Back from the break, Oprah would stare into America’s living rooms, and suggest that maybe my “truth”––that’s the theme for today’s show––is so traumatic that I don’t even realize how traumatized I am. Here the audience nods together, on the verge of their seats and tears––except for the row in the back who are already crying that today isn’t the Oprah’s Favorite Things show. She asks me why I fall asleep in the car. She uses air quotes when she says “fall asleep,” because she believes I am instead passing out––to protect myself from the truth that I am afraid to face. She asks why I took up running, and just as I warm up to my explanation that Olympic Runner Eamonn Coughlan was my uncle––though not really, he wasn’t even related to me but my actual uncle told me he was, and I believed him, and then got in trouble in school for boasting to everyone––she cut me off to say that I am running away from myself. And running away from her questions too. Oprah could see, the whole of America could see, just how far up that river in Egypt I was.
Oprah paused for emphasis.
Then she rolled out her star guest … Maggie.
Maggie is my shiny new Volkswagon Rabbit. I remember the first time I watched that VW Rabbit ad, where the little black Rabbit and the little White Rabbit go into a tunnel together and then they come out the other side with a trail of little black-and-white rabbits. I said, “that’s the car we should get.” I didn’t care that Volkswagon was no longer giving away a free electric guitar with a purchase, or that for a family of four the Rabbit might be a tight squeeze on a camping trip. I didn’t consider safety features or fuel economy or resale value. I just tested the volume of the horn and hoped my husband––and driver––would consider practicalities, though of course I never asked him to, because that’d be me setting back the feminist movement again.
