 Thank you all so much for coming to this. This is such a great turnout. Obviously, I mean we didn't expect so many things. We didn't. Unless you're all here to complain, which is, that book sucked! No, just go on Amazon and leave one star reviews. My name is Katya D'Angelo. I own Bridgeside Books in Waterbury. And we had Sarah last year when her last book came out, Do I Know You? And we wanted to do it again and it was Sarah's idea to bring together the local in the mix. So thank you to Sam and his team. They have transformed this beautiful space for us. And it happens to be right in Sarah's town, which is fantastic. I wanted to bring some business down here, but then I thought, uh-oh, we have a lister here who's probably taking notes saying, Sorry, Sam! So for those of you who don't know Sarah, she is the best-selling and award-winning novelist of 19 books for adults and young adults, including The Cinderella Pact, which became the lifetime original movie, Lying to Be Perfect, and Bubbles Unbound, which won the Agatha Award for Best First Mystery, and then that became a series. She's a former newspaper reporter, and you probably know her better as the town clerk here in Middlesex. I'm so sorry! It's okay. Dr. Freud? By the way, we just had somebody move to this town and her mother complained about the name. She disapproves of the name Middlesex, and as we pointed out and said it could be with more town, it could be more sex. So there you go! She would have been happier with Middlesex. Maybe she thought she was moving to Middlebury. My middle school was on Middlesex Road, and as a middle schooler, let me tell you that. Never ending stories. The address was 69 Middlesex. Of course! Anyway, so I wanted to start this with a question about how this was inspired by your house buying experience, because that's such a great story that you told me many months ago. Okay, well, first of all I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight in this showery Wednesday. I really appreciate it. It's very heartening, and I know a lot of you are not voters, so I especially appreciate that. So the people who are voters are going to be mighty concerned to find that my husband and I ended up with a newly legal means as a duly warned tax sale at my job. I ended up with a log cabin on 11 acres here in Middlesex. Okay, I can hear the criticism. It's such a New England vibe, you know? Anyway, it was because no one bit on it and there was a reason for that. I discovered later when we removed 8 tons of trash to dead dogs, and when I say we, I mean not me. I mean Dorinda's husband, David, helped, and Charlie, and there were a couple of heroin addicts living there, so it was just kind of a bad, sad scene. We tried to change the karma of the place after we fixed up a little bit by letting a family of eight that had lost their house in a fire live there for 18 months, so that was good, and then when another family lost their house in a fire, my husband and I lived there for about eight months, and that was very, very cold because there was no heat there. But that's when I wrote, we love to entertain. And you know, I kept thinking, what happens if you are an out-of-stater and you steal a prime piece of real estate out from under a renegade vermoner and you go missing? And that's the book! And it's also the house the cabin is haunted. And we won't get into that. I don't want to, you know, but I can talk to you about it later, but it's true. It's definitely, I mean somebody died there. But I think we purged it. Really? Yeah. Oh great. Yeah, I think she got sick of us, you know. So that was it. She saw the way. She saw the way. She scared the way the ghost. I scared the way the ghost. But I wrote that in this, you know, this attic, like room there. I wrote this book this entire time. And so I got a little bit too much into the weeds about Vermont and tax sales. And my poor editor in New York was like, you know, wherever you go, don't mention tax sales. And no one cares, you know, but that's not true. I've tried to leave it. I tried to make it sexy. Like, somebody gave me a good review. She's a former reporter who's, and I think her review is something like, if you really like going through town records, you're going to love this book. No, you're not doing me any favors. This is for a very small cotter in court. So what part of Kim's experience mirrors your own as a town clerk? Is there a character in this that is a town clerk? Yes. There is a, the long and short of it is that there is a town clerk and she has a daughter who is working for the celebrity couple because this is her ticket out of town. And of course bad things happen to the daughter after the celebrity couple go missing, you know, and poor Kim is trying to keep everything together. But Kim's not completely on the honest and the up and up either. And so that was where I'd like to correct the record for everyone. You know, I am on the up and up as much as I possibly can be. I just want to assure all middle sex voters that there are a few stories. I don't know if the animal control officer is here. Oh, is Erica here? Oh, there's somebody who is an inspiration for this book. My former assistant town