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

by Mindy Kaling

3. I also wanted to see if my dress was too low-cut. I ultimately decided it was not too low-cut, but while wearing it, I had to keep my hands hovering over my cleavage, as though I were constantly overheated, like an old-timey Southern woman from a cartoon.

  4. Yes, I am with my two best friends Brenda and Jocelyn who are very dear to me, blah blah, but this photo is more significant because it is a rare time where my head looks normal size. I have an enormous head, so it is important to me to have a few flattering, head-minimizing photos, in case I ever need to use them for one of those birthday cakes that have photographic icing.

  5. I wasn’t positive I could pull off big, black plastic glasses, so I took this photo. If you ever need to be a well-read, artsy hipster in a hurry you should really have big black plastic-framed glasses.

  6. Now I needed to make sure I could pull off the glasses when I wasn’t smiling. I look so f’ing cool here. I’m basically Claire Danes.

  7. My boyfriend, David, doesn’t end conversations with me by saying good-bye. He says, “LTFT” or “Last Thing, First Thing,” which means I am the last thing he thinks about before bed and the first when he wakes up. Anyway, this awesome guy asked me to go see a Harry Potter movie. This is how he asked me, by sending me a photo of himself holding the ticket print-outs. I love this photo.

  8. I took my friend Sophia as my date to the Writers Guild Awards four years ago, and she was a perfect date. My dress is so weird, I look like I’m a real estate agent at a bachelorette party. Gross. I was also in a bad mood because I had just broken up with my boyfriend (not David, some old, forgettable boyfriend). I wasn’t going to go at all, but Sophia made me and we had a great time.

  9. I was thrilled about my pink checkerboard toenails. A whimsical toenail polish is one of the only places I believe whimsy should be allowed.

  10. Ellie Kemper and I from shooting The Office episode “Classy Christmas,” which I wrote. Ellie is wonderful because she never balks when I want to take pictures of us. I’m cheesy, and she celebrates it. I think I did a really good job of hiding the fact that I took the photo, making it look like some dude just randomly took a photo of two smiley, pretty girls, right?

  11. I did my own eye makeup one night and was very excited about it. I took an extreme close-up in the hope that I would be able to follow what I did later on. It was not helpful. I also noticed some weird scar tissue on the whites of my eye, so I called my mom up in the middle of the night to ask her about it. It turned out to be nothing. I could delete this photo.

  Revenge Fantasies While Jogging

  IF IT WEREN’T FOR my imagination, I would weigh ten thousand pounds. This is because the only way I am able to exercise anymore is through a long and vivid revenge fantasy.

  I’m not talking about revenge on real-life people I know, like, “Oh, Ed Helms cut in line at lunch, so I’m going to write that his character Andy gets super fat.” That has some justice to it, since he seems to love food so much! I’m talking about elaborate Kill Bill–type stories, involving people who do not actually exist, where I play the lead role. Because revenge fantasies are such a big part of what I think about when I exercise, I’ve listed some of my greatest hits. Please integrate these into your own workouts, and say sayonara to calories!

  MY HUSBAND IS MURDERED IN CENTRAL PARK ON AN IDYLLIC SPRING DAY

  My husband was murdered by a serial killer in Central Park. We were walking by the reservoir one beautiful late-spring afternoon eating ice-cream cones and he was suddenly shot in the back of the head by a deranged man wearing an Antonin Scalia mask. “Scalia” runs away, cackling like the Joker, and hops into an Escalade and peels off. My handsome, innocent husband dies in my arms, the very night he was going to host Saturday Night Live for the first time. (Oh, yes, in this fantasy, my husband is a star point guard for the team that just won the NBA Finals.)

  They get Jon Hamm to host a very somber Saturday Night Live that night. I can barely do the cameo I was going to do on Weekend Update. Yes, I still do the cameo. I’m sad, but come on—SNL cameo. Seth Meyers can’t muster up the cheerfulness he usually has, either. The day’s horrible events have marred everything.

