Even the Score

It’s funny how things work out.  And whether a situation is positive or negative is all in the way you look at it. 

A couple of weeks ago I landed one of those voice gigs that a humble voice actor dreams about. It’s one of the ones that everybody auditions for.  It has a higher than average budget and it’s clear from the description that the finished commercial will be heard across the continent. Like more than 200 others on Voices.com, I threw my tongue in the ring. A few days later I got a phone call telling me I was in the final four. Elation! I expected it to go no further, was truly happy with making it that far and I forgot about it.  Then they called to say I had been chosen.  Soon you will hear me on TV voice-overs as Dirt Devil introduces its new vacuum to the market.

The session went well with the Dirt Devil adman directing me by phone.  The process of landing one of these “big fish” is bewildering. I’ve done nothing different than in hundreds of other auditions. So what made this internationally known ad agency say “we want her!” when dozens if not hundreds of others have passed me over? Performing is such a subjective thing.  I try to look at it as an experiment, apart from myself, and just enjoy the process, because it’s impossible to figure out. It’s also why the life of a freelancer is not for me.

On a seemingly unrelated occasion, we had a gross back-up of sewage into the basement shower.  This is the third or fourth time it has happened over the last few years but the last two occasions were one month apart. So our plumber lowered a camera into the pipe and we watched the most boring, disgusting reality show ever to discover there’s an abnormality called a ‘belly’ that likely occured over years, as the house settled. Oh, and it couldn’t possibly be in the stretch under the lawn to the road, or maybe where the city is responsible,  no, it has to be at the house.  It will require them to jackhammer into our basement floor, bore through the brick wall to the garden where they’ll dig up my grafted hydrangea tree and plants with their backhoe and replace that piece of pipe.  The job is booked for next week. The cost? Exactly what I cleared from the Dirt Devil job. I wish I was kidding!

As Alanis Morrisette would sing, isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?

I could lament the fact that I don’t get to go on an exotic trip or blow the money on diamonds but instead, I’ve chosen to be happy that we’ll net out of this pipe problem at zero. It’s just weird how it all worked out.