How I Love Lucy Scarred me for Life

I taped an "I'm Just Sayin'" segment for Channel 5 yesterday and I spent the whole day worrying about how to read a teleprompter. I was sure the experience would end up like Lucy's Vitavetavegemin episode.


As a kid I looked forward to watching I Love Lucy reruns before or after school at my Aunt Berneda's house. Lucy's trip to Hollywood, her many attempts to headline at the Tropicana with Ricky or just baking bread in her kitchen turned into major fiascoes. I still look forward to I Love Lucy marathons on the Hallmark  Channel. But these repeated viewings have left me with nagging fears that one of my own experiences will end up as disastrous as Lucy's and there won't be any prop men around to clean up the mess.

When I get to New York to see a Broadway show and am lucky enough to see one of my favorite actors or actresses in the audience I can't even enjoy the experience because I keep muttering to myself, "Don't act like Lucy Ricardo!" On the few occasions I have run into one of my favorite actors at a Broadway show I usually just say, "I enjoy your work," That doesn't sound too invasive does it? 

But When Jude Law and Sienna Miller sat down beside me at a performance of I Am My Own Wife a few years ago all I could think of was how much I had hated Cold Mountain. Still I spent the whole evening worrying that my nose would catch fire just like Lucy's had when she finally met William Holden. The fact I wasn't wearing one made of putty did little to put my fears to rest.

I do like to bake this time of year but I usually stick to cookies. I have never attempted baking bread, afraid of adding too much yeast and having a giant loaf overtake my kitchen. And I am pretty sure the real reason I have never acquired the taste for wine has to do with that foot stomping episode.

Perhaps I should see a therapist to rid myself of these irrational fears but that might spoil my chances of someday fulfilling the one I Love Lucy fantasy I still harbor; being asked to descend a staircase with a giant headdress. I know I could pull that one off better than Lucy!