Cool story leads to crushing end
(Originally published November 2023)
A decade ago, I got rejected by the producers of This American Life. I’m still not over it.
Anyone familiar with public radio knows the weekly hourlong show, in which host Ira Glass presents people’s stories on a given theme. In 2013, the show asked listeners to submit their tales of coincidences. I had, I thought, a good one.
In a jaunty, nothing-to-lose mood, I sent off a hastily written story. And, to my surprise, the people at This American Life thought it was funny.
I got an email from producer Sarah Koenig, filling in for Glass, asking to schedule a conference call in which I could recount my coincidence to her and her staff.
Thus ended my jaunty mood.
Picturing myself famous—if only briefly, and only among the rarefied demographic of public radio listeners—sent me spiraling from elation to apprehension to dread. My storytelling skills were not worthy of This American Life. In the days leading up to the call, I lost sleep and hyperventilated a bit.
Cool, cool.
For reference, here is my coincidence:
In 1981, a Russian woman visiting my seventh-grade class told us to come up with sentences we’d like to learn in Russian, and she’d teach us.
Unlike my classmates, who picked dopey phrases such as “I like pizza,” I went with something unique and brilliant: “This is not a pinecone.” (I remember it, in Russian, as “Etta nyet shishka,” although I later found out that’s not grammatically correct. Doesn’t matter.)
“This is not a pinecone.”
It was quirky, sure, but also practical, since so many things are not pinecones. Should I find myself at a Russian dinner party, unable to converse in the language, I could pick up any object—salt shaker, fork, dinner roll—and say, accurately, “Etta nyet shishka.” Brilliant.
Now for the coincidence part. Twenty years after learning that phrase, I was chaperoning my stepson’s elementary school field trip in the woods. A forester, who was teaching the kids about land management and wildlife habitat, encouraged them to each find an item he could expound on. One brought him a clump of moss, another an acorn, and so on.
Then one kid handed him an odd-looking pod and said, “Check out this weird pinecone!”
The forester took the object. He squinted at it. He rubbed his beard.
Finally, he said, “This … is not a pinecone.”
I shrieked, startling the schoolchildren.
“Etta nyet shishka!” I yelled several times, between hoots of joy. “That’s Russian for ‘This is not a pinecone!’” I was met with blank stares. The teacher looked hard at me and put a finger to her lips until I settled down.
She didn’t understand: It was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Unfortunately, when Koenig called, my anxiety was so high I could barely speak. I tried to sound casual and clever, but my voice shook and I mostly said, “Ummm ….” I had lost the ability to form sentences, much less convey my sparkling wit.
I limped through the story. As I trailed off at the end, I heard no applause, no guffaws, no “That’s amazing” murmurs.
And then Koenig got—in my opinion—needlessly hostile.
“What would you say was the deeper meaning of this coincidence?” she asked.
Ah, a trick question. “There is no meaning,” I said. “That’s what makes it a coincidence.”
She wasn’t buying it. “OK, but how did it change your life?”
My life? “Ummm, well, the other parents avoided me at open houses after that, if that’s what you mean.”
Silence.
Desperate, I said, “Don’t you see? In the history of the world, has another human ever said, ‘This is not a pinecone’? What are the odds?”
“Eh, I hike with my kids,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve said it a time or two.”
Please. No, she hadn’t, and we both knew it. In rebuttal, I said, “Ummm ....”
And with that, the call was over.
Weeks later, when I heard the actual episode on NPR, I had to admit there were some better coincidences than mine, ones that introduced future couples and reunited long-lost friends.
Still.
I hope someday This American Life does an episode on how nerves can ruin everything and how, in a 10-minute phone call, a dream can die.
Have I got a story for them.