clerk. But yeah, so a couple of things. And I told, I just got off a road trip, but 1,300 miles on my car this weekend. And I know it was horrible. And the story that everybody liked in other parts of the world. And I know this is, you guys will understand this is like mud roads. Mud roads, right? And then we say, well, you know, we had, we did have this, I have this scene in this book about this runaway goat. And we did have this runaway goat meal. Look at, see the knotting? And do you remember, do you remember how the runaway goat was caught? Everybody was out looking. There you go. And it was, it was bad news because people were doing the wrong thing. They were bringing food and food was not going to get this goat, right? What did you need? Does anybody know you needed a rag soaked in nanny goat urine. And Erica was like, don't anybody touch the goat? As soon as any of you see the goat, Erica is the best animal control officer. She says, I'm going to get out there with my pickup truck. I'm just, all I need is a bucket of nanny goat urine. And oddly enough, that's easy to get. And she stood there. I'm trying to think who else she was with. Maybe Sarah Stiedman. I'm trying to think of who else it was. But there was somebody at the end of the driveway and they took this thing and it stinks to high heaven. And they winged it over there. And the goat was standing on top of the shed. And it just went, oh. That went boom, bing, bing, bing. That's how she got it. We didn't have as much luck with Lucky. Do you remember Lucky the Pig? Does anybody here remember Lucky the Pig? Do you don't? Oh, come on. You've got to remember. Maybe I remember it because it was the first snow in November and every other town in the five-town school district was fine. It had absolutely no snow except for Middlesex. Middlesex had snow. And the phone was ringing off the hook left and right, left and right. You know, people wanted the snow plow to accompany the school bus to Rumney. It was just a whole thing. In the course of that, I got a call from the state police saying, you got to do something about this goddamn pig. I said, what pig? A pig was in the back of a truck going off to Slotter and he jumped out on 89 right there. And there were cars sliding all over the road. And they were trying to avoid this pig. And the road was like icy. And this pig was going back a pig on ice. And so, and I swear to God, I swear to God that it is true. Thank you, Michael. Michael was there. That the dispatcher said to me, well, you got to do something because we can't shoot it. We can't have pigs shooting pigs. So, and lucky, lucky remained a loser for like 18 months. And then I think, you know, they do go feral, you know, they do, but he did not go feral. There was like a father and daughter hunting one day and lucky showed up and they just took him back and to the place in Berlin. And, you know, he was, he was fine, supposedly. He was lucky. Yeah, I know this third. This is only like the tip of the iceberg of the stories and the rest of them I can't ever tell. So how do you feel about writing about kind of this personal, this job of yours in a small town, like, you know, well, I think the weird thing is talking to everybody here who has been, you know, inspirations in one way or the other. Because when you're going away, nobody knows anything. They don't, you know, you could tell them anything. Like I was just telling Katja that this woman at this conference said to me that she was, oh, she loved Vermont. Everybody at the conference loved Vermont. I love Vermont. It's so precious. It's so sweet. I'm like, yeah. And she said, and so I can tell this crowd, right? You guys, and she said, this summer, my husband and I are going to Vermont. I said, oh, where? She says, where's Jean? I said, where's Jean? Where is Jean? And she said, you know, where's Jean? And I realized, who did, does anybody know what it is? For Jeds. For Jeds. And of course, I being the heck, I'm like, very sure, it's for Jeds, you know. And then I put on my boots, put on my mucklucks and walked out the door. Ugh, the heck, the heck thing it never ends. Thanks to Charlotte. I was, I went through that. And I think by this time, her eyes would be getting a glaze over. It's like, and if you see a town that's C-A-L-A-I-S, it's actually Calis. Cal is not Calish. It's like, okay, get it, you know. Great, you guys are ignorant. Charlotte, right? Right. I also, anytime there's a question, just, you know, pop in. Yeah. This is very conversational. Great. So, okay, my other, my next question is, how do you really feel about all of the HGTV reality shows? Well, I, I mean, that's the other thing talking to this crowd. Like a lot of people don't even have cable. So it's like, you know, right. And some woman wrote me and she said, she said, when I saw that it had a reality show and it was like, bummed, you know. So, I- I thought that different from like the old school, this old house. This old house. Yes, the PBS. For those of you- I don't know. I don't know. You know, part of the fun for me was doing the culture clash, was having people coming from away. And I do, let's just put it this way. Do you see this beautiful carpentry