Samantha Steiner, Jessica Pavia, Eloise Lindblom, Laura Wang, and LHC

Written By Barzakh Mag

Margaret Mannerly: A Collaborative Writing Pursuit


From: Jenn Panopoulous <editor@antiquatednews.com>

To: Margaret Mannerly <askmargaret@antiquatednews.com>

Subject: [Fwd: New Columnist Auditions]

 

Hey Gus,

 

We scheduled your retirement brunch for the 14th at 10 am. Just the regulars and we’ll get bagels delivered from Poppy Seed since I know you like them better than Vinny’s.

 

Of course, no one can fill your shoes as Margaret but we have to try. So I had Harold put out the call for a replacement columnist. So far, we’ve got five interested persons. I admit I told Harold to have a little fun and send them each a letter from the Quirky File. I’m forwarding his email so you can see how they did. 

 

I’m on a conference call from about 1 to 3 today but am otherwise around to discuss.

 

-Jenn

 

--

Jenn Panopoulos

Editor in Chief

Antiquated News


 

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Harold Shimizu <humanresources@antiquatednews.com>

Subject: New Columnist Auditions

To: Jenn Panopoulos <editor@antiquatednews.com>

 

Hi Jenn, here are the new columnist auditions

 

Harold

 

--

Harold Shimizu

Human Resources Director at Antiquated News


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AUDITION #1

 

Dear Margaret Mannerly,

 

My boyfriend always does the dishes. Like always, he says it’s because I do most of the cooking, so it’s only fair. And yet I watch him hover over the sink and feel he must hate me. He even closes the drain to fill the sink with water. I never knew to do that. Not only is he doing the dishes every night but also he is saving water at the same time. Although he swears it’s fine, I just think my role as a girlfriend is meaningless. 

 

What do you think? Do I let him keep doing the dishes? Or do I demand he leaves it to me? I don’t think I could plug the drain though, I just don’t understand that as a concept. How can you wash the dishes if the water gets dirty? Then you just need to run clean water anyway. Maybe I’m missing something. Is there a YouTube video for this?

 

Many thanks,

 

CATHERINE

 

 


Dear CATHERINE,

 

Dump him, baby. 

 

Let me let you in on a secret: men don’t know about lotion. He’s going to get dry crusty dishwasher hands that bleed every time he moves his fingers. Honey, do you want those hands all over you every night? You’re gonna feel like a lizard is crawling all over you and he’s gonna say, “That’s just too bad.” 

 

Before you know it, he’s going to think this means he can vacuum or do the laundry. Here’s another tip from the top: men only use detergent pods. They don’t know liquid detergent, don’t get it at all. And we all know that’s the kind you have at home. He will break your washer, Catherine! He will vacuum up the pet dog! 

 

I’ve never even heard of plugging the drain to do the dishes. Over my dead body! 

 

Love,

 

Margaret Mannerly!


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AUDITION #2

 

Dear Margaret Mannerly, 

 

My fiancé and I are getting married this fall. His family has always been a bit odd - they only eat tartare and berry smoothies - but it was never anything that bothered me before. However, since we announced the engagement, things have gotten a bit tense. When we go over to their place, they keep trying to invite us inside, and when they come over here, they hint that they want us to invite them in. 

 

They hate eating outdoors and only come over in the evenings, which is when all the mosquitoes are out. I’m always eaten up, and my in-laws make jokes about “bloodthirsty insects.” It’s awkward not to be able to see them clearly in the twilight. I hate to complain, when I’m lucky, they want to be close, but it feels like our relationship is only getting worse, and they just won’t let up about coming into the house! “Let us in and you won’t have to worry about the wedding,” my fiancé’s dad keeps saying. I’m not sure how my fiancé and I can keep up our boundaries without ruining our relationship with his family. What should we do?

 

Very Annoyed with Meddling Parents in Restricted Environments

 


AUDITION #2

 

Dear Very Annoyed,

 

Fortunately for you, I also write the “Cryptid Sightings” column for Ghouls Galore!, a weekly online magazine covering all things supernatural. While I know a great deal about verifying photos of Nessie and Mothman and the like, I don’t claim to be an expert in family dynamics. However, my conscience will not allow me to remain silent: your in-laws-to-be are vampires. 

 

A number of details you mentioned suggest this. The first and most obvious is that they are persistently asking to be let into your house. I suspect their invitations to you are made in hopes that you will feel obligated to invite them into yours. 

 

The second clue is their reaction to the “bloodthirsty insects.” Perhaps, as bloodsuckers themselves, they see the mosquitoes as funny little cousins! 

 

Finally, there is your future father-in-law’s ominous statement that if you let him in, “you won’t have to worry about the wedding.” Personally, I think the downsides of life as a vampire probably outweigh the bonus of not having to worry about wedding planning. It might be time to sit your fiancé down for a candid conversation about his family’s true nature. 

         Yours sincerely,

                   Margaret Mannerly aka Weekly Advisor, aka, Ms. Binoculars of Ghouls Galore!


