Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

by Mindy Kaling

  I was living in Brooklyn with Brenda and Jocelyn, but Bridging the Underworld was taped in Queens. If I took the nicer subway, it meant I had to go through Manhattan every morning to get there, and that took a really long time. The subway line that ran the short way was the G line, which stopped exclusively in Brooklyn and Queens. That might be the only time the word exclusive has been used to describe the G train. At that time, the G train wasn’t so hot. (My apologies to the train. I’m sure it’s amazing now, with, like, a community garden and charter school in it. But not then.)

  My coworker Rachel also lived in Brooklyn and took the G with me. Rachel was a pretty Jewish girl my age who was the heiress to a gourmet pickled Jewish food dynasty in L.A. She was an amazing cook who made her own bagels—a supremely cocky thing to do in New York—and other delicious food. When I went over to her house to watch TV, there would be homemade rugelach for snacks.

  Rachel and I jokingly (and hilariously) called the G the Rape Train. One morning at work we were joking about it in the commissary. We did not see Sally, the producer, standing a few feet away.

  “Did you hear the Rape Train added new stops?” I said to Rachel.

  “Yeah? What are they?” she asked.

  “Lurk, Stalk, Stab, and Dump Body,” I said, very pleased with myself. Rachel laughed. We high-fived.

  Suddenly, Sally appeared behind us. She looked really upset.

  “Do you girls feel unsafe when you come to work in the morning?” Sally asked.

  I was surprised she’d heard us. When you’re that low on the totem pole, you sometimes think you’re so unimportant that no one can hear you. My sense of invisibility had made me loose-lipped.

  We hastily assured her that it was just our unfunny, pejorative nickname for the train, and that, based on the empirical evidence we had gathered so far, real rapists didn’t traditionally attack two girls at once at seven in the morning, and that we were the real creeps, and we were sorry.

  Sally looked displeased. “It’s not a very funny thing to joke about,” she said. “It’s extremely inappropriate.” She turned and left.

  We were horrified. Later that morning, Rachel and I both got notes saying Sally wanted to see us in her office.

  “She’s going to fire us for sexual harassment!” Rachel worried.

  I was freaked out. Sexual harassment was a real thing. You can’t just joke about rape at work. We had endured a lengthy sexual harassment seminar on how fireable this behavior was. Sarah Silverman could make jokes about rape because, the fact of the matter was, she was much funnier and cuter than us. This was the problem of living in a post–Sarah Silverman world: lots of young women holding the scepter of inappropriateness did not know how to wield it.

  I began wondering what I would tell my parents about getting fired. It would be embarrassing, especially since I had just bought my mother an expensive pair of Uggs with my new money. They were “I’ve Made It!” Uggs. I didn’t know how I would tell them. I figured I could conceivably go three weeks without their noticing, living off graduation cash my aunt and uncle had given me. After that, I was toast.

  When we were called in, we found Sally waiting with Joel, the head of Human Resources. Joel had a really tough job, because, as anyone knows, it’s absolutely terrifying when someone from Human Resources is meeting you for any professional reason. Even if Joel simply wanted to share your table in the break room to enjoy a cup of coffee, you cringed a little. “Oh God, is Joel going to tell me my dental care is no longer covered?” I pretty much could only handle Joel for the ten minutes he was sitting with me going over my start paperwork. Then I never wanted to see him again. He’s a lot like the Toby character from The Office.

  Our situation looked bad. Now we would not only get fired and escorted immediately out of the building by security, but what we’d done would go in our Permanent Files, following us from job interview to job interview, ruining our careers.

  “Girls,” Sally said, “I took what you said very seriously this morning.”

  I was already making distancing body language from Rachel in my chair. I didn’t want them to think we were attached at the hip. You could fire Rachel and keep me! I’m a minority!

  “We want a town car to transport you to and from work. We can’t have you be unsafe.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Being potentially litigious young women had just landed us free car service to and from work, as though we were investment bankers. My inappropriate, unfunny remarks were getting us special treatment rather than fired. I felt like Ferris Bueller.

