Exceptional

A high-stress I.T. position in New York City supporting two disorganized women for $18 an hour and a solemn vow that I won't audition or have any conflicts for the next six months?

Excuse me, but I am NOT some guy named Brandon from Baton Rouge! I'm the third in the proud line of the exceptional Fork siblings. And not one of us does things the traditional way.

Well, Forkette does. But there was a time when she didn't. You might not know this, but before she settled down, got married, had a kid, and got a dream cottage with a white picket fence, she was known by all as Dinah Carolina. That's right. The Dinah Carolina, the exceptional swing dance champion of the south. Now she's a nurse and can tell you what malady you're suffering from just by looking at you.

And Forko? My older brother? Forget about it! He's so dang exceptional he makes me look like--uhh--someone NOT talented. Like Betty Crocker. Everyone knows she doesn't make anything by scratch. It's all boxed mixes. So yeah. When I stand next to Forko, I start to look/smell a bit like suspiciously moist and delicious yellow cake with partially hydrogenated chocolate icing. Drill for oil? He does it. Play in three Irish bands? Check. Wed an equally exceptional girl from Europe and spirit her away to the States? He's done that too. (By the way, Forko, thanks for the generous gift card yesterday. Keep em comin')

Face it. Whether she likes it or not, my niece, Little Mab, just joined one of the more exceptional families on this hum-drum little globe. And despite my mother's best efforts to convince everyone we're a perfectly respectable, conventional trio of offspring, between Forkette's wild dancing days, Forko's Irish music and geological expertise, and my outlandish experiences as the family ne'er-do-well, this girl is in for some wild bedtime stories.

SO...

If I want to get in line at those hopeless cattle calls and sign up to be 178th on the alternate list, that's JUST what I'm gonna do! And no corporate biddies are gonna tell me other!

$18?? Are you KIDDING? This is NEW YORK, people! The McDonalds employees make, like, $28 an hour! Do they think I didn't learn a thing or two from my time at Eventual Practical Financial Services? I've already been paid $18 an hour to sit by a phone and twiddle my thumbs for three days. You make almost that doing "temp work"...and you don't even have to MOVE (or wear anything)!

And they want to pay me New York circus peanuts to do REAL work? HA! Don't make me laugh!!

Something better is coming. I'm desperate, but not hopeless. While my decision NOT to kowtow and take the first crappy thing that comes my way will probably make mumsie and daddums cringe, maybe my act of foolish defiance will teach them--no--the WORLD a little something about faith!

Something better is on the way. I know it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to the gym and work on my exceptional abs for my off-off Broadway show while listening to some defiant, I'll-Show-'Em!-I'll-Show-'Em-All!-style tunes on my iPod.

Because that's just what exceptional people DO.