The Amy Binegar-Kimmes-Lyle Book of Failures: A funny memoir of missteps, inadequacies and faux pas

by Amy Lyle

  E to the X dy dx, E to the X dx,

  Tangent Secant Cosine Sine, 3.14159,

  Square roots, cube roots, Poisson brackets, Disintegrate ’em Yellow Jackets!

  They are REALLY into mathematics. Very few students attended the homecoming game, probably because they were studying as they must take multivariable calculus and something called discrete mathematics. The Duke University students’ section (Tech’s homecoming game opponents) were louder than the entire stadium of Tech students and fans. Are football games too old-school?

  We sat with a group of Peter’s Sigma Nu fraternity brothers and other people that had graduated over twenty-five years ago. They still had some fire in them, yelling, “Do you not even want to win, Paul Johnson?” to the Tech coach. A gentleman in front of us was screaming the names of the Tech players AND the Duke players. At one point when Tech was behind, he yelled to the Duke quarterback, “Thomas Sirk, you can burn in hell!” Tech won 38-35.

  After, we went to the Sigma Nu house where they were offering “Shitty Beer” for two dollars and “Good Beer” for three dollars. Peter’s fraternity brothers sat around the pool, reminiscing about who had been maimed by jumping off the roof of the frat house, missing the pool, and hitting the concrete and reminding students that when they were responsible for the pool at the Sigma Nu house as Pool Commanders, it sparkled.

  Despite the band songs and lack of current students attending the game, Georgia Tech’s an outstanding school and we would be thrilled if any of our kids were accepted. Unfortunately, they won’t be accepted because the AVERAGE ACT score is a 31.

  DOCTORS AREN’T FUNNY

  Peter works in the health field as a consultant to physician practices and hospital systems. Blah, blah, blah. He does acquisitions and improves efficiencies and the like. Peter’s clients invite him to many social events that include spouses, and he declines 99 percent of them. He says, and I would agree, that sometimes I am an embarrassment.

  During intermission at the ballet, we were buying a cocktail when a client of Peter’s approached us, an internist that happened to look like a child molester.{59} He greeted Peter and then launched into an inquiry about laboratory equipment and fair market valuations and was still talking when the lights flickered, signaling that intermission was over.

  The internist said to me, “I am so sorry for taking up the whole intermission with your husband when you two are on a date.”

  Believing my response was witty, I replied, “That’s okay. We’ll bill you.” The physician gasped and stomped off.

  The doctor will not return Peter’s calls.

  “You are welcome,” I told Peter. Who would want a client that looks like a child molester AND is such a stick in the mud?

  AT LEAST I KEEP MY PANTIES ON

  Peter, who hates to travel for business, accepted a travel speaking engagement to California, because it included two airline tickets and a weekend at the Four Seasons in Newport Beach. It was a lovely event, kicking off some sort of restructuring for a group of anesthesiologists. I enjoyed a massage at the spa and the drinks delivered to my chair on the beach while Peter attended meetings all day.

  During dinner, they had a little rah-rah about accomplishments and goals and then everybody got to enjoy a nice meal of lobsters and pricey wine. For close to an hour, the five physicians at our table talked about regulatory change impacts and how Sugammadex is better for the reversal of neuromuscular blockade and how neostigmine is still more cost- effective when I turned to the doctor’s wife beside me and said, “They really do make people sleepy.” Peter, nor the physicians appreciated my anesthesiology humor.

  Luckily, later in the night, my sleepy comment was all but forgotten due to the antics of “Naughty Nurse,” Trashy,{60} the girlfriend of one of the physicians who worked as a nurse in the delivery room.

  At first, she was being very flirty and playful because she knew most of the doctors from the hospital, but once the doctors’ wives were around, the physicians were not in the mood to reciprocate the racy banter of a bleached blond, double-D nurse wearing a skintight dress. Go figure.