  It actually cost the studio more to transport us by town car than it did to pay us. Everyone was instantly jealous. People began sucking up to us, hoping to wheedle a ride home in our town car. I treated that car like an interborough shuttle for all my friends. This is when I learned that crime pays. From Dartmouth to Dirtbag!

  Best Friend Rights and

  Responsibilities

  FOR ALMOST EIGHT years I lived with my best friends in either a cramped college dorm room or a small Brooklyn apartment. Normally these are the circumstances that drive one roommate to get engaged to some random guy super fast because she is so annoyed with her living situation. We managed it well, however, because we maintained an informal best friend code of conduct. I’ve outlined its most vital aspects here.

  I CAN BORROW ALL YOUR CLOTHES

  Anything in your closet, no matter how fancy, is co-owned by me, your best friend. I can borrow it for as long as I want. If I get something on it or lose it, I should make all good faith attempts to get it cleaned or buy you a new one, but I don’t need to do that, and you still have to love me. If I ruin something of yours and don’t replace it, you’re allowed to talk shit about me to our other friends for one calendar year. That’s it. Then you have to get over it. One stipulation to my borrowing your clothes is that you have to have worn the item at least once before I borrow it. I’m not a monster.

  WE SLEEP IN THE SAME BED

  If we’re on a trip or if our boyfriends are away, and there’s a bed bigger than a twin, we’re partnering up. It is super weird for us not to share a bed. How else will we talk until we fall asleep?

  I MUST BE 100 PERCENT HONEST ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK, BUT GENTLE

  Your boyfriend is never going to tell you that your skirt is too tight and riding up too high on you. In fact, you shouldn’t even have asked him, poor guy. He wants to have sex with you no matter how pudgy you are. I am the only person besides your mom who has the right (and responsibility) to tell you that. I should never be overly harsh when something doesn’t look good on you, because I know you are fragile about this, and so am I. I will employ the gentle, vague expression “I’m not crazy about that on you,” which should mean to you “Holy shit, take that off, that looks terrible!” I owe it to you to give feedback like a cattle prod: painful but quick.

  I CAN DITCH YOU, WITHIN REASON

  I can ditch you to hang out with a guy but only if that possibility has been discussed and getting-a-ride-home practicalities have been worked out, prior to the event. In return, I need to talk about you a lot with that guy so he knows how much I love you.

  I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOUR KID IF YOU DIE

  I can’t even write about this, it’s too sad. But yes, I will do that. And you will have one awesome little kid who hears endless stories about how amazing and beautiful and perfect you were. Incidentally, your kid will grow up loving Indian food.

  I WILL NURSE YOU BACK TO HEALTH

  If you are crippled with pain because of a UTI, I need to haul ass to CVS to get you some medicine, fast. I should also try to pick up a fashion magazine and the candy you like, because distracting you from your pain is part of nursing you back to health.

  WE WILL TRADE OFF BEING SOCIAL ACTIVITIES CHAIR FOR OUR OUTINGS

  On trips together, I promise to man up and be the person who drives the rental car sometimes, or uses my credit card and has people pay me back later. Someone needs to check on Yelp to see what the good b
runch place is. Neither of us gets to be the princess all the time. I get that.

  I WILL KEEP YOUR FAVORITE FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCT AT MY HOUSE

  Even though no one uses maxipads anymore, like you do, weirdo, I will keep a box at my house for when you come over.

  SAME WITH YOUR CONTACT LENS SOLUTION

  I can’t believe you won’t get Lasik already. You can afford it. I know you read someone went blind from it, but that was like twenty years ago. Not getting Lasik at this point is like being that girl in 2006 who didn’t have a cell phone.

  I WILL TRY TO LIKE YOUR BOYFRIEND FIVE TIMES

  This is a fair number of times to hang out with your boyfriend and withhold judgment.

  WHEN I TAKE A SHOWER AT YOUR PLACE, I WON’T DROP THE TOWEL ON THE FLOOR

  Your home isn’t a hotel. I forget sometimes because you make it so comfortable for me.

