Melissa Radke - Eat Cake. Be Brave.

Hi. My name is Melissa Radke, and there is a very real chance you have no idea who I am. But trust me on this: You are going to love me.

Those are the exact words I said to my college roommate immediately upon meeting her the first day of freshman year. A few weeks later she would move to another hall because of my snoring and take three pairs of my sneakers with her. I hope you dont decide to do that. But if you do, jokes on you, sucker, because I dont wear sneakers anymore. Flat feet! Boom!

I wasnt planning on writing a preface to my own book. It seems gauche. I think prefaces are reserved for authors who have written a few best-selling books or been interviewed by Gayle King; authors who say things like:

I wrote this in a cabin in the Andes, Gayle. I was snowed in for three months and had to forage for my own food.

This book came to me after I came face-to-face with my own existential existence.

Believe it or not, Gayle, I was having a root canal and I literally died in the chair. I saw heaven. And when I came back to earth I could speak Mandarin.

None of those happened for me.

Although if Gayle King were to ever ask me

I wrote this book between taking my kids to the local pool and picking out flip-flops at Old Navy. Did I ever have to forage for my own food? No, in fact, I ate my weight in chicken strips.

This book came to me after I looked directly into one of those mirrors with the ten times magnification. Never, ever do that.

I have never seen heaven, I have never experienced hellOh wait, yes, I have! At some point during writing chapter 5, I agreed to attend one of those ceramic paint parties with some of my friends. I would consider that hell.

So yeah, a preface, coming from me, seems brazen. I figure you should just turn the page and see for yourself whether we are going to be friends; you shouldnt just take me at my wordyou should make me earn it.

But wait!

Before you do.

There are a few things about me that I want you to know first.

I have been married for twenty-three years at the writing of this book; seventeen of those have been awesome. I love David with all my heart even though he is dogmatic, authoritarian, imperious, dictatorial, uncompromising, unyielding, and unflexible. I call him the Attorney General, for he is full of rules and regulations, and no fun can be found in him at all. I mean, think about it, not once have you ever heard anyone say, Hey! Lets have a party this weekend! Somebody call an attorney general and see if they can come; theyre a lot of fun! No. Instead you hear sentences like, The state attorney general will be tried twice over charges of securities fraud and violation of federal securities regulations. Oh yeahnow theres a party. And yet, this year, when he surprised me with a vow renewal on a beach in Maui with our dearest friends, I said to him what I believe wholeheartedly to be true: Its you, David Radke. It has always been you. (But just in case he ever murders me: The reason is hidden in the fifth sentence of this preface.)

We have two children. Their names are Remi and Rocco. I want so badly to tell you that our children are named things like Charlotte after my great-grandmother who came over from Croatia to experience a New World, or Elkanah, which is a Hebrew word meaning the zeal of God. But the truth is, we saw Remi stitched across the back of a child-size rocking chair that had been marked 40 percent off, and Rocco DiSpirito is a chef with pretty hair. I saw him on a reality show once. Thats right. I make my choices based off reality TV and storewide discounts. Im not proud of it. What I am proud of, though, are those two children. We waited a long time and fought hard for them. I have often said my children are my Purple Hearts: They are the reward that came to me after I took a wounding from the battle. And I would do it all again even if I knew it meant my Friday nights would be spent eating at Chick-fil-A, watching Boss Baby, and falling sound asleep at eight fifteen p.m. I would do every bit of it again. For them.

I come from a big-boned Southern family. We laugh really loudly, and we cook a whole lot. When you marry into our family you can be assured of these three things:

I also want you to know that 97 percent of everything you read in this book is absolute truth. I cannot say 100 percent because I saw that Oprah episode where she questioned James Frey, and yall, she lit that guy up! So, yeah, some of these things happened too many years ago, and I get gray on times or dates or surrounding events. I do not, however, get gray on my feelings. I am never gray on what is true to me. I remember what I felt. Isnt that always the way? We might not remember what they wore, but we remember how they made us feel small. So, I would just advise you to be careful how you treat peoplethey might just write a book someday.