Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Part 30

Actually, no catharsis.

No irony at all. I mean it. I spent my entire professional career dealing in irony. I want an almost cringe-inducingly earnest ceremony.

Please, no religious stuff. I kind of insist no one mention G.o.d or anything at my funeral. I'm not making some big atheist statement, but I want this to be solemn because people are so upset I'm dead, and I don't want to share the spotlight with G.o.d.

No candles. I hate candles. This isn't a s.e.x scene from Grey's Anatomy.

If Steve Carell doesn't show up, I want my children and my children's children to make note of it.

There should be a gift bag for people when they leave. Inside of it should include: (1) a photo of me when I was my most beautiful, put through an old-timey photo process and displayed in a heart-shaped pewter frame. It should look like the kind of photo a soldier carried around with him during the Civil War; (2) an energy bar or a trendy body spray from whichever company is sponsoring the funeral; (3) a copy of a drawing I did when I was little of what I wanted to be when I grew up, which was an astronaut. Under the drawing should be written, in cursive, "She finally found her wings" or "... and we have lift-off"; and (4) a letter from the president talking about my impact on the creative community. If the president happens to be a woman that year, she can slant things that way, how I inspired her to believe in her own dreams and stuff.

Do all of this and you will know that I will rest in eternal peace. If that's important to you.

*Thrown-Together Disaster Funeral is my new HGTV show. It's a makeover funeral show where three flamboyant gay guys and a judgmental sa.s.sy broad (think Wanda Sykes) crash a tacky funeral and fix it. Wanda's catchphrase is "Nuh-huh. Everyone out of this church. This funeral is a disaster."

A Eulogy for Mindy Kaling, by Michael Schur

My friend, former Office writer and now creator of Parks and Recreation, Mike Schur supplied me with a eulogy in advance of my death.

FRIENDS, MEMBERS of Mindy's Family, Representatives of Major Department Stores, good afternoon.

My name is Michael Schur, and I worked with Mindy Kaling for several years on the TV program The Office. The American version-not the Chinese version that has been running for the past forty-one years.

Mindy's sudden death last week shocked me, as I'm sure it also shocked the four women she was fighting over those shoes with during the Dubai Bloomingdale's Midnight Madness Sale. Though the stabbing has been labeled "accidental," those of us who knew Mindy knew it was only a matter of time before a luxury-goods-based brawl would do her in. And if there's a silver lining to all of this, it's that I had "Impaled by Heel of Christian Louboutin Jem Suede Peep-Toe Slingback" in the "How Will Mindy Kaling Die?" pool that Rainn Wilson has been running since 2006, so I won $200.

I'll never forget the Mindy Kaling that I met on our first day of work: bright-eyed, green, a complete novice in the world of television writing ... and yet somehow far more confident than everyone else. She was supremely confident. Braggy, maybe. c.o.c.ky? What's the right word ... let's go with talggy, which is a word I just made up that means "talkative and braggy."

Her work ethic was second to none. And by that I mean: if you made a list of all the levels of work ethics, hers would be just above "none." One day she came into work so late it was the next morning. And for that morning, she was also late. And hung-over. But we forgave her, because when we tried to bring it up, she just started talking about how hot some actor was, and then how much she loved Italian ice, and then how Beyonce should release a country alb.u.m, and then a bunch of other stuff, and we got tired and just forgot about the whole thing.

Mindy wore a lot of hats. Ivy League graduate, actor, comedian, playwright, inveterate gossip, weirdly pro-gun Republican, outspoken advocate of conspicuous consumption, and of course-as we learned upon the posthumous release of her puffy-sticker-covered diaries-hard-core perv. But despite all of these foibles and flaws, and the literally thousands of others I jotted down in my psychotherapist-mandated "Mindy Workbook" in order to maintain a sense of professionalism while we worked together, I loved Mindy Kaling. No one wrote like Mindy. No one was funnier than Mindy. No one else, in short, was Mindy. This will not be true for long, I understand, as her will dictates that her DNA be replicated one million times, news that recently sent the NYSE Retail Shopping Index skyrocketing.

This is Mike and me at the Writers Guild of America annual awards. We lost every category and got drunk in the hotel lobby.

I can't believe she's gone. I console myself by thinking, Well, I guess the angels just wanted her to shut up. I will miss her dearly, and I hope that she is up in heaven right now watching us and smiling, even though deep down I know that if there is an afterlife, she's a pretty much open-and-shut case for h.e.l.l.

R.I.P.

Good-bye

WHEN I WAS six and I saw The Sound of Music for the first time, my favorite part, hands down, was when the Von Trapp children bid farewell to partygoers with their song "So Long, Farewell" from the stairway of their Austrian manor. As an adult, I now see what a terrible example this is for children. It teaches them that adults will be charmed by long, protracted musical good-byes. In fact, all of The Sound of Music inspired a childhood's worth of my misguided behavior, where I believed people would always be excited to hear me sing.

I memorized the song off our record player. Then, at bedtime, I called my parents to the landing of the stairs in our house so that I could perform it in its entirety. Just me singing all seven kids' parts, accompanied by no music. Once I finished one child's part, I disappeared into my bedroom only to reemerge and run down the stairs to pick up the next one's part. My parents listened patiently until we got to the second kid's exit.

"Okay, enough of this," my dad said, and headed up the stairs to shuffle me off to bed.

"We're only on Friedrich! There are five more Von Trapp children!" I said. This fell on deaf ears. My parents were supportive of my creativity but did not have a lot of patience for whimsy with zero production value. They had stuff to do.

The point is I learned nothing from this experience. Yes, if I'm at a party where I'm not enjoying myself, I will put some cookies in my jacket pocket and leave without saying good-bye. But when I'm having a great time? I like 'em nice and drawn out, Von Trappstyle. I could say good-bye all day. Like a guy putting on his shoes.

Before I leave, I thought I'd answer any remaining questions you might have.

So, you never won any childhood spelling bees? I was under the impression this was a memoir of a spelling bee champ.

It is confusing, I know. Based on my ethnicity, the number of friends I had as a kid, my build, my eyesight, and my desire to please my parents, I should have been the reigning spelling bee champion from ages seven to fourteen. My best guess at an explanation is that my parents were worried I would be just too good a speller and a potential kidnap prospect for anyone watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on CSPAN-3 in the middle of the afternoon.

Why didn't you talk about whether women are funny or not?

I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn't. It would be the same as addressing the issue of "Should dogs and cats be able to care for our children? They're in the house anyway." I try not to make it a habit to seriously discuss nonsensical hot-b.u.t.ton issues.

What will your next book be about?

I hope my next book will be about my husband, my kids, my cool movie career, and sharing all the things I learned about since I wrote this book. Like, I'd love to know where my natural lip line is. I still have no clue. Maybe by then I'll have figured that out.

Anything else?

Not really. I just, I don't want to say good-bye.

See you guys soon.

Love,

Mindy

Acknowledgments