Thanks for the review. Wondering if the first line make more sense if I explain that it’s a play on fairy tales that all start with… Once upon a time
The talking statue of the gargoyle makes this a sort of chick-lit fantatsy.
Humor/Satire / Confessions of a Liberal Lover - Chapter 1
Once upon a time, I had a lot of trouble holding on to my lovers. Of course, I’m not talking about holding on in a literal sense—they weren’t slippery and there’s nothing wrong with my hands—I’m talking about holding on in the emotional sense. Dumb as it sounds, I used to think the reasons for this were political since I lean to the left and the majority of my lovers have been conservatives. Eventually reality intervened, however, and I realized the problems with my love life had less to do with politics and more to do with the lousy relationship I had with my father when I was growing up. And the fact my most trusted friend and advisor was a talking statue of a gargoyle.
As far as Dad is concerned, it was clear right from the start that we weren’t going to get along. Mom said that at six months, I was throwing my bottles at him and at eighteen months, mouthing words that sounded suspiciously like toddler obscenities. By the time I was four years old, I realized that our family wasn’t big enough for the both of us and I decided to run away from home.
Home was a three-bedroom brick ranch in a middle class neighborhood that served as a buffer between a run down area of dilapidated boxlike frame houses and Rosedale Park, a gated community of impressive Tudor style mansions. Most of the houses in the poor area had small dirt front yards filled with plastic toys and rusty old cars, while the front yards in my neighborhood had nice lawns, neatly trimmed shrubs and an occasional oak, elm or maple tree. The homes in Rosedale Park sat well back from the road on beautifully landscaped grounds tended by the Mexicans who lived in the dilapidated boxlike houses and drove the rusty old cars parked in their front yards.
One morning after Dad left for work, I stuffed some of my clothes in a brown paper bag and tied it onto the back of my tricycle with shoelaces. Cruising down the driveway, the wind blowing through my bowl haircut, I could smell the sweet scent of freedom in the air. When I reached the end of our driveway I turned north onto the city sidewalk and peddled at top speed towards the corner.
The corner was the proverbial point of no return. Pulling the trike down over the curb into the street was a capital offense and once I did it, I could never go home again. I was contemplating my options when Mom caught up with me. Sensing my indecision, she decided the time was right to make like a lobbyist and offer me a bribe. The deal was if I would agree to abort my attempt to escape, she’d take my older sister, Sybil, and I to the Dairy Queen when she got home from school. Evidently, I found the prospect of an ice cream cone more enticing than freedom, because I turned my trike around and peddled home— licking my chops in anticipation.
Two years older than me, Sybil was a Goldilocks look-alike with long blonde hair, blue eyes and plump perpetually rosy cheeks. Although she never seemed very smart to me, she always managed to leave me in the dust when report card time rolled around. Invariably her card would come with a note from a teacher gushing about what a pleasure it was to have her in the class. Mom would read the note aloud, hanging on every nauseating word. Then, grumbling about how Sybil was going to put him in the poorhouse, Dad would make a big show of pulling out his wallet and handing her the ten dollar bill that was the standing reward for making straight A’s. Once Mom was satisfied Sybil had received sufficient recognition for her outstanding academic achievement, she’d hand Dad my card and all hell would break loose.
Life would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t grown up with a older sister everyone seemed to think was perfect. I don’t think she broke a rule, told a lie or mouthed off to anyone in her life. Nothing used to piss me off more than when a teacher called out my name on the first day of school and then added, in a voice oozing with cheerful enthusiasm, “Oh how nice! You must be Sybil’s younger sister.” It didn’t take long for the poor wretch to realize I was nothing like my sister.
In addition to having Sybil for a sister, the fact I was smarter than Dad didn’t help our relationship either. “The trouble with you, Maud,” he said at least a thousand times, “is that you’re too smart for your own good.” Unfortunately, my superior intellect didn’t help much when we squared off since my only weapon was a rapier wit, but Dad had allowance retention, grounding and corporal punishment in his arsenal. The allowance and grounding stuff didn’t faze me until I was a teenager, but I hated those damn spankings with a passion. I’m a person with a pain threshold so low I cry at the possibility of pain. I absolutely abhor physical violence and firmly believe every time a Mom or Dad spanks their kid, they’re sending a coded message proclaiming, “It’s okay to smack-smack-smack hit someone you love smack-smack-smack if they tick you off.”
