A wrong step in the write direction - Sydney Morning Herald
HECKLER
Illustration: Letch
ABOUT a month ago, I submitted a piece for Heckler. The next day a nice man rang me to say it would be published the following day.
In the space of a phone call I had gone from nonentity to published author. This was my big break! My chance to dazzle and amuse tens of thousands of Herald readers!
Late that evening, I turned to my husband. ''They're printing my edition even as we speak!'' He patted my hand kindly as one might to calm a hyper-excited child on Christmas Eve.
My big day dawned. I raced down to the newsagent to pick up multiple copies of the paper. There was my Heckler - illustrated! I was hoping to see people in the local coffee shop clustered around the Herald back page, clutching their sides, tears of laughter streaming down their faces as they read my column. All seemed to be remarkably restrained, everyone acting as usual.
I sent texts to my friends and family urging them to ''check out the hilarious Heckler in the Herald today''. I am yet to hear back from any of them.
I had expected the day to be different to others. It wasn't. I went to work. I came home.
The phone call from a delighted editor telling me the response to my piece had been phenomenal never came. There was no nomination for a Walkley award or an offer to be part of a Best of Heckler compendium due for pre-Christmas release. I checked my emails. Where were the congratulatory posts from my fellow hacks at the paper - Richard (''Jocasta loved it''), Mike (''even wackier than Barnaby'') and Pete (''better than a missed kick off an All Black boot'')?
I looked up the web edition and checked the tweets - there was one posted seven hours before. It was a gesture of solidarity from ''emo101'' who is now my new best friend. The page advised that I was ''the only person reading this now''. At that moment in cyberspace, literally no one would have heard me scream.
I have resigned myself to a life without celebrity. It has its advantages - I don't have to wear a surveillance device around my ankle, tattoo the latitude and longitudes of the birth places of my children on my arm or seek treatment for sex addiction. I have stopped wearing a wig and dark glasses to the local shops.
I still get wistful about what might have been, and can no longer eat fish and chips. It's not the food itself, but the newspaper it's wrapped in - a poignant reminder that I seem to have missed out on the full 15 minutes Andy promised me.
Sally Hayes
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