here? This is all done by a carpenter in the valley. And every once in a while, I get neat people who are building from the valley. And you know, they are building outrageously expensive homes. You know, they are building patios that are worth my house. Can you attest to that, Linda? Yes. Right? And so, I just like the image of those people coming in and taking some land and the- and then, you know, you can't trust us. I like the idea of Ramoners not being trustworthy. I think, you know, we're just a little squirrely. I say, looking at Lee- What is H.D. TV? See, this proves my point. Yes. It was, it was, the original name is Home and Garden Television, but it morphed into something that is really addictive, where it'll have house hunters or house hunters international. And during the pandemic, it was really important to a lot of us, because we could go to places that we hadn't, you know, We could think about, well, let's see, if I had $500,000 to buy an apartment in Paris. You know, I don't think I'd choose that one. You know, they give you three. And the idea of we love to entertain is that these couples, and this is the other thing about H.D. TV, you have these young couples, you know, my daughter's age, and somehow they're walking around with like, we only have $800,000 to put down on a house. They're like, who are these people? Do they have student loans? And what kind of jobs do they have? I don't know. They're my niece. They're your niece. Oh, well, now we know. And then they justify this expense for this incredible kitchen and this outdoor patio by saying, yes, but we love to entertain, as though they are special people, right? The rest of us don't like anyone, so we're not going to spend $40,000 on a refrigerator, which you can do that has a built-in coffee maker and television. Yeah. And it'll notify you when you're low on milk. Will it? Yeah, definitely. Do you notice why? Do you have one in Waterbury? No. I'm not putting something like that in my 1800s. No. The whole house will collapse, but that refrigerator will still be there. No. Yeah. So that's perfect. Yes. Sarah, when you, in the story, used that whole sort of the subplot of the people on Reddit, I think it was. Yes. Like, did you have to research? Is that what people do, like, on this show? Yeah, absolutely. How did you research? I just want to identify Liz Sharp. Liz Sharp is the person from your elementary school who did all the homework and then sat in class and can answer all the questions. She is also our most hard-working select board member. So just to answer that question, yes. While you're filling out grants, other people are on Reddit. Yeah. Okay. That's what's really happening in real life. In real life, yes. It's like they can't leave. They've just got to constantly be in contact. And yeah. So that's it. What is Reddit? It's almost like from porch forum. Only it's constant. Yeah. And rude. Yes. And snarky. And snook snarky and rude. And non-censored. Yes. Also true. Yeah. The HTV Dream Home, was it? Yes. I think. The most while I was writing the book, it was in Waitsville. Warren. Warren, right. Yeah. And there is a really energy sufficient. It looked like this. It did. There's a house I used a lot down there in Warren. It's got the rubber roof and it's got, you know, this couple thinks they're being virtuous because they're building something that is environment, no offense, that's environmentally efficient. And while the other couple is, you know, they're a gay married couple and they're bringing in teenagers who have been bullied to their ranch. The other couple are people who are in health care, who are bringing a retreat for people who have been suffered during COVID. But these people are building a huge energy efficient home. And for that, they should win because they're so virtuous. But I'm just, I mean, these biases, I do not extend to my job. I just want you to know that. So Snowden. Snowden. Yes. Is the town that this takes place in. And from some of the details that you put in there, it's further south than where we are. Was there a specific? I'm thinking like Peru, like down there, you know, a place you really can't get to. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. National Forest is a giveaway. Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. Good for you. You read it too. I did. Thank you. It's part of the Britside Book Club. Oh. Yeah. And it's a state park ranger. Oh, that's very cool. That's really neat. I bet he has stories, right? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of dead, a lot of dead characters down there. Yeah. Dense characters? Well, dead or dense. Oh. Yeah. We hope. Yeah, that's true. So that was like a little detail that was really lovely. And I found that this is your first book set in Vermont. Yes. And probably my last. Really? Yes. Oh, why is that? Well, I don't know. You know, one and done. I think my next book is going to be inspired by Vermont. It's going to be inspired by a situation that we had not. Is anybody here from Worcester? Good. I know this is going to go on Orca, but so no one from Worcester will watch it. So one day, Katie Winkle John, who is the town clerk in Worcester, and now she is the town treasurer and she lives in Mexico. Go figure. Nice setup, right? Okay. She calls me up on a Monday and she says, she said, do you have a marriage certificate for a guy named, hold on, Arthur McBeath? And I said, oh, come on, no. And she said, yeah, he's married to, it was like something like Paisley Wingding. And I was like, okay, sure. And sure enough, I do. I have a marriage certificate for them. And I said, why do you need it? And she says, because I got to put together a death certificate. And I said, town clerks put together a death certificate. And she said, when they do, when things are as fucked up as this. So I said, all right, what happened? And she said, well, it all started when Arthur McBeath had a, she said, do you know that he has a druid compound up on, at the, at the Middlesex Worcester town line? Did you guys know that? Yes. You did? Well, there's druids also in Calis. Yeah. Kelly. Kelly. So apparently it was the, it was the Autumn Equinox. And there were many, many visitors coming to Arthur McBeath's druid compound that has a mini stonehenge up there. And it was an incredibly warm weekend. And Arthur was closing in on 500 pounds. And he drops dead of a heart attack. True story, all of this. And his wife says, I need to go to a cleansing bath, ritual, and leaves. And the people who are there say, let's burn them. Seriously? Seriously. So they put him on a pyre. And they make a festival of this. And it is closing in now on 86, 90 degrees. So that was Thursday when he died. Oh my God. Friday he's getting a little right. And meanwhile, poor Katie is trying to call the authorities and saying, well, we don't have a funeral home involved. What do I do? And they say, well, actually, statutorily, it is the town clerk's responsibility to put together a death certificate. So she's running up and down, going down to the cleansing stream to talk to the wife, get that information. Getting all this information. Saturday night, she's at home. As she says, it's bureau clock. And she gets a call from a friend of hers who's up at the druid compound. Because, of course, they don't have any cell phones up there. And she says, you got to get here now. It's a total cluster. So she runs up there. What's the problem? The problem is that there is a fight among the druids. One half just wants to light the torch and set him on fire. Others have said, no, no, no. I've been to India. You've got to stab him first. Because otherwise, he's just going to explode. Like a potato. Like a potato. Like a potato. Like a potato. Like a potato. Like a potato. Like a potato. But at this time, Katie says, you know, enough, enough. We're not going to do this. We're not going to stab this corpse. And we're not going to explode the world by lighting him on fire. So she starts calling around trying to find any type of crematorium that will take him. And there's apparently one in Northfield that will do it no matter what. You know this, don't you? Corroboration. Corroboration. And so, you know, that story of the druid compounds has been in the back of my mind. And I really do like cults. And I have to tell you, I just finished this book called Cults. Surprise. And it's about cults. And it's all nonfiction. So if you really want something to listen to, that's fun in a 1,300-mile car ride. It would be great. It would be great. It would be great. It would be great. It would be great. It would be great. It's fun in a 1,300-mile car ride. You know, I recommend this highly. So that's going to be the inspiration, but I'm not going to set it in Vermont. I'm going to set it in New Hampshire. Okay. You nailed it. That's very true. Oh my goodness. Wow. Yeah. Okay, so you set it in Vermont, and I have to say the, I want to say like world building of like really making it feel. Oh, good. That was so, just like little detail. Oh, thank you. I hope people who don't live here can, I don't know, understand and like, oh, wow. You know, who knows? It's going to be the people who really enjoy going through town records. It will suddenly be an uptick of people coming to live here. Right. Or like auctions, like housing. Yeah, tax sales. Yeah. Right, right. Okay. Any other questions? Questions? Can you give me an example of that? Not the auction stuff, just the little details. Oh, goodness. My God, now she's being, do you want to put her on the, are you putting her on the spot? I read this in six hours on a planar. Oh my gosh. Okay, never mind. It was, like, I read it so quickly. It was such a great thing. Yeah. Things like, well things like the dirt road stuff. Yeah. Yeah. The deer. The deer, totally. The deliveries, like how they don't show up. You are so good. Yeah. So like little things. Like come to your store. Check. Thank you. Yeah. People wear many hats. Yeah. The guy who knows everyone. Yeah. Knows Erica's past. Yeah, that's a key part. You can't, when you're living a small town, you can't get away from your past. That is true. