Today is the day to have a good at-bat.

So on Friday I read at the Dollar Store, a really good reading series here in Chicago where the conceit is that all readers are given something that was purchased at a (say it with me now) dollar store, and then write or perform something based on that. Below, please see the object I received:

You may notice that the "because" in "because you make me fun" is actually spelled "becanse." This is probably because gray market hair accessories (I mean, "accessoris") just inspire delirium and hence bad spelling. Anyway, this is what it inspired me to write:

Dear Makers of Natural Ice Beer:

Five years ago, my life was a mess. It was worse than a mess, actually-it was not fun.

It all started back when Dad left Mom. No wait: Maybe it started when Dad made all that money at the racetrack. Actually, it might have started the day I was born.

It was a day that ruined many lives. And it wasn't just her life that Mom ruined when she gave birth-having kids ruined her figure, too, which, let's face it, was the only thing she had going for her. "Please marry my weak-minded, emotionally stunted, mentally unstable, fiscally unsound, frail-constitutioned yet smoking-hot daughter" was what Grandpa said to Dad when he pleaded with him to marry his daughter, or so the story goes. They were married for nine blissful months, as Dad touted Mom around town, showing off her killer bod while she stared off into space smiling absently. But a few months after she was knocked up, Mom lost her nearly-grotesquely small 8-inch waist and gained a daughter. Dad resented me deeply for causing all the baby weight, so my very first memories were of Dad hating me and Mom constantly forgetting my name.

Dad then impregnated Mom six more times in the ill-conceived plan that maybe one of the kids would snap her back into shape. But it was of no use. Mom sat there in her housedress with us kids-me, Bernard, Taffy, Augustine, Lamont, Peanut and Chester-while Dad wished that he had married a near-retarded hot woman who at least possessed rudimentary skills for diaper changing. Exhausted, irritated and covered in bodily fluids, Dad took the family's last dollar and went to the track.

Dad said a prayer to St. Llewellen, the patron saint of greyhound racing. After much intense research and lengthy observation, he carefully picked a greyhound named Destiny. The bell sounded, The dogs raced after that fake rabbit thing. And then Destiny came in fourth place.

Dad found the dog's owner and demanded that the bitch be shot for ruining his life, which really wasn't fair of him if you think about it. The owner refused, so Dad shot him instead, taking his wallet and that's how he ended up with all that money at the racetrack. Then he disappeared. How do I know all this, you might ask? I read about it in the newspapers years later after I had taught myself to read (inexplicably, Dad wanted Mom to homeschool us, which did not work out well.)

When Dad failed to come home after a few nights, Mom finally went out to look for him. If we were old enough to know better, we would have stopped her, since she had never ventured out more than a one-block radius from the house. Also, Dad should have never bought that house so close to the train tracks. Within a week, Dad had left, Mom was dead and I, at eight years old, was left to raise my six younger brothers and sisters on my own. In addition to this, Dad's book club kept coming by once a month despite his absence, so I had to entertain them all as well.

Oh, it was not easy, I tell you that. Luckily, I found a job rather quickly with the Sad Orphan Hard Labor Factory, which paid me $5 a week. You could stretch $5 much further back then, in 1995. Which was good, because Bernard, the next-oldest, demanded $10 an hour to babysit the others. Obviously I couldn't meet that rate, but do you know how hard it is to find reliable babysitters in this day and age? So instead I had to promise to keep the pantry stocked with Trader Joe's peanut butter stuffed pretzels and subscribe to HBO, which was extra hard when we could barely afford electricity, let alone a television, let alone basic cable.

Times were very tough. We had one toothbrush to share between us all. We had to bathe out of a Kane County Cougars souvenir plastic cup that someone had found in the alley. We had to share a single pallet and we didn't even know what a pallet really was. The younger brothers and sisters suffered from rubella, mumps, scurvy, yellow fever, foot rot, jaundice, polio, infant-onset acne and kennel cough, and that was just in March of 1996. In 1997, I finally taught myself to read, because I had to examine the contract when we sold Taffy to an underworld kingpin so that we could afford Showtime (damn that Bernard!) That's when finally I was able to read the newspaper that we had been inexplicably holding onto for all those years, the one that told the tragic tale of our family's fate. I was finally able to stop holding onto that article after all that time. We were able to stretch that yellowed piece of newsprint into meals for three days.

I had no childhood, you see, none of the innocence that every American child is granted as he or she enters this world. I never had the opportunity to build a MySpace page, to call my mother an idiot in the middle of a Target because she wouldn't buy me the right brand of leggings, to listen silently on a three-way phone call as one friend goaded another into saying she didn't like me, only to reveal myself and call her a no good skank. I was too busy working, selling my siblings, tending to their outdated illnesses, teaching myself to read, eating newspapers and telling protective services every week for ten years that my parents would be right back. Every day I cursed the day I was born.

Finally, all the children grew up and had been taken care of. They married, moved away, joined the circus. I don't know, I stopped paying attention after Lamont.

And where did that leave me? I had gotten by lo those many years on on my wits and brains, but who wanted a brainy, witty, filthy, destitute young woman? I certainly was not my mother's daughter. I was a mess. My hair was limp, without any body or swing. My skin was pale, my fingernails ragged, my elbows rough, my eyes tired, my mouth set into a hard line after too many years of scraping by. I was, as Shakespeare called it, a hot mess. This was what brains and wit had begotten me? F that. I was alone, exhausted.

So I went to a bar.

I had never trusted alcohol. It was what had impaired my father's judgment so badly his whole life. It seemed to promote foolishness, ruin and abandon. I had never had a drink in my life. But something in me, call it instinct, call it women's wisdom, said to me that I needed to get hammered.

I asked the bartender to give me the cheapest drink he had, which, god bless you, was yours, Natural Ice Company, in case you forgot that this is a letter and that I am addressing you.

He placed the can in front of me. It sweated lightly as it rested on the bar. It seemed to emanate its own light which only I could notice, as the other patrons, who I perceived to be tired, washed up, bitter men simply stared at their hands.

I took my first sip.

You know that saying, "Calgon, take me away?" I would like to know how drunk Calgon can make you, because unless it has higher alcohol per volume than your product, I think it should be changed to "Beer, take me away." This, this was the break, the release, the sweet reward I had so deserved for my many years of toiling away. After my third can I realized the important things in life. It wasn't family, or surviving the odds, or not getting taken away by DCFS. It was fun. And also all the cute guys suddenly sitting around me. And more beer. And the amazing thing was, the more cans I drank, the more they kept appearing, as if by magic, thanks to the kind people in the bar with me. It was as if they were all saying, "There there...there is no time for worries any more. Have another beer. Unbutton that matronly cardigan while you're at it."

And I haven't looked back since.

Thanks to you, Natural Ice, I am no longer haggard, tired, unpleasant. I had never had a gentleman friend before, but thanks to you, every time I step into the pub I'm the most popular girl there. Since I met your product, my hair has been full and bouncy, my teeth whiter, my breasts larger, my tan deeper, or so I've been told. Thanks to you, I never have a shortage of friends, or boyfriends, or guys who like to ask me how many drinks I've had and if they can buy me one more. Thanks to you, I no longer have a care in the world. Who needs bills, and siblings, and jobs, and sob stories when you have wonderful alcohol in your life.

I used to be many things. Determined. Intelligent. Destitute. Stinky. Selfless. Flat-chested. But what did that get me my entire life? Nothing but misery, callouses, and no dates.

But now. Now I'm very happy. Because you make me fun.

Most Very Sincerely Yours,

Claire B. Zulkey

Thanks to Justin for digging the hairbands out of the trash and taking a pic