Tom Lynch

It is 3:30, and Carrie has been waiting in line since noon. "I could care less about TV. I'm looking to get married," the young math teacher says. "If I can find someone that is clean and compatible with me, great. I mean, they give the guy a complete background check, right?"

At ABC's open audition for the next season of "The Bachelor," bachelorette hopefuls cross their fingers as they are interrogated by videocamera under blazing spotlights. Questions like "Have you ever had a restraining order filed against you?" and "Why do you think you can find a spouse on TV?" echo off the marble walls, and a lady in red wanders through the crowd yelling, "42! Number 42!"

There are over a hundred women, a cramped ocean of exhausted post-nightlifers looking for love from the idiot box. The angelic whiteness of the Chicago Theater tries to keep them cool, but the attempt is unsuccessful. The women are hot. The women are frustrated. They have been waiting for hours and forever at the same time.

Amy, number 104, has a long afternoon ahead of her. "I just haven't found the right person," she says, straightening her sleek, black dress pants. "It's difficult. You really don't meet the best of the bunch in bars." As dozens of women pay visits to the bathroom mirrors to check their hair and makeup, the lady in red continues. "50! Number 50!"

(2003-04-15)

Also by Tom Lynch

At the old ballgame
To accompany the first pitch, Southern Illinois University Press has published "Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories," a collection of stories by various writers that all use baseball as their muse.
(2003-04-09)

X-files
Standing on a sealed bucket of caulk, peering over the heavily blocked and masked fences, the field can be seen as it displays its new look--desolate and quiet, the resting ground for sleeping yellow bulldozers.
(2003-04-02)

Tip of the Week
Seattle's Adam Voith, founder of TNI Books, delivers the letters of the eponymous dead guy from beyond the grave in "Stand Up, Ernie Baxter: You're Dead."
(2003-04-01)

Doing the deed
Editor-in- chief Keith Blanchard bragged that "Maxim saves journalism" during his lecture to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Now that his first novel has been published, he has placed himself into a position in which he believes he can "save literature" too.
(2003-03-26)

Lights, Camera, Hurry
(2003-03-19)

Temporary rock stars
(2003-03-05)

Time is on his side
(2003-02-26)

Notes from the Madden Underground
(2003-01-29)

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