The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

by Sarah Silverman

  "I can't help it--I fucking love Mork!" I said. And kept laughing. Joining in their laughter saved me then. It continues to save me now.

  After that hike, Abby Rothschild became my best friend and biggest protector. She did confess that she hated my guts when I sang "A Bicycle Built for Two" at the camp talent show, and that to her I'd always be a fucking gaylord. But she thought that I sang pretty good and, besides, I was funny.

  My mom, beautiful, in overalls

  * * *

  It Is Brought to My Attention That I Am Scum

  * * *

  Abby and I remained friends outside of camp. She lived in a very affluent town in Massachusetts called Lynnfield. For my first weekend visit to the Rothschilds', I arrived in my hometown uniform of Levi's and a denim coat. No matter how cold the weather got, in Manchester, New Hampshire, your winter jacket is jean.

  Abby and I were so excited to see each other. She showed me her room and her stuff and her friends, and since she already knew I wet the bed, there were no secrets. My mom had already talked to Abby's about waking me up to pee. But something didn't seem quite right; I got the feeling that Abby's mom was unsure about me, and I had never felt this before--parents generally loved me. The Christian adults in my very Christian town usually held me up to their kids as a model Jew. And though I was used to being regarded as different at home with the "Jew" thing and all, here in Lynnfield there had to be something else creating this sense that somehow I didn't fit in. I got a distinct vibe from Mrs. Rothschild--like she thought I was going to steal something. It made me extra well behaved. I was too nervous to even be sassy or silly. And then just before we got in the car to go to lunch, she cornered Abby and under her breath--with teeth clenched--I heard her say,

  "Abby, tell her."

  Shrugging, Abby turned to me and said apologetically,

  "Only scumbags wear jean jackets."

  I was stunned. I didn't have a mom who would refer to little kids as "scumbags." I wasn't sure how to respond. I just looked at Abby and her mom, and said, "Oh, okay." I traded in my jean jacket, the one I had silk-screened on the back "The Beatles, Let It Be" during industrial arts class--you know, as only a scumbag would do--for a more Lynnfield appropriate coat, supplied by Abby and her wonderful mother. I wore it the rest of the weekend.

  Abby's Bat Mitzvah. From right to left (Hebrew-style): Me, Abby, unknown Jewess. Notice my occasion-appropriate attire.

  * * *

  The One Time I Should Have Said Yes to a Group of Guys Who Wanted Me to Remove My Dress

  * * *

  One morning in the summer of '09, I woke up and saw that I had six voice-mail messages. My heart sank--I was sure someone had died. But they were messages of congratulations. I'd been nominated for an Emmy in the category of Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. It was a thrill and a complete shock. The show hadn't been on the air in several months, and seemed so off the radar compared to its competition. We were in production on our new season and the possibility of Emmy recognition crossed none of our minds--so much so that we weren't even aware when the nomination announcements were made.

  I knew there was less than a zero percent chance I would actually win. The nomination was already such a huge victory to me, so I looked forward to the Emmys with little anxiety.

  As if the Emmy thing wasn't cool enough, this superfancy design house, Badgley Mischka, offered to make me a dress for the occasion. I'm not generally a fancy-gown kind of girl, but this night was special. Make-It-a-Treat special. I wanted to look like a princess.

  I picked out the satiny fabric and the cobalt blue color, then Badgley Mischka sent over a basic template, along with a local tailor named Yuliy Mosk who would help me make tweaks to it, since BM (tee hee--BM...) is located in New York. I went crazy with the tweaks--it was fun to kind of be the designer, to turn it into something that was truly my own creation. It was becoming the most beautiful dress ever.

  At one of the last fittings, Yuliy seemed very nervous.

  "Yuliy? Are you okay?"

  "I have to tell you something," he said, gravely.

  I couldn't imagine what fashiony thing could possibly be so worrisome.

  Yuliy said, "I sent the picture of the final dress to the designers, and...well...they're opting to take their name off the dress."

  Truthfully, I didn't care. I'm not into the glamour of fancy designer names and haute couture shows. I thought I totally understood--this creation didn't look like the conservative kind of dress they made. It had become something else entirely. Something crazy awesome, that is! I did not falter in thinking this was the prettiest dress in the world. I told Yuliy, "I'm so happy now that when people ask who made this dress, I can say, 'Yuliy Mosk!'" I took Yuliy's lack of response as an expression of modesty and humble gratitude.

  On Emmy night, I strolled onto the red carpet preening with confidence, feeling radiant, swirling and twirling around like a Semitic Cinderella. I even think my voice was different--like, I was even talking like a princess. And I proudly beamed Yuliy's name at every interview.

  "This is a collaboration with the great designer Yuliy Mosk! And look! It has pockets!"

  I inched down the red carpet, giving everyone with a camera their chance. I stood there, flashbulbs popping, imagining the imminent comments over my fashion triumph, The real victory tonight was not in the form of a statuette, but rather it hung on the comely frame of a certain actress-comedienne...

  And then the next day came.

