Bee Story
I was working at my computer when I heard the angry buzzing of a bee. He had managed to find his way into the house and now wanted out in the worst possible way. I don’t kill insects, unless you count mosquitoes and horse flies, and then only if they are biting/have bitten me, so they deserve it. Anyway, I went running into the kitchen to get a spatula and a drinking glass. I pull off this rescue maneuver frequently, so I’m kind of an expert at it. First, I wait patiently for the bee to land on a window pane, then I trap it under the drinking glass, and finally, slide the spatula under the inverted glass to contain the bee before releasing it back outside.
So, I trapped the bee, who seemed more agitated than most bees in this situation, and then I swiftly slid the spatula between the glass and the window pane but then something went terribly wrong. At first I was confused because I thought I saw the bee drop from the glass onto the windowsill below. But that was crazy, because when I looked, the bee was still in the glass! Were there two bees? I was horrified to see that what fell to the windowsill was only the bottom half of the bee. The bee’s top half was under the spatula, still in the glass.
It actually took a several seconds for the bee’s top half to stop its angry buzzing.
At first I was pretty freaked out. Clearly, even though it wasn’t my intention, my actions caused the bee’s gruesome demise. Initially, I felt sad, and terribly guilty, but then, I remembered the way the incident unfolded.
The bee was out of control from the start. I employed a time-honored method to help him help himself. If he hadn’t been so freaking impatient, he’d be zooming around my backyard right now, pollinating crap or making honey or doing whatever it is that bees do in their spare time. But not him. By working himself into a frenzy, he effectively transformed the spatula from a doorway to freedom into his own personal guillotine. Then, even in death, he insisted on holding onto his anger even longer than he held onto his bottom half.
The world is short one massively pissed-off bee. Somehow, I’m having a hard time feeling too bad about it.
Tyra(nny)
Last summer, my daughter Eliza got four tickets to a taping of The Tyra Banks Show. My only exposure to Tyra was from America’s Next Top Model, and she seemed like an okay sort, especially when compared to the silicone-packed coke-ravaged wigged-out nightmare known as Janice Dickinson.
Anyway, I’d never been to a talk show taping before. It sounded like it might be fun, or at least different.
The day before the taping they had e-mailed a list of acceptable attire. No jeans or sneakers. No bright white or bold patterns. “Think business casual.” When we arrived at the studio, we stood in a long line as production assistants trolled up and down, inspecting us. Finally, those who passed muster were let in and herded to a holding room where we sat in uncomfortable plastic chairs and listened to an extremely entertaining flagrantly gay guy bring us up to speed on Tyra Show dos and don’ts. We were to clap like trick seals when Tyra made her entrance. Under no circumstances were we to touch Tyra. “If she walks down the aisle near you, you can look, but don’t touch. You know why?”
We shook our heads.
“She’s wired for sound,” he told us. “All over. Even her booty. You touch her, she could short out. And let’s talk about her weave. If you venture anywhere near her hair, she will kill you. I am 100% sincere about that.”
We were finally taken by elevator up to the studio, where the crew began the task of seating us. The young and attractive were placed toward the front and on the aisles for maximum exposure. The old, the obese, the less expensively dressed, and the homely were herded into the back rows and out of sight. The production assistants were ruthless. They separated a bewildered gray-haired mother from her college-aged daughter. Two friends who’d come together were split up, the chunky one shoved to the back, and the skinny one escorted to the front. They started amassing a sidebar group, which included several very elderly Asian couples, a woman with a severe facial deformity and two physically challenged people in wheelchairs, who were then told to wait. I held my breath, wondering whether they might be taken out and shot, when, to my surprise, they were directed to the front. I was beginning to think the show wasn’t as overtly insidious as it seemed. However, when they began taping, I realized that this group of people had been seated up front behind the cameras, ensuring not only could they not be seen, they could not see.
I’m sad to say that despite the sinking, soul-killing feeling, we played along. We sat where they placed us. We smiled and clapped on cue. Afterwards, the girls and I talked about how we felt as if we’d stumbled into, and participated in, a very dark hoax. We never even watched the broadcast of the show.
Retraction
Remember the teaching job I didn’t get last week? Well, I just begun to truly embrace the prospect of lounging around in my pajamas all day and getting in touch with my inner sociopath when fortune somehow reversed itself and the school offered me a job teaching middle school English, which I knee-jerk reactively accepted.
This was great news! Wasn’t it? It was! Wasn’t it? I realized that the source of my ambivalence lay in my own remarkably effective ability to convince myself earlier in the week that I didn’t really want the job.
