That does it.

I've had enough.

I've had enough of trying to open the hundred and fifty+ a day work emails as fast as they come in. I've had enough of hurriedly typing my blog posts on trains and posting them surreptitiously. No more can I stand checking my phone at the end of the day and seeing I have 16 voice mails, all of which will generate hours more work. No more can I abide being micro-managed to the very fiber of my micro-thin tights.

Forget it.

I quit.

I guit....reality.

That's right. No more will I be sad over losing the house. I won't be upset over the turkey carving that is my skin cancer woes and I won't spend another moment going over IVF stats. I will not stress that I am not pretty enough, and I will never need to agonize over which book to read next in my study.

I am going to start living my life as a soap opera. I mean a real one, as opposed to the craggy soap opera it already is. It's time that I rushed headlong into my new world, my new soap opera world, and embraced the melodrama that life should be.

*********************************************

I stretch on my white satin sheets, startling Moppet, my white persian cat, who goes to sit on a nearby chair stretched with white damask and watches me daintily. I sit up in bed and catch sight of myself in the mirror opposite-my makeup and hair is as perfect as it was just before I went to bed. I smooth one tiny spot of blue eyeshadow carefully, in case the whole palette cracks, and then I float out of bed.

I swirl into the living room in my pink chiffon gown. My YSL kitten heels with the little feathers over the toes make sweet graceful sounds on the tiled floors of my 1920's Spanish villa, built in 1982. Sighing dramatically, I float down onto the pink chinz couch.

"Are you all right Madame?" comes an accented voice from the door.

"I need my morning ritual, Consuela." I tell my maid. Not one to give in to service industry stereotypes, Consuela is from Norway. Her real name is also Marit but she indulges me and lets me call her Consuela.

"Now Madame," Consuela said, walking forward and whisking a blond braid behind her ear. "You take on too much stress. Organizing this charity tug-of-war is too much for you." She hands me three pills and a champagne cocktail. I look at one of the pills and see that one of the letters has been crossed off, but I can just about make out the word "Xanax".

"Consuela, this is folic acid, right? Remember-Tom Cruise said no one would need to take medication if they had scientology and vitamins. Tom Cruise wouldn't lie to us. He wouldn't be a posing chutney ferret who preys on women's sensitivities or anything. He would only ever speak the truth."

"Yes Madame. Uh...Xanax is uh...the manufacturer! Yes! The manufacturer of a new vitamin, one designed to prevent sagging breasts!"

"Oh....well I'll have four of them then!" I say brightly, and wash them all down with my champagne. I hand her the glass. "I can't remember the last time I was up this early," I say, consulting my watch. It is 2 pm, and I am so tired.

There is a knock at the door.

Consuela goes to answer it. I realize the new maid uniform I bought her from Chanel makes her ass look big. This pleases me, I shall buy more of them for her.

Consuela opens the door and in walks a stunningly handsome and rugged man. He looks handsome now, but time will not be as kind to him and in twenty years the male pattern baldness he has will make his ears look like dinner plates. He glowers at me.

"Chadwick! I say, gasping.

A sudden throng of eerie organ music echoes through the house.

We look around to see who might be playing organ music in my house.

"When did you come back to Whistling Pines?" I gasp, my hand at my throat. Consuela closes the door and walks to her maids quarters. Chadwick starts to watch her but when he sees the size of her ass his eyes revert back to me. Am definitely buying more of those maids' uniforms.

"I came back for Lila. I came back to get her and take her away to my cabin in the mountains."

"You mean the cabin where the militants held her hostage in their protest over GM corn? The one where she had a nervous breakdown before having a raunchy affair with Dingo, the GM corn crop protest leader in a Stockholm Syndrome Patty Hearst moment? The one where Dingo was gunned down and died in Lila's arms, with her swearing to kill 'every motherfucker within a five mile radius', as she said, which then prompted her two years in an institution where she acted like she was an eggplant?"

"Yes, that cabin. The bad memories of that place will have passed for her. She'll be fine there. After all, I've hung new curtains." he growls.

I run my hand on a crystal decanter nearby. "Lila is gone." I say, not looking at him.

"What? What are you talking about, Demeter?" The way he says my name is so vulgar, so common, so incredibly hot. "Where is she?"

