Racing Up Heartbreak Hill. Or, How Hubby Ate All My Damn Twinkies.

The man ate my damn Twinkies.

And not just any Twinkies. Hubby consumed the special box I had stashed in the back of the cabinet. The very special box my mom had given me to celebrate my first offer from an agent on my novel. He'd eaten the whole damn thing.

"What the hell did you do that for?" I asked. "Those were my special acceptance Twinkies and now you've eaten them all."

He shrugged. "You were taking too long, so." Hubby patted his mouth delicately with a napkin. "I couldn't have them going to waste."

Well, ow.

Eat my Twinkies and then drive a knife into me, why dontcha.

Fine. I know it's taken a while. But I'd warned him, and everyone else. Publishing, it's a slow industry. Like really slow. Like excruciatingly slow.

It's not my fault.

Not that it matters, because he should never have eaten my Twinkies.

My dad agreed.

"He shouldn't have eaten the Twinkies," he said to me yesterday on the phone. "You're close, very close."

"I am," I agreed. "It's agonizing, though." And now, thanks to Hubby, I've been forced to suffer, Twinkie-less.

"You'll get there," he said. "You just have to hang on."

And then he went on to tell me a story.

"So we were at my friend Tommy's party the other night. And his daughter is there, and she's training to run the NYC marathon. It's always been her dream. This guy there overhears her talking about it and he starts questioning her."

"What does this have to do with publishing," I asked. "Or Twinkies?"

My dad ignored me. "Anyway, he asks her how many miles she's run at one time and she says sixteen. She says everyone told her if she could run the sixteen, she could make the twenty-six."

"And this has to do with Twinkies, how?"

He kept ignoring me. "So the guy says, ignore them. If this is your dream, you run twenty. You give it that extra four miles, you give that much more to it than everyone else, and then you'll be sure to finish the race."

"And, the Twinkies?" I asked. "This relates, how?"

"She asks him, why the twenty? And the guy says because that's when most people give up, at the twenty mile mark. You know you can make twenty, you won't give up. And that's how you win the race. You just don't give up."

I sighed. "So, you're saying if I run twenty miles I can have my Twinkies."

"That's exactly what I'm saying," my dad said. "You're just at Heartbreak Hill. Keep going, don't give up, and you'll cross the finish line."

I got a little teary. "Thanks, Dad. I appreciate that, I do. It's been really stressful and I want my book published so badly."

"And your mother and I want the same for you too. Especially seeing you published and getting a fat paycheck, because then you can support us in our old age."

He tries. I'll give him that.

*sigh*