Have a Nice Guilt Trip

by Lisa Scottoline

  “No?”

  “I’m not going that way, I’m going north.”

  “It is north.”

  He shrugged. “It’s northwest.”

  “So you won’t take us?” my friend asked.

  He waved his hand as dismissal.

  I groaned, and we got out of the car. I was already looking for the next cab when I heard behind me:

  “HEY!” The driver was out of his cab and marching toward me. “Why you gotta slam my door?”

  For a second, I was stunned silent. Sure, I was frustrated, but I didn’t think I had slammed anything. The cabbie didn’t wait for me to respond.

  “Why can’t you be a lady? Why you gotta slam my door? You gonna break my door.”

  Had this been my first year in New York, I might have been scared to have an angry man bearing down on me, but it wasn’t.

  “Excuse me?” I said, matching his volume and raising him a whole lotta attitude. “‘Break your door?’ Oh, please. I’m a 115-pound woman, I couldn’t break your door if I tried!”

  It takes a certain composure to both shout at a stranger and lie about your weight.

  The cab driver retreated, and my friend applauded my chutzpah. I felt like I’d accomplished something in my meanness. I thought I had passed Urban Living 101.

  But more recently, something happened that made me think toughness isn’t the central message of city life. I was writing at my desk beside an open window when a giant cement truck just outside leaned on its air horn for a solid forty-five seconds at a parked van blocking its way.

  The sound was earsplitting, so I hung out my window fully prepared to unleash some Philly-bred, New York–honed rage, but then the driver looked at me. And in that second of eye contact, I saw all of his frustration, and without thinking, I did something very provincial.

  I smiled.

  And then he smiled.

  I put up my hands in the Italian-but-universal gesture for “Whaddyagonnado?” and—get this—we laughed. Genuine, tension-relieving laughter. And that laughter blew off more steam than blasting horns or screaming out windows ever could. I’ve never felt so bonded to a stranger before in my life.

  The truck driver proceeded to calmly reverse out of my street, and I gave him a wave good-bye.

  Now I wonder if I had been a little nicer to that cabbie, looked him in the eye, told him I didn’t mean to slam his door, and explained that we were cold and tired, too, maybe I would’ve had that ride back home.

  Season to Taste

  By Lisa

  It’s good to know that if you can’t rely on the federal government, you can always rely on your state government.

  I say this because I recently saw a news article that reported a certain state government had enacted a law that permitted its citizens to eat any roadkill they found, without fear of penalty.

  Gee, thanks!

  If Marie Antoinette said, Let them eat cake, there’s always a politician around to say, Let them eat raccoon.

  I hasten to point out that the state in question isn’t my own, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  Such a silly law would never pass in Pennsylvania.

  We don’t need a law to tell us it’s okay to eat roadkill.

  We just dig right in.

  Finders keepers, squirrels are weepers.

  The lawmakers who passed the bill thought it was a good idea because the roadkill would otherwise be “a waste.”

  Which is an excellent point.

  Mother Mary always taught me that I had to clean my entire plate and also the shoulder of I-95.

  Think about the starving people in China the next time you leave a flattened chipmunk in your rearview mirror.

  Only a politician would find the merit in not wasting waste.

  But be careful. If you eat too much waste, it goes to your waist.

  One of the politicians also pointed out that the new law would allow citizens to eat roadkill themselves or they could “legally call the food bank.”

  Good job!

  I’m glad those politicians are preparing for any eventuality. This way, they covered people who’d already eaten their fill of roadkill.

  You know the feeling.

  When you just can’t stuff another dead snake in your mouth.

  It’s like Thanksgiving.

  In Hell.

  Leave room for dessert!

  And don’t hog the groundhog.

  It takes a special kind of person to believe that the homeless and jobless should be fed by vermin that BMWs have plowed to smithereens.

  And that person is a politician.

  Don’t you wish you were that smart, or kind?

  That’s why normal people don’t run for office.

  We’re normal.

  We don’t like it when our meal comes embossed with zigzags.

  And we don’t loosen our belts for a steel-belted radial.

  The funny thing is that opponents of the law allowing people to eat roadkill objected to its passage because they felt that roadkill might not be a “safe food source.”

  Now that would be a perfect example of the kind of fine point you have to be a politician to perceive.

  Because politicians are always concerned about our safety and welfare, but when it comes to our dignity, we’re on our own.

  In other words, they’re happy to have us crawling along the highway with a spatula, but they envision us sticking a meat thermometer in a possum.

  Interestingly, it turns out that the food bank wrote the politicians a letter saying that they would not accept roadkill as food.

  Oh, excuse me.

  I guess somebody’s picky.

  Come to think of it, I have a problem with the term “food bank.” To me, food should be plentiful and easily available to everyone, especially in a country as great as ours. The only thing that should contain food is a refrigerator.

  Banks should contain things that are scarce and hard to get, like money.

  Or men who date women over fifty.

  Now that would be the kind of bank that would get my account.

  But it would be a very small bank.

  Very.

  Small.

  You may have heard the expression that the law is an ass, but I don’t agree.

  I think the lawmakers are asses.

  When they see roadkill, they want us to bring our own fork.

