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I had recently become obsessed with the Home Shopping Club. And QVC. There were a few more of these shopping channels, with names like "Gem Showcase" and "Shop on TV!" but they were only flipped to in desperation. After all, what was a twenty-two year old single gay man going to do with a pair of Moissanite earrings? Or three pairs, for that matter?
I wasn't exactly sure; they were still sitting in their shipping boxes on my coffee table. Next to the half-dozen empty bottles of Dewars, the abandoned McDonalds containers, a box of Kleenex [brand tissues], and my ever growing stack of magazines. The latest issue of Advocate Men was on top, with some model named Tom Celik grinning goofily up at me.
So what? What else were you supposed to do after you passed out on the couch at 8 pm and woke up at 2 am, unable to sleep? Something about the hostesses' pristine white teeth, perfectly manicured nails, and smooth skin drew me in. They were everything I wasn't.
I looked down at my grubby, chewed up nails. Ran my tongue over my filmy teeth. God. I needed to brush my teeth.
I got up to brush my teeth, hearing the loud, perky voice of Victoria Gray, the hostess of "Collectibles for Life," describing the hand-painted detail on the Elvis Presley commemorative plates they were selling.
I thought to myself, I don't really need Elvis plates. Who ever really needed plates that you didn't actually use, but hung up as decoration? Who even decided that decorative plates were something that needed to be sold? This kind of fascinated me, from the perspective of someone who worked in advertising -- trying to figure out what the motivation of your buying public would be, and jabbing at it continually until they eventually gave in and couldn't help themselves. That was the genius of these television-shopping networks. Who actually needs Elvis plates?
No one.
But you spent five minutes listening to how exquisite the detail on the plates are; how the porcelain is made in China, where they've built an entire legacy on the integrity of their porcelain; how each individual artist puts their own touches to it, so that no one plate is quite alike -- they're even hand-numbered!
In reality, the artwork on the plates is awful; amateur, at best. And they're kitsch, the opposite of true art.
I stumble back into the living room, still hung over from earlier and half-asleep, and find myself mesmerized by the plates, wondering if I know anyone that could use a set like that. Do I know anyone that likes Elvis? Didn't Greer like Elvis? Or was that Elvis Costello?
Damn. I always got those confused. I was so confused these days.
I reached over, pulling my watch out from under a pile of newspapers and wrappers. 2:20 am.
Ugh, I thought. I had to be at the office at a reasonable time tomorrow. We were supposed to be doing a morning sales pitch to the Absolut Vodka people. The great thing about pitching to them is that it always turned into a three-martini lunch. It was also the worst thing, because then the three-martini lunch turned into after-lunch drinks, which faded into some kind of happy hour / dinner and before I knew it, I'd be at some bar in the Ukrainian Village, slumped up against the wall, surrounded by people I didn't know. And then I wouldn't come into work for the next two days.
At least, that's what had happened last time.
Yawning loudly, I rolled over and grabbed the half-empty bottle of Skyy that was lying on the floor next to the couch. I wondered how long that had been sitting there? I never drank that kind of vodka. I rarely drank vodka at home, period. Making a face to myself, I unscrewed it, wincing for a half-second as I swallowed.
"Drink some vodka before I meet the vodka guys," I said aloud to the TV. "Right, Victoria?"
She continued to chatter about the item she was selling. They had apparently moved onto a set of John F Kennedy commemorative coins. They came with a leather-bound book that you could display the set in. I wondered what had happened to the set of "Founding Fathers" commemorative coins I had bought a couple months ago. Those had come in an almost identical book, except the brass-plate on the spine read "Our Founding Fathers" instead of "John F Kennedy: 1917 - 1963" like this one did.
I tried to imagine a neat bookshelf full of these commemorative coin books. It would be like an encyclopedia set of the past, full of important people and events to be remembered. I wondered where I would put something like that. My apartment certainly didn't have the room, but if I cleared some space in my office, I might be able to fit a bookshelf in there...
Before I knew what I was doing, I was dialing the 800-number that continually displayed on the screen. As the line rang, I found myself transfixed on Victoria's long, pink nails, tapping firmly on one of the coins in the book.
"Home Shopping Club, this is Trisha, what item were you interested in today?" a perky voice on the other end of the phone answered.
"Um," I said, trying to focus on what I was looking at. "You have these coins on the screen..." I managed to get out.