  After my husband’s murder, I spend a lot of time doing push-ups and sit-ups, and I cut my hair very short while staring at myself in the mirror with dead eyes. I look like Mia Farrow at her height, but Indian and crazy toned. I stop enjoying my creature comforts, like junk food and hanging out with my friends, because nothing brings me pleasure but thoughts of revenge. My best friends give me the hurtful nickname “Count of Monte Cristo, But Boring,” because I am bent on vengeance and it is getting tedious. However, because of my alienation and obsession, I am able to get in shape pretty fast, because all food tastes the same to me (like nothing), so I eat skinless chicken breasts and broccoli for every meal without complaint.

  Scalia is in Miami. I find this out from a PI I hired who looks like Kris Kristofferson, but more grizzled. I go down there, hit the Kardashians’ Dash boutique for a hot outfit, then infiltrate the South Beach club where I know Scalia hangs out. I am pretending to be a lesbian trainer. (Pretty easy to believe: my body is ripped and I have no interest in men anymore.) I find Scalia snorting coke in the back room, a lair of sorts. He has framed pictures of all the people he’s murdered. I choke him to death with his own mask. When his body goes lifeless in my arms, I’m tempted to pull off the mask to see who it was. But I stop just before I do it. I don’t even care anymore.

  Total time taken up by this fantasy: 12 minutes

  Total calories burned while having this fantasy: 90

  THEY KIDNAP AND MURDER MY HUSBAND ON OUR HONEYMOON

  My new husband and I are vacationing in Buenos Aires. Some kind of terrorists who focus on interracial marriage (rare, I know, but terrible) want to make an example of me and my husband. They kidnap him and hold him for ransom, only to shoot him on live television the next day. At that moment, I stop speaking forever. I am a mute. But a mute who goes to the gym, for I run and do lunges and squats until I have no body fat anymore and can do fifty chin-ups and twenty-five pull-ups. Even in my revenge fantasy where all I do is exercise, I can still do only twenty-five pull-ups. Pull-ups are tough, no joke.

  I race around Buenos Aires pretending to be a mute Indian tango dancer. But really, I’m trying to find the terrorists who killed my husband, which I do one late summer night. I stab them through the heart with a knife I keep hidden inside my massive hairdo.

  When caught and put on trial in Argentina, I decide to represent myself. In my closing argument, I say, “In the country that saw so many disappearances in the 1970s, I’m surprised anyone cares about some terrorists disappearing from existence in the present day.” Then, I disappear.

  Total time taken up by this fantasy: 8 minutes

  Total calories burned while having this fantasy: 65

  I GET THAT WOMAN WHO WAS RUDE TO ME AT SAKS IN TROUBLE

  I’m in the Saks Fifth Avenue shoe department. I keep trying to get the attention of a snooty old-school Saks saleslady to try on a pair of Miu Miu pumps. I make the classic mistake of wearing my gym clothes to Saks, so she doesn’t pay any attention to me. I finally approach her and flat-out ask for help, and she says she’ll be right back. I sit down and wait for almost ten minutes and then find out she’s helping a rich-looking white woman who is better dressed than me around the corner in the Louboutin section. I am so pissed I go to Customer Service, on the third floor, and fill out a complaint card against this woman.

  Total time taken up by this fantasy: 1 minute

  Total calories burned while having this fantasy: 10

  AL QAEDA TAKES NBC’S THE VOICE HOSTAGE

  On a big sweeps episode of NBC’s The Voice, Al Qaeda drops from the ceiling on ropes and tries to turn it into a live terrorist competition where they kill innocent people every hour. The really sick part is they make the judges rate each murder. It’s unbelievably shocking and horrible. Little did Al Qaeda know that I was sitting in the second row, hav
ing been given VIP tickets by my close, personal friend Adam Levine. I have a gun with me in my Alexander McQueen clutch—it’s a plastic one that got by the metal detectors like John Malkovich had in In the Line of Fire. I wasn’t sure why I packed my gun with me when I was getting ready to go to this taping of The Voice, but now I know.