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I love Waterbury, but sometimes it feels a little small. And that's a big town. That's it. Big town. Let's see. What other questions do I have for you? Yeah, I don't know. Do you guys know about this book? This is the other book I wrote? Yeah. This is 18 out of the 19th. So just to give you some background on this, I'm just going to tell you this because I have to go to the Northshire bookstore for a very fancy weekend this weekend with, I know, with literary writers. I don't know what I'm doing there, but people are paying $200 ahead. So that's it. So we're supposed to do something kind of funny or funky. And they said, you know, if you want to read an avant-garde poem or something, but I'm not, I'm going to dress up as my original character Bubbles. And I haven't, I haven't put, I haven't squeezed into that outfit in 20s or so years, but I ordered the wig off Amazon and I got the leopard print bra. And I got the see-through thing. So I'm ready to go. Yeah. I'm going to bring down the real estate in Manchester. And I'm going to talk to them about the, the fact that, that book do, I don't know if you know this that I'm on the terrorist watch list. I have recently been freed from the terrorist watch list. Thank you. I will ever wrote, you know, letters. Thank you very much. And part, Bubbles was all part of that because while I was on the terrorist watch list, they would, you know, like I'd go to Southwest and you'd stand in line, they'd open up your luggage right in front of everybody and they pull out all your stuff and they pull out the bra and the wig. And I was reading Jennifer Wiener's good in bed and people are walking by and everywhere I went. But during that course of that, I also learned about when I'm from Eisen in Heathrow being detained, I learned about super recognizers, which is what the British have used with the IRA forever, which are people who never forget a face, but also can see, you know, how people walk and move. And, you know, it is interesting. And they were laughing at us because we take off our shoes. They said, no, no, no, we've got plants all over the place. These people, we cultivate them. And so I put that away and so this is a, this has a super recognizer and I think I'm going to tie it. I think that's a justification for wearing a Bubbles outfit, don't you? If not just to shock them. Chris Bajalian will be like, never coming back again. It's interesting you mentioned Chris. He came into the story yesterday. Oh, he did. And just out of curiosity, after he left, we looked up our sales for you versus Chris and guess who wins? You know what? You have just made my life. No, I'm not kidding. Thank you so much, Katya. If my mother were alive, I could call her and say, see, I never had to get that master's degree like you want. This is going to sound like a criticism and I promise it's not. That's okay. I got thick skin. I'm just wondering in the course of the character development and kind of bracketing the fact that Kim has your job in the fictional world and how you might relate to her. I'm wondering how you feel about your characters because I found that Tammy was the only one I liked. Oh, that's interesting. That's too bad. Hopefully it's too bad. I'm going to go home now. Tammy is the one from Florida. She's Haley's mother. How do you connect to your characters? Well, obviously, I guess I'm a secret bitch. I think that's probably the psychological thing that we've uncovered. It's okay. It's all right. I did take a break from therapy, but I'm going to go back. You know, who likes stuff? Who doesn't like stuff? I read books with lots of unlikable characters. I love them. I hate them. You know, I watch shows with unlikable characters. I personally liked Kim, but that's okay. I did love Tammy, though. She was my favorite. Sorry. I really like Doreen. I really like Doreen. I thought she was such a whippersnapper. She is a whippersnapper, and her inspiration is here today. Would Doreen please stand up? The real Doreen, please stand up. Yeah! I was so happy to read the note at the end about how she's not like Doreen. She's not like Doreen, but she kind of is. The whole book, I'm like, oh my God, she actually worked with something like this? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to just tell you one quick story. When I first got this job, Marika was the assistant clerk, and she was there before I was. Marika knows everything, and she's the most capable human being on Earth. And so we used to close the office for lunch, and we closed the office, and we're working together, and we look through the door, and we see this little guy, like, covered in tats, all muscled, and we think, oh crap, it's finally happened, right? We're going to be held up, right? Oh. And so Marika and I sit here, and we conspire. Okay, look it. Marika's like, I can take them. You make a deal. You go off for distraction. I can take them. You know, I think she's got a baseball. Did you have a baseball bat? No. No. I know the bookkeeper had a gun. The golf chucker or something. I mean, this guy looks so bad. He looks so gnarly. So we're ready, right? I'm like, oh, I'm going to go in the vault and close the vault. And then we have all this. We're working ourselves into a lather. At least I'm working myself into a lather. Marika's probably like, good, you know, if she gets blown away, I'm going to go out the door. Who