  IF YOU’RE DEPRESSED, I WILL BE THERE FOR YOU

  As everyone knows, depressed people are some of the most boring people in the world. I know this because when I was depressed, people fled. Except my best friends.

  I will be there for you during your horrible break-up, or getting fired from your job, or if you’re just having a bad couple of months or year. I will hate it and find you really tedious, but I promise I won’t abandon you.

  IF OUR PHONE CONVERSATION GETS DISCONNECTED, THERE’S NO NEED TO CALL BACK

  I get it. You get it. We take forever getting off the phone anyway. This was a blessing.

  I WILL HATE AND RE-LIKE PEOPLE FOR YOU

  But you can’t get mad if I can’t keep track. Robby? Don’t we hate him? No, we love him. Okay, okay. Sorry.

  IT IS OKAY TO TAKE ME FOR GRANTED

  I know when you fall in love with someone that you will completely forget about me. That hurts my feelings, but it is okay. Please try to remember to text me, if you can, if you know I have something going on in my life, like a work promotion or something.

  NO TWO PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN US

  We fucking rock. No one can beat us.

  Matt & Ben & Mindy & Brenda

  I WAS FINALLY paying my bills, but Brenda and I weren’t doing anything creative. I became increasingly worried I had moved to New York City to be a professional au pair. Because no one was hiring us to act or write, Brenda and I decided to create something to perform in ourselves. There was a one-hour window per day when I could write with her. She left for her job as a public school substitute teacher in the early morning and got back home at 3:00 p.m. I left for my babysitting job at 4:00 p.m. and returned between midnight and 1:00 a.m. So between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon, we met at the apartment to write. Unfortunately, we didn’t make great use of this one hour. Often we ended up lying on the sofa watching Judge Judy scream at people for a while.

  More often than not, our hour work session played out like this:

  INT. WINDSOR TERRACE APARTMENT LIVING ROOM, 3:10 P.M.

  Bren is at the computer in my bedroom eating Honey Nut Cheerios from the box. I am sitting on the bed, near her, eating a large piece of raw salmon I bought from the supermarket. It was my homemade salmon “sashimi,” delicious and a fraction of the price it would be at a sushi restaurant, though not at all safe. Bren looks up from the computer screen.

  BREN: What do we want to do? What do we want to say?

  ME: I think there should be only two characters, so we don’t have to pay anyone.

  Bren types this. Pause.

  BREN: Do you want to go watch the Jamie Kennedy Experiment?

  ME: Totally.

  This went on for months. We could spend the entire hour arguing about the plausibility of Harry Potter and not write a single word.

  In the early 2000s, the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck loomed large in our lives. They loomed large in everyone’s lives, actually. This was the height of Bennifer. Sorry, I hate to resuscitate that term, which the media has thankfully put to bed, but it’s important to remember what a phenomenon it was. It was like Pippa Middleton plus Beyoncé’s legs times the latest Apple product. Bennifer was so big it was as though two people had never been in love before, and they had discovered it. I think it’s also easy to forget that Bennifer created the trend of the blended celebrity couple name. Without Bennifer we wouldn’t have Brangelina or Tomkat, or even the less used Jabrobra (James Brolin and Barbra Streisand). That is the gift that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez gave us that has withstood the test of time.

  Brenda and I have always done “bits,” even before we knew they were called “bits.” Bits are essentially “nonsense time” or, to describe it more pejoratively, “fucking around.” We would take on characters, acting like them for a while on the way to the subway, or getting ready to go out. For whatever reason, around this time our favorite recurring bit was when Bren played Matt Damon and I was Ben Affleck. We played the “guys” very naturalistically, but they had a slightly jock-like, dude posture, and slightly lower voices. Again, have I emphasized how well we fit into our lesbian neighborhood?

  Soon, our Matt and Ben had a rich and completely made-up backstory and dynamic. They had private jokes and shared memories: again, all made up. We did no research on the actual people, because we didn’t care about their actual pasts; the real Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were simply jumping-off points for our Matt and Ben. It was a special kind of fun to be two best friends playing two other best friends.

