The Father of Embarrasment

I won't go so far as to say I have a PhD in Self-embarrassment (or parental-embarrassment for that matter...) but I am definitely a graduate student in the subject, having been mentored by my father.

I've been trying to sell my memoir for awhile. I sent a query letter to an agent who shall remain nameless. (A query letter is basically a "Hey, I'm awesome, wanna see my book?" letter. If the agent wants to see more, they ask for a small sample of your writing. If they like that, then they pay you for your work. It is not unlike prostitution.)

The working title of my book is "Making Pink Lemonade." I got a rejection letter back from the agent, which read, "Dear Patricia Stevenson: Thank you for submitting your book, "A World of Peace." Unfortunately, we cannot offer you representation at this time."

I was incensed. I quickly hit "reply" (never a good idea...) and cc'd my parents so that they could see the rude, awful, dehumanizing world of trying to sell yourself.

"Dear *** Agency: I am rescinding my query to you. I do not want a publisher who cannot get my name right, or the name of my book."

I got an email back about fifteen minutes later.

"Dear Pamela: Please do not be offended by our rejection. We are not rejecting you. We are just rejecting what you have written. Please send us your work in the future so that we may reject that, too. If you get published in the future, don't forget our valuable contribution to you as an author."

Oh. My. God. The rudeness! I'm huffing and puffing at my computer screen to the point where my coworkers crowd around to see what I'm so mad about.

"Wow. That is rude," they agree. Again, I hit the "reply" button. (I never learn.)

"Dear *** Agency: Please be assured that when I have sold my book, I will most certainly include you in my 'acknowledgements' page. However, I can't promise that I will have anything nice to say about your agency. Oh well - there's no such thing as bad press, right?"

The email didn't send. It only sent to my dad, who I had cc'd the last email to. I resent it, sure to have the agency's address in the "to" line. Technology is such a pain in the rear.

I got another email back a short while later. "Ms Delderfield: It would seem that we have both mistakenly addressed emails today. Please accept our apologies for not addressing the rejection email properly. We receive many queries each day and unfortunately, these things happen."

I didn't understand what that meant. I hadn't made any addressing errors.

My mom emailed me. "I've been reading the email exchange between you and your father, and I've been rolling on the floor, laughing!"

I wrote back. "What? I haven't been emailing with my dad..."

It hit me like a hand reached out from my computer screen and slapped me across the face. The email that replied only to my dad...

I quickly pulled up the rude response to my "rescinding query" email. Sure enough, the return address was my dad's, not the agent's. Mom later told me about getting to relay this "discovery" of mine to my father - "He was laughing so hard, his face was bright red. I thought you were going to give him a heart attack!"

He has been one of my most staunch supporters of my writing. He's been reading my blog, which means a lot to me. I asked him the other day what he thought so far.

"I liked the 'Roadkill' post," he said. "That was quite good. Very entertaining."

"What about the 'Workplace clothes' one? Did you read that?"

"Yes."

What a guy. Nothing brings me more comfort than the knowledge that my dad will always be right behind me in life, laughing his ass off. And very little brings me more pride than knowing I was the one who made him laugh.