By Liz Malanaphy

“Yikes”. The strength of this utility player of a word lies in its versatility. The Paul Molitor of Exclamations, this word can be employed in just about any situation. Not as judgmental as “Creepy!”, nor as inappropriate as “Oh Shit!”, nor as confining as “I hate that!”, it can convey a sense of reservation, fear, disapproval, consternation, surprise or simply uncertainty. The theme at Ex-Fabula, hosted by the incomparable Dandy, served all these purposes and more! 

Marty and Mary Lynne Collins adeptly employed the word to great effect, in their inaugural storytelling at the event. Illustrating its adaptable nature in their duo high-anxiety stories, Marty recollected a time as young attorney in Manhattan, when he ventured into Little Italy, accidentally sued the mob and lived to tell about it. Mary Lynne featured a years-later-yikes, and regaled the audience with a story about how the “old folks” ruled the day on a RAD river excursion. She and Marty plunged “right down the middle” of the Hidden Rapids (yikes) and managed to come out the other side unscathed. 

As if to prove that the word can’t be typecast as scary-story-only exclamation, Shannon Byrne channeled her inner “Bridesmaids” to recount the story of becoming a new homeowner and her dismay at discovering that the toilet of a new house was clogged with a mountain of toilet paper, rendering it useless. A zippered jumpsuit, cute as it may have been, further complicated things, and it became a Yikes moment as she perched on the sink, her jumpsuit floating on the floor in toilet-water overflow, while her friends pondered what in the hell was going on in there! 

The thoughtful, pensive, pondering “Yikes” was evident in Oliver Moody’s story about overcoming odds, celebrating success and then giving up a dream to care for an aging parent. In that process, one may find different dreams and new friends along the way. The audience was on board to lift this young person up and celebrate the courage and clarity of their tale. 

In between these stories, the ever-present Ultra-shorts wove in anonymous moments in anonymous lives, nearly all of which reminded me of similar moments in my own life. Therein lies the beauty of Ex-Fabula; in listening to the voices of those in the room, you find a resonance with your own experience; vulnerability, humility, and hilarity. Who hasn’t tripped on the dance floor or experienced the trials and tribulations of dating during COVID? Who hasn’t mistaken the word Virgo for Virgin, or peed in their hide-and-seek hiding spot because they were so competitive? 

Who hasn’t had 8 baby monkeys pants them, (rendered helpless while holding a bunch of bananas), or gone to the corner drug store and purchased Preparation-H to put on their eyes…Wait…NO! I haven’t done either of those things, actually. But I can still relate to the embarrassment, anxiety, or self-deprecation this word can communicate and all the stories that convey it. 

Megan McGee, a seasoned veteran, bared her soul with a story to make us all brave, but the night was unique in that all the featured stories were told by “newbies”; people who had never participated in these story slams, and were doing so for the first time. That’s like a double-decker layer cake of “Yikes!”

Have you ever detected the odor of hot dogs on a flight? Vaunda Montoya recommends you DON’T ask your “senior sky mama” – flight attendant about it; just keep your head down, stay in your section, do your job and ignore the weird pink tinge of the water in that Mr. Coffee. In the end, Vaunda’s cautionary tale won audience favor over the other fascinating tellers, even besting Carole Donovan’s endearing recollection of her son mistakenly calling her his WIFE in front of his entire college football team. Now that is a “Yikes!” moment for the ages! 

Buoyed by the way the storytellers could laugh at themselves and share their vulnerable moments, I decided to join in. These stories evoked many moments in my own life that I could have shared, but the greatest source of “Yikes-es” for me is child-rearing. So I tapped into stories that I am intimately familiar with, about the uncertainty of parenting and the glorious nature of neuro-divergent children. And I experienced, as I have seen others do, the magic of an Ex-Fabula audience, lifting me up in a metaphorical crowd surf across the beautiful collection of humans attending, and setting me down gently in a braver, stronger place.