Eventually it dawned on me that unless I was trying to earn credits towards a degree in masochism from the college of life long stupidity, I should keep my big mouth shut. The problem was once I stopped butting heads with Dictator Dad, I began taking out my anger and frustration on Mom, Sybil, my classmates, teachers and everyone else who wandered in range of my high caliber tongue—which I kept cocked and ready to fire at a moment’s notice. My chronic hostilitis, the medical term for the disorder from which I suffered, resulted in my becoming the first girl in my elementary school to win both the title of Miss Unpopularity and The Girl Most Often Sent to the Principal’s Office. I spent so much time with the principal we became good chums and although he never admitted it, I suspected he secretly admired my extraordinary verbal alacrity.
Not surprisingly, I was something of a loner—which explains why I became such an avid reader at an early age. Turning myself into a bookworm was actually the first—and most pleasurable—of the many transformations I’ve undergone during my life. Rain or shine, I’d walk the five city blocks to the library filled with anticipation. I’d check out as many books as I could carry and when I was finished, return them and repeat the process. I was thrilled when Mom succumbed to the wiles of a door-to-door book salesman and ordered a ridiculously overpriced collection of the works of Mark Twain, Pearl Buck and Lowell Thomas. Dad, who never once accused Mom of being too smart, wasn’t happy about it but didn’t want to hurt her feelings so he said the books would look great on the shelves in the recreation room he was building in the basement. When the books finally arrived, I didn’t stop reading until I’d devoured every one of them—even the terribly graphic Wreck of the Dumaru.
My life-long addiction to historical romance novels began when I was thirteen. This is the genre that puts forth the hypothesis all a woman needs to be happy is for a virile incredibly handsome man to come along and ravage her until she is consumed by a passion she didn’t know she possessed—or could feel—or something like that. How my adolescent heart would pound every time the heroine quivered at some virile, incredibly handsome man’s touch. Of course, the women in these stories were invariably the most beautiful creatures to walk the earth since the start of the Cenozoic Era. They were so good looking both the heroes and the villains were overcome by lust every time one of these beauties sashayed past—their petticoats and satin skirts rustling as they walked.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I wanted a virile incredibly handsome man of my very own. But finding someone who fits that description isn’t easy when you’re in the eighth grade so I had to do what women do when they can’t find the man of their dreams—I had to settle. The boy I settled on was Walter Silva. Walt and the lovely Kathy Crawford had just broken up, so I summoned up all the courage I could muster and asked him to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Although I could tell he was less than thrilled by the invitation, the important thing was he said, “Yes.”
Mom understood a girl’s first dance falls into the right-of-passage category, so she talked old Daddy Cheapskate into paying for a new dress. Unfortunately, she suffered a severe brain fart when we were shopping and we ended up with a dress from the woman’s department that was, without a doubt, the ugliest dress in the world. The damn thing was the color of bile with a cowl collar and pleated skirt that hung well below my knees. I had serious doubts about buying the dress, but it was on sale and Mom confused me with unfamiliar terms like simple lines and nice tailoring. The truth is I trusted Mom and she sent me to my first dance looking like a short middle-aged housewife with no boobs.
The plan called for Walt to stop by my house and we would walk to the dance together. When he saw me, he started snickering and when we got to the school, he took off like a shot. When I finally tracked him down, he was in the gym talking to Kathy—who was dressed in a frilly little pink frock no doubt purchased in the junior department. Apparently, Walt had agreed to go to the dance with me so he could keep an eye on Kathy—who had come to the dance to keep an eye on Walt. As soon as they saw each other, all was forgiven and they spent the evening dancing and sneaking out into the hallway to play kissy face. I spent the evening standing with my back against the wall in my bile colored old lady dress watching them with daggers in my eyes. I don’t know how Kathy’s date spent his time, but since he didn’t punch Walt in the nose, I figured he must be a total wimp. I would have punched Kathy in the nose, but as I mentioned previously, I abhor physical violence.
Since Kathy was a member of my Girl Scout troop, I decided to confront her at the next meeting and let her know that it’s not nice to steal another girl’s date. I had just begun articulating the specifics of my beef when the other girls jumped to her defense like a herd of angry lemmings. The way they saw it, Walt was Kathy’s boyfriend and anyone who had a brain would have realized they were going to get back together. After all, what boy in his right mind would break up with Kathy Crawford?
The next thing I knew they were taking a vote on whether it was wrong for me to have asked Walt to the dance without checking with Kathy first. The result was a unanimous vote in the affirmative—with me abstaining. Once they were in a voting mood there was no stopping them—democracy has a tendency to do that to people. To my horror, I heard some idiot ask, “How many think Kathy is cuter than Maud?” The outcome of this vote was also unanimous—with me voting in the affirmative since she really was cuter than me—and Kathy abstaining because she didn’t want to appear conceited. That night I told Mom there was no way I was selling those damn cookies again and I turned in my merit badges.
