Area woman and aspiring writer Jodi Tannenbaum, after a third attempt at getting published by the literary website McSweeney’s (in its “Lists” section), found herself “totally in the middle of that scene from Swingers.”

“You know that famous scene,” she said, “where the guy, not Vince Vaughn… the other guy…he calls a girl he likes and says something embarrassing on her answering machine, so he calls back again to explain, and then again to explain that—wait—what do you mean you didn’t see it?”

A lot of you have read this piece before, when it was inexplicably but wonderfully published in the 2011 edition of Perseus Books’ “Best Food Writing” anthology.  I’m putting it here because this weekend is the 2012 event, and when I originally wrote the piece I declined to identify the charity under the assumption that no decent and reputable organization would want to be associated with me.   This is still true, but fuck ’em.   That event and this piece is how I wound up here; and until now, it was only published on my portfolio site.  So read it here and take the $6.77 you’d’ve spent buying a used copy of the book and send it to Safe Harbor of Sheboygan County instead.