Below is my fake interview on “Fresh Air.”
Terry Gross: So Coconut Girl, you have a brilliant career, but I want to focus in on the last twenty-four hours.
tCG: Love to.
Terry Gross: Tell me where you’ve slept.
tCG: Technically, it might not have been sleeping. But…my bed, my son’s bed, my daughter’s bed. My son’s bed again. My daughter’s chair.
Terry Gross: I’m noticing your clothes.
tCG: They’re awesome because they move seamlessly from day to night. To day again. By that I mean they’re literally the same clothes I wore yesterday and then slept in. Then wore to work today. I like to switch it up a little.
Terry Gross: That’s code for changing your underwear.
tCG: No, changing my earrings. I lost one of them in somebody’s bed last night so I switched to another pair before my meeting this morning.
Terry Gross: I understand that’s not your only new accessory.
tCG: Correct. I bought a mouthguard at CVS on Monday because I’m clenching my teeth at night.
Terry Gross: Anything else?
tCG: Well, my daughter asked me to buy seaweed for her miso soup while I was there, but I told her they don’t sell that at CVS.
Terry Gross: Can you tell us one of your success secrets?
tCG: When I was in high school, the popular girls would stuff an effigy of themselves in their beds so they could sneak out at night. I’m thinking of creating a figure of myself in my kids’ beds so I can crawl back into mine. It’s more concept than secret.
Terry Gross: Thanks so much for talking with us.
tCG: Do I have to leave now?
HAhaHAHAhaha!
So Coconut Girl – it’s all in how you look at things – think about how lucky you are to have so many choices for bedfellows and beds. I see, from your interview, that there are: two wonderful flesh and blood children and a husband – with the distinct possibility of switching back and forth from one bedfellow, through the night – to another, as your “mood” dictates. But gotta say – that ubiquitous one-set-of-togs-fits -all occasions just won’t float. What will your client THINK when they see, during a morning conference, that lost earring clinging in such a novel way to the armpit of your shirt ? Or your stretch pants inside out and backwards ?
Why were you so aggravated in the middle of the night?
All three kids were up, but husband was asleep. Why does an 8 year old wake up in the middle of the night and read his book for hours? Then that wake up wakes up the 7 year old who “had a bad dream,” plop him in the bed to check on the 1 year old who did not get his milk before bed therefore is waking up constantly.
I feel ya.