51 pages • 1-hour read
What in the World?!: A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings
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Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Going for the Gold (or Bladder Leaks and Selling Jewelry)”
Morgan never considered being anything but a stay-at-home mom. She hated the thought of leaving her new baby and told Chuck they could manage without a second income. This worked out well until Morgan needed a new dishwasher. Chuck insisted he would fix their old one but never got around to it. Chuck refused to buy one, and Morgan decided she needed to find a way to make her own spending money.
Morgan heard from an old friend who was selling jewelry for a multilevel marketing company called Premier Designs. Her friend booked parties with women, displayed her samples, and took orders. Morgan was confident that she could make guests have fun, which would in turn help her sell a lot of jewelry, so she invested in the sample case.
Morgan’s first party, held at her home, got off to a “rocky start.” She made her famous queso dip for her family and friends, and Morgan was nervous at the prospect of presenting her inventory. Chuck was engaged in a number of home improvement projects, almost drowning out Morgan’s speech with his lawnmower while she sweated through her shirt. Nevertheless, Morgan made several sales and booked her first outside parties.
Morgan quickly found that the sales pitch script provided by the company didn’t captivate her audience. She began telling stories about her pregnancy and life as a new mother, things that resonated deeply with her female audiences. Soon, the parties turned into “a hilarious group therapy session” for moms (99). Slowly, her stories began to “[develop] into an act” (99), and her jewelry business took off. Telling a story about her terrible hemorrhoids during her second pregnancy, Morgan made one woman laugh so hard she peed on the couch, and Morgan realized she still had talent.
Upper management at Premier Designs got wind of Morgan’s success and invited her to speak at their regional conference in Nashville. She met up with her mother in the city and gave Lucille her two babies to watch during her talk. She was terribly nervous, but as soon as she started telling stories, the crowd started laughing. After she got off the stage, the professional comedian hired for the event came up and told her that she should do stand-up comedy.
Years earlier, Morgan had gone to LA with Chuck and visited her first and only comedy club. Watching the comics onstage, she had been overwhelmed by the feeling that she was “supposed to be doing this,” and now, the Premier Designs comic was “validating those inner thoughts” (104). However, she knew that now wasn’t a practical time for her dream, when she was taking care of her children.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Double-Wide”
In this chapter, Morgan chronicles several “chaotic” years. One day, Chuck announced that he was moving the family to Myrtle Beach to help a friend open a NASCAR-themed cafe. Their two children were still in diapers, and Morgan was furious that Chuck hadn’t consulted her before making the decision. Chuck, on the other hand, thought he was doing the right thing by making the decision for her.
In Myrtle Beach, the cafe didn’t work out, and Chuck took a job at a department store and began studying for the LSAT in his spare time. However, when Morgan discovered she was pregnant with her third child, Chuck abandoned his goal of attending law school and took a well-paying position as a salesman for a manufactured-home retail company back in Morristown, Tennessee.
Morgan was thrilled to be back in Morristown, but she was less excited about their living conditions; Chuck’s father had fixed them up with a cheap repossessed double-wide from his refurbished mobile-home business. Chuck had bought the home without consulting Morgan, promising they would be able to resell it for a profit. She was frustrated with his tendency to make decisions without her—it felt like he was keeping secrets.
The house was set on a foundation of cinderblocks in the middle of a field. There were no steps up, so Morgan had to toss her two children inside and then climb up with her pregnant belly. It wasn’t as bad as she expected, but it still wasn’t much, and Morgan felt lost. She still had her country club friends from when they lived in Morristown before, and some were rude and judgmental about her new living arrangement. Morgan also began making friends with her new “blue-collar” neighbors who lived in nearby mobile homes.
One night, Morgan locked herself out of the house on her way to an evening church service. She got their neighbor, a chain-smoker called Judy, to drive her and the kids to Chuck’s office. Judy, a “real sweet” lady, swore and smoked the whole way, and Morgan could see the highway under the car through the rusted-out floorboards. She wondered what she was doing there, but she felt God’s reassurance that everything would work out. Chuck was horrified to see his family pulling up in Judy’s beater and agreed to move.
Chuck sold the mobile home, and the family moved into a nice “starter home” in a new neighborhood of Morristown. A week later, Morgan delivered her third baby, Tess. As they settled into their new life, Morgan insisted that Chuck give her more input into family decisions.
Chapter 10 Summary: “What’s Wrong with Being Confident?”
As Morgan’s children began to grow up, she realized she needed to make some changes and do things for herself. The first thing she did was get breast implants. She had breastfed three babies and ended up with “concave” breasts. Some people criticized the decision, but her new breasts made Morgan feel “normal.”
Within a few months of her surgery, Morgan was invited to MC a variety show and then performed at an open mic night at a local sandwich shop. She revisited the stories she used to share at her jewelry parties, but her busy schedule as a mom left her little time to perfect a proper act. In the days leading up to her first performance at the sandwich shop, she was terrified and filled with self-doubt. However, the minute she started speaking on stage, her fear vanished, and the room was filled with laughter.
Morgan soon had a standing weekly slot at the sandwich shop and was invited to other events and community centers around town. Sometimes she received a small cash payment, other times she was compensated with a tray of cafeteria food. She loved spreading joy and making people laugh, and performing gave Morgan her own sense of identity.
