Memoir Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from a memoir manuscript in need of serious editing.  This is a reminder that I should do the needed editing more often because it’s funny, some parts of it.  Thank goodness those days are over, but this excerpt from my memoir is not an exaggeration.  The funniness is in the strangeness and perhaps in my perspective alone. I was heartbroken so I had to be rushed to the nearest ER?  

Somehow surviving the hang over and grief, I showed up at my work Chicago hotel concierge desk and bawled.  Seeking guidance, hotel guests instead hurried away from my lobby desk, frightened. 

I was blowing the contents of my nose inside a bar napkin when Kathy, the front office manager, walked to my chair and spit in my ear, “Sheila, we need to talk, you come with me now.”

We arrived at the front office back office. Dramatically, my whole body collapsed to the floor. I remember I had a tight fitting, lovely purple dress and matching purple tights on.

Kathy said, “Sheila, get up and pull yourself together,” she breathed conference room coffee into my face, “we have a full house today and what about all those guests that really need a concierge?  This is what we’re,”

“There's something wrong,” I loudly mumbled, “He left.”

“Okay .  You’re needed, here, now, Okay?  Do you think you can get up in this chair?”

“No moving, I can't move.”

A cohort shouted, “Kathy, there's a line at the concierge desk.”

I rolled onto my back and Kathy clamped her fists on her forehead, “You can't move?  What do you mean?”

“Call an ambulance.  Something's wrong.”  I answered.

Instead, Kathy called the hotel limo.  How could she deny me the hospital if I told her that was required? Two bellhops carried me, legs included, to the back seat. The driver decided not to lift me but held open the vehicle backdoor at a big Chicago Hospital Emergency Room entrance.  I was admitted for depression.

Sheila Cull

Twin Cull ©