Tinkle, Tinkle, I’m a Star

This is another guest blog from a former coworker Diane Pascoe who loves to write and has a great sense of humor. I hope you enjoy her post. Her email is at the end of the blog should you wish to sign her up for a multi-million dollar deal. 

Diane Pascoe

I’m pretty sure there‘s not a writer alive who doesn’t enjoy at least a wee bit of recognition for that special way they put words together. You can imagine, then, how flattered I was when an article appeared in our company newsletter about my humor essays on More. This revelation created a brief flurry of excitement in the office halls with some coworkers who seemed genuinely surprised that I could write something other than emails or warning letters for wayward employees. 


Fame has been quite elusive to date. My little essays amuse about thirteen faithful readers including my mother, sisters and a few loyal friends who go online to see which of my 317 lipsticks I’m wearing in my most recent photo.

Lipstick Literature

So you can imagine my surprise one evening when I was walking down the back stairwell at work and a woman’s voice called out “Hi there - are you that writer?”


Good heavens! I turned around to look at my fan and there was the office cleaning lady leaning on her broom, smiling at me.   Well I’ll be doggone.  I guess that picture of me in the company newsletter did me justice, because though we had never met, she sure knew it was me. 


“Miss Diane, Could you print me some of those stories you’ve written. I would like to read them on my breaks and when I go to the bathroom.”


The bathroom reading part struck me as curious, but I eagerly responded, “Sure, I will. I hope you enjoy them and thanks for asking”. I scurried back to my office to print the stories and rushed them over to her.  The way I see it, you never know when you’ll get another fan so you better work hard to keep the few you have. I left the building smiling at my stairwell fame.

Cleaning up

A few days later, the cleaning lady approached me again, asking for another set of my essays for her sister to read when she went to the bathroom. I was dumbfounded.  Scribbling a collection of essays for bathroom reading was hardly on my publishing bucket list.


To be quite honest, I had actually been dreaming about a charming little chick lit book that would be on every woman’s nightstand, not on her toilet tank.  The dream went like this:  a big city book agent would read my essays on More.com one afternoon while she enjoyed a crispy chicken sandwich at McChunky’s. Her jaw would drop in amazement as she hung on my every word. She would even start to hyperventilate as she read the witty part. She would run out of the restaurant to catch that last Jet Blue flight to Raleigh, eager to meet me before I had tucked in for the night. She would bang on the front door, begging me to open it so she could feast her eyes on the writer of these enchanting essays. Then she would flash a book contract in my sleepy face, delighting me with promises of publishing my ditties in 42 languages, including Tasmanian. I would breathlessly sign the contract while smiling for pictures promoting my book tour across seven continents.  My delightful little book would rival “Gone with the Wind” and even “The Cat in the Hat”.  


One thing I absolutely knew for certain -  I was not put on this earth to write a bathroom reader for tinklers.  Or was I?  Maybe the cleaning lady was onto something. 

The Reading Room 

My brain started to race.  Is it possible my precious stories could serve a higher purpose in the bathrooms of the nation?  Could my shorter ditties encourage little tinkles, and the longer ones  be an amusing distraction when business was, uuhhh, slow?  Heck, women could even learn a bit about lipstick or weight loss or even marital bliss with Honey, often topics of interest for the modern madame.   


Maybe I could get my life chronicles published on the doors of women’s bathroom stalls . I could  have home parties where I could sell my bathroom books or have them available through iTunes so they could be downloaded for easy bathroom listening.  


I could even see the letterhead of my new company - ”Ms. Pascoe’s Bathroom OmniMedia”, much like Martha Stewart’s empire but with a lavatory theme.  I could have velour hand towels and washcloths with my image adorning them, and perhaps toilet paper festooned with some of my more endearing quips.  Stephanie v-H., a fabulous More editor, would be interviewed for the foreword and would say she knew me before I became a famous bathroom reader writer and yes, she too was surprised that I had chosen this particular literary genre.


Warming up to my new calling as a bathroom reader writer, I even started to dream up titles for this tome of toilet prose, like “Tinkle, Tinkle, I’m a Star” or ”Tales from the Throne”.  I‘m getting pumped as I envision my words in potties all over the world.         


Move over,  Margaret Mitchell.


Diane Pascoe can be reached at djpascoe@nc.rr.com