I smile. "My evil twin sister can no longer torment the fine people of Whistling Pines. She's gone."

He looks at me. "Where is she? Did you eat her? I see you have something of a tiny pot belly growing there."

I pull my robe closed and tighten the sash forcefully. That asshole. "I couldn't possibly have eaten Lila. I'm a vegetarian. Gwenyth Paltrow advises it. No, it's worse. She's gone...hare krishna!"

"What?" he says incredulously. Organ music echoes again through the house.

"OK, I lied." I reply. He looks at me in anger. "Lila is...she's...well it's just too painful for me." I look away, tears glistening in big fat drops over my perfectly made-up eyes.

I turn back to him and know my mascara is running down my face expertly. "She's become...a soccer mom!"

Chadwick falls to his knees. "No! No! It's not true!"

"In the 15 years that have passed since you left her and was presumed dead after your car was swept off that mountain road and attacked by a crazed pack of freak wild elephants before blowing up, Lila changed! Once we heard your head had been found in an elevator shaft, she had to move on! She married, has two kids, drives a minivan!"

He sobs.

"She wears clothes from Ann Taylor Loft and loves her purple cashmere twinsets!"

He wails.

"And her husband is...he's...he's an orthodontist!"

Chadwick becomes unglued. He stands and grabs me.

"I need you Demeter! I need you like I never needed a woman before!"

"But you didn't always need a woman before, Chadwick! You were experimenting with prime time homosexuality long before Misha Barton!" I reply, scanning his eyes.

"That was different!" he growls. "I need to throw you on the bed and have a long and complicated relationship with you, one with a white wedding in which 40 million viewers will tune in to before we divorce after you have an affair with the cabana boy."

"The cabana boy is so 80's, Chadwick. No one does the cabana boy anymore, it's as passe as Ben Affleck. I'll be leaving you for Mary, a former criminal turned biker chick, who it turns out is actually a man in drag hiding under the witness protection program!" I whisper, running my fingers over his lips.

His face lights up. "I like that." he says, and reaches in to kiss me.

"But wait!" I cry. You're my father's sister's brother's son's nephew! You're also my cousin and half-brother, twice removed! You're also my gardener-"

"But all your roses out front are dead."

"You've been away for 15 years, what do you expect! We can't do this! Think of the church! Think of what the neighbors will say! Think of the genetic mutations this pairing can render!"

"I'm impotent." He whispers. "I use a pump. You'll be just fine."

He sweeps me up the staircase and into the bedroom as the camera focus goes soft and starry and crashing and swelling classical music plays.

*********************************************

With a sigh, I open my email. I turn on my phone and start listening to messages, while dialing in to conference calls at the same time. I have just enough time to juggle two calls before catching a train to London and working late there.

-H.

PS-my blog turns two next week. Scary. Amazing. And you know what? Rewarding.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:47 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 1481 words, total size 8 kb.

1 I hope you enjoyed your little fantasy, it sounded like a lot of fun!

Posted by: Hannah at June 10, 2005 11:46 AM (UdFzX)

2 OMG, Helen. You are too funny! I hope today is a better work day.

Posted by: justme at June 10, 2005 01:17 PM (nSxBx)

3 You are the first thing I read once I reach work. You make my day!

Posted by: Jennifer at June 10, 2005 02:00 PM (lHvU3)

4 I've had daydreams eerily similar to this. Thanks for my Friday morning giggle.

Posted by: Tif at June 10, 2005 05:00 PM (jCFyL)

5 I'm alive & well and finally back in the saddle. I need to catch up with your blog, but my pager just went off....

Posted by: ~Easy at June 10, 2005 09:03 PM (/Lhqp)

6 That is the BEST story I have read lately!! Won't you write a book? Happy blog birthday.

Posted by: kenju at June 10, 2005 10:43 PM (5U8GF)

7 And here I thought that you'd actually quit. I want your pink feathered slippers.

Posted by: sporty at June 11, 2005 12:42 AM (56gUM)

8 You're just precious, Helen.

Posted by: dawn at June 12, 2005 06:12 PM (Dh1V0)

9 Everytime I think I couldn't possibly love you any more...

Posted by: Sue at June 13, 2005 05:57 AM (M7kiy)

Hide Comments | Add Comment