The Glamorous Life of a Writer

A couple of weeks ago I got a request from a library looking for an autographed photo of me to put up a display of my books on their wall of authors. Totally cool, right? I was beyond flattered, and agreed to send one immediately However, this request assumed one thing: that I’m some famous author who has 8X10 photos of myself sitting around waiting to be autographed for fans at any moment. Ha! Yeah, not so much. Maybe actresses do, maybe models, maybe even Nora. But not me.

But, like I said, I was totally flattered by the request and who wouldn’t want a permanent display on a wall of authors, so I set about getting an 8X10 printed. Luckily, I do have a fairly decent author photo that was taken a few years ago, so it was matter of getting a high res enough copy of it and getting it printed. My printer is a dinosaur, so that was immediately out. But, I found out that our local Walgreens does a great job of printing low cost photos, so I ordered an 8X10 online and was set to go pick it up the next day.

At this same time, my 10 year old was doing his school play. Which, at our school, means his mom was putting in major volunteer hours. (sigh… how do I get roped into these things?) One of my duties was to provide 100 bottles of water for the cast and crew party after the show. Luckily, I noticed that bottled water was on sale at… Walgreens! Perfect! I’d just pick up the water when I picked up the photo the next day.

So, the next morning, wouldn’t you know it, Baby T had a cold. No prob, I think, I’ll just pick up some baby Ibuprofen at Walgreens while I’m picking up the water and the photo. (They really do have all the bases covered don’t they?) So, I pack Grumpy Baby into the car, and off we go.

Problem #1: they are out of baby Ibuprofen. Dude, what are the chances? Not cool.

Problem #2: Do you know how heavy 100 bottles of water are? That’s like 5 flats of water bottles. I had them shoved in the top of the cart, the bottom, stuck in the seat – everywhere! I could barely push the thing through the store, and water bottles were escaping their flats, falling out every couples of steps.

So, I finally inch my fully loaded cart to the photo counter to get my 8X10. At this point, Baby T has really had enough and is crying his lungs out, grabbing at the displays, wriggling from my arms, his poor little running nose dripping on my shoulder. I have him by one hand, my purse by the other, trying to run my credit card through and NOT bend the photo as baby screams at me and water bottles continue to fall from my cart, rolling across the floor and sticking in the automatic doors. I finally pay, pick up Baby T like a screaming football under one arm, and my cart gets stuck. It’s so heavy, it can’t make it over the door frame to the parking lot. I give it a big heave… and three flats of water fall out the front, spilling on the ground.

Glamorous, no?

I did finally get Baby T calmed down, the photo mailed, and the water to the school play. But in the future, I may stick to autographing books.


~Trigger Happy Halliday

P.S.  For all the non-ebook readers out there, THE PERFECT SHOT is now available in print at Amazon.com!