cares? So he comes in and it turns out he is an undercover investigator for the Social Security Administration. I'm sorry. Wait, they were undercover investigators for Social Security Administration? Yeah. And he has a really big territory. I mean, it's like from Concord, Massachusetts to the Canadian border. So you don't see him too much. But if you see this guy coming up your driveway and you've been fudging your disability benefits, go look out. So we do have moments like that in the town clerk's office. Here I thought he was from Berlin. Berlin. But I can say that because I live there. You can. Yeah. People say Berlin. Others say Berlin. Yeah. It's an endless debate. But we know it's not, you know, yeah. It's the one town where people don't know how to pronounce. I think you're probably right. But you don't live in Boston. Yes. And if you ever watch Investigation Discovery and you watch any of theirs, a couple of murders there, they always say in the quiet town of Bar of Vermont, you're like, Bar of Vermont. Auntie Churchill recently also mispronounced Charlotte. Did they? Yeah. They said, oh, down the road in Charlotte. Everyone in the theater was like, oh, to Charlotte. Well, you know, I have the great pleasure of actually auditioning the people who do the audio books. This is really fun. Harper Collins gives me, you know, three or four readers for each one and says, you know, they give me a little test tape and stuff. It is fun. It's really fun. I didn't know you had, like, authors had any. I have more input in that than I do in the cover. I just kind of, yeah, it's really interesting. And we had to give them, so then they returned with a list of how do we pronounce these things. And it was, it's huge. Yeah. Oh, very interesting. Yeah. What do you look for it or listen for it? I'll listen for something that matches the voice in my head. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. We're all in trouble. No. Right. Yeah. So now I got to ask, how do you feel about the cover? Since you don't have much say in that. You know, they're dark. Mm-hmm. That's very genre. Is it? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you look at, like, the shelves and the mystery thrillers versus, like, obviously rom-coms or even fantasy, there's a look. There's always a look. Yeah. Well, right. So I want to look like Colleen Hoover and I want to have the name Colleen Hoover. Could that work? No. Oh, my gosh. They always change your name. Yeah. Colleen, I think she'd come right after me. Those romance types, they really are copyright fanatics. So I hate to keep you guys here in this dark, in this, you know, building, whatever. How are we doing on time? Yeah. We're at about 6.15. Okay. Great. More questions, more thoughts. I mean, yeah. Go ahead. Did you end up being town clerk? Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, my husband wants credit, but he's not going to get it. So I mean, I left my job, and that is a whole story, as a newspaper reporter. I had a job, I was working at the state house for the Valley News and writing a book on the side. And I, at the time, I had this incredible, incredible rape case that I dealt with in Barnard, and I was, it's the only time I've ever had a letter of reprimand put in my files, because I let the rape victim read the story, which was not allowed. But what she went through was so horrific, I'll be glad to tell you about it some other time, but it was horrible. I don't want to trigger anybody. And the editor came up to my office and gave me a letter of reprimand and took me out to lunch. But I'll, I stick by my decision. I didn't want her to be victimized twice. I'd rather, you know, script. And as he was walking down the stairs, my phone rang, and it was Heather, my agent. She was no longer my agent, thank God. And Heather literally talks like this. Oh, it's Heather from ICM. And she's about this high. And she said, I just got you a book deal. You can put your job. You know, I was like the universe. So I quit my job and I wrote books and raised kids and did all that. And then the kids went to college and I was stuck home alone and I realized a couple of things. I realized I have no health insurance. I realized that I am getting baddie just sitting in this. And I needed a new infusion of, I just needed, you know, I just need to be part of the community. You know, you're really isolated as a writer. It's an incredibly isolating thing. So there was a town clerk opening. I, you know, they interviewed for it. The person who interviewed me was right here. And she, one of her questions was, this is Mary Skinner, do you do housekeeping? Yes, you did. That was like a little test. Do I do housekeeping? And I lied and said, sure, and thought I'll never wiping a toilet down here in my life. So that's not true. I ended up wiping them last. So that's how I became town clerk. And I really ended up really lugging the job. And it combines all the skills and also taught me skills. You know, it taught me how to be a little bit more organized and to treat everybody with respect. Because you're going, this is Lee who's a former town clerk and this is Rosie who is a current town clerk in East Montpelier. So