What were the reasons I was so gung-ho about teaching two weeks ago? Why couldn’t I remember them?
There was the free lunch with a generous salad bar that included shredded cheese and garbanzo beans.
There was the money.
Then, I remembered the main reason I wanted to teach! It’s the time-honored mantra of teachers, those two simple words teachers cleave to, the words that keep them climbing into those trenches, day after day…until the middle of May, that is.
Summers Off!
Crafts
Four times a year, I am asked by my publisher to write a newsletter for the kids who read our books. One of the standard features is a section on arts and crafts.
This started me reminiscing about my childhood days at summer camp. The summer I was eleven, I spent hours in the craft barn at Camp Woodstock. I made:
a hammered tin ashtray
a mosaic ashtray
a set of eight pressed cork cocktail coasters
and, the piece de resistance:
a pastel blue ceramic combination ashtray /cocktail holder.
In today’s newsletter, I showed kids how to make a homemade hacky-sack out of lentils and an unmatched sock. Then I told them if they ever wanted to start making some crafts that didn’t totally suck, they might want to consider encouraging their parents to smoke and drink.
Bird
This morning, just after 6 A.M., Sam and I were roused from slumber by a little bird outside our window. This bird was not tweeting or chirping or making any of those classic Disney movie trilling sounds. Like an eighteen-wheeler backing into a loading dock, this bird was beeping.
I’d never heard a bird beep before. I’m not a bird person, so while I didn’t know what brand of bird it was, I did know pretty quickly that I wanted it to go beep near someone else’s window—preferably someone I hate a lot who also lives in another state.
The bird was infuriating. Sometimes it would beep twice, sometimes three times. It would pause between the beeps for a very long time, long enough so that you were lulled into thinking the beeping had stopped, and then it would start up again. Sam and I lay there, our spines tense with anxiety. Which beeping sequence would it be this time? Beep, beep? Or beep beep beep? Our diabolical feathered foe was deliberately sidestepping a predictable pattern.
Sam tried to make a joke of it. “Beep beep” means “I’m cool,” and “beep beep beep” means “I’m so cool.”
At first I laughed… until I realized Sam was right. The little fucker thought he was better than us! He was messing with our minds, and something had to be done, something swift and sure, something involving a BB gun, a rusty sewing needle, and a small acetylene torch.
Animal cruelty? I think not. Try vigilante justice.
Looking at this picture of everyone in the kitchen in Nantucket celebrating Micah’s birthday makes me ridiculously happy.
Summer can’t get here fast enough.
Letter to The New Yorker
Dear Fiction Editor:
I familiarized myself with your publication. I assumed your tone, style, and artistic sensibility. I even tried networking, albeit with limited success ( ask LeVon the security guard and Al in the mailroom). I adhered to your pointless and exacting submissions guidelines. My lead sentences have hooks that could draw blood. Yet, you persist in not publishing me.
I could really use the exposure. My rent is three months overdue and my landlord has threatened me with eviction. The sheriff broke down my door yesterday, but after we had sex on my filthy mattress, he gave me another twenty-four hours before he’s coming back with the cattle prod. I can’t really stay here after tomorrow, anyway, because that’s when the electricity and water get shut off, which is unfortunate, because it’s twelve degrees outside and the baby already has a bad cold. I hope she doesn’t get any worse, because I don’t have health insurance. Actually, that doesn’t matter, because even if I needed to drive to the hospital, I couldn’t, because my Hyundai was repossessed last week. I would ask my husband to help out, but after he knifed that prison guard last week (okay, forked if you want to get technical), they put off his parole hearing until 2036. It sucks because all I have is my laptop, a package of ramen noodles, and, oh yes, my baby. I can’t forget about her, though I haven’t heard her labored breathing in a while, so I guess I’d better give her a look-see.
Did that get your attention? Okay, I made it up, but seriously, what does it take for you to notice me? It’s not like I consider myself God’s gift to writing or anything, but my stuff is every bit as readable as sixty percent of the crap you choose to print.
Here’s the deal: I have a plan. I figured out the real problem; you are obsessed with notoriety. If I happened to be a well-known author and I submitted some third-rate garbage I had lying around the house you’d be tripping over yourself to publish it. (Last month’s story by Jonathan Franzen is a case in point). Although I can’t become a famous writer by simply snapping my fingers, there’s no law on the books in the state in which I reside which prevents me from changing my name.
This should make accepting the enclosed manuscript a no-brainer.
Yours truly,
Joyce Carol Oates