  But to them, I say, fork you.

  Airport Insecurity

  By Lisa

  You may have heard about the airline that charges passengers according to how much they weigh, which I think is a great idea.

  Because airline travel isn’t humiliating enough.

  Never mind that when you stand in the security line, you have to undress in front of perfect strangers.

  First you take off your shoes, so you can stand there awkwardly in your bare feet. You lose three inches, but you gain ringworm.

  Next you have to take off your belt. It is not embarrassing at all to have to lift up your shirt and unfasten your belt, especially if you have to suck in your belly.

  Not that I would know.

  I have a belly, of course.

  I just don’t bother sucking it in.

  Then you unfasten your belt, and try not to make eye contact with the man in front of you as you slide it slowly through your belt loops.

  I’ve had dates with less sexual chemistry.

  Fifty Shades of Delta.

  Finally you take off your coat and your sweater, stripping down to your T-shirt. Nobody throws any dollar bills at you, and there’s not even a pole. It’s the Terminal A striptease, and believe me, I’ve seen some of those businessmen in line and I know their wheels are going up.

  Next you proceed to the full-body scanner and lift your arms over your head, so the machine projects a life-size image of your bra to everybody in the tristate area.

  With some women, it’s free porn.

  In my case, it’s comic relief.

  Plus I rea
d recently that some of these machines use X-rays, and all I have to say is, TSA is in deep trouble if my breasts glow in the dark.

  Whose side are you on, Marie Curie?

  Let’s not forget that when you’re in the full-body scanner, you have to put your feet in the yellow outlines on the mat. But I’m short, and I can never reach the outlines with my feet. The other day, a TSA guy actually said to me, “Lady, you have to move your legs farther apart.”

  Dude. No, I don’t.

  Although I’m a sucker for a man in uniform.

  With a big wand.

  Besides, I don’t think my legs go farther apart, anymore. They like to be close together, all the time. In fact, they might have grown together, so when I travel, I’m a mermaid, with carry-on.

  But let’s be real, ladies. Which machine is more embarrassing—a full-body scanner or a mammography machine?

  How about a show of hands?

  Or something else …

  Obviously, I’m all for airlines charging us by weight. Our self-esteem can be dangerously high at times. So by all means, why not put a big scale right next to the gate? Make sure it has a large, blinking display, so that everybody can read it clearly. Better yet, announce it on the loudspeaker systems.

  WELCOME TO PHILADELPHIA. LISA SCOTTOLINE WEIGHS 132 POUNDS. ALSO HER LEGS NO LONGER SEPARATE. SHE MAY EVEN HAVE A HYMEN, WHO KNOWS?

  And why stop there, in terms of humiliation? Get an overhead projector and show the world our W-2s.

  And by the way, the airline charges overweight baggage at the same rate as the passenger’s “personal weight.”

  Cruel.

  You know what I think?

  The weight of this old bag is none of your business.

  And I feel the same way about my luggage.

  Festival du Crime

  by Lisa

  Once in a while a crime story comes along that makes you smile.

  I’m talking about the jewelry thefts at the Cannes Film Festival, which to me are good, clean fun.

  After all, there’s no murder or mayhem, which can be icky.

  I’m speaking, of course, as a crime writer.

  Anyway, to make a long story short, the Cannes Film Festival has a red carpet that cries out for young actresses to swan around in borrowed gowns and glittery diamonds. There was probably a time in the world when this was unusual, but nowadays there are red carpets, young actresses, and glittery diamonds appearing somewhere on a weekly basis, filmed for television shows that no one watches.

  Except me.

  I will watch diamonds when they’re worn by anybody, anyplace, at any time. Yes, I’m that idiot who will actually stand in front of a jewelry-store window at the mall and stare at inanimate objects.

  Correction.

  Diamonds only appear to be inanimate, but they sparkle, shine, and twinkle, all while sitting in the very same place.

  What happened in Cannes was that an employee of Chopard, a Swiss jewelry maker, brought a lot of its diamonds to the film festival to lend to the actresses. He put the diamonds in the safe in his hotel room, only to find out later that somebody had ripped the safe out of the wall and stole the diamonds, worth $1.4 million.

  By the way, the police station was located directly across the street from the hotel.

  I’m betting the thief was Gregory Peck.

  And the detective was the Pink Panther.

  And for the record, I was not in Cannes at the time of the heist. Oddly, I wasn’t invited to the film festival this year.

  Or, well, ever.

  At the time, I was home, picking ticks off the dogs.

  Talk about glamour!

  But I read about the burglary when it happened, trying to decide if I was appalled or admiring. It was a crime that didn’t involve blood or forensic analysis, which is a point in its favor. To be fair, the jeweler lost money, but was undoubtedly insured. And the insurance company lost money, but your point is?

  To me, anytime an insurance company pays anything, anywhere, it’s a victory for all of us.

  In fact, I’m pretty sure that insurance payoffs are like cockroaches in reverse, in that every time you see one payment, there are twelve thousand other claims that are being denied.

  I’m not even worried about whom the insurance company will pass its costs on to, because the answer is that it’s the next person who insures millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry.

  In other words, not me or you.

