2020 was a crazy year. In the midst of a global pandemic, I had a really good thing happen. But I never shared the really good thing on Afthead, because Afthead was a public place and the really good thing wasn’t necessarily something I wanted people to know about. Okay, I didn’t want my friends to know, because I was extremely frustrated with some of their COVID protocols, or lack thereof. To cope I wrote a satire piece about them and it got published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. This publication is a big deal in the humor world. McSweeney’s acceptance rate hovers right around 1%. It’s like getting into the Stanford-Harvard of magazines. I highly recommend checking it out.

Somehow, the idea of reaching out to all my friends whose food intolerances I’d fastidiously honored in the past and telling them that I was publicly mocking them seemed wrong. Also, I wasn’t in a good place with many of them when it was published. I was busy being lonely and angry while they were out camping without me, because I wanted to do ridiculous things like wear a mask. Or their kids were doing remote school together because it was so hard on them.

Four years in the future, several of those people are my friends again (and the ones who aren’t never really were). Most of us have talked about how we were all doing the best we could during those really hard times, and have forgiven each other. Or we just let it go.

But I still haven’t mentioned to them about the most popular thing I’ve ever written. I didn’t tell them that afterwards I got interviewed by The Writer magazine, featured in an article about getting COVID-19 stories published. I didn’t share all the emails I got from strangers telling me how they were struggling too. I didn’t forward the funny comment from Facebook, “Licorice has gluten?” I didn’t want to stretch those strained relationships any farther.

So why post this now? Why not just let the happiness stay quarantined? A couple of things have changed. First, I realized that the friends I was frustrated with don’t read this blog. They don’t see my words. Unless I print this out and shove it under their windshield wipers they won’t know. Also, I did tell lots of people. Work friends got a link. Family got a link. People who I know didn’t follow my exact protocols read it and enjoyed it. Finally, I’ve told everyone I’m taking a year off to write. If I’m a writer, I want to celebrate my writing successes. I decided four years was enough space. It’s okay to let out a little celebratory yay about this piece and say I’m proud of it.

The magical thing about this piece was that it all came out in a whoosh. Normally my writing has tens of drafts littering a piece-specific folder on my computer. (Even this post has 22 revisions!) For my McSweeney’s piece there’s not a single draft on my computer. I wrote it, edited it, and published it from one file. I remember showering and furiously crafting this letter I would send to my friends. I didn’t write a word until I had all the biting phrases worked out. It was like I’d birthed the story fully formed out of my fingertips. Such magic should be acknowledged.

The last amazing thing about this piece? I was in the middle of graduate school when I wrote it. I hadn’t had a creative urge since March 13, 2020 when we all got sent home from work and school to survive the end of the world. I was taking my last two master’s level classes before my capstone. I was working full time and helping my kid do school from home. I was terrified for my parent’s lives, and my support system was fractured and frayed because of my community’s disagreement on the pandemic. It was a horrible, horrible time, and I dealt with it by producing witty, poignant, biting satire. Looking back, I am in awe of myself.

If you want to take a trip back in time and see how September of 2020 felt, now’s your chance. It was a time before COVID vaccinations. We were on the cusp of a huge winter surge. 700 people were dying a day. Somehow I coped by crafting words like this:

People can have COVID and not know it, kind of like that irresponsible room mom last Halloween that didn’t know licorice has gluten. Mistakes happen. You might be laughing and shouting germs all over and never know until someone gets sick. Imagine how embarrassed you’d feel if you accidentally killed my parents. They say hi by the way.

The little masterpiece is still online at McSweeney’s if you feel like taking a trip down that horrific memory lane. Me? I’m going to go reread the acceptance note. It’s glorious.

Thanks for the submission. This is great. We will take it! It should run in the next few weeks. Would you mind sending me a photo and bio for your author profile? 

Would I mind? Uh, heck no! Yeah, I have an author profile on McSweeney’s too. Pretty cool, even four years later.