  When Al Qaeda gets ready to shoot their first victim on live TV, we hear a shot ring out! People scream. But no, it’s not the innocent person they were about to shoot; it’s the terrorist holding the innocent person. (I’ve seen this move in movies—the confusing “shot rang out” move. It is awesome.) The terrorists scramble. Who is this invisible antiterrorist? It’s me, Mindy Kaling. I was hiding behind Cee Lo’s fur coat, and no one saw me. Slowly, over the course of the night, I assassinate every terrorist with my sniper shooting. I train a group of plucky Girl Scouts who are there on a field trip to be a distraction. Soon, the terrorists themselves are filled with terror. Pretty ironical, actually. And then, with the last one gunned down, the SWAT team pours in. I reveal myself and announce, “Song shall never be silenced by terror, only by being voted off.” They continue the taping of The Voice, because otherwise, the terrorists would not have won exactly, but would have disrupted our evening of fun song judging.

  Total time taken up by this fantasy: 20 minutes

  Total calories burned: 200

  My All-Important Legacy

  Strict Instructions for My Funeral

  WHOEVER IS closest to me when I die, here are the instructions for my funeral. You might think this is presumptuous, but consider it a favor to you, because at the time of my death, you will be so distracted with grief that your ability to plan will be compromised, and I don’t want my funeral to be a thrown-together disaster.*

  Dress code: chic devastated.

  None of my exes are allowed to attend. Distracting. Weird. (Okay, the only way I would even consider an ex attending is if he were completely, horrifically devastated. Like, when he heard I died, it made him take a good hard look at his life and his choices, and he turned Buddhist or something.)

  No current wives or girlfriends of my exes are allowed to attend. This part is really, for real, non-negotiable. They’ll just use the opportunity to look all hot in black.

  No one can use my funeral as the inciting incident for their own romantic comedy.

  My a cappella group from college will try to perform. I forgive them for trying, but this is not allowed to happen. I don’t just mean the group currently singing at my college. No assembly of past members or anything is allowed to sing. You must be vigilant about this. With a blink of an eye, I can see a group of tearful women starting a caterwauling rendition of Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You.” Be really mindful of this; they will find loopholes.

  No one may use this occasion to debut original music they wrote. I hate original music.

  There should be food at my funeral. I hate getting invited to something and there’s no food. Something tasteful and light. No pasta. I’m serious. I will climb out of my coffin if anyone brings a baked ziti. Actually, no hot food at all. Small savory finger sandwiches, scones, coffee. Basically an English tea, but I don’t want anything stacked on a tiered platter. That’s pretentious.

  People can text, but no phone calls. That’s rude. And when I say you can text, I mean, hard-core furtive texting, like using one hand and with your BlackBerry hidden in your purse.

  If people speak, they need to follow guidelines or this will become a free-for-all. I have a lot of comedy writer friends. Don’t let them turn this into a roast for me. You know how I feel about roasts. I want no moments of mirth at all at this thing. No edgily remembering something stupid I did to show that we can all have a big, cathartic laugh.

  Actually, no catharsis.

  No irony at all. I mean it. I spent my entire professional career dealing in irony. I want an almost cringe-inducingly earnest ceremony.

  Please, no religious stuff. I kind of insist no one mention God or anything at my funeral. I’m not making some big atheist statement, but I want this to be solemn because people are so upset I’m dead, and I don’t want to share the spotlight with God.

  No candles. I hate candles. This isn’t a sex scene from Grey’s Anatomy.

  If Steve Carell doesn’t show up, I want my children and my children’s children to make note of it.

  There should be a gift bag for people when they leave. Inside of it should include: (1) a photo of me when I was my most beautiful, put through an old-timey photo process and displayed in a heart-shaped pewter frame. It should look like the kind of photo a soldier carried around with him during the Civil War; (2) an energy bar or a trendy body spray from whichever company is sponsoring the funeral; (3) a copy of a drawing I did when I was little of what I wanted to be when I grew up, which was an astronaut. Under the drawing should be written, in cursive, “She finally found her wings” or “… and we have lift-off”; and (4) a letter from the president talking about my impact on the creative community. If the president happens to be a woman that year, she can slant things that way, how I inspired her to believe in her own dreams and stuff.