  As for the young actresses, they undoubtedly got substitute diamonds to wear and the red carpet kept rolling. As far as I can tell, the only loser in the entire scenario was the Chopard employee who thought it was a good idea to entrust $1.4 million worth of diamonds to a hotel-room safe, password-protected by the four digits of his dog’s name.

  Whoops, I just gave away my diamond-protecting password.

  RUBY.

  Ironic, no?

  But if that wasn’t an entertaining enough crime for you, during the same film festival at Cannes a week later, a diamond necklace was stolen during a party, and this time, the gems were worth $2.6 million.

  Somebody’s improving.

  The necklace belonged to another Swiss jeweler, DeGrisogono.

  Today, I’m guessing they are DePressed.

  I read that the thief got the necklace past eighty bodyguards, local police, and hotel staff.

  Somebody’s going to lose his job.

  They got conned, so they’ll get Canned.

  Relationship Spoiler Alert

  By Francesca

  My boyfriend isn’t caught up on Breaking Bad. This may not sound like a crisis to you, but it is.

  There are only two episodes left in the greatest show on television, and as if that weren’t traumatizing enough, the writers are torturing my favorite characters to the bitter end. And I can’t say a word to my boyfriend.

  No spoilers.

  I suffer alone.

  We love watching our favorite shows together. But with the advent of DVR and Netflix, watching a show as a couple has gotten complicated.

  When it comes to appointment-television, how do you sync your calendars?

  First, my boyfriend got me into Game of Thrones. He was sweet enough to rewatch the entire first season with me in prep for the second, and that’s after having read the books, so it was truly selfless.

  This is the courtly love of the modern era.

  He tried to guide me through the labyrinthine plot, patiently explaining the characters’ complex family trees and alliances, but I couldn’t even keep their names straight. I made up my own nicknames and left him to interpret.

  I’d say, “Oh, so Incest-Hottie killed the Dragon-Blonde’s crazy dad?”

  He’d translate: “Yes, Jaime Lannister killed Daenerys Targaryen’s father, King Aerys Targaryen, a.k.a. the ‘Mad King.’ That’s why they call Jaime ‘Kingslayer.’”

  Even the show bails on their real names.

  It was after I caught up that the trouble started. Since my boyfriend works on Sunday nights, we promised to wait to watch each new episode until we could watch together.

  But one night, he came over looking sheepish. “I have something to tell you…”

  Never words a girl likes to hear. My mind raced through the terrible options: You cheated, you’re getting back with your ex, you’re moving abroad, you’re ga—

  “… I watched Game of Thrones already.”

  BETRAYED!

  I had to know the details. “When?”

  “Three days ago.”

  Twist the knife, why don’t you?

  It wasn’t so much that he watched it that made me mad—people slip up—but that he delayed telling me. It had taken all my willpower to resist watching the episode on my DVR. I thought our Game of Thrones relationship was exclusive.

  “But I’ll watch it again with you,” he said.

  So we tried that. But watching a show twice within days is boring, and bored men can think of only one thing. His mind and hands would
wander, and I’d swat him away.

  It’s not you, it’s HBO.

  It was my turn to get him addicted to a show with Breaking Bad. I binge-watched the first four seasons on DVD and thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen. No junkie likes to be alone, so I got him hooked by rewatching the first season.

  When his band had to go away on tour, I gave him the entire DVD set to catch up on the road. We planned to watch the fifth and final season together.

  That was last December.

  He had nine months to catch up, yet he only got halfway through season three. Women give birth in less time.

  But he was busy living his life—priorities?—and we’re both to blame, because we thoughtlessly spent our time together in other ways and neglected our TV homework. It didn’t seem like an issue until the final season began airing this August.

  And now I can’t tell him anything.

  It’s torture! I never keep secrets from him—except for my real weight, my “number,” my elaborate skin-care rituals, what I tweeze, or that I have ever in my life farted—but other than that, no secrets!

  We share everything, our hopes, fears, dreams, colds, and yet I can’t tell him what happened to Hank in the last episode. And did you see last week’s episode?

  Okay, sorry. No spoilers.

  And I won’t be able to hide my face in his shoulder when they do what you know they’re going to do to Jesse before the series ends.

  This is not a spoiler. It’s an inevitability. Prepare yourselves.

  But this, too, was unavoidable. My boyfriend is on tour again now, and he’ll miss the series finale, so even if he had caught up, I’d have to go it alone.

  Why don’t I hold off watching the finale and wait for him?

  I’m spoiled.

  Engagement Ring-A-Ding Ding

  by Lisa

  Valentine’s Day is upon us, and if you’re single, you know what that means.

  Depression, shame, and chocolate cake.

  I’m not saying you should feel that way. I’m just saying you might, if you’re single, divorced, a widower, or a widow.

  And if you do, I have a few words on the subject.

  But before I begin, I have to admit that I’ve had more than a few Valentine’s Days by myself, so much so that I’ve even written about it several times already.

  Top that, for pathetic.

  You can’t.

  But what I wrote before, and what I still believe, is that love is all around you. And you can’t control whether you get love, but you can control whether you give it, and your heart won’t know the difference.