In another life back in 2011, I was driving back to New York from my cottage in Massachusetts one Sunday when an unfamiliar number popped up on my Bluetooth.

The voice said, “Don’t hang up – it’s Marlo Thomas.”  

Um, okay, I thought. The voice was familiar and gravelly. It was That Girl!

I used to manage photography for a large news organization so my contact information was on the company website. It’s kind of like being on a masthead. When you work in news, you need to be reachable at all times. The voice message on my office phone listed my personal mobile. This way those who couldn’t wait for normal business hours could immediately get in touch with me with their urgent needs.

Marlo Thomas was a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and was working on a piece about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French politician accused of raping a hotel maid in New York in 2011. Her article was about men behaving badly and this guy was an early trigger of the Me-Too movement that had yet to explode. She wanted a particular photo.

For the next couple of weeks, we had email exchanges as the photo options kept changing along with the story. Her personal email – which I was thrilled to be privy to - was bugs or mugs or something like that. Unfortunately, I don’t have them since I no longer have access to my old work email. Grrrrr! Why didn’t I save them? 

We had a fun banter - going back and forth about bad men, a subject I was familiar with. I told her I had just finished dating an angry nudist. She thought that was funny. She told me she thought I was a good writer (which certainly made my day). Then she asked if I’d like to do a short piece for the Huffington Post.

Whaaaaaa? Are you kidding??? I asked on what topic.

She said, “Anything you want. Just send me a draft and I’ll get it to the editors.”

I tried to think of a subject that would be clever, but I was stumped. Intimidated. The Huffington Post? For real? Still, Marlo was encouraging, and that one compliment went a long way.

During boring meetings in glass conference rooms overlooking Times Square, the voices of whoever was speaking, sounding like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons (wah-wah-wah), I would daydream about being discovered, an unknown literary talent found by Marlo Thomas…

There had to be some pet peeve I could write about.

At the time, there must have been half a dozen women on my floor who were coming back from maternity leave. Every other day someone was bringing their new baby to the office, and people would stop whatever they were doing. There could have been explosions or natural disasters or mass shootings happening somewhere in the world, but a new baby could shut down a newsroom. Now, if someone brought in conjoined twins, I could understand. That would be newsworthy. But an ordinary baby?

Watching the little groups making their way across the floor, I’d gauge how much time I had before they reached me. When they got close, I’d get up and go to the restroom or go visit colleagues on another floor. That was better. It would take up more time. If the oooh-ahh group was still there when I got back, I’d be trapped and sometimes a baby would get handed over to me. (Recoils in horror.)

I don’t talk to babies in a baby voice. I reserve my baby voice for baby animals. So, I say, quite seriously, to this two-month-old creature in my arms, if you spit up on this $600 sweater, I will drop you. That would usually be enough for the mother to quickly take the baby out of my arms.

My biological clock has always been broken. I don’t want to talk to a baby until they’re at least 50 years old. As a workaholic single woman with a lot of gay men friends I always did my best to avoid babies. I’ve never changed a diaper in my life, and I reckon the first time I do it will probably be my own. 

So that’s what I wrote about for my big literary debut. Being annoyed with people bringing babies to the office and disrupting the workflow. I had every opportunity to run that idea past real writers since I was surrounded by journalists, some of them Pulitzer Prize winners. But I didn’t.

Marlo politely said she liked my piece, but that her editors were reluctant to take a chance since I had never been published. I wanted to believe that.

I realize now that my piece might have been better suited for someone like Bill Maher, another cranky old boomer who shares my sentiment when it comes to babies, instead of someone who has spent their life dedicated to ST. JUDE’S CHILDRENS RESEARCH. This, of course, was the most likely reason I never heard from her again.

And just to prove that the universe really is messing with me, a Facebook memory from June 13, 2011, appeared in my feed a few months ago. On that date, I posted Marlo Thomas’ Huffington Post article which had just published on the same day. I also provided a short version of this story for context and to amplify my stupidity.

By opening the link to the article, I was reminded that at least she used the photos I sent her. 

I know the probability of a second chance is slim to none. But, Marlo, if you’re out there and would still like to hear more about the angry nudist, I hope you saved my number!