Am I Prepared To Be A Public Person?

Also, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, but how did they get pickled before he even picked them?!

Bev Potter
3 min readNov 25, 2022

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Photo by SuckerPunch Gourmet on Unsplash

I’ve always wanted to be famous. My whole life. Why? I have no idea.

It probably had a lot to do with being bullied and ostracized at school. Some kids think of ways to get revenge on their tormentors like becoming a star. Others take a more violent path. The motivation is the same.

See, misfit kids dreaming of wealth and fame weren’t invented by YouTube. They’ve always been around, it just used to be much, much, much, much, much more difficult to catch the eye of a talent scout or agent.

Then again, maybe it’s just as hard now since you’re one of 8 billion people uploading their demo to Spotify.

I got a text last night on our work platform. This is what it said:

(A) It’s freakin’ Thanksgiving. There is literally no information you need to convey to your attorney’s office on Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or any of the other major holidays. We are not 911. We are closed.

(B) Apparently, I am now a verb.

I only bring this up because I’m really not that difficult to track down. I’m not using a fake name because that would defeat the entire purpose of being online, which is, of course, ego gratification.

I didn’t recognize the number the text came from, but it had a “local” area code (if that even applies anymore) so it’s probably not my greatest fear, which is that someone online will start stalking me.

I think a lot about how big stars, real stars, can’t just go to the grocery store for a pint of Häagen-Dazs without being accosted. How badly do you want fame that you’d give up your most basic, quotidian freedoms?

And talk about work. Do you want to live on a plane flying from venue to venue for your world tour? I want that kind of money, but I also want to just lay on the couch and binge watch Dead To Me.

Much more popcorn, much less choreography.

I didn’t respond to the text because I don’t want to encourage whoever it is. I’ll figure it out eventually, one way or the other. It’s probably just some insane client with a new phone number, but, dude, we’re not friends. I’m just a friendly presence on the other side of the ether. I get the occasional day off.

Let me eat my ice cream in peace.

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Bev Potter

Legal secretary by day, insomniac by night. Ally. BA, MA. Humor, pop culture, and things that make you think. My weekly-ish newsletter is bevpotter.substack.com