Things Said To Me When I Mentioned My Being Published In McSweeney’s
- What’s that?
2. Is this in print, or…?
3. Is this the internet version of that magazine for assholes?
4. So is getting accepted there hard?
5. Good job, I guess. Is this a comedy thing? Are these jokes?
6. Oh wow, if it was 2005 this would be incredible.
7. Did they pay you?
8. You know you shouldn’t be giving away your writing for free, Tom.
9. I don’t think I know anyone who reads this. This site looks like it’s from 1995.
10. Whoa, have you been writing this all down?
11. Are you writing this down too? Tom, stop. I really don’t think they’ll want to publish this.
12. What do you mean “especially after all I’ve said about them?” Let me see that list.
13. Tom, I have a right to see how you’ve quoted me.
14. Jesus, you bit me. You monster! You animal!
15. You’ve got the list-fever! You’re in a frenzy! You’ve gone mad with what can only be called “power” in the loosest sense imaginable!
16. My God! You have uttered the vile beast-words of the Black Tongue of Xylahathaelone’yn, and lo! Your visage has melted into a pulsating mass of fleshy ooze from which oily tentacles burst! The floor is slick with necrotic lymph!
17. A sailor am I, thirteen years spent on the brackish deck of the S.S. Lymphrider. I can barely remember the days when my meals were more than what lymph-eels I can snare in my trawl. It wasn’t always like this. The sun once rose a man who lived his life striding upon solid ground. Ha, it’s true. But that’s not who I am anymore. I’m a sailor. I’ve heard rumors of bare scraps of land stretching their bony hands above the surface, and though daily I peer over the horizon in desperate search, I can’t convince myself I wouldn’t prefer the bleak, wild freedom of the lymph-sea. I’ve seen too much on these waves, spent too many weeks gnawing the roasted haunches of the hapless fools I was forced to maraud. It was for survival, dammit! They would have died on the waves anyway, and better they sustain my life than die for nothing. Or so I tell myself. As captain of the Lymphrider I can believe it. As the man I was, the man soft from the cradle of land? I’m afraid my own hand will force the cup of madness to my trembling lips.
18. …the plug, but we can’t afford to keep him like—oh God, Tom? Are you? Jesus, he’s awake! He’s lucid!
19. Tom, this is going to be hard to accept, but I think it’s best to just say it. You’ve been in a coma for thirteen years.
20. No, I don’t think they’ll print this goddamn list.
ANSWER KEY
Real things said to me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 20
Whimsical make-’em-ups: 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
SCORE
1–8 correct: Better not be on the jury for MY murder trial! You couldn’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie if there were two towns where one was full of only truth-tellers and the other full of only liars and you met two guys at a crossroads but you didn’t know which one came from which town!
9–15 correct: You are mediocre and will live a mediocre life. Do not weep, but with the selfsame breath I forbid celebration.
16–20 correct: So you guessed right. What do you want, a cookie? Oh, what am I saying. Of course you do! Who wouldn’t?
P.S. see my McSweeney’s thing here!
