- Aunt Kathy for pulling me aside at my 5th birthday party to ask me if I actually liked the Chia Pet she got me or if I was just pretending.
- Dorothy Hamill, for inspiring the bowl cut my mom gave me from ages 6-12.
- Danielle Giancola, my 6th grade frenemy, for knowing I wanted watermelon-colored braces and getting them a week before me because “they complemented her skin tone better.”
- Michael Bublé for not playing his one true masterpiece and the greatest song ever written, “Save the Last Dance for Me” at the Prudential Center in 2010.
- The gentleman sitting in 5C who not so gently ripped ass for the entirety of my first international flight, kicking off my graduation trip to Spain gasping for air that didn’t smell like recycled sewage.
- My freshman year college roommate for sleeping with her hand reaching up the wall like she was murdered mid-REM cycle and also for sleeping with my boyfriend.
- My sorority sister Jessica for getting engaged during Michael Bublé’s encore of “Save the Last Dance for Me” in Duluth in 2013 and bragging about it on Facebook, which felt like a “suck it, LOSER” directed right at me. I bet if her fiancé (also dead to me) knew about the time she blacked out on Four Loko’s (pre-FDA ban) and projectiled leafy greens, Exorcist-style all over the Kappa basement, he would no longer want to save the last dance for her.
- My boss at my first full-time job for saying “Federal Express” instead of “FedEx.”
- Dr. Trudeau for soundtracking my root canal with his favorite album by Michael Bublé, featuring, you guessed it, “Save the Last Dance for Me.” Doc nearly lost a finger when the opening notes triggered me to clamp down in a bitter rage remembering how I was NOT serenaded LIVE IN CONCERT even though I saved all of my babysitting money to hear that ONE song.
- My nonna, who died when I was 25 and all she left me was season six of The Sopranos on VHS. May she rot in hell.
- Michael Bublé’s security guard, for tasing me when I tried to tackle Michael after chasing him forty-seven blocks through Manhattan scream-singing, “I will never, never let you go” and demanding he sing it back to me whilst swinging those sculpted hips to the beat.
- My ex-husband who demanded a divorce on a cold December night after I looked him right in the eye and whispered, “you’re dead to me” because he left dirty dishes in the sink.
- My therapist for suggesting after only one court-ordered session that I work on letting go of my unresolved anger. What a quack she was.
- You. Chances are, if we’ve crossed paths, you’ve wronged me and therefore are dead to me. UNLESS you can get Michael to lift his restraining order and give me a private performance of “Save the Last Dance for Me,” then I’ll gladly resurrect you.
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