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AUDITION #3

 

Dear Margaret,

 

My roommate has night cheese. I never wanted a roommate but I can’t live alone or I get anxious—that’s a problem for another day! My roommate, though, he’s this guy named Craig, that’s not his real name, his real name is Brett, but I wanted to protect his identity. He’s a hungry dude (which is fine), I’m not trying to judge him, but at night he takes slices of cheese and a banana to bed with him. The banana is ok because if he eats it, he eats it all the way down and it’s gone, but the problem about the cheese is that sometimes he doesn’t finish all the slices, and his room stinks. 

 

It should be fine because his own part of the room is his problem. But if I even walk by the door, I get a whiff of stinky cheese. It’s worse at night when I get up to go pee because then the cheese is usually on his nightstand which is near the door. 

 

It’s kind of hot in our apartment, especially now in the summer, and we both have fans but those cheeses sweat like when you melt cheese on toast and it’s almost getting too melted but before it reaches that stage. Brett is killing me with this, man, and I like my house smelling good. If anyone ever came in here they’d be like, “what smells so bad?” and I’d have to explain about my roommate’s night cheeses. There are eight slices, by the way, if that’s important to you. 

 

Sincerely,

 

STINKY

 


Dear Stinky,

 

First off, it’s rude to address a woman of a certain age by her first name if you are not intimate friends (which you and I are not), as this is our first correspondence. But I’ll let it slide.

 

Eight slices seem like a reasonable amount—it’s a lucky number in Chinese culture, and mathematically auspicious, being the cube of 2, and therefore quite powerful. But without knowing the type of cheese, it’s hard to know just what kind of power the cheese possesses. 

 

If it is slices of firm cheese, like gruyere or cheddar or manchego, I think that speaks to some kind of foresight on the part of your roommate. Perhaps this is a necessary warding off of midnight hunger, which might itself manifest in more worrisome ways such as sleepwalking or midnight fridge raids. If this is the case, I imagine that your roommate Craig or Brett might be reasoned with. A kind but firmly-worded note someplace he can see it—perhaps on the block of the cheese itself—might go a long way towards communicating some boundaries. Some rhymes could make it memorable and friendly: “When it comes to nighttime cheese / keep it in the kitchen if you please!” You don’t even need to cite me for that ditty.

 

However, if this Brett-Craig is taking slices of soft cheese to bed, such as brie or chevre, then I’m afraid you have a much more worrisome situation on your hands. Eight slices of soft cheese in bed at night suggests you are living not with a human but a chaos demon—a chaos demon who is already quite strong. Just as cheese develops flavor and complexity with age, so too do chaos demons develop strength over time. 

 

If this has gone on for more than a month already, then I am afraid that the only thing to do is bring in an exorcist or move out. Both of these options present considerable expense, but believe me, the price will only get higher if you let this go on. I suggest a few phone calls to your local demonologists’ society to get an estimate; if you drop my name, you may be able to receive 10% off. (We are by now, I should think, intimate friends, despite my initial hesitation.)

 

In addition, you have not revealed what happens to the banana peels. I shudder to think what a chaos demon would do with such a stash. However, if Craig-Brett is human after all, my concern remains; I do suggest a deep clean under the bed before very long.

 

Yours cordially,

 

YFMM

(Your Friend Margaret Mannerly)


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AUDITION #4

 

Dear Margaret Mannerly,

 

I am a waitress at a diner just off a major highway. Because of our location, we get lots of folks coming off the freeway for a meal in the middle of a road trip. Really this includes all sorts. We get a bunch of teenagers driving across the country after graduation, businessmen en route between major cities, tourists who haven’t figured out the highway system and got off at the wrong exit thinking this was Brooklyn. 

 

The main uniting factor among all these types is that they are super easy to scam. Teenagers are the easiest of all: they can’t fit their wallets in the pockets of their skinny jeans and when they go to the bathroom, they just leave their wallets on the table. Easy-peasy, get that wallet onto my tray while the friends aren’t looking, take the cash out in the back, get the wallet back to the table before the kid comes back from the bathroom. Even if you don’t get the wallet back in time, the kid will just blame one of the friends and they scream at each other for a bit in the parking lot. 

 

Businessmen are a bit trickier but not really by much. They pay with cards always because they get reimbursed for travel expenses and such. This might pose problems for others, but not me. I got a photographic memory. So again, easy-peasy, look at the card, remember the name and all the numbers, do a bit of online shopping. As long as I don’t spend too much, they don’t notice. These aren’t the types who keep track of every 20 bucks they spend. 

 

With tourists, I don’t do much scam; I only sweet-talk to get tips from them, so long as their native language is Spanish, Japanese, or Polish, which I speak not fluently but not badly. When a person’s been away from folks that speak their language for two or three weeks and you come out with a few nice Polish sentences, they’ll tip you thirty, forty percent just for their sweet love of you and their mother tongue.

 

So my question’s this: As I’m sure you know tax season is upon us. How do I report my scam earnings? It’s all cash so my sense is I could probably get away not putting it on my 1040, but I’d hate for the IRS to come down on me and take apart my whole little operation. A girl’s gotta have something to keep her in silk stockings.

