Kerry Allen

Yay! They didn’t ban me for life after my last effort!

The transcript of the new matchmaker pilot I’m pitching to the Bravo network (kidding) is over at RTB today.

The premise: A cowboy, a cop, a billionaire, a Regency rake, a vampire, a villain, and Joe Average walk into a bar.

And it all goes downhill from there.

I had a bunch of REQUESTED MATERIAL to take to the post office. I wanted to do it Monday morning, but there was a line around the block (last-minute tax filers), so I put it off until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, it was nice and quiet at the post office. The first thing I noticed upon entering was the lack of the number dispenser. Oh, we’re now to be trusted to wait in a single-file line until it’s our turn to go to the clerk? Don’t be silly. Apparently one of yesterday’s disgruntled patrons picked it up and heaved it over the counter to express his displeasure, so the number dispenser is out of commission for a while.

I overheard this story because the sole clerk at the counter shared it with the customer she was with when I entered. She was still chatting 10 minutes later. No transactions taking place, just yakking.

After I’d been standing there for 20 minutes, surreptitiously trying to make the clerk’s head explode with my as-yet undiscovered telekinetic death ray, another clerk came to the counter and waved me forward. I’ve been through this before, knew what I was doing, had an efficient system in place that should have gotten me out of there in a mere 2 minutes. I put my envelopes in stacks on the counter. The 3-chapter requests have to go Priority Mail because of weight. First Class is fine for the 50-page requests. And may I please have a book of Forever stamps, please and thank you.

“Do you want to send this overnight?”

No, thanks. Priority Mail for these, First Class for these. And stamps. Please. He got through the Priority Mail stack without further incident. Then:

“Do you want to send this overnight?”

No. As I’ve already explained, I want this and everything else remaining in this pile sent First Class. Thanks.

“How about Priority Mail?”

For every single envelope left on the counter, we had to do the whole offer-of-every-option-other-than-the-one-I-specifically-requested-from-the-beginning rigamarole. I was with that guy for another 20 minutes, by which time my own head was in danger of exploding. Paid the man. Took my receipt. Thanked him for his tremendously thorough help. Stalked out to my car.

Where I realized that although I had been charged for stamps, I had not been handed them.

Needless to say, it was a wise decision not to put the number dispenser back out on the floor because on my second trip inside, I had given up on the death ray and was ready for batting practice.

I bypassed the line entirely. I entered through the exit area. The brave soul who voiced a protest shut up right quick when I gave him the crazy eye. I thrust my receipt toward the clerk, smiled (hey, I tried, even if it was more of a rictus-of-death thing at that point). Pardon me, sir, but you seem to have forgotten to give me my stamps.

“Well, you had so much stuff, I’m not surprised something got forgot.”

Bit my tongue. Got my stamps. Apparently teleported to my car through some sort of blood-red haze, since I don’t remember walking. Contemplated crashing my car through the glass wall in search of fleshy speed bumps. Decided against it because I just washed my car for the first time in a year and the tires are so shiny and clean.

Went home and investigated the feasibility of a digital scale and print-your-own postage in an attempt to avoid a future conviction for multiple murder if I ever have to go back to that place.

Remember, postage goes up a penny on May 12! Visit your local post office and show your support today!

I haven’t talked a whole lot about Wish List because it felt weird to me to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about a story that may never be available for your reading (dis)pleasure, but one of the people who has taken it upon herself to apply a cattle prod to my posterior assures me NOW IS THE TIME to start talking it up.

The beginning seemed the logical place to start, and since there was a specific event that spawned the story, I actually have an answer to that old “Where do you get your ideas?” question.

I was having an outing with some girlfriends, and as often happens when women gather, talk turned to that other gender and the collective dismay they had caused our group over the years. One finicky friend defended her finickiness, stating she simply wanted a man who would give her everything she wanted, whenever she wanted it, no questions and no complaints, and was that so much to ask? Another friend said, “Ah. You don’t want a man. You want a genie.”