Not having a circle of supportive female friends—coupled with the impact of reading all those romance novels— sealed my fate. By the time I was in high school, I was so boy crazy I’d skip school if I were having a bad hair day. Attracting the attention of the opposite sex became the most important thing in my life—with the possible exception of chocolate almond ice cream and Milky Ways. Why should I care if the other girls shunned me when virile incredibly handsome pimply faced hormone crazed teenage boys were lusting after me?
Once I began dating in earnest, my repeated curfew violations didn’t sit very well with Dad and he began to sound like a broken record, “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll abide by my rules. As long as you live under my roof, you’ll abide by my rules. As long as you …” Since I was such a smart girl, it wasn’t hard to come up with a solution to my problem with Dad. I needed to go out and get a roof of my own. Sybil was still living at home and attending the state university, which is what my folks expected me to do. Instead, I found a full time job at a health insurance company and a few months later, the gargoyle and I made a dash for freedom.
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joancrown reviewed Version 1 -
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yes, i am interested
yes, i would read the book
yes, there are many typos/grammatical errors to be ironed out (but you don’t want that now, eh?)
yes, there are too many criterion here… i am not an agent, don’t know any, and wish i could be specific and “correct” in my assessment…i think you have a book here, i’d read it. but i want to know more about the gargoyle… he’s a passing mention..does he take a more pivotal role? he’s the childhood friend, yet not mentioned in the childhood narrative….just wondering.
it’s great. good luck.
ps- shift key not broken, just lazy.
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DCAllen reviewed Version 1 -
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Tryptophan reviewed Version 1 -
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This chapter is incredibly funny. Many of your descriptions are vivid and interesting; for example, the description of the dress for the Sadie Hawkins’s dance and of the virile young men of romantic-lore were brilliantly written. Your prose is conversationalist and flows easily.
My only qualm is the occasional use of colloquialisms that seem to detract from the select areas where they are used. For example:
“Once Mom was satisfied Sybil had received sufficient recognition for her outstanding academic achievement, she’d hand Dad my card and all hell would break loose.”
The first clause is very well-written, however, the language of the prose detracts with the second clause. I suspect that you are attempting to create a contrast between the highfalutin superficial bullshit(exemplified by the diction)of your sister compared to the blunt(and humorous)realism that is symbolized by you and the relationship of you and your father; however, a statement that does not rely on common colloquialisms would be more humorous.
Overall, your writing is fantastic. Just avoid commonplace colloquialisms, and these essays, or stories, or whatever this will turn out to be a part of, will be fantastic.
Brynn reviewed Version 1 -
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MORE MORE!! LOL I rated you pretty high in almost all the categorys with one exception. The humour/satire option, I rated you lower, since its not a satire at all, and although smile inducing did not make me laugh aloud. That being said I know FOR SURE that the following chapters will make me laugh as you have set up well for the “story of my ridiculous life” novel.
My first impression upon reading the first 2-3 “pages” which equals to the report card part, that this was writted by someone MUCH younger and the immaturity came through. I am not sure if this was intentional, but felt like I was reading a book for the “12-18” age group.
The very first line reads a bit rough for me. Maybe sound better “There once was a time…” as “once upon a time” is pretaining to a third person part. Or so it would seem. Following it with “I had trouble..” really threw me off.
The only other thing I found that chopped it up a bit for me, was the repeated use of “virile” although it can work and has good effect, I suggest taking out the middle “virile” usage. The other 2 reapeated are fine, but that third pushed it over for me.
Overall I really liked it, its not TOO gripping, BUT the last paragraph sets up VERY WELL for a great piece and I cannot wait to read more. LOVED the dress part, and the kids behaviours, so true. I am sure plenty of ppl will relate to this, as I pretty much had a childhood EXACTLY like that! lol WEll done,
Eve
BraveHeartFan reviewed Version 1 -
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This story really amused me. It had me laugh out loud a few times and I found myself smiling, and/or smirking, through out most of it. I loved the attitude, and thought process, of Maud and found her to be a very interesting character. All of the scenes, and situations, really were quite amusing and easy to relate to cause we’ve all met the kids, or been the kids, that thought in these ways, or did some of these things.
A very simple, yet effective, story, thus far, that I enjoyed a lot and would read even more of should you decide to continue along with it. Good job.
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