 

DUBIOUS AT THE DINER

 


To Dubious,

 

I’m delighted to hear that your entrepreneurial spirit has brought you some extracurricular income, but let’s make sure that we’re being ethical about how we report our earnings. 

 

Don’t you think perhaps you’re being a little bit selfish by asking your fellow taxpayers to pay the people at the IRS to investigate how well you’ve paid your taxes? Putting all of that on 1040 is going to really confuse everyone. The only reasonable solution here is to get rid of the IRS, and you can make a major contribution to that effort by boycotting today. Burn that 1040. 

 

As for your overall scheme, I am concerned. You say you’re scamming teenagers by taking cash out of their wallets. Aren’t some of these teens of drinking age, and don’t some of these wallets hold driver’s licenses? There’s a big market for fake IDs these days, especially among the under-aged looking to get into bars, not to mention amateur identity thieves. It seems like it wouldn’t take much effort for you to expand your business into something much more worth your while.


Stay Dubious, pal.

 

-Maggie Manny


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AUDITION #5

 

Dear Margaret Mannerly,

 

I have a problem. I have been harboring a secret crush on a very attractive woman. She is kind, thoughtful, patient, and a writer. She likes helping people. She has all this free time to answer trivial questions about invitations and thank you notes, so she is probably bored and lonely. I want to bring some romance into her life by asking her out to a lovely candlelit dinner for two. The problem is, this is the only way I have to reach her. Could you pass along my phone number? It’s [number redacted]. Tell her I want to spoil her rotten, no thank you notes necessary.

 

Yours,

 

ENTHRALLED

 

P.S. Tell this lady I have an above-ground swimming pool in my backyard if she wants to bring her bikini. 

 

P.P.S. Tell her I have been reading her column for 39 years and like a fine wine, Margaret Mannerly only gets better with age.

 

P.P.S. Some of my friends say that it’s actually more than one writer all responding to letters under the same name. If that’s the case, please pass this letter on to the one who answered the letter about New Year’s gifts on the week of January 4th, 1996. She sounded hot.

 

P.P.P.S. If the one who answered the letter on the week of January 4th, 1996 is not available, please pass this letter on to whoever is the hot one. If more than one of you is hot, there’s enough of me to go around.

 

[NOTE FROM JENN: Gus, just want to be clear - I didn’t write this next one. This Margaret apparently decided to be me and not you.]

 


Dear ENTHRALLED,

 

We at Margaret Mannerly thank you for this kind email and all the many years you have spent with us. It is the true blessing of this job to hear back from avid readers. However, we do find that by the nature of the Margaret Mannerly column, it is easy for readers to think they have a private, personal relationship with the mysterious Margaret even as we have no idea of who is on the receiving end. We believe this may be what is ailing you.

 

Ultimately, I regret to inform you that Margaret Moore, the woman who wrote the Margaret Mannerly column in 1996, has since passed. She led a great, wonderful, inquisitive life and rests peacefully with her late husband and many dogs. In order to fill her impressively large shoes, we have since had to hire multiple writers, just as your friends suspected. They are all funny, they are all kind, and they are all great at their job.

 

However, I cannot share your information with them as that would be inappropriate. It is evident that you are a wonderful person with wonderful taste, but our team values their privacy — otherwise, the column would have a different, more specific name. Please do believe me when I say you are not in fact in love or enthralled with any of us; rather, you are drawn to the stability, the insight, the methodic pattern of Margaret Mannerly. I trust you will find someone who can provide this support in a more substantial way.

 

I understand how heartbreaking this might be. And I apologize profusely for any pain we may have put you through. At the end of the day, there is no real Margaret Mannerly. It will always be a creative writing pursuit, a challenge, a character that we build and hone. You deserve better than that. 

 

Enjoy your above-ground swimming pool,

Jenn Pannoppoulos

Editor

 


From: Margaret Mannerly <askmargaret@antiquatednews.com>

To: Jenn Panopoulous <editor@antiquatednews.com>

 

Subject: Re: [Fwd: New Columnist Auditions]

 

Hey Jenn,

 

U think maybe we should hold off on the retirement party?

 

-Gus





Writing Credits

  • Samantha Steiner: Jenn and Gus, ENTHRALLED, Maggie Manny

  • Jessica Pavia: Catherine, Jenn Impersonator

  • Eloise Lindblom: Margaret Mannerly!, Stinky

  • Laura Wang: Very Annoyed with Meddling Parents In Restricted Environments, Your Friend Margaret Mannerly

  • LHC: Dubious at the Diner, Margaret Mannerly aka Weekly Advisor, aka, Ms. Binoculars of Ghouls Galore!

Samantha Steiner has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @Steiner_Reads.

Jessica L. Pavia is a nonfiction writer and MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College. Her work can be found in the Sheepshead Review, the Rochester City Newspaper, and Westchester Magazine.

Eloise Lindblom is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at Sarah Lawrence and an avid reader of advice columns.

Laura Wang is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn and Taipei. She is too often found on Twitter @laura_c_wang and is frequently in close proximity to piles of books and delicious snacks.

LHC is an MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College currently living in the northern woods of Michigan. Credits include The Penn Review, The Jellyfish Review, and Room.

Barzakh Mag