After about a year, Morgan worked up the nerve to call one of the big comedy clubs in Nashville. She spoke with Brian Dorfman, “one of the most powerful people in the comedy business” (124), who agreed to give her a 10-minute slot at the club. She left her kids with Lucille and headed to Nashville for her big debut. She was terrified but also confident of her material. After her set, Brian Dorfman told her she had “something” but impressed upon her how difficult the professional life was, especially for mothers. Morgan appreciated his advice and was committed to putting her children first, but she was also sure that she could find a way to make a career in comedy.
When Chuck was offered a position overseeing the Arizona and New Mexico divisions of his mobile home company, he moved immediately, while Morgan stayed home with the three kids and waited for the house to sell. The arrangement lasted eight months, and Morgan had to rely on “God-like patience,” a wardrobe consisting of the same three pairs of sweatpants, help from her mother, and sacrificing her budding comedy career.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Burning Love”
When it was finally time for Morgan and the kids to join Chuck out west, they decided to take a road trip. As a kid, Morgan traveled very little, but she and her family had once visited Graceland. It was before Elvis died, and the Fletchers joined a crowd of fans gathered outside the gates of Graceland, hoping for a glimpse of Elvis, Priscilla, or the baby Lisa Marie. Eventually, Vernon Presley came out to address the crowd, letting them know that Elvis and Priscilla were riding horses, and they couldn’t come any closer. Morgan, up on her mother’s shoulders, could see two mounted riders in the distance. Vernon Presley spotted Morgan in the crowd and complimented the little girl. When her mother lowered her down to him, he touched her on his head. Lucille saw this as a sign of Morgan’s “destiny” and paved the way for her future success (131).
It was 1998, and Morgan and Chuck were moving with their children, three, five, and seven years old, to San Antonio. The trip was “miserable” because Chuck refused to stop, even for snacks or bathroom breaks. Finally, threatening to never have sex with her husband again, Morgan insisted they stop at Graceland. On the way, the kids pelted Morgan with questions about Elvis and his death.
The Morgans joined a tour of Graceland. The kids, after hours of being cooped up in the car, talked loudly and danced around the rooms, and Chuck dragged them through the exhibits at top speed. Nevertheless, Morgan felt she could understand Elvis’s “imposter syndrome” and desire to self-medicate, and she thought he was probably a “sweet” boy.
Chapters 8-11 Analysis
In these chapters, Morgan’s comedy career begins to take shape. It forms over decades, full of false starts, interruptions, and setbacks, illustrating the gap between the myth of so-called overnight success and the years of dedication that go into a successful career in comedy or show business.
This part of Morgan’s journey continues to illustrate how she is constantly Subverting Gender Roles in Southern Culture in spite of her deep love of motherhood. Morgan loved staying home with her first baby, but it soon became clear that she needed both extra spending money and an excuse to get out of the house, so she began hosting parties to sell jewelry. Morgan succeeded at these parties by sharing stories about her life as a new mom, which made the other women laugh so hard they “wet” themselves. Morgan had always known she had a gift for entertainment, but seeing the women laughing at the parties was the first time Morgan realized that she “really had something” (100), and she began to think that comedy might be her “way into showbiz” (99). The next confirmation of her gift for comedy came when she was invited to speak at Premier Design’s regional conference in Nashville. The comedian hired for entertainment approached her afterward, exclaiming over her hilarious speech. Slowly, Morgan “started to believe in [her]self” (104), illustrating her continued approach of Building Resilience Through Humor from a different perspective.
Morgan calls incidents like the woman at the jewelry party laughing so hard she peed and the comedian approaching her at the conference “God moments,” speaking to the theme of The Role of Faith in Everyday Struggles. To Morgan, these moments were signs that she was on the right track and that God had a plan for her. She had a dream, but while her children were still young, it “wasn’t practical” (104). In hard times, when Morgan had to give up her comedy to focus on her family, such as when Chuck was promoted and moved to the Southwest eight months before Morgan could join him with their three children, she remembered these moments, and the certainty that her destiny would eventually unfold helped her keep moving forward.
These chapters continue to establish Morgan’s adult identity, independent of her roles as wife and mother. With her forays into comedy, Morgan found a space where she could establish her own identity. It gave her a way to connect with others and spread joy in a way that felt like “contributing to the greater good” (123). People, especially other women her age, connected with her stories, turning events like her jewelry parties into “hilarious group therapy session[s]” (99). Making people laugh gave Morgan an unprecedented level of confidence as well as the connection, community, and opportunity to chat that she so craved, demonstrating the importance of human connection to her well-being.
These chapters also detail some of the difficulties in Morgan and Chuck’s marriage, due in large part to Chuck’s strict adherence to traditional gender roles, another way in which these chapters develop the theme of subverting gender roles in southern culture. Chuck took his role as the “provider” seriously, and for the most part, Morgan was happy to stay home with the kids and take care of the house. However, sometimes, Chuck took his role as the family’s patriarch a step too far, making important decisions that affected them all without consulting Morgan. To Chuck, he was being “a good husband and provider” by taking the worry and pressure surrounding financial decisions off Morgan’s shoulders (109-10). She, on the other hand, felt like Chuck “didn’t respect or trust [her]” when he “[squirreled] away information” like buying a house without consulting her (110). Instead of simply letting Chuck take charge, Morgan stood up for herself, demanding to have “a say in how [their] lives played out” (115), shifting the power dynamic in their relationship and furthering the development of her individual identity.
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