It Came Back To Bite Me

Three years ago I had a dreadfully embarrassing thing happen to me. You know, like the kind that women submit to those ladies magazines? Well, three years ago I worked for a Chiropractor in Iowa and, on one slow afternoon when no one was coming in, we found ourselves flipping through one of those aforementioned ladies magazines that was floating around in the lobby. We were bored.

I had recently shared my embarrassing moment with my coworkers and suddenly one suggested "Jenna! You have to submit it to this magazine, I'm really sure they'd put it in."

"I don't know..." I hedged.

"Do it," they said. I wrote down the email address for submissions and slipped it in my purse.

And so, the next time I was at Kirkendall Public Library I found myself typing an email to a certain magazine's submissions department.

After several weeks of not receiving a response, I got distracted by my upcoming wedding and forgot all about the whole thing.

Imagine my surprise, then, when last month I received an email from the magazine. I almost deleted it without reading it first, but on a whim I opened it up. Was I ever surprised when I read:

"Thank you for submitting your embarrassing moment. We are going to publish it in our April issue. What is the city and state where you live?"

I emailed back with my city and state before thinking about what I had just done.

Oh. My. Gosh. What if people read the magazine and recognize me? I can't even remember what exactly I wrote!! So I freaked myself out but good and started checking the magazine racks at the grocery store with a paranoid frequency.

And then. Yesterday. I received an email from someone I barely know asking me "was that you in the April issue of such-and-such magazine?"

Yes, yes it was me.

I was feeling more embarrassed about submitting The Story than I was about The Story itself. Ugh. At this point, my panic to find a copy of the April issue of such-and-such magazine increased about...tenfold. I had checked both Targets just the day before and had been unsuccessful in finding April, so I figured I had several more days to psych myself up for the impending "was that you?" that I was sure to receive. Come on, how many Jenna Woestmans from Dallas could there possibly be?

That's what I thought too.

Last night we were out on the town with some friends from Iowa who have been down sleeping on our air mattress and getting jumped on by Henry the Evil Fiend, and we passed a Borders.

"Can I stop in there on the way back? I...I need to check something," I asked. Everyone was nice and acquiesced. An hour and a half later, I found myself walking out of the Borders with The April Issue in my hand. It was duly passed around and read by all. (That's what I get, huh?)

And, so, I am finally published. In a ladies magazine which, unless you are a girl and ask extremely nicely, will henceforth remain unnamed.

"You can put this in your portfolio, hon! You got published!" Joey teased me.

Now there's an idea.