  Unfortunately, ignoring a naughty nurse is the absolute worst thing you can do to her. Trashy pouted and started downing the

  $100 bottles of Henri Puligny Montrachet Clos de la Mouchère{61} while snapping at the wait staff to remove her “ugly white vegetables” (white asparagus).

  Several Henri Puligny Montrachet Clos de la Mouchère bottles later, the group gathered in the hotel bar. A few of the physicians were calling it a night when Trashy tried to entice them to stay. At first, she tried to pour them another round, but when that did not work, she decided to shimmy out of her thong underwear and throw them around the group.

  This was met with shock (women) and awe (men)—to her delight—so she took it up a notch. To her left was her boyfriend; to her right was a shy Columbian doctor. Trashy wrapped her thong undies around the Columbian doctor’s head and held them, with the triangle crotch portion over one of his eyes.

  Trashy: You’re a pirate!

  Shy doctor: I am not a pirate. I am a physician.

  Trashy: Noooooo, you’re a pirate! He’s a pirate, he’s a pirate! Shy doctor: I am not.

  After a few rounds of “I’m not a pirate,” the shy doctor, as well as all the guests except Trashy and her boyfriend, retired for the evening.

  In the morning, the CEO, a lovely gentleman, stopped my husband and me in the hallway to address Trashy’s antics. “I’m so embarrassed you had to see that last night. In the south, we call that white trash.”

  “That’s what we call it in the north too,” I informed him.

  Trashy and the physician recently got married. They will have such a lovely story for their children.

  A WEEKEND IN KIAWAH

  Shortly after Peter and I were first married, we were invited to Kiawah Island to spend the weekend with Todd, one of his fraternity brothers, and his wife, Jennifer.{62} The Island is peppered with multimillion-dollar properties and a Hamptons- style clubhouse.

  Two other couples were staying for the weekend and a few of their neighbors were planning to join us for a dinner party Todd and Jennifer were hosting Saturday night.

  The morning of the party, Peter and the other guests went fishing. Jennifer and I wanted to lie out by their pool, listen to 1980s music and sip mojitos. We persuaded Todd to stay with us. After several hours of hanging by the pool and drinking mojitos, the theme song from Dirty Dancing, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” came on the radio and Jennifer said, “Get in the pool, Todd, and catch Amy and I like Patrick Swayze did with Jennifer Grey.”

  Some men may have declined such a request but Jennifer is very sexy and assertive. Just a few hours earlier she was telling me about how a man in her neighborhood had been caught sleeping with his coworker and she yelled at Todd, “Try that, Todd, and I will cut your balls clean off,” in her adorable, yet scary-at-the-time southern accent. So, Todd jumped in the pool and extended his arms. For about twenty minutes we took turns running and jumping and Todd would catch us while listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

  Later, after we had cleaned up and had a fantastic dinner, everyone was drinking and having a great time when Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” came on. Jennifer encouraged all the ladies to come dance in the living room. After “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was over, Prince’s “When

  Doves Cry” blared and Jennifer performed a solo dance.

  So, when Madonna’s “Lucky Star” came on, the combination of the sun, the earlier Jennifer Grey moves and ten hours of mojitos gave me the confidence to do my own solo routine. I’m not a great dancer and I’m a terrible singer but I knew all the words and dance routines from Madonna’s 1983 album Madonna. If you are over forty, you probably remember her routine—white studio, black plastic sunglasses, rolling around on the ground for over four minutes.

  I grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the counter and started jumping around. In the middl
e of the song and a leg kick, I said, “Wow, this song is really long.” Regardless, I was determined to finish. I started crawling on the ground and then rolling over, attempting Madonna’s back-bend move. I finished by doing a split (not included in Madonna’s video).

  The crowd had mixed reviews- from confusion to pity. I was wearing white capri pants and had carpet burns so badly from crawling around that my knees bled through my jeans and onto their white carpet. I also pulled something in my back, but didn’t feel it until the morning.

