Sam Hedenberg

Nov 26, 2024 | thepromptmag.com | Sam Hedenberg

I turned 40 last month, and I’m not going to lie, it felt a little weird. I never really felt old in my 30s, but 40 hit different. It’s a milestone of sorts. This is 40, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It might also be because I was old enough to remember when my dad turned 40. His sister, my Aunt Sue, got him a signed picture of ’50s TV hostess Sally Starr and a coffee mug that read 40: Over The Hill. That old term that playfully hints at the mortality that awaits you at the bottom.

Jul 14, 2023 | thepromptmag.com | Sam Hedenberg

I’m sure you’ve heard the one about the dog owners who look like their dogs. Googling that phrase returns 192 million hits, including some hilarious images. But as I sit on the Capital Beltway each morning, measuring my life in highway exits, I realize in many cases car owners look a hell of a lot like their cars.

Apr 27, 2023 | thepromptmag.com | Sam Hedenberg

In the five years after college, I lived what you might call a transient lifestyle. I prefer to use that word—transient—because it sounds classier than saying I was a homeless loser, glomming off the kindness of my more stable and successful friends. But I guess that’s really what I was: a homeless loser. Furnishing a list of my prior residences would be like asking Robert Plant to name all the girls he slept with in 1971.

Mar 29, 2023 | thepromptmag.com | Sam Hedenberg

At what point did shopping malls become amusement parks for toddlers? If I’d gotten the memo, I probably would’ve looked at shin level a lot more between Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods earlier this week. Instead, on that cross-mall walk, I was almost t-boned by a miniature train, snagged in a Studio 54-sized bottleneck by Build-A-Bear, and sideswiped by a diapered maniac in a pint-sized Bentley. “Sorry!” the maniac’s mom called as I rubbed my calf and the Bentley sped toward Macy’s.

Mar 15, 2023 | thepromptmag.com | Sam Hedenberg

The summer before 8th grade, I went to Tennessee on a mission trip with my church youth group. For 10 days, my friends and I visited needy homes in the heart of Appalachia—most of which were double-wide-trailers—and did odd jobs. We built a porch for one shut-in; at other properties we cleared brush and cut knee-high grass. In addition to coming home with a heart full of the lord’s selfless love, I also returned to my parents with a new addiction.