Tracy Flick Can't Win (Tracy Flick #2) (21)

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Desiree Forest

Director of Communications

Keezer Auto Group

PS—Biographical “sizzle reel” attached. Let me know if you need anything else!



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Yo Mr. Weede!

I’m not sure if you remember me. Greg Filipek? Class of 2004? You suspended me once for making fart noises during a DARE assembly? Does that ring a bell? Three days seemed a little harsh at the time, but you were right. I should have listened to the DARE people. It would have saved me years of trouble.

So here’s the thing. I heard about your Hall of Fame and I’d like to nominate myself. Can I do that? If not, I can probably find someone else to do it for me. Maybe my old buddy Mark Gaspar? He works for UPS now, in case you were wondering.

I know you’re probably like there is no effing way that Greg Filipek belongs in anything except the D-bag Hall of Fame and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that, but only because you have no idea of the amazing feat I accomplished on February 8, 2006 when I was a student at the University of Scranton. (Full disclosure: I did not graduate from the University of Scranton, due to laziness and substance abuse issues that I’m currently dealing with. Also I cheated a lot in high school which as you once said was only cheating myself. True dat.)

Okay, back to the story. On February 8, 2006 I went to a sandwich shop known as Big Sal’s and took the Big Sal’s Challenge. The Big Sal’s Challenge is a gigantic submarine sandwich that’s as long as your arm and fatter too. I’m not lying it’s HUGE. The rules of the Challenge are if you eat it by yourself in a half hour or less it’s free. At the time I’m referring to only seven people had ever won the Big Sal’s Challenge. Their pictures are up on the wall at Big Sal’s.

Mr. Weede, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’ve been in rehab three times. I let my parents down. I let my friends down. I let my ex-wife down, and a couple other women who made the not-great decision to get involved with me. I’m not a good father and have not always been as reliable about paying child support as I should have been.

But I ate that sandwich in twenty-two minutes! The whole friggin’ thing. That’s gotta be worth something. I swear if you don’t believe me just go to Big Sal’s in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

My picture’s right there on the wall.

Your former student,

Greg F.



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Dear Hall of Fame Selection Committee:

My beloved father, Walter Finley, graduated from Green Meadow High School in 1952. He attended Drew University and worked for many years as a CPA specializing in tax preparation for individuals and small businesses. He had an office on Center Street, right next to the bakery that has since become a Starbucks.

My father was also an author of some renown, publishing six novels under the pen name of W. K. Finn. His books are all out of print today, but they were well-received at the time of their publication, and one of them, Blue Meadow Fugue (1973, Dark Horse Press), is widely considered to be a masterpiece. Professor Marcus Dowling of Fanning College called it “a late modernist gem from a writer who deserves a wider audience.” The poet Grant Pasko praised Blue Meadow Fugue as “a tour-de-force of interiority… [a] painstaking and eerily beautiful reconstruction of the inner life of a twelve-year-old boy… [and] a vivid portrait of suburban America in the aftermath of a cataclysmic war.” The critic Marcia Franck recently included Blue Meadow Fugue in her listicle, “20 Forgotten Novels Worth a Second Look.”

I have included a copy of Blue Meadow Fugue, along with a SASE, for your perusal. I would appreciate it very much if you could return the book when you’re done reading it. I have only eight copies left, and each one of them is precious to me. He was a true artist and a genuinely kind person and the best dad a little girl could have wished for. He died in 2015 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s. I hope you will honor his memory as I do.

Sincerely,

Phyllis Finley Wenderoth





- 11 - Nate Cleary




We divided the most promising candidates among ourselves for further research. One of the names I got was Kelly Harbaugh, class of 2016, who’d dropped out of college and become a successful ASMR artist under the name of WhisperFriend47. That was how I happened to be watching a video called You Look Soooo Pretty Tonight while eating my Grape-Nuts on a Tuesday morning.

It was a simple concept, one girl pretending to do another girl’s makeup, going through the whole routine, all the different brushes and pencils and creams, and offering a lot of compliments along the way.

“I wish I had your natural beauty,” Kelly whispered. “You make it look so effortless.”

All you could see were Kelly’s face, her neck, and the top of her shoulders. Sometimes she held up her hands so you could see her perfectly manicured, sky-blue fingernails. She kept tapping those nails against hard surfaces—the makeup cases and bottles, the top of her desk, the screen of her laptop—and when she did this, she whispered the words TapTapTap really fast (I guess some people get off on that). Mostly, though, she just focused on the makeup.

“I’m going to start with a hydrating primer,” she said, holding up a neon-green tube. “This is the Flower Girl Coconut Water Exhilarator. TapTapTap. It’s what I always use when I want a fresh and shimmery look. I think you’ll like it. TapTapTap.”