  I got on the Web. I Googled "Sarah Silverman" "Emmys" "dress." I didn't need to see reader comments--only pictures of myself--to realize that I looked like a fucking crazy blue house, or more specifically like a crazy person in some kind of small-town community-theater performance, who was playing a house. The dress was bizarrely wide, loose-fitting, and built to look like I possibly had some kind of elephantitis of my lower half. What the hell happened? On Emmy night, everyone around me seemed to really like the dress, but then again, what were they gonna say? "Welcome to the biggest night of your professional life. Are you a monster from the last Star Wars movie?"

  After studying the crime scene photos, I can see at least one place I really went off the rails in the design process. In the early fittings, I'd told Yuliy to loosen the corset. He was uneasy about the idea, to say the least, but I insisted. I was gonna be at the Emmys all night, and I didn't want to be uncomfortable. But as it happens, there's no such thing as a "boyfriend corset" for a reason. The whole point of corsets is that they have to be supertight. They are made to crush your ribs and thus change your silhouette--that's part of it. But even though I don't drink, I have full-on beer goggles when it comes to things that, by any other set of eyes, look fucking embarrassingly terrible on me. Case in point:

  Sarah Silverman swallowed by 2009 Emmy dress.

  Sarah Silverman made waves at Sunday night's Emmy Awards in Los Angeles with her traffic stopping red carpet look. Big...blue...tsunami like waves of some sort of fabric popularized by the designers at David's Bridal.

  While Sarah Silverman offered up one of the truly intentionally funny moments of the 2009 Emmy Awards with her mustache gag, nothing could obscure the hidiocy of the gown which looked like a sort of royal blue satin octopus swallowing Sarah Silverman from the bottom up.

  Unfortunately, evil genius Sarah Silverman also provided some unintentional comedy moments during her appearance on the Emmy Awards red carpet. Sarah wore a royal blue strapless gown that looked like it was swiped from the fat girl in class who wanted to buy a dress that she could wear to both the junior prom and the Renn Faire wedding she has coming up later this summer to coincide with the harvest season. The dress was both ill-fitting and drape-ish.

  Eh, what can I say? I'm a comfort-is-key kind of person, and, corny as it sounds, the prettiest thing you can wear is a smile, and when shit is too tight or my feet hurt or I'm cold, I'm just not happy. I'm my parents' daughter. My mom with her overalls, my dad with his stained sweatshirts from Target, and me with
my baggy corset and house-sized blue dress.

  MIDWORD

  Hi. It's me, Sarah. How have you been enjoying the book so far? Don't answer that.

  I am about to do something revolutionary, something genius. I hope you don't get queasy at the sight of trails being blazed, because that's what's about to happen right before your eyes if you read any further. As you may recall, I blew your mind on the very first page of this book, with my self-written foreword, or what will now forever be known as an "auto-foreword." You've probably embarrassed yourself already with audible "Oh my god"s on the subway. Strangers have looked up from their Sudoku, wondering what you're gasping at. Others have seen what you're reading and understand. Dianetics is a fucking joke, a fairy tale. What you're about to read will take the place of every religion's bible in terms of awesomeness.

  Welcome. You are now reading literature's very first midword. Up until now, there has been the foreword (and now the auto-foreword) and, of course, the highly vaunted afterword, but it was always limited to those two. But why? Everything else has a middle. Stories have them. Life has them. Relationships have them. We live in a nation whose character is largely defined by its middle. The people who live in it, themselves, have large middles. I have read that, in economic terms, there's not much left of the middle class, but I think my thesis is still pretty strong: Things have middles.

  What is a middle for? A middle is the same with pretty much anything. In anatomy, it's where nutrients are digested and broken down before their journey to the anus. In life, the middle is where everything that's happened thus far is reflected upon, spiritually digested if you will, and corrections are made based on this reflection.

  And that's how the midword will serve in this book--and no doubt, all of the books that will soon be following this very precedent I am setting. It is now time to reflect. So here I go...

  What I have learned thus far in writing this book is that writing this book is a gigantic pain in the ass. It's long and it's lonely and I already know most of what I'm telling you. In some moments, this shit is flat-out depressing. Whose jackass idea was it for me to write a book anyway? I'm a comedian. Comedians are almost universally tortured, and not even redeemed like normal writers are by being "deep."

  I've quickly learned that the best way to write a book is to frequently stop writing your book and reward yourself for every tiny parcel of progress. Or if you're not making any progress, stop and reward yourself for having tried. I like this system a lot because all day long I'm rewarding myself. I don't know if it will lead to an actual book, but that's not really what it's about in the end, is it? Here's a short list of things I've done while not writing this book:

  I Googled myself.

  I started watching Damages and Law & Order, Criminal Intent, the latter which, luckily, is on at almost all times.

  I learned how to use Garage Band and then wrote and recorded a tween heartbreak song which I decided I would give to Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez or Taylor Swift.

  I exercised--which almost got me to write instead.

  I Googled myself.

  I bought a ukelele and learned how to play "Amazing Grace," "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home," "Clementine," and "When the Saints Go Marching In."

