Anne Ampersand sits at the gate, waiting for her flight to board. It’s not her real name, of course—it’s no one’s real name—but it’s the name she’s used for the last ten years to write a grammar advice column that started small, in a local paper, as a lark, off to the side of the investigative journalism she thought she’d pursue with ethical vigor. The sidecar became, over time, the motorcycle itself (she winces at this unprepossessing metaphor) and now she is syndicated in more than 100 outlets, dispensing advice to the grammatically challenged that is accompanied, always, by generous heapings of humor and homespun wisdom. She is flying to Seattle to meet with her ex-husband, who is the father of a new baby. Why is she making the trip? She has no idea. She considers going back up the concourse, getting in her car, driving home, getting drunk on the expensive wine she can now buy whenever she wants. But she won’t leave. She has pledged to face life head on, whatever its challenges. The method has brought her this far and she will remain loyal to it. Every crisis is an opportunity. Every potential diminishment is also a potential enlargement. She will stay right where she is, waiting for the boarding announcements, and then she’ll take her seat, come to terms with the fact that she’ll be recognized by a passenger or two, have a drink for each incident of recognition, fall asleep, dream that the baby is hers, and then wake groggily in Seattle and stumble out of the plane to smile for her ex-husband and his new wife, the mother of his child, her sister.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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