Dear Erma

by Lynda Zielinski

Dear Erma,

OK. I didn’t win. I figured I had a shot at this contest. After all, I’ve read all your books. You and I were practically neighbors once. You were cranking out columns in Dayton and I was devouring them each afternoon in Columbus, Ohio. Back then, the kids napping, a soup-sized cup of oolong tea, and your latest book, were my idea of afternoon delight.

Your words were magnetized to my refrigerator door:

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

Funny! Then. Now a joke like that would get slammed for ignoring the dangers of yo-yo dieting. It’s hard to get a laugh these days, Erma.

I remember reading:

The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again. I had to swallow hard to prevent liquid from squirting out my nose.

Unfortunately, the members of my writers’ group have no such problem. They sip with complete composure as I read my pitiful offering. I run the gauntlet of their verbal blows each month. Let me tell you, even one little chortle would be balm to the wounds inflicted by those flesh-eating, mirthless, and mainly unpublished know-it-alls.

“Tense shifts.”  “Confusing pronouns.”  “Too many hyphens.” And finally, “This has no plot!”

I respond to their charges with the most humiliating words a humor writer can utter: “It’s supposed to be funny.”

Cold, grim eyes stare back at me. Grunting and sighing issues forth, and then as the assembled bobble heads sway side to side, the manuscript slowly crumples under my damp palm.

Writing can be unnerving, Erma. You know how it is. You wrote: “It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”

You almost gave up writing when some academia nut didn’t appreciate you. But thousands of readers did. We loved you. You understood us.  Housework done right will kill you, you said. “Ain't that the truth,” we all replied.

Writers go for spin and glitz these days. They don’t go for truth-telling. They settle for ‘truthiness.’ At best, the try to be compelling

Self-deprecating humor? Forget-about-it. Writers are like politicians and wrestlers; they have the same rulebook: Don’t show weakness. Stick it to the opponent.

I wanted to write a compellingly funny essay. I was willing to learn. There’s no excuse not to. Not with all the computer programs, workshops, and how-to books for writers out there. 

“We’ve helped thousands stand out from the crowd!” “Get your unique voice heard!” “Take the plunge, unleash the muse, push the boundaries, stretch the envelope--and learn to avoid the cliché!” One even promised to take the mystery out of grammar.  (Strunk and White are dead, after all; they won’t be saying, “mystery, huh?”)

Editors encourage writers to join critique groups. I understand. Who better to create a need for those how-to books? I’ve purchased several since joining my group. Why are the humor books so morose, I wonder? There’s a mystery.

I finally talked my way into a new writers’ group. All MFA’s! These are the erudite elbows I need to rub, I figured. The first submission was about rubbing a toe, actually. And no, it wasn’t leading to something risqué, sorry.

A man read his story about a father and young son. The two are chatting amicably in the bathroom, when suddenly, inexplicably, the father implodes. He leaves nothing behind but his big toe. (I think the right--not sure.)

The toe lies on the bathroom floor. The son picks it up. He sticks it in his pocket. He doesn’t tell a soul. From then on he carries the toe everywhere, a good luck memento, I suppose, like a rabbit’s foot. Actually the boy not only carries the toe—he transports, conceals, clutches, claws, caresses, massages, masticates, and mainlines it. The boy must have carried a thesaurus around too. I don’t know; I stopped listening.

Everyone loved it. “Fresh! Evocative! Powerful!” And of course, “Compelling!”

I admit, Erma, I got distracted.

“Where was this boy’s mother? I can understand her not noticing the missing father. But what about the bloody stain on the boy’s pant pocket? Didn’t she notice that? Did the boy ever leave that nasty thing lying around, on his dresser, or under the bed maybe? You know how kids are. Surely he needed counseling for PTSD.

I dropped the group.

I’m not giving up though. I know you got discouraged too, even stopped writing that first year in college. It took one special man, someone you admired and respected, to come forward and say those three magic words. No, not those. The important words: You can write. That’s all it took. I bet you never read one easy-to-follow, step-by-step, fact-filled, state-of-the-art, how to book. You wrote fifteen books and you traveled coast-to-coast promoting the Equal Rights Amendment.

Between you and me, Erma, you couldn’t get away with that now, not in these polarized times.

“Erma Bombeck, the scribe of the stay-at-home moms! You can’t be a feminist and a housewife too!” Your agent would break down in tears: “You’re a brand, an icon. Don’t do this to me!” He’d handcuff you to your desk. “Bad enough you refused to endorse product!” He’d snarl.

But you went on promoting equality for women. Despite fighting cancer and a chronic kidney disease, you kept on writing. I don’t know how you did it.

Here’s what I’m asking, Erma. I’m hoping you’ll send some good vibes my way. I’ll enter that essay contest next year. Who knows, maybe I’ll win--get a by-line, get noticed, or at least make enough money to buy a few more how-to books. Do it for a fellow, I mean, sister Ohioan.

And thanks, Erma--for everything.