The Grove Project

Fabricated memoir

With the news of yet another memoirist admitting to fabricating her story (see Margaret Seltzer’s “Love and Consequences”), I’ve decided to condense my made-up life story — “Outsource This” — for the GP:

Mom didn’t understand my decision to follow Def Leppard around the country; Dad didn’t really care. My priest … you know … he just missed me. But my wanderings, I realize now, had nothing to do with the real Wang Gupta, born to Indian gurus who eventually ran guns through Shanghai. No, it must have been the bad acid at Woodstock ‘99. Billy Joel says we didn’t start the fire, but I did. Couldn’t help myself when Green Day finally hit the stage.

Coming of age in America during the GW Bush years was all I could ask for and more. Red Sox/Yankees, American Idol, Survivor, big-ass cars, deep fried Snickers bars, great movies like Jack Ass and Deconstructing Harry, terror alerts, curry flavored ice cream, Paris and Britney, hurricanes, illegal aliens. I loved it all.

How great is this country when “Want fries with that?” is so facilely replaced by “Latte or cappuccino”? I loved Starbucks and it treated me well, even gave me health insurance despite only working 15 hours a week. I was in school most of the rest of the time, dealing X and meth.  I tried to deny I was using but my dentist spilled the beans when she said all my teeth were rotted out.

Mom visited me in rehab dressed as a Native American Indian chief. She’d just come from a Connecticut casino, where she tried to apply for a portion of the profits. No dice. She went back to her Miami Beach Olive Garden and her new passion — kite surfing.

Dad appeared out of the blue. Literally. He was a Blue Man Group groupie and had his face permanently painted a shade of aqua that would make turquoise jealous. He died of an overdose of Prozac a few years later after failing an audition to be an Oompa Loompa in a stage version of Willie Wonka.

After the Def Leppard tour, W couldn’t get his Social Security overhaul pushed through, so I decided to go back to the fatherland. Calcutta’s not bad, a little crowded, but the Dell call center is just the pits.