Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me_ (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling [71]
Mindy wore a lot of hats. Ivy League graduate, actor, comedian, playwright, inveterate gossip, weirdly pro-gun Republican, outspoken advocate of conspicuous consumption, and of course—as we learned upon the posthumous release of her puffy-sticker-covered diaries—hard-core perv. But despite all of these foibles and flaws, and the literally thousands of others I jotted down in my psychotherapist-mandated “Mindy Workbook” in order to maintain a sense of professionalism while we worked together, I loved Mindy Kaling. No one wrote like Mindy. No one was funnier than Mindy. No one else, in short, was Mindy. This will not be true for long, I understand, as her will dictates that her DNA be replicated one million times, news that recently sent the NYSE Retail Shopping Index skyrocketing.
This is Mike and me at the Writers Guild of America annual awards. We lost every category and got drunk in the hotel lobby.
I can’t believe she’s gone. I console myself by thinking, Well, I guess the angels just wanted her to shut up. I will miss her dearly, and I hope that she is up in heaven right now watching us and smiling, even though deep down I know that if there is an afterlife, she’s a pretty much open-and-shut case for hell.
R.I.P.
Good-bye
WHEN I WAS six and I saw The Sound of Music for the first time, my favorite part, hands down, was when the Von Trapp children bid farewell to partygoers with their song “So Long, Farewell” from the stairway of their Austrian manor. As an adult, I now see what a terrible example this is for children. It teaches them that adults will be charmed by long, protracted musical good-byes. In fact, all of The Sound of Music inspired a childhood’s worth of my misguided behavior, where I believed people would always be excited to hear me sing.
I memorized the song off our record player. Then, at bedtime, I called my parents to the landing of the stairs in our house so that I could perform it in its entirety. Just me singing all seven kids’ parts, accompanied by no music. Once I finished one child’s part, I disappeared into my bedroom only to reemerge and run down the stairs to pick up the next one’s part. My parents listened patiently until we got to the second kid’s exit.
“Okay, enough of this,” my dad said, and headed up the stairs to shuffle me off to bed.
“We’re only on Friedrich! There are five more Von Trapp children!” I said. This fell on deaf ears. My parents were supportive of my creativity but did not have a lot of patience for whimsy with zero production value. They had stuff to do.
The point is I learned nothing from this experience. Yes, if I’m at a party where I’m not enjoying myself, I will put some cookies in my jacket pocket and leave without saying good-bye. But when I’m having a great time? I like ’em nice and drawn out, Von Trapp–style. I could say good-bye all day. Like a guy putting on his shoes.
Before I leave, I thought I’d answer any remaining questions you might have.
So, you never won any childhood spelling bees? I was under the impression this was a memoir of a spelling bee champ.
It is confusing, I know. Based on my ethnicity, the number of friends I had as a kid, my build, my eyesight, and my desire to please my parents, I should have been the reigning spelling bee champion from ages seven to fourteen. My best guess at an explanation is that my parents were worried I would be just too good a speller and a potential kidnap prospect for anyone watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on CSPAN-3 in the middle of the afternoon.
Why didn’t you talk about whether women are funny or not?
I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn’t. It would be the same as addressing the issue of “Should dogs and cats be able to care for our children? They’re in the house anyway.” I try not to make it a habit to seriously discuss nonsensical hot-button issues.
What will your next book be about?
I hope my next book will be