  Once we had characters, albeit nutty ones, we gained focus. If I can give one bit of advice to any drama major, high school theater kid, or inmate who is reading this in a prison library with dreams of being cast in the prison play, it’s this: write your own part. It is the only way I’ve gotten anywhere. It is much harder work, but sometimes you have to take destiny into your own hands. It forces you to think about what your strengths really are, and once you find them, you can showcase them, and no one can stop you. I wasn’t going to be able to showcase what I did best in an Off-Off-Broadway revival of Our Town. I was going to do it playing Ben Affleck. The premise for Matt & Ben is weird but simple: the script for Good Will Hunting falls from the ceiling of twenty-one-year-old Ben Affleck’s apartment while the two are working on a screen adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye. They stop work and wonder about the significance of what has happened. The tone is somewhere between The X-Files and The Odd Couple. Here is one of the first scenes we wrote. Matt has arrived late to meet Ben, who is annoyed at him. Matt is late because he was auditioning for a play.

  MATT

  And I went, I had to go to this thing first, and then I came here.

  BEN

  What thing?

  MATT

  Nothing, just this audition thing.

  BEN

  For what?

  MATT

  For nothing. You don’t know Shepard? Sam Shepard?

  BEN

  Yeah, of course.

  MATT

  You do?

  BEN

  Yeah, he was in The Pelican Brief, I love that guy. With the wrinkles? Is he in the play?

  MATT

  Uh, no he wrote the play, this play called “Buried Child.” Won a Pulitzer. Anyway, it was nothing. It didn’t happen.

  BEN

  What didn’t happen? The audition?

  MATT

  No, I don’t know. We’ll see.

  BEN

  What’s the part?

  MATT

  Vince.

  BEN

  No, what kind of part? Is it good?

  MATT

  Yeah. They were looking for a blonde.

  BEN

  A dark blonde? Cause you’re not blonde.

  We entered the play in the New York International Fringe Festival. Jocelyn and our friend Jason produced it, and we sold out every show. I think it was largely because of our tireless grassroots marketing. By grassroots, I mean, of course, environmentally destructive pestlike papering of the entire boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Each of us took stacks of postcards and put them in every diner
, indie record store, and frites shop we could. (This was in that eight-month window in 2002 where frites were incredibly popular.)

  We didn’t want to pay a director to direct the show, so Bren and I directed it ourselves. It was a given that we would also star in it, not just because it was fun, but because, again, we didn’t want to pay anyone. Our cheapness was the recurring source of our creative decisions. The set was minimal and we wore guys’ clothes that we’d borrowed from Brenda’s brothers, Jeff and Terry. We had no idea what we were doing, but we had a purpose after two years of living in New York and not having one. Matt & Ben was a respite from helplessness.

  In 2002, the Fringe Festival named us Best Play of all five hundred shows. The New Yorker wrote of the show: “Goofy, funny, and improbably believable … Kaling and Withers have created one of the most appealing male-bonding stories since Damon and Pythias. Or Oscar and Felix.” That quote was easy to access because I have it tattooed on my clavicle.

  This is when our lives started to change.

  Producers got in touch with us to transfer the show to Off-Broadway. We got a director, we got a budget, and we could finally return our costumes to Brenda’s brothers. The show went up at P.S. 122, a beautiful theater in the East Village that at one point had been a public school. There’s a special level of cool for buildings in Manhattan that have at one point been something else. Someone might say to you, knowingly, “Oh, did you know this theater used to be a zipper factory?” or “You obviously know this discotheque used to be church, right?” or “We are eating in a restaurant that at one point was a typhoid containment center.” That’s what I love about New York. If Rikers Island ever goes under, I know André Balazs will have that place turned into a destination hotel for urban metrosexuals within a month, tops. People will sit in their cell/hotel rooms and say, “You know a convicted sex offender used to live in this cell, right?” The solitary confinement unit will be the honeymoon suite.