Stefanie Wilder-Taylor - Im Kind of a Big Deal: And Other Delusions of Adequacy

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Also by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

Its Not Me, Its You
Naptime Is the New Happy Hour
Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay

Copyright 2011 by Jitters Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books trade paperback edition June 2011

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilder-Taylor, Stefanie.

Im kind of a big deal : and other delusions of adequacy / Stefanie Wilder-Taylor.

p. cm.

1. Wilder-Taylor, Stefanie. 2. WomenUnited StatesBiography.

3. Women comediansUnited StatesBiography. 4. Television writersUnited StatesBiography. 5. Wilder-Taylor, StefanieHumor.

6. Interpersonal relationsHumor. 7. American wit and humor. I. Title.

CT275.W558614A3 2011

792.7028092dc22

[B] 2010035943

ISBN 978-1-4391-7657-3
ISBN 978-1-4391-7697-9 (ebook)

For Putty

Im Kind of a Big Deal

T he summer I graduated high school, a few major things happened: Rebbie Jackson scored a Top 100 hit with Centipede, catapulting her into the kind of Jackson-sibling fame previously experienced only by Marlon and Tito; I finally got through level three in Donkey Kong; and I ran away from home to become an actress in New York City. Actually I didnt intend to run away, and I dont know if its really running away if no one actually notices youre goneoh, and if youre almost eighteen and out of high school but lets not split hairs; in my mind, I ran away.

Id been living in Springfield, Massachusettshome to the Basketball Hall of Fame, which I guess is impressive to people who arent mefor the last two years of high school. In the couple months since I graduated (which was a miracle in itself), Id been in a holding pattern. My days were spent waiting tables at a Bobs Big Boy franchise, where it wasnt unusual to receive tips of dimes and nickels for a party of five, and my nights were spent in my attic bedroom, where I occasionally entertained random boys with an intoxicating combination of smuggled Kahla, the pleasure of my company, and my Bonnie Tyler records. But I had bigger dreams: dreams of working at a more expensive restaurant with non-vinyl tablecloths; dreams of working in a classy establishment somewhere warm like California; dreams that just maybe that pricey bistro would have patio service. That was the thing about me: I dared to dream.

You need to find somewhere to stay for ten days because were going out of town on Friday, my mother announced when I came down for coffee one morningand by morning I mean quarter of one.

Why cant I just stay here? I asked. I had no idea where I would go since I didnt exactly have any friends with their own apartments or even their own cars at this point.

You havent earned our trust, and I dont feel I can leave you in this house while were gone. My mother wasnt a stranger to asking other peoples parents to watch me while she and my stepfather went out of town, expecting them to provide me with a bed, discipline, rides to and from school, and plenty of snacks. But that was the seventies and this was the eighties, times had changed and people took a slightly harsher view of freeloading. And of course now she was making me do the asking, which was even worse.

Clearly, I was left with only one choice: pretend to have a place to go, then once they left town, come back and let myself into my own house with my own key. Me untrustworthy? That was laughable!

At the end of the week my parents left for their vacation and I made an elaborate show of leaving for a friends house. Good-bye! Have a wonderful trip! Ill just be at my friends house! The whole time! Until you get back! Later that afternoon, I arrived back at my empty house with my suitcase, about 10 percent of my high school senior class, and a pony keg. But when I unlocked the door and started to push it open I was met with the immediate and unmistakable resistance of a bolt lock. My parents had bolted the door with an almost-never-used key that I didnt have. It was as if they expected me to try to sneak back into my own house. Well now, this was infuriating. And even if the assembled crowd didnt represent the A-list of my class, it was still pretty embarrassing.

I made my way around to the back of the house and tried a few other doors, hoping against hope that somehow in their zeal to bar me from my own house theyd neglected to lock a side door. No such luck; my parents were on their game. Not wanting to give up too easily, especially since I had an audience, I struggled to get up to the second floor and climb in through the bathroom window. Miraculously, it was unlocked. With one knee still on the windowsill and one leg back on the ladder Id pulled out from the garage, I turned around to see my neighbors, Don and Sue Petofsky, eyeing me from their living room window just as I dropped out of sight and into the bathtub.

Once my friends were in the house, the mini keg was tapped and red plastic cups (the choice of underage drinkers nationwide) were quickly being filled when the knock came at the front door. My neighbors had reported me breaking into my own house. I probably had it coming: for the last three years Id walked around naked in my attic bedroom, which opened toward their master bedroom, and for two of those years my windows had no shades. Turns out Sue was a bit of a window-treatment Nazi or didnt appreciate me dancing in front of it to Bonnie Tyler. Either way, it was payback time.

I was told by the police that I had to vacate immediately, which is how I found myself on an Amtrak to move in with my friend Jackie and become a star of stage and screen in New York City.