===
Almost ten years later, I was lying in virtually the same position, sprawled out over my (newer) couch. Instead of staring at a coffee table full of empty booze bottles and McDonalds containers, it was littered with a dozen cans of Red Bull that I'd crushed into various shapes, several bags of Doritos (Cool Ranch and Spicy Nacho!) and, I think, that same fucking issue of Advocate Men, the cover smeared from fingerprints and all types of crap being spilled on it. I couldn't even make out Tom Celik's name anymore. But that asshole was still grinning at me like an idiot.
It was 3:37 am, according to the time-stamp on the screen, and I was seriously eyeing this pair of green crocodile loafers they were selling on the QVC "David Hasselhoff Men's Collection." Of course, David Hasselhoff wasn't selling the collection himself. A barrel-chested guy named Richard Milton was hosting the show. Every so often, they'd feature brief interludes of video featuring the Hoff himself -- modeling his clothing.
God, that guy was a jackass, I thought. Still, it didn't stop me from wondering about those shoes. I really wanted those shoes.
They were ugly as fuck, but sometimes, a guy just needed a pair of gaudy alligator-skin shoes. I dialed the number.
===
"Listen, Augusten," my brother's wife said over the phone. "I really appreciate you sending us the entire set of Julia Childs cookware, and the toaster oven, and the Italian cappuccino machine, but really -- we're running out of room. Plus, we already have two mixers you sent us. I just..."
"You don't like it?" I asked blurrily. I had been up half the night, unable to sleep again. It was two in the afternoon, but she'd woken me from a nap.
"No, no, it's great, it's just that -- well, like I said, we already have two of them."
"Give it to your mom, then," I said. "She'll like it, I bet." I yawned loudly.
"Oh," she said. "Am I interrupting anything? Are you not feeling well?"
She probably suspected I was drinking again. It wouldn't have been the first time I relapsed and it wouldn't be the last, but, no. I hadn't had a drink in over a year.
"Do you want to talk to John?" she asked.
"Nah," I said. John was awful over the phone. He had Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism, and wasn't a very good phone conversationalist. Plus, he'd probably ask if I was drinking again, too, and I didn't want to have to explain that I wasn't. I didn't really want to talk anymore. "I'm going to go," I said. "Keep the mixer. Give it to someone..."
"You can't keep buying us stuff," she said.
"All right," I said while yawning again, and hung up the phone. I immediately collapsed back under the covers, and dreamed about seeing the perfect pair of Versace pants on QVC.
There was a gorgeous male model wearing them, and they were half off the retail price! I felt the euphoria rise up in my chest as I dialed the phone in my dream.
===
Several months later, I was at lunch with my agent. "I have an idea for a novel," I told her. "In fact, I'm almost finished writing it."
"Are you serious about actually doing something with this?" she asked.
It was a legitimate question. I had already finished another novel, that I'd come close to publishing about three times, but every time we got to the deal stage, I pulled out and told her I didn't want to publish it. To be honest, I didn't know if I'd ever publish that novel. It was the first full-length novel I'd ever written, and I couldn't help but see everything that was wrong with it every time I read through it again.
This time, though, I really felt like I was onto something. I really felt like I could do something with myself that didn't involve being an advertising shill. I could be respected. I would amuse people. I pictured myself accepting the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was something I used to do a lot when I drank. Now, it just seemed silly. I frowned.
"Yes," I said testily. "The other one -- that was my first novel. No one ever publishes their first novel."
"That's not true," she said. "What about Harper Lee? She only wrote one novel."
"Well," I said. I thought: Maybe she wrote another novel that didn't get published, either. Instead of pushing the issue, I changed the subject. "Like I said, I'm almost finished with this one and I'm pretty excited about it."
"What's it about?"
"A group of people that work for a television shopping network."
"Like, Home Shopping Club?"
"Yeah," I grinned. "It's almost soap operatic in nature; with egos and time-slots and affairs and controversies. I'm telling you; I've been researching this topic for years." I didn't mention that my "research" involved thousands of dollars spent on useless crap that no one ever wanted, let alone needed, all purchased between the hours of one and four in the morning.
"Okay," she said, raising an eyebrow at me.
"It has a great beginning to it."
Her eyebrow stayed raised, as if to say, "Go on."
I continued: "One of the hosts accidentally flashes his penis during the Slumber Sunday Sundown broadcast, causing him to get fired."
I watched her knit her eyebrows for a second as she processed that. She took a long sip from the Clearly Canadian bottle in front of her; then said, "You have way too much time on your hands, Augusten."