Look Who’s Going To The MST3K Premiere

Congratulations, Chad! You rule.

I had some Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiere tickets that I couldn’t use. Yesterday I posted this essay/call to action to invite folks to submit their stories privately to thestorymedium@gmail.com (that’s the account for this here zine, The Stories, upon which you currently gaze) if they were interested in the following:

1. ) Two tickets to the Los Angeles premiere for MST3K on February 21, 2017
2. ) $150 for one night at a hotel (or for booze or whatever other fun thing)
3. ) All of my books signed by me (books I wrote, not books I own. That would be way more books)
4. ) A $50 donation in the entrant’s name to the ACLU Foundation or to Planned Parenthood

I asked folks to write about something tough they’d been through and how these tickets and this show could help them feel at least a little bit better. There were some wonderful, heartbreaking, funny and smart entries. But in the end, Chad Stuart won out. He and his wife Anisa are headed to the premiere! They live in Los Angeles so the $150 will be for fun glamorous prep things. I suggested a mani/pedi. How will this play out? I don’t know! It’s up to them! I do know that Chad had a tough time deciding where the donation could go but finally decided on the ACLU.

Now, Chad happened to be the first one to write in. I didn’t look at all the entries until early Valentine’s Day morning. But he didn’t just get the tickets because he was the early bird. He got them because his story was exactly what I was looking for in the first place: that of a loving, tired person who needs a break and a hot date (in this case, his lovely wife). I asked him if I could share his story with you, so here’s an excerpt.

tl;dr: MST3K fans are the best.

Eight years ago I became the proud father of the most beautiful baby girl in the world (I have to say that but it’s true). For a year and a half I was a normal father raising his daughter with his wife — the usual problems but nothing to write home about.

However, at about 18 months we noticed that she was wasn’t talking the way
other children do and decided to go to…have her evaluated. Not an easy decision, especially for a father since most us do not to ever want to admit there could be anything ‘wrong’ with our child. We were told that our daughter had delays in motor skills and speech after which we recommended to put her in an early intervention program, which we did.

While in the early intervention program a doctor recommended some tests -
not sure why at the time but it couldn’t hurt, right? A week later we met
with the doctor and he dropped the bombshell on us — they had done a DNA
test and found out she was born with a rare genetic microdeletion on one of
her chromosomes, a deletion that has been associated with many motor,
speech, and health problems. Needless to say I was shocked — even moreso
when I Googled the microdeletion and found studies involving children with
very severe delays and health issues.

From that time until it has been a seven day a week battle to fight for
services and accommodate them in her schedule. Since age two she has had
speech therapy two to three times a week, home-based behavioral therapy 12
hours per week, and occupational therapy. Besides finding time to be
available for the services, we’ve had a full-time job negotiating with
insurance companies and the school district, the latter we’ve had to hire
lawyers to deal with. Despite her grueling schedule that lasts from 8 in the
morning until 7 at night almost every day, she is a happy child who loves
the people who work with her and works hard trying to get better.

This is why it has all been worth it — she is now in second grade in a
classroom with typical children and doing well in school. Her speech has
improved tremendously, to the point that she can be understood by everyone
even if her speech isn’t fluid. Best of all, she has several close friends
who love her silliness despite her being a little ‘odd’ (apple doesn’t fall
very far from the tree, I guess). We’re very happy about the progress she’s
made and have been told that she’s doing better than any of the other
children in the world that researchers have found with the same
microdeletion. We’re hopeful that she’ll continue making progress and
eventually be able to live an independent, productive life doing whatever it
is that makes her happy.

Was that really 495 words? I guess I should now tell you why I want the
tickets — I’ve loved MST3k since the early 90’s and it would be incredible
to be there for the premiere! It would also be great for my wife and I to
spend time together, which we don’t get to do often.

Here’s the beginning of the email I wrote in response.

Dear Chad:

We’ve got movie sign. If you’re down, I’m down. You down? Cool, me too.

So yeah, Chad’s going to the big robot party. Have fun, Chad and Anisa! Thank you for being great parents. And thanks to everybody who wrote in.

Happy Valentine’s Day to Chad and Anisa and their beautiful kid and all of you, too.

***

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