  Sweet Jennifer and Todd still invite us to Kiawah. I’m not sure why, but Peter always says we have plans.

  WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD

  A few months ago, I attended the American Film Market in Santa Monica. I had finished a screenplay, #fakemom (coming to a theater near you as soon as I sell it, and a studio agrees to make it). The AFM takes over Santa Monica, and every hotel and restaurant posts “Welcome AFM Attendees!” then jacks up their prices 50 percent for the week. Traci, my neighbor, grew up in LA and agreed to chauffer me around to all the activities.

  The goal of the film market is to sell your film. The market is made up of independent filmmakers and my film is a mainstream comedy, so I was instructed to “just practice your pitch.” (A pitch is a ten-second version of your film. For example, this is my film pitch: “It’s a Bridesmaids-meets-Bad Moms female-centric comedy with a little romance and a lot of feel-good moments.”

  Traci and I picked up our $475-per-day{63} badges and proceeded to meet and mingle. We sat through parts of twenty films, SEVEN of which were foreign—Italian, Spanish, Polish, German, plus three Chinese films—hoping to spot my dream directors.{64} Often we were the only people in the theatre. At the end of our almost thousand-dollar day, the only people we had met were the ticket takers and even they were not that excited to follow me on Twitter @amylyle.

  We weren’t even trying to sell the film, just get the opportunity to pitch it, but everyone was super unapproachable,{65} heads down, on their phones or barking orders in Chinese. Apparently, China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, has been on a buying spree in Hollywood.

  Traci and I had paid for industry passes, which entitled us to one cocktail party on the Santa Monica pier, so we slapped on some lipstick and headed in that direction. On the way, a gentleman, seeing our large AFM lanyards, stopped us and told us he “worked for Warner Brothers,” and asked what films had we seen so far.

  I heard “Warner Brothers” and belted out, “Let me buy you a beer!”

  Traci and I sat at an outdoor bar and listened to Donald tell great movie stories. After about fifteen minutes he asked what we were doing at the market. I launched into an enthusiastic pitch of my movie, “It’s like Bridesmaids meets Bad Moms …”

  He said he had not seen either of those films, but “it sounded great.”

  I asked him point-blank, “Who do you know at Warner Brothers and may I use your name?”

  He paused, rubbed his chin and said, “Let me see, I knew Bernie and Walter. I worked in the accounting department from ’56 to ’63.”

  Traci yelled, “Check!” We shook hands with Accounting Don and moved on. “You have a real nose for people of influence,” Traci threw out, correctly, as we headed for the pier.

  The night before, at the beautiful Marina del Rey hotel, Traci and I were drinking our “free” cocktails (the rooms were $800) while film people swarmed around. You could distinguish the writers, wearing cute dresses and/or jeans, from the producers, sporting suits and ties. Traci encouraged me to mingle with the crowd when (1) my cocktail kicked in, and (2) two gentleman in suits approached us and asked, “How’d you do today?”

  I stuck out my hand, said, “Great!” and launched into my pitch: “Imagine Bridesmaids meets Bad Moms … a female-centric comedy…” The guys in the suits said that the film sounded fantastic. I was so excited to finally get to pitch to real producers so I bravely asked, “Want to join us?”

  The two suits sat down. I launched into a five-minute synopsis of the film, who I wanted to produce it, and my dream cast. They kept saying, “That sounds so incredible.”

  I thanked them and asked, “Are you guys having any luck at the film market?”

  They looked at each other and said in unison, “We sell lamps,” and handed us their business cards. They were from Idaho visiting LA to attend an architectural convention to pitch their very expensive lamps. Traci laughed until she cried.

  I spent about $3000 for the weekend and my only real pitch was to lamp salesmen.

  NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT

  During the film festival weekend, I met Traci’s family and got a personal tour of LA. Traci drove me down the street of my favorite movie of all times, Bridesmaids. It’s the scene where Kristen Wiig finally realizes that she’s worth more than a one-night stand with the super-hot but sleazy Ted, played by Jon Hamm. Traci obliged me when I wanted to see the famous Dolby Theatre (where the Academy Awards have been hosted for the past forty years) and she drove me by the famous “Hollywood” sign on the hill. She even slowed to a crawl so I could jump out of the car and take a picture with the sidewalk stars on Sunset Strip.

  The closest I’ve made it any Hollywood stars.

  Downtown Hollywood is super-congested with traffic so it takes about an hour to travel a block. By the time our sightseeing was ending, it was after six and we were starving. We parked and went to Enclave, a nice indoor/outdoor cafe in West Hollywood.

  We struck up a conversation with two nice ladies sitting next to us and found out they were native LA and shared a mutual friend with Traci. We told them we were at the American Film Market and they asked about the film.

  I started my “female-driven comedy” spiel when they exclaimed, “Female comedy? That’s so great! We’re lesbians!”

  I was thrown off and blurted, “It’s not a lesbian comedy. It just has women in it. I guess they could be lesbians but I hadn’t thought about it.” Traci kicked me under the table and shut me up.

  Traci, always calm and appropriate, talked about her sister who had recently lost her (same-sex) partner. They nodded in understanding and sympathy and then looked to me. I personally don’t know any lesbians, but I am a real girl’s girl and if I ever moved out of the suburbs, I’m quite sure I would hang out with plenty of lesbians.

  Anywho, they keep looking at me as if to ask, “What do you, girl from small-town Ohio, think about lesbians?” Although I suffer from misophonia and was annoyed by plenty of noises, I also suffer from sedatephobia,{66} which means the worst sound of all … silence. I’m sure it was only a few seconds, but it felt like ten minutes, with everyone staring at me.

  I panicked and started naming every lesbian I could think of. “I love Ellen DeGeneres, Paula Poundstone, Wanda Sykes, Rosie O’Donnell, Jodie Foster and two of my favorite writers are lesbians, Virginia Woolf AND Carson McCullers. Carson wrote that book about the deaf mute.{67} I’m considering getting a Subaru because they are super dependable.” Our two new friends and Traci continued to stare at me so I continued, “I would totally be a lesbian. I love women and tidiness, plus we could share clothes but I can’t because the thought of going down on lady-parts really gets my gagger.”

  After a long pause, Traci and the two ladies burst out laughing. We shared our desserts over an in-depth debate over trickle- down versus trickle-up economics (we were weeks away from the Clinton/Trump election). And then, before we left, they threw out, “We should give Amy our friend Dee’s contact information.” When I asked who Dee was, they answered, “A content director of Amazon.”

  I love people that give you a second chance and judge you on your heart and intentions.

  NOT TONIGHT, HONEY

  My husband and I have been arguing about sex since we got married. He says, “Women want sex just as much as men.” His logic is that 50 percent of married men cheat and they are cheating with women, so it must be equal.

  A few married women do go through a super-slutty period when they
are in a crisis. Normally, they’re on the brink of a nasty divorce and lash out by sleeping with the low hanging fruit husbands in their own neighborhoods or offices. These husbands are the ones that have been prowling around, cheating on their wives for their entire marriages. I’ve witnessed this behavior in my old neighborhood and an entire cul-de-sac ended up getting divorced.

  How many times have you heard a man say, “My wife is an animal—she wants it all the time?” Never, that’s how often. (If you are a woman reading this and thinking, I can’t get enough sex from my husband, and you’re not a newlywed, good for you. You have some sort of extra hormones that most of us lack.)

  My girlfriends and I talk about sex frequently and it seems that most women want to want to have sex but after taking care of the kids and/or working all day, have no mojo. If we try to be generous and agree to sex, the hubbies still complain, “You’re acting like you’re not that into it.” Gentleman, that’s not acting. If we don’t even get credit for having sex without being acrobats, that makes us even less likely to comply. It becomes a vicious no hanky panky cycle.