you know what I mean? And you get all types who come in and you just, you just have a sense of humor about every single one of them. Some of them can be kind of rude during the 2020 the aftermath of the 2020 elections. I had a couple of wise guys. My favorite one was a guy who came in for the 2022 general election and he said, I'm going to be there at 6 a.m. and I'm going to watch voting. I'm going to watch what you do with that Dominion voting machine. And I said, we'll be there. He showed up five minutes before the polls closed. Three sheets to the wind and very happy. So you know, there's all that kind of stuff. But I think it's a real privilege. I think it's one of the best jobs. Yesterday was like town clerk, national town clerk day. Was that right Rosie? Did you see that? Vacation this week I must have. And as one of the town clerks pointed out, it's the second oldest profession. So there you go. So it's a great honor. That's awesome. Yeah, it is. It's a wonderful job. That's great. Any more questions? Otherwise we can kind of wrap it up. Uh-oh, here's Kim. Here's another Kim. So Bubbles was your first book, right? Well no. Depends on how you define book. Barbie Unbound, a parody of the Barbie obsession. A high quality book in itself. It's now back in fashion, yes. That was going to be my question. Do you find that as each book comes out, that it rekindles interest in some of your old books? And did you ever imagine that 20-something years ago? Yeah. Because I seem to remember a certain sixth grade graduation where parents all got a parting gift of the book Bubbles. Is that what I did? That's what you did. That's pretty awesome. I thought you were going to talk about when I delivered the U32 graduation to rest as Bubbles. Can you remember that? I was just telling somebody the other day, I was at this mouse convention that I did a reading at the Barnes & Noble in Salem, New Hampshire, which is across from a racetrack. And I was dressed up like Bubbles, big wig, everything like that. And somebody reported me to the store manager. They said there's a hooker at the back of the store. That was so flattered. Oh my God, I just want to say Barbie Unbound is brilliant. Have you seen it? Buy it. Oh, thank you. She's related to me, so. I've actually wondered, being from the Lehigh Valley where Bubbles makes for Comet, I've always wondered do people who are not from the Lehigh Valley think it's just completely sterically funny as anybody who knows that area does? I absolutely love those people. Aw, thank you. I don't want them at all. I don't know. I'm from the Lehigh Valley, so I don't know. I have a weird Pennsylvania following. I just went out of my way in this torrential rainstorm on Friday or something to go sign some books in Pennsylvania. Not that much has changed down there. Nothing changes down there, frankly. It gets built up, but it's got the same mentality. Who are you to think you're so special? I don't know. I miss it. Bethlehem's nothing like that anymore. It's all steel town, pink-walled hair salons. My mother used to go to religiously. The day my mother died, week before my mother died, she kept saying, call my hairdresser. Call Bonnie. Call Bonnie. Call Bonnie. And she was in a stroke, and I was like, why do I need to call Bonnie? Bonnie, this is in Alaska, was out fishing, so of course. She's like, she'll come back on Saturday when she's done. I was like, Mom, what are you going to do? She's like, it's my hairdresser. I've got to get my hair done. Of course she was taking the greatest trip ever. But that's like that generation, hairdressers. You had your standing, right? You guys know. And if you had your Friday 2 p.m. appointment, you did not miss your Friday 2 p.m. appointment. You bought Christmas gifts for your hairdresser and their kids and their grandkids. Washington set. My great aunt was a hairdresser in Bethlehem. Carmen. I don't know how we didn't talk about this before. I didn't know you were from Bethlehem. Is that wild? Everyone's from Bethlehem. They're very, very funny, but I never know. Are they so funny because you know all the people who do this? Yeah, I don't know. They're probably not that funny. They're pretty funny. They're pretty funny. Men read them sometimes. I read five of them in a row when my dad was so sick because I just needed to be happy. Oh, that's good. That's great. Well, thank you for that. That's awesome. Well, I want to thank you guys so much. This has been, by far, the most fun event. This was a lot of fun. I just want to give you a credit to Bridgeside Books. It's a wonderful, wonderful bookstore. They're great. They're receptive. They've got a cool stuff going on. It's in a cool area. I highly recommend it. Please, for a take of the local. Please go down there. Yes. Or else you can buy the book. I can take credit cards and cash. Wine glasses. There's a tray just outside the door. If you could put your wine glasses on that. And then there is a bathroom. There's a door right there. There's actually a bathroom door. There's also a bathroom in the red end. The hallway. You're here to sign books. I'm here to sign books or whatever. I want to thank you so much for coming. Thank you.