Strange dream

I had a dream last night that I was writing a novel, and the star of my novel was an anti-hero character, whose claim to fame up to this point had been that she was the hand model on kitchen supply infomercials who does the inept “before” shot where the person is having a terrible time cutting an onion, or cooking in non-stick cookware, or trying to peel potatoes and failing. You know, the person at the opening of this infomercial:

Or the poor, pathetic potato peeler:

Or the person flailing at the opening of the Snuggie infomercial:

In my dream I had developed this somewhat amusing backstory, about how she really wanted to be a deadpan comic (or perhaps an author) and how a long series of sad events had taken her from sarcastic in a Sinfeld way, to sarcastic in a Steven Wright way, to straight out depressed, and that her colleagues only thought it made her better as a “before” lady and did not see the inner turmoil (I’m using “before lady” as a placeholder for a better faux-industry term for the person in the shot I’ve yet to develop – my thought was to play something off of how they always show that person in black and white at the opening – the “monochromer” or something). I don’t remember what she actually did in the story; I just remember this character.

At any rate, I don’t anticipate I’ll be writing any novels anytime soon, so if any of my friends want to work with me in developing this character for their own purposes, let me know. I’ll leave you with my favorite “monochromer” I found while doing some character research this morning:

“Where did I park my car? oooh noooo…”