My Second Life

This happened around the time when I found out that the last of my childhood friends, a perky second grade teacher, got hitched and left me as the last single girl from my high school graduating class. There I was, a successful young woman, in my late 20s, single household, top 25% income bracket, 18+ years of education, two advanced degrees, a yuppie apartment and a brand new silver A3, crying into my pillow every night after yet another 14 hour workday full of crazy bosses and lazy subordinates. And her, who never spent any time on studying and barely graduated from college, marrying a carpenter, spending Sundays grilling in the back yard and watching football, and cannot look happier or want anything else from life but make flower arrangements and raise children. Of course, I had to go to wedding, smile like an idiot, wear that hideous yellow chiffon dress that made me look like snot, and then spend the rest of the time avoiding food bombs at the kids table, where of course I was seated as the not +1 guest. After fueling on some self-pity tequila shots, I finally did some thinking and realized I made big mistakes on the course of my life, channeling my efforts into useless things such as education and career growth, which basically landed me a role of a social outcast and doomed me to be forever unhappy, going to boring weddings, dressed like snot. It was then, just when little Johnny spilled his grape juice all over my snot dress, that I had a brilliant brain wave – I finally figured out just what I needed to do to get myself out of the rut I was stuck in!

When I woke up the following day, I marched my hung-over self to the office and delivered my resignation letter, signed with red lipstick. The shock on my boss’ face, after all those years of torture, was indeed a picture worth a thousand words. Upon returning back home, I gathered every book or copy of the Economist I ever owned, ripped my college diplomas out of their golden frames and dumped everything into the garbage bin. I then drove to the nearest court office and submitted an application to change my name, Rebecca Goldberg, to something much more appropriate – Mindy Star. After all, a new life deserved a new headline!

My body was the next in line for a transformation. I always wanted a classy tattoo, but was too afraid to get one. I was also worried what my colleagues or clients would say if they saw that I had one. But, as my new self, as Mindy, I entered into the tattoo parlor near to the Court office and asked for two! On my right breast, I got one of a heart pierced by an arrow engraved with the word “juicy”. For my lower back, I chose a large green and red dragon, spitting fire over my love handles. I was just about to ask for a naked silhouette of myself, to cover my entire right arm, when I realized there was just so much pain that I could take in one go and decided to postpone for next time.

With my body freshly tattooed, it was time to bring on (or in) the big guns! I called doctor Zilber, a well known plastic surgeon, and gave him an open check and a mandate to give me the body of a star. Two months later, I had the full package: Lips like Angela, breasts like Pamela, stomach like Demi, buttocks like J-Lo, and the attitude of Beyoncé.

I just had to put on the final touches to reach perfection: I bleached my hair, got Paris Hilton extensions, whitened my coffee stained teeth, bought a new wardrobe (tube dresses, red platform shoes, sparkling jewelry) and arranged for a fake diploma in secretarial studies from Oak Tree Community College. I painted my room walls in pink and covered my floors with sheep skins. I got some stuffed animals and read every edition of Star Magazine since 1995, while listening to Britney and Justin Bieber on infinite repeat. Mindy was then ready to take over the world and there was nothing that could stop her!

I started tottering regularly to the Four Seasons Hotel bar, where I would smile broadly, bat my eyelashes, and strike meaningless conversations with older business men about the latest Kardashian fashion or the upcoming super bowl. As long as they could stare down my low cut, shimmery tank top, they didn’t really care what I talked about, and anyways, it would just be a conversation starter before they would go on talking about themselves, basking in my admiring looks and “awwww” and “woooww” sounds I would utter in regular intervals.

After a few of those visits, I finally met Earl. He was a southern gentleman; bold, chubby, boring, 30 years older, and absolutely perfect with his 500 million net worth, accumulated from a successful media business. Just the perfect amount to live in relative comfort! It was love at first sight; me and Earl’s money, Earl and my silicon and listening skills. Lucky enough, his wife got run over by a car a few years ago and he really needed a companion to attend formal events with. We were married in Vegas a month later and this was when I started my happily ever after.

Earl has two additional great qualities: first, he is basically an impotent, and second, he is always traveling for work, which leaves me all the time in the world to split my life between our chateau in France with my personal trainer Jacques and our house in Malibu with my passionate wannabe actor / pool boy, Alfredo. My main day to day difficulty is to decide how to share the time between them as it is always hard to choose between Jacques’ excellent massage skills and Alfredo’s killer margaritas.

Eh… How foolish I was in my youth, choosing such a wrong path! Good thing we sometimes get a second chance in life.