Joyful Recollections of Trauma: A Hilariously Cathartic Memoir-in-Essays of Childhood Turmoil, Self Healing, and Finding Happiness

by Paul Scheer

The assistant instructed me to sit, and then a beautiful young woman came over. The assistant said, “This is Britney. I think you two are about the same age.” We were. The assistant went on, “You two should have lunch ’cause this place is full of adults.” The assistant walked away and left me with the star of the photo shoot. We had a stilted but nice conversation over turkey sandwiches. I asked her about being a model, and she told me she was actually a singer. She asked me what I did, and I confided, “I don’t know.” She laughed, not realizing I was being more truthful than charming. After a few minutes, she was whisked away, and I was ushered back to my office as quickly as I had been pulled out of it. Months later, I was watching MTV when I saw the girl I had a turkey sandwich with! Holy shit! The video was really good and the song was “. . . Baby One More Time.” I wrote down her name, Britney Spears. I wanted to make sure I was right, that this was indeed the same girl. So I went back to work the next morning, and I told the guy who stored my bag under his desk that I thought I’d had lunch with Britney Spears when she was here for that Tommy Hilfiger campaign a few months ago. Then we did something that was probably illegal. He told me to “check the files.” This was Hershlag/Portman all over again. I rolled my chair over to a giant file cabinet, and I found the contract and searched for the signatures. It was indeed Britney Spears. I stared at the contract that she had...