Why I'm Like This (17 page)
Authors: Cynthia Kaplan
W
HAT'S
the story with those French truffle pigs? If they like truffles so much how come they don't just eat them? What's stopping them? What's stopping them from just saying to those French truffle farmers, “Buzz off,
monsieur,
I saw it first,” and then snarfing it down? I'll tell you what's stopping them. Muzzles and leashes and whaps on the snout with a knobby walking stick.
That's
what's stopping them. Jesus, how would you like it to be your portion in life to constantly be searching for the yummiest thing you can think of, the thing you want the most, and then every time you find it someone schleps you back with a jerk, snapping your head probably and whapping you on the nose for good measure, just to teach you a lesson, and
then
takes it for himself. Just
takes that yummy thing. Just takes your happiness. And in the bargain,
in the bargain,
serves you slop for dinner. If you were smart, you truffle pigs, you would suck those truffles right up and then act cool, like that one wasn't a truffle at all, whoops, you made a mistake, that was just a regular little brown mushroom, not a truffle, no, definitely not a truffle, yech. But you're not smart, you're just a fat stupid pig and the only thing standing between you as you are now and you as a Jimmy Dean Pork Sausage is your keen sense of smell. And people pat you on the back or scratch you between the ears and tell you what a good little pig you are, you're so talented, so special. And you let yourself believe it, for just one moment, one golden shining moment. I'm special, I'm talented, I have an Extraordinary Sense of Smell. And that's how it starts. You get sucked into the vortex. No, no, you go willingly, you weak, easily manipulated piece of shit. Hi, I have only one discernable talent, no ambition, and no self-esteem. May I please go into the vortex? But don't feel badly, because it's not really your fault. You have to live, for God's sake, you have to eat and sleep and work just like everyone else. So you compromise, you give a little, and you give a little more and a little more until you're just a pathetic tool, a loser, an undignified, spinelessâ¦pig.
And you dream of freedom. You dream of the day when you will run muzzleless, leashless, through the truffled woods of your youth, full of promise, full of hope. You dream of release, of deliverance, from your hell, from your
prison, yes, the one you built, from your own personal Church of Scientology. But
is
there any way out?
Is
there? You ask the other pigs. But what do they know? They're just pigs. Oh, God, let me out! Let me have my happiness. Let me eat my truffles! Let me eat my fucking truffles! Or not. Not if I don't feel like it. Maybe I'm in the mood for a truffle. Maybe I'm not. It's my choice. I have a free will. This is America, goddamn it. Oh, wait, no, shit, it's France.
But eventually you make your peace. Nobody has a perfect life, you say. Nobody gets everything. You have your health, for God's sake. Things could be worse. Much worse. Some pigs have never experienced the remarkable, earthy intensity of the truffle. Some pigs have never been delirious with the heady fragrance, or dizzy with the thrill of the find. I found it, I found it! Some pigs wouldn't know a truffle from a stale Devil Dogâwhich, as
you
would know, because you are a truffle pig, smell almost exactly alike.
And you'll tell your children and your children's children that
yes
, you were part of that elite society. You were one of the few, the proud. You, a truffle pig. How many can claim that distinction? And finally, at the end of the day, after the reminiscences and the songs, after the anecdotes, after
all
, you will have convinced yourself, as well. You will have convinced yourself that you did your best, that these were the chips you were dealt, this was the life you were destined to live. Because to think otherwise, to think otherwise, my friends, would be unbearable.
In acknowledging the following people for their various and sundry contributions to the writing of this book, I am using a sequencing method that I prefer not to divulge, thus leaving people to wonder why they were thanked before or after a certain other person. If I have left anyone out, it is because you were of no help to me whatsoever. If I have named someone twice, in italics, or in bold, it is because I love you more and thank you more than the others.
Neil Genzlinger, the writer and editor, who put me in print and befriended me to boot; Michael Murphy and Doris Cooper, who generously invited me to write a book; Marjorie Braman, my
very
wonderful editor; Amy Rennert, my brave, smart agent; the great Lisa Gallagher, the entire Morrow sales staff, and the incomparable Dee Dee DeBartlo; Jill Lamar, whose support changed everything; Nancy Giles, Steve Olson and Hank Meiman, Mason Pettit and Gregory Wolfe et al., Victoria Rowan, Ellie Covan, John McCormack, Liz Benjamin, Joe Danisi, and Naked Angels, for years of support; audiences of:
The New Jack Paar Show, Moon-work, Stories on Stage, Tuesdays at Nine
; Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a comrade even though she once dated my husband;
Amanda Green, the smartest reader, the best friend; Rholda Hyacinth, trusty babysitter; my Family at Largeâall Kaplans, Froelichs, Logans, Mosses, Schwartz-Halls, and Siegels, for their bottomless support; my brother, Steven Kaplan, for my taste in music and for making sure there was a witness; my grandparents in absentia: Benjamin and Lillian Siegel, Sam and Dorothy Kaplanâhow they loved me; my remarkable and forbearing parents, Sandra and Jack Kaplanâhow I love them; John Benjamin Froelich, my beautiful child, without whom this book would be very short; David Froelich, my beautiful husband, without whom there would be no book.
