Be a heroine

One of my writing heroines has died. Nora Ephron, New Yorker, screen writer and general wit died a week ago, aged 71.

As a blogger, I have been considering Nora’s famous piece of advice, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. When you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.’

Nora had a knack of turning her life experiences into witty insightful entertainment. After being cheated on and left (in a very undignified manner) by her husband, she turned the entire episode into a hit book and film. She said, “I knew the moment my marriage ended that someday it might make a book – if I could just stop crying. One of things I’m proudest of is that I managed convert an event that seemed to me hideously tragic at the time to a comedy – and if that’s not fiction, I don’t know what is."

Here was a woman who lived by her own philosophy, “Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.”

Thanks Nora for your wit and words. I’ll end with the lists that closed what would become your final book, but right now I’ve got to run – I’ve got a bikini to slip into.

"Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're thirty-four."   ~ Nora Ephron.

What I won't miss

Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 32 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox TV
The collapse of the dollar
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night

What I will miss

My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie

Do you know who I am?

Yesterday a rather haughty customer in Natwest made the bank clerk cry. Ok, so the girl working in the bank was making some pretty fundamental mathematical errors, but there was really no need for the tone the woman adopted.

I mean, I agree that a job in a bank wasn’t the best choice for a girl whose mental arithmetic was ropey at best, but the poor lass, it was all too much.

As someone who held a part-time job in the glamorous Wolverhampton City Centre branch of McDonalds for 3 years, I am well versed in the manners of the general public, and have a high level of sympathy. 

People are so rude. Let me tell you now: a baseball cap does not an idiot make.  I had stars.

So, in light of the crying Natwest lass, and of the Saturday’s I spent serving surly teenagers big-macs, I thought I’d share my favourite story about the revenge of the ‘staff.’

Take heed. Don’t be mean to the Saturday staff, they might be quicker witted than you're  expecting. 

A parable: On why not to be rude to ‘staff.’

A crowded flight was cancelled. A single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travellers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk and slapped his ticket down on the counter, saying. “I have to be on this flight, and it has to be first class.”

The agent replied, “I’m sorry sir. I’ll be happy to try and help you, but I’ve got to help these people first, and then I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, “Do you know who I am?”

Without hesitating, the gate agent grabbed the public address system and began, “May I have your attention please? We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him with this problem, please come to the gate.”

With the rest of the passengers laughing, the man glared at the agent, gritted his teeth and swore “[expletive!] you!”

Without flinching, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry sir, but you’ll have to stand in line for that too.”

----

For more of my McDonalds exploits read this previous blog post

The tables are turned

Regular readers and fans of the ‘ridiculous-things-my-other-half-utters’ posts may be interested to learn that the other half appears to be getting his own-back.

Yesterday, I stumbled across a piece of paper, on which my own words were written.

Turns out he’s been keeping a note of things I’ve been saying.

I am not happy with this sudden and unexpected turn of events, but thought I would share the single entry he’d written on a torn out page of my note pad.

Rachel: “Luckily for you, you are funnier than you are annoying.”

Me: (meaning him, not me) "Ha, great."

Rachel: “Considering how incredibly annoying you are, this really is quite the compliment.”

Gosh, I really do say the nicest things.

To see what I have to put up with, you can read my previous post right here.