

Brooke vs. Lady

At the risk of sounding desperate and pathetic, can I send this to the Angry Life Changing Email lady?

I’m not sure where it falls on the continuum between being rightfully assertive and crazy-angry, but it feels so good inside. That probably means I should keep it to myself. You know my policy, though: full disclosure. Here goes.

Dear Stacey:

I think you’re right. Clearly, I misunderstood the objective.

I wrote about life-changing moments. You are collecting LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS! The difference (I mean, besides the ALL CAPS which say: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY READ THIS!) is whether or not the alleged “moment” is accessible to the reader in his own life, or entirely out of his reach.

The thing about life changing moments, Stace (can I call you that?) is that they’re different for everyone, and they don’t typically happen with fireworks and a bullhorn, although I’ve heard that in some states an e-mail is sent confirming you’ve just had one. My friend got one. She lives in Arizona.

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback. I have appropriately renamed my collection of short stories: Unauthenticated Life Changing Moments.

Brooke

PS. I’ve put together a quiz for anyone wondering if they’ve experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please take a few moments to answer the following questions:

1. Was your experience accompanied by a bright light? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

2. Did you see any Aliens? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

3. Did people around you congratulate you for your experience? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

4. Have you been contacted by Oprah? If so, continue. If not, please skip to number 10.

5. Did your experience involve at least 3 of the following: a massive car accident, being dead for 40 minutes and coming back to life, inexplicably growing a pair of fairy wings, the realization that your father is actually your half-brother, a magic beanstalk, a 30-day stay in a drug/alcohol treatment facility, a close encounter with a poisonous snake, a chance meeting with Audrina Patrige from The Hills, a unicorn sighting. If so, continue to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

6. Have you ever felt like you had extraordinary powers but no one could see them but you? If so, continue to the next question. If not, skip to number 10.

7. Have you ever found yourself at “fork” in the road? If so, continue to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

8. While at the fork, did you feel a “tugging” over your soul? Were you inclined to begin narrating your own life out loud? If you answered yes to both questions, continue to number 9. If not, please skip to question 10.

9. Congratulations. You have officially experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please consider submitting your experience to our new line of books entitled, TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS.

10. I’m sorry, but you have not experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please try again at a later date.

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Back off, lady.

Hello.
Yes, I’d like some rejection, please.
And then for dessert, I’ll just have a big fat slice of rejection.
Thanks.

I thought unemployment was the worst. Turns out, unemployment is better than rejection.

I got two emails from a publishing company looking to collect inspirational short stories for an upcoming series. They wanted stories about life-changing moments, a thousand words or less, and if they liked what they read, they would hire me on a contract basis to continue to submit stories, and then to interview others with the hopes of uncovering more life-changing moments.

I believed that inspirational life-changing chicken soup for the soul-ish moments were sort of my thing. I mean, have you seen the blog? They had. So I rewrote some old stories—ones about quitting jobs, moving to other countries, car accidents, death, birth, adoption. I sent in samples of life-changing moments in the middle of life-changing, or sometimes just ordinary, experiences. We had been emailing for days so I could get a clear understanding of what they were looking for. We seemed to be a good match.

In return, I received this:

Brooke,

I may not have been clear; the stories we accept are truly ONLY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS – not simply nice little stories. Please let me know which of the ones you have attached would be best considered a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Thanks.

Were the ALL CAPS really necessary? Isn’t that sort of aggressive for an email? It’s like she’s yelling at me in type.

For normal people life-changing moments don’t happen with fireworks and a bullhorn. Usually they happen on a stoop or in the back of a pick-up truck or something. I sort of thought the decision to relocate to a developing country would make the cut, or learning how to say ‘I love you’ in French, or being run over by a semi, or a simple conversation with an 8 year-old from the B&GC. But, apparently, those are not TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS, and I guess there are people whose entire jobs are to decide which moments in a girl’s life are TRULY LIFE CHANGING or not.

On top of that, I got an email from the Parkview Housekeeping Department thanking me for my application and explaining that they had decided to go with someone more qualified. The housekeeping department.

Where do I go from here?

(Dairy Queen)
(The liquor store)
(The cookie isle)
(Pizza roles)
(Uplifting and encouraging star 88.3)
(Greys/The office/30 Rock)