Scared yet?

At Any Price

Fame. Who doesn't want it? Maybe

some people prefer to stay out of the

limelight, but not me. I crave being

famous, seek it, fantasize about it

endlessly. I can't stop thinking about

it and all the power and worth it

would bring to my boring, terrible

life. The world would know me all

over. Fans would wait in line just for

a chance to see me or take my

picture. I would be in the

newspapers, online, twitter, all

media. Almost everyone in the world

would at least have heard my name.

The problem was, I had no talent

which could make me famous. I

can't sing, dance, write, play sports,

and I'm by no means beautiful or a

genius. And I didn't even want to be

famous for those things. To me,

even those talents seemed too

ordinary. There are thousands of

people with those abilities. No, I

wanted something even more.

Unfortunately, there just isn't much

demand for a plain, ordinary, 20-

something woman without a single

thing special about her. Brown hair,

pale skin, totally ordinary face. My

life was so completely miserable that

I never smiled, something my co-

workers felt the need to remind me

of constantly. Gee, thanks for

pointing that out. I had no idea I

never smiled. Perhaps if they could

step into my shoes they would stop

smiling, too. I am just like almost

every other woman my age, except

even the plainest of the plain had at

least one thing they were good at.

Not me. Ms. Average. So boring and

unremarkable. How could I ever even

dream of being anyone special? It

was ludicrous. And yet I couldn't

stop. All day, every day I thought

about having a better life. It was my

first thought in the morning and my

last thought at night. How could I

have been given such a desire, and

then, have no way of making it a

reality? It was cruelly unfair.