  Do all of this and you will know that I will rest in eternal peace. If that’s important to you.

  *Thrown-Together Disaster Funeral is my new HGTV show. It’s a makeover funeral show where three flamboyant gay guys and a judgmental sassy broad (think Wanda Sykes) crash a tacky funeral and fix it. Wanda’s catchphrase is “Nuh-huh. Everyone out of this church. This funeral is a disaster.”

  A Eulogy for Mindy Kaling, by Michael Schur

  My friend, former Office writer and now creator of Parks and Recreation, Mike Schur supplied me with a eulogy in advance of my death.

  FRIENDS, MEMBERS of Mindy’s Family, Representatives of Major Department Stores, good afternoon.

  My name is Michael Schur, and I worked with Mindy Kaling for several years on the TV program The Office. The American version—not the Chinese version that has been running for the past forty-one years.

  Mindy’s sudden death last week shocked me, as I’m sure it also shocked the four women she was fighting over those shoes with during the Dubai Bloomingdale’s Midnight Madness Sale. Though the stabbing has been labeled “accidental,” those of us who knew Mindy knew it was only a matter of time before a luxury-goods-based brawl would do her in. And if there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that I had “Impaled by Heel of Christian Louboutin Jem Suede Peep-Toe Slingback” in the “How Will Mindy Kaling Die?” pool that Rainn Wilson has been running since 2006, so I won $200.

  I’ll never forget the Mindy Kaling that I met on our first day of work: bright-eyed, green, a complete novice in the world of television writing … and yet somehow far more confident than everyone else. She was supremely confident. Braggy, maybe. Cocky? What’s the right word … let’s go with talggy, which is a word I just made up that means “talkative and braggy.”

  Her work ethic was second to none. And by that I mean: if you made a list of all the levels of work ethics, hers would be just above “none.” One day she came into work so late it was the next morning. And for that morning, she was also late. And hung-over. But we forgave her, because when we tried to bring it up, she just started talking about how hot some actor was, and then how much she loved Italian ice, and then how Beyoncé should release a country album, and then a bunch of other stuff, and we got tired and just forgot about the whole thing.

  Mindy wore a lot of hats. Ivy League graduate, actor, comedian, playwright, inveterate gossip, weirdly pro-gun Republican, outspoken advocate of conspicuous consumption, and of course—as we learned upon the posthumous release of her puffy-sticker-covered diaries—hard-core perv. But despite all of these foibles and flaws, and the literally thousands of others I jotted down in my psychotherapist-mandated “Mindy Workbook” in order to maintain a sense of professionalism while we worked together, I loved Mindy Kaling. No one wrote like Mindy. No one was funnier than Mindy. No one else, in short, was Mindy. T
his will not be true for long, I understand, as her will dictates that her DNA be replicated one million times, news that recently sent the NYSE Retail Shopping Index skyrocketing.

  This is Mike and me at the Writers Guild of America annual awards. We lost every category and got drunk in the hotel lobby.

  I can’t believe she’s gone. I console myself by thinking, Well, I guess the angels just wanted her to shut up. I will miss her dearly, and I hope that she is up in heaven right now watching us and smiling, even though deep down I know that if there is an afterlife, she’s a pretty much open-and-shut case for hell.

  R.I.P.

  Good-bye

  WHEN I WAS six and I saw The Sound of Music for the first time, my favorite part, hands down, was when the Von Trapp children bid farewell to partygoers with their song “So Long, Farewell” from the stairway of their Austrian manor. As an adult, I now see what a terrible example this is for children. It teaches them that adults will be charmed by long, protracted musical good-byes. In fact, all of The Sound of Music inspired a childhood’s worth of my misguided behavior, where I believed people would always be excited to hear me sing.

  I memorized the song off our record player. Then, at bedtime, I called my parents to the landing of the stairs in our house so that I could perform it in its entirety. Just me singing all seven kids’ parts, accompanied by no music. Once I finished one child’s part, I disappeared into my bedroom only to reemerge and run down the stairs to pick up the next one’s part. My parents listened patiently until we got to the second kid’s exit.