There was the idea, and I jumped on it like a starving wolverine. What would it be like to have a man give you everything you want, whenever you want it, no questions and no complaints? I saw all kinds of comedic possibilities arising from poorly worded wishes combined with a deliberately obtuse genie. I cranked out the story. There was a lot of “be careful what you wish for” and a lot of tug-of-war between the heroine and the villainess because “possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Everybody who read it laughed, but I was becoming increasingly depressed. I felt bad for the genie. The poor guy’s a piece of property. He has no free will. He has no rights. His existence is defined by what his master allows him to be. He has to do any horrible thing he’s commanded to do. That isn’t funny. It’s horrifying!

There’s a good reason there’s not a whole lot of slave comedy. It takes a special kind of insensitivity to laugh at the abuse and exploitation of others.

I scrapped that story, but since I had become emotionally invested in the cast of characters, they were spared from execution. I started over with the backdrop that being a djinn (note the switch from “genie,” which is a much less cool word) is, for the most part, the opposite of fun. They’ve been used and abused and forced to commit atrocities. They’re damaged to the core.

And I’ve taken it upon myself to make it all better for them, starting with Revelan, who—at the tender age of ten—was denied the frailty of emotion after pity interfered with carrying out his master’s command.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, that’s it for “Where did you get your idea?” Maybe next I’ll talk about how that lovable (in most cases) cast of characters has evolved from their first incarnation, since in most cases the then-and-now resemblance is minimal.

Or maybe not. Requests? Whaddya wanna know?

(The only thing I won’t do is dispense writing advice. The very idea is laughable.)

Behold my celebratory GH Finalist gift basket:

I needed only a foundation refill, but Sephora is almost as seductive to me as a book or office supply store. Muchas gracias to Leslie Blodgett for expanding the Bare Escentuals skin care line. I have long felt the therapeutic value of my Bare Minerals usage was being undermined by washing and moisturizing with drugstore crap. My skin shall surely be flawless—unblemished, supple, shine-free, and sans pores big enough to park a van in—within a fortnight.

There goes my backup career plan to open a parking garage on my face.

I won’t get to the books until I grind my way through WL revisions, but they are all short-listed, joining Marjorie Liu in the living room rather than being consigned to the TBR shelf in the hall.

Trolls may rob me of my enthusiasm, but they’ll get my Commemorative 2008 Golden Heart® Finalist: Paranormal PSP (Rabid Gamer Friend is making me a custom skin) when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Sephiroth, prepare to be pwned as you have never been pwned before… by Angelic Daughter, because I’m not allowed to have any fun until April 16. But then… then I will be on you like a chocobo on gysahl greens.

“Comradery” is not a word.

Hey, I know what you meant. We’re comrades, ne c’est pas? I tried to use that word myself once, so I know from personal experience spellcheck hates it so much, it doesn’t even suggest the correct spelling of “camaraderie.” That persistent squiggly red underline was my cue to consult a dictionary.

That’s probably the only reason this one is sticking in my craw days after encountering it in a book.

Is ”comradery” a fishhook in the eye to anyone without a personal history with the word?

Some of you were apparently anticipating an April Fools!!!1!1! prank from me. ‘Cause I’m a rascally little scamp or something.

Sorry to disappoint, but the only day that exeeds my distaste for Halloween (I’m all over wearing a costume, but going door to door begging for food if you don’t have to is too crass even for me) is April Fool’s Day.

a. It’s all about exploiting the gullible, which doesn’t magically become cool to me on the first day of the fourth month.

b. A lot of people get angry (often disproportionately so) upon being fooled, and Little Miss Hacks-With-Sword’s better half is Little Miss Can’t-We-All-Just-Get-Along.

c. A lot of people get injured because of some moron’s idea of a joke. (I don’t like America’s Funniest Laughing While the Dog Jumps on the Toddler Home Videos either. Crazy, I know, but I think they ought to show the emergency room visits and interviews with DSS that must follow most of those clips to discourage other morons from orchestrating similar situations to get on national television.)

Seriously, no April Fool’s Day “frivolity” from me.

To assuage your sorrow, I did, however, add additional smiley goodness to the comments section.