Mortified

Hello Netflix! Do I have a pitch for you!

Since this is a comedy, I think I should open with a joke, just to give a taste of how awesome my sense of humor is.

Why do ducks have tail feathers?

To cover their butt quacks!!

Hahaha, butt quacks!

That one just quacks me up.

Yes, I know I have a, shall we say, idiosyncratic sense of humor? Dad jokes actually make me laugh. Jackass, however, does not.

We Aussies have a particular sense of humor that does not always appeal to a wider audience. Bluey, the children’s animated series is a fantastic example of Australian culture and humor. Which was censored in other countries (yes, USA, I’m looking at you). Because a horse pooped. Oh wait! Can I say pooped? Ummm, how about chocolate coloured bulky posterior product?

Anyway, let's move on.

My Pitch is for a limited episode series. Why limited? That is simple. By the time the producers decided to wrap up shows like How I met your Mother, viewers outside of the die-hard fans had lost interest. Let’s face it, a good comedian knows when they have out stayed their welcome.

I may not be a good comedian, but as a sort of anti-social introvert, I always feel it is better to only stay just long enough to be polite, but not so short as to be the as distained as HBO for their abrupt and controversial end to the Game of Thrones series.

Mortified, a working title I’m tossing up between that and Failing at Life, follows a period of time in Main Character, Fearn Fronde’s life when she is busily attempting to put together her life in a way that meets her own expectations rather than that of everyone around her, especially her overbearing mother. That is, if Fearn can work out what it is she wants rather than what she thinks others want for her.

Fearn manages to get herself into all sorts of situations, with and without the assistance of her three best friends, who all met in their first year of university:

Peta. Studied business in the same classes as Fearn. He finished the degree while Fearn dropped out towards the beginning of the second year. Peta took a job as a manager with a liquor company, is gay and dating a drag queen. His favorite saying is I don’t dance for free people!

Derrick. Studied finance and now works with a company in their investments division. Derrick is married to a wonderful woman but they have no kids yet. His favorite quote: Try not to take life too seriously, none of us are getting out of this alive.

Kallie. Studied Art and after graduation landed a job as a curator for a small gallery. Kallie has been in a steady relationship with a musician for the last five years. Neither is keen on marriage. Her favorite greeting: Alright, I’m here. The party can start now!

Fearn is happily single and playing the field with her friends living vicariously through her, working in a bookstore (almost her dream job. Almost.), paying an overpriced therapist (who Fearn suspects is using her to test the techniques for a new book before she publishes it) and dealing with her mother for whom she will never quite measure up. Unlike her kid sister Rachel, the picture-perfect daughter her mother compares her to. You know the sort. Pretty, stylish, perfect boyfriend, on the fast track to success, has her ducks all in a row. Unlike the rest of us. We don’t have ducks, we have cats. I don’t know if you have ever tried to get cats to sit in a row, but I can tell you from experience, it's chaotic. And vastly unsuccessful. Most likely, they will be off scaring the feathers off someone else’s ducks.

The pilot episode sees Fearn attending a job interview for a manager’s position with an old family-owned bookstore, after being knocked back for the same position with her current multi-branch employer despite having performed the role of assistant manager for the last couple of years and filling in the top job whenever the manager is away. And sometimes when he is there.

Peta gets her an interview because he knows the family and vouches for her. The interview, conducted at a local cafe for a relaxing neutral environment, unfortunately ends up being one of the worst interviews she could have imagined. Shy of turning up naked, of course.

She manages first to accidently shake hands with the male interviewer’s crotch when she trips over her own feet. After recovering from her embarrassment and attempting to get on with the task at hand with some poise, she manages instead to knock over her hot chocolate, across her resume and into the lap of the female interviewer. At this point, the two representatives of the store she is interviewing for thank her for her time and add a don’t call us, we will call you, vibe to their closing comments.

Mortified, she has drinks with her friends that night and relates the tale of the horror interview. To which of course Derrick, Peta and Kallie, while all sympathetic, latch onto Fearn’s disaster of epic proportions in which she attempted to shake hands with her interviewer’s penis. She apologises to Peta for embarrassing him. After all, he recommended her. He waves off the apology and tells her he would recommend her again in future. But maybe he would also let them know her lack of hand-eye coordination is a mild impairment. By the end of the evening, they have her feeling a little more at peace with the situation.

The next day Fearn has come to the conclusion that her decision to leave her university degree unfinished has possibly led to her dreams of running her own bookstore remaining out of reach.

Until Peta calls her to tell her he had heard from his friend at the bookstore. She has got the job. Between Peta’s glowing reference and her ability to remain professional in the face of accidentally assaulting two interviewers in one sitting that they believed she would be an asset to the company. However, having spilled chocolate over the only copy of her resume and contact details, they had called Peta to pass on the good news.

Mortified/Failing at Life is a ‘coming of age’ story for a generation when it is no longer the realm of teenagers that it used to be.

Let’s face it, how many of us actually ‘found ourselves’ during our teen years? I’m not entirely sure any of us really know who we are or what we really want from life until we are in our 30’s! That romantic notion of teen innocence and angst turning to wisdom by the age of 18? What a load of chocolate coloured bulky posterior product! Let’s be a little more honest with ourselves. We tend to find ourselves much more comfortable in our lives and in our own skins later in life.

Not you? Ohh-kayyyy, so just me then? Well, alright, at least I am honest with myself!

I know you are going to just love Fearn and her mates, so I’m going to leave you with links to the stories of her other life failures, all of which you should know are based on real events. Not always mine. I’ll leave you guessing which life fails happened to me. Read at your leisure. Enjoy!

And yes, I know. Don’t call you, you’ll call me!

Ep.1 It's About Me, Not You!

Ep.2 #FailingAtLife

Ep.3 Fix-Up-Fearn