I have changed the names of some people and some places because my editor made me.
CYNTHIA KAPLAN
is a writer and an actress. She is the author of
Leave the Building Quickly
, and she lives in New York City with her husband and children.
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for
why I'm like this
“Quick-witted, neatly written, and unapologetically grandioseâ¦. In the spirit of Dorothy Parkerâ¦[Kaplan] renders weird and rowdy scenarios with style.”
âNew York Times Book Review
“Striking a note somewhere between David Sedaris and Anna Quindlen, Kaplan spins traumas personal and professional for maximum laughsâ¦. A literary star.”
âPeople
“Knee-slapping hilarious.”
âUSA Today
“It's the heartfelt accounts of the ups and downs of day-to-day life that catch you off guard and make you shake your head with recognitionâ¦. Among the storiesâ¦there are wonderfully rich and tender epiphanies.”
âSan Francisco Chronicle
“Alternately hilarious and poignant, these stories make you laugh and then cryâ¦. Kaplan has a great ear for the spoken word, the cadence of modern speech. Many of the stories demand to be read out loud.”
âBoston Globe
“This is a charming collection of essays in the spirit of David Sedarisâ¦. The essays read like a novel.”
âCBS's
Early Show
“Cynthia Kaplan [has] enough moxie, along with splendidly cultivated scenes of irony and absurdity, to invite the whole world in. She does this with a voice that is alternately funny, bitchy, thoughtful, whiny, and wholly believable.”
âHartford Courant
“A perfect beach read. Kaplan's collection of autobiographical essays is heartfelt and laugh-out-loud funny.”
âBuffalo News
“Funny and poignant.”
âChicago Sun-Times
“[One of] America's nine funniest writersâ¦. A spot-on favorite with women who grew up during the 1960s and 1970s, Kaplan at her best reads like a black-market episode of
The Wonder Years
.”
âSouthwest Airlines Spirit
magazine
“
Why I'm Like This
is an impressive debut, and Kaplan has a wonderfully natural comic style.”
â
Detroit Free Press
“Kaplan goes straight to the funny heart of thingsâ¦. I can't imagine a mother who wouldn't die laughing.”
â
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Kaplan is smart, funny, brave, and totally original. It's an amazing collection, one you'll want to read again and pass on to all of your friends. You'll think you're reading David Sedaris; it's that good.”
âBookSense.com
“Nightmarish and hilariousâ¦. Written with such fierce denial and tendernessâ¦. [
Why I'm Like This
] made me cry out loud.”
âChicago Public Radio's
Network Chicago
“Kaplan makes it perfectly clear why she's like thisâwith an acerbic grace all her ownâ¦. Even if where she's taking you is someplace you've yet to arrive or will never go in her capacity, you will feel as if you are there alongside herâ¦. She's that good.”
â
News Enterprise
(Hardin County, Kentucky)
“A fine achievement,
Why I'm Like This
will reach a wide and appreciative audience.”
â
Midwest Book Review
“Cynthia Kaplan is so delightful a writer, so funny and smart and tart, I'm sure her family won't even notice that she's turned on them.”
âDorothy Gallagher, author of
How I Came into My Inheritance
“With her unique brand of humane observation and wit, Kaplan has written a book for the ages, a book that will no doubt be passed on, from hand to hand, in family after family, by people who recognize some heretofore-unearthed part of their own history or selves in the stories she tells.”
âBeth Kephart, author of
A Slant of Sun
“Funny, sweet, weirdly life affirming, and painfully trueâ¦. Cynthia Kaplan's prose generates the rarest kind of laughterâthe kind that makes you cringe in recognition, then thank the writing gods that somebody else out there gets it.”
âJerry Stahl, author of
Permanent Midnight
and
Plainclothes Naked
“If you have a best friend who is the funniest person you know, who you call just to cheer yourself up, her name must be Cynthia Kaplan. The rest of us can happily make due with reading this delightful book.”
âCathleen Schine, author of
The Love Letter
“Cynthia Kaplan's gift is her ability to take on life's absurdities and come out a winner. Her stories are sharp, touching, and deliciously ironic, but most of all they are true in every sense of the word.
Why I'm Like This
is a rollicking tour through the wild and crazy landscape of today's worldâa necessary book for all of us who sometimes question why we're like this.”
âDebra Ginsberg, author of
Waiting
and
Raising Blaze
“A self-assured, unified work that's sexy in the best sense: mature, candid, and real. Often compared to David Sedaris, [Kaplan], the actress/writer, combines droll humor with hard-won sentiment.”
âSeattle Weekly
“What makes [Kaplan's] true stories so compulsively readable are [her] razor-sharp prose and contagious sense of humorâ¦. Kaplan's writing is laugh-out-loud funny. Right up there with nonfiction writers such as David Sedaris and Cynthia Heimel.”
âRichmond.com
WHY I'M LIKE THIS
. Copyright © 2002 by Cynthia Kaplan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition February 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-190039-6
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