Sunday Newscape Magazine

People Magazine has come out with its annual list of the 100 Most Beautiful People, and once again, I am not on that list. This great injustice means instead of getting to earn a living as an officially designated Beautiful Person -- spending my days posing for pictures -- I'll have to stick to my day job as a professional humor columnist.

Although it's not quite as glamorous as being a Beautiful Person, being a humor columnist is an important job. I often receive email messages from people who want to know how they too can become columnists. It's my sad duty to let them know, as gently as possible, that only an elite few of us possess the skills needed for such a prestigious occupation.

You non-columnists may scoff at such a statement. If you were brought up in the country, with good old-fashioned country sensibilities, you might even be shaking your head right now and saying -- as my grandpa often did -- "Jackie, don’t get above your raisin'." (For those of you without country sensibilities, that would be “raisin’” as in a slang term for upbringing, not the tasty, shriveled snack food.)

But I am not getting above my raisin’. It's just that I know how difficult writing a humor column can be. So today, I'd like to give you a behind-the-scenes peek at the laborious process involved in writing witty words. Maybe someone will decide, after reading this, to turn my life into a reality TV series. They could call it Keeping Up With The Comical Columnist or something like that. I'm sure lots of people would watch such a show.

You’d think the first step would be to come up with a cute column idea. In my case, though, the first step is to clear the house of distractions, namely, my children and husband, and our two dogs. I begin early in the day by throwing some breakfast at these distractions (not literally, except sometimes in the case of the dogs) and ordering them to “either do something funny I can write about or leave.”

Generally, my children and husband choose to leave. And generally, the dogs choose to stay, doing everything in their power to be amusing. Occasionally, they even succeed.

But if they don’t, I move to step two, putting the dogs in the backyard and settling into a comfortable chair with sure-fire brain fuel: coffee and chocolate. All your top columnists do this. That’s why all your top columnists are overweight insomniacs. It’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make.

After several hours of intense, highly caffeinated concentration in my chair, I will usually have a plethora of brilliant column ideas. If not, I move into the next phase, which involves actually leaving my house to scour my surroundings for inspiration. The scouring process often ends up in front of my favorite coffee shop, and I usually have to go inside to get some more sure-fire brain fuel.

It’s what all your top columnists do. And for some reason, none of us our part of the beautiful people.

© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved