oprah winfrey's universe is bullshit
written by Tom McCaffrey (May/June 07)
I was riding the train, standing up, when the train stopped. A chick got on that looked familiar to me. I quickly realized I had met her the night before after a show at rififi. She was introduced to me through a girl I knew at the show who was also a comic. This chick was sort of short and sort of cute; not smoking or anything, but for some reason I remembered her completely. She stood next to me on the train and I glanced over at her a few times. Every time I did, she looked back at me. I wondered if she recognized me but I was pretty sure she didn’t. I had literally met her for 10 seconds and we didn’t make some amazing connection or anything. Plus, people always forget meeting me. It happens all the time. It’s fuckin’ annoying. I feel like I could like dance naked at someone’s mom’s funeral and no one would remember seeing me there.
As we stood next to each other, I felt this overwhelming urge to say something to this girl. I always get these urges in situations like this. What inevitably races through my mind is the time I was watching Oprah when she and some guests were talking about the universe and how things that may seem like random coincidences, in fact, are actually things that were meant to happen; like when you’re walking down the street and you randomly see someone you know but not that well. Oprah and her guests said that the universe brought that person into your life for some reason and if you don’t take the time to talk to them you’re missing out on something they were supposed to help you with. I remember specifically Oprah saying, “I once passed a guy I had met once and I kept walking, but a little voice inside me said, ‘Go back. Find out what the universe is trying to give you by putting that person in your path.’ I went back and talked to him and he ended up knowing someone that gave me my first job in TV.”
I feel like every story Oprah Winfrey tells ends like that. Every single story is like, “So I was walking down the street and then a box of money fell on my face.” Oprah must have been the most amazing fuckin’ person in her past life, which is why everything seems to work out for her. In my past life, I was a guy who kicked handicapped people in the face because most shit has not come easy for me. But, as this girl was standing next to me, all I could think was “What would Oprah have done?” She probably would have said something and then the girl would have ended up being the daughter of the most powerful man in the world and then Oprah would have somehow ended up owning the continent of Europe or some shit.
I’ve found myself in situations like this before and I always regret not having the courage to talk to the person. I once performed on a show and afterwards I saw this hot chick there and she smiled at me a few times. But I didn’t go up to her. To this day, I regret that and have since concocted some scenario in my mind that I missed out on by not going up to her. I envision that we would have fallen in love. She would have been an heir to some fortune and we would have retired to Fiji on our own private island that was covered with cannabis plants and riddled with bisexual nude female supermodel nymphomaniacs. But I blew it because I was such a pussy.
I also thought about this story I heard Matthew McConaughey tell on Oprah about how when he was at a bar in Austin while still in college.
He heard a guy at the other end of the bar was casting a movie in town. He made his way over to the guy and started to talk to him. They hit it off and the guy cast him in Dazed and Confused which started him on his path to super stardom. I always thought that story was so amazing. I mean if Matthew McConaughey hadn’t gone up to that guy in that bar that night then he would never have become who he is today.
I was about to say something to the girl when she walked down the train and sat down in an empty seat. She was about ten feet away and the seat next to her was empty. She took out a book and started to read. Now, I was going to have to walk over and interrupt her as she was reading. Plus, I started to think that maybe this wasn’t even the girl I had met the night before. That would be so awkward if I went over and stopped her from reading and then it wasn’t even the same chick. Or, what if it was her and she had no recollection of me whatsoever? I wasn’t real keen on going over and being rejected by some chick I wasn’t even into. But still, I just kept hearing Oprah in my head and I convinced myself that this girl must hold the key to my future in her hands. She was someone who would make all my dreams come true.
I slowly made my way over to her and stood in front of her. She had this sour look on her face. “Umm…excuse me,” I said. She darted her eyes up at me not saying anything. “Hey, um, are you friends with Laura Yancy?” I asked.
“Yeah” she said back, sort of guarded.
“Oh, yeah, well, I think I met you last night at her show.”
“Oh, yeah. Were you on the show?” she asked.
“Yeah. You went to high school with Laura’s boyfriend, right?”
“Yeah, Jason. We grew up on the same block in New Jersey.”
“Oh cool. What’s your name?” I asked.
“Jenny. What’s yours?”
“Tom.”
Then there was this awkward pause that sort of said, ‘Why the hell did you come up to me? We don’t even really know each other. You must clearly want to bang me.’ She must have thought I was hitting on her. Actually, I just wanted her to make me rich. After all, that is why the universe put her here next to me.
“So, you do comedy?” she asked because we had pretty much exhausted every topic we had in common.
“Yeah. That’s how I know Laura and Jason.”
“Yeah, that was a good show last night,” she said.
“Yeah. Do you go to a lot of their shows?”
“No not really. I’m usually too busy with work.”
This would be where we would start to talk about her job which was probably as Steven Spielberg’s casting director and then she would inform me that Steven needed a star for his new movie about CIA spies with huge penises who get laid all the time and that I would be perfect.
“Oh yeah? What do you do?” I asked coolly.
“I work at a grocery store,” she said.
“Oh, cool.” Then I sort of stood there and neither of us said anything. So, maybe the universe had brought us together so she could give me a discount on kiwis?
This was not coming together like I had hoped. It was so awkward because we had absolutely nothing to say to each other anymore. “Well, it was good to see you again,” she said in a way that implied that she wanted to read her book and not awkwardly talk to me anymore.
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe I’ll see you at another one of Laura’s shows.”
“Yeah. See ya.” She started to read and I got off at the next stop and switched cars because it was so fucking uncomfortable.
I sat down and thought about what a fucking mistake that was and how wrong Oprah was. The universe had brought this person into my universe and it turned out to be for absolutely no fucking reason but to make me feel like a dick. It pissed me off that this girl was left with the impression that she was blowing me off. She hadn’t made me rich or famous or fuckin’ anything. She hadn’t even given me a coupon from her grocery store. She just made me feel like a total jackass.
About three weeks later, I was at a popular bar in Park Slope on a Saturday. I was waiting for the bathroom when the door opened and Jenny from the train emerged and walked right past me without even looking at me. I walked into the bathroom and thought, “Fuck Oprah.”
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