  I convinced myself my dog had a fever.

  I found a mole. It's on the left side of my lower back. My left.

  I fell into a deep post-Googling nap.

  I bought eleven separate pieces of apparel from bluefly.com, chickdowntown.com, and eluxury.com, and returned all but one. A hat.

  I cut the tops off several pair of American Apparel tube socks and made them into striped wrist affectations.

  I bought vitamins that stimulate brain function.

  I bought vitamins that tell your brain when you are full.

  I bought vitamins that build immune systems inside you.

  I bought "fat-burning lemonade."

  I spent hours at Staples.

  I went to lunch with friends.

  I met friends for coffee.

  I met friends for breakfast.

  I called my parents to catch up.

  I Skyped with my friend Heidi and lectured her about doing something with her life.

  I smoked pot to help the creative juices flow, which resulted in looking way too closely in the mirror, being disgusted, taking pictures of my breasts in awkward but flattering positions to e-mail to a manboy I've been seeing, mixing odd combinations of kitchen cabinet remnants and finding them "fucking unbelievably delicious" and then falling asleep, face unwashed.

  It's shocking to discover that writing a book is mostly an exercise in masturbation. Not literary masturbation--literal masturbation. Every other hour, you're getting up from your desk and going to your bed. I'm actually pleased with the previous two sentences--they were pretty funny. In fact, they deserve a reward of some kind...

  ...Okay, I'm back. Here's a weird thing that's freaking me out right now: I think I've reached the middle of the midword. Is this something I need to acknowledge or deal with? Based on everything I was saying before, it might be. But not entirely sure. This is all new territory. Hopefully my successors in midword writing--and I'm telling you there will be many--will straighten this all out.

  So guess what just happened: I came up with the title of my book, and it was approved by HarperCollins. This may not seem exciting to you, but you don't understand what a fucking hassle the whole thing has been. They scoffed at "My Life in 18 Poops." And to say they were underwhelmed by "Tales of a Horse-Faced Jew-Monkey" would be like saying that Hitler was underwhelmed by the Jews. It was reviled at every rung of the corporate ladder. More alternate titles pitched by me and my various friends include: "Reflections on the Global Century Plus Farts" "Straight from the Horse-ish Mouth" "Sarah Silverman: I Said 'Vagina,' Now Make Me Famous." But finally, as you now do, they love and admire, "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee."

  Anyway, today we finally agreed on that title, which was an enormous relief. But there was one last battle. It was over the subtitle, and it was a doozy. To refresh your memory, the subtitle is "Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee." With HarperCollins's permission, I provide the e-mail exchange below (this is 100 percent real, by the way), between my editor, David Hirshey, and me:

  * * *

  From: Hirshey, David

  Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:29 AM

  To: 'Sarah'

  For what it's worth, I've always preferred pee-pee to pee. Ask anyone.

  * * *

  From: Sarah Silverman

  Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:14 PM

  To: Hirshey, David

  Subject: Re: This just in

  Excellent--though I stand strong with just Pee

  * * *

  On Aug 26, 2009, at 11:58 AM, "Hirshey, David" wrote:

  With all due respect, I think you're wrong on this. Pee doesn't work. The rhythm is off. Pee is vaguely unpleasant, pee-pee is funny.

  * * *

  From: Sarah

  Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 3:47 PM

  To: Hirshey, David

  Subject: Re: The Great Pee-Pee vs. Pee Debate

  Pee is the only option. With all due respect.

  * * *

  On Aug 26, 2009, at 4:45 PM, "Hirshey, David" wrote:

  Hey Sarah--

  I hear you but I'm also trying to balance the concerns of our Marketing and Sales gurus who are not measuring the subtitle in humor calories. They just want it to sell. And they feel that "pee-pee" is far better because it sounds "childlike and playful." One guy estimated that pee vs. pee-pee could mean the difference of tens of thousands of copies sold, which is not insignificant. So I hope you can see it from both sides.

  David

  * * *

  ----- Original Message -----

  From: Sarah Silverman

  To: Hirshey, David

  Sent: Wed, Aug 26, 2009 6:28 pm

  Subject: The Great Pee-Pee vs. Pee Debate
>
  This is fucking retarded and based on nothing but hang ups of people I dont know. Pee is simple and clean and pee-pee is something you say in a baby voice which I find gross and would never say. This may be based on MY hang ups, but better mine than some faceless douche's. I am actually gonna die on this hill.

  * * *

  On Aug 27, 2009, at 8:05 AM, "Hirshey, David" wrote:

  I now know that "pee" stands for passion and in this case your passion has won out. Pee it is! I hope you understand that I was just trying to mediate among all the corporate voices in the building as well as honor your vision for the book. But it's your book and if you like "pee," then I'm sitting down with that.

  * * *

  And that was pretty much that. Pretty much, except there was one more noteworthy missive. It was not one I was supposed to read, but as so often happens in the lives of busy professionals, people forward things by mistake, or deliberately forward whole e-mails that they had intended to edit before sending. Here's one such between my editor and his uber-boss...