I've Got Sand In All the Wrong Places

by Lisa Scottoline

  Think living until a hundred is optimistic? You seriously underestimate how much kale I eat.

  When I graduated college, my mom gave me a book by Suze Orman called The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke, and while the title was right on the money, there was one problem: it was published in 2007.

  Before the economy hit the fan.

  The advice was geared toward people working at traditional companies that provide retirement plans and employer-matching 401(k)s.

  Do those jobs exist anymore? And are they hiring?

  Most of my friends are self-employed or juggling one dream career while working part-time elsewhere—in short, no benefits.

  Social Security will be long extinct by the time my generation goes gray. And unless Jurassic Park 4 is about finding pension-DNA stuck in tree sap, it’s not coming back.

  National debt finds a way.

  Why doesn’t anyone tell us how to do this? I went to Harvard, yet the entirety of my finance knowledge came from Kristen Wiig’s SNL impression of Suze Orman and Google.

  Is everybody my age secretly socking away cash and not telling me?

  FOMO is Fear Of Missing Out. I have FORO.

  Fear Of Running Out.

  So I said farewell to youth and embraced retirement planning. I was so proud of myself for figuring out that I need an IRA, I didn’t realize that was only step one. I still had to choose between a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, a SEP IRA, and probably others I’m supposed to know but don’t.

  They all shelter your investment from taxes but prevent you from withdrawing your money until you’re fifty-nine-and-a-half.

  I thought we stopped counting halves after age nine.

  The IRS is so immature.

  But there are all these minute differences about who can contribute to what, and which ones lower your taxable income, etc. For example, a Roth IRA allows you to withdraw money early to buy your first house.

  Whereas a traditional IRA would prefer you wait until marriage.

  When I opened my IRA, the bank associate asked me how much I’d like to contribute. I’d done my homework, and I knew the annual limit for people like me was pretty low, so I told her I’d like to put away the maximum I’m allowed.

  “Okay. But I can’t tell you what that is.” She smiled.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Well, I’m not allowed to tell you. You’d have to ask your accountant.”

  Why is everything tax-related cloaked in secrecy? The IRS is this Oz-like master, with questionably corrupt forces at the top getting all the benefits, while the rest of us pay lots of money for purposes unknown, but we obey, because we’re too confused by all the categories and acronyms and pages upon pages of rules, rules that if anyone actually read, would make absolutely no sense.

  Is this the federal tax code or Scientology?

  In either case, I don’t want to get audited.

  But I did it! I successfully started saving for my retirement. This calls for cake!

  I can only lick the icing now, but in thirty-and-a-half years, I can eat a whole piece.

  Doggie Dramz

  Lisa

  I can’t figure my dogs out.

  It may be they’re smarter than I am.

  In which case, they’d better be able to write a book, because that’s what pays the bills around here.

  My latest dog drama concerns something that should be simple.

  Food.

  In fact, if I were going to pick two areas in which I would consider myself generally knowledgeable, it would be dogs or food. But evidently, when dogs and food are put together, I’m stumped.

  To give you some background, I’ve had dogs my entire life: mutts, rescue dogs, purebreds, all kinds of dogs. And all of these dogs reacted exactly the same way when there was a bowl of food put in front of them.

  They gobbled it up instantly.

  The only problem I’ve ever had with dogs at mealtime is that when I’ve had more than one dog, I feed them in separate places, so they don’t get aggressive.

  Still, in the past, this has not been a problem. I have crates for all my dogs, and I feed them in their crates, which makes them love their crates the way I love my kitchen.

  Ruby is just happy she is not the one causing trouble.

  Because it’s delicious.

  So what’s happening is that I have Ruby The Crazy Corgi, who eats reliably, like a normal dog. I put her in her cage and give her a bowl of kibble, and she wolfs it right down.

  That is, if wolves had four-inch legs.

  Ruby is not the problem, for once. She’s reveling in the fact that the others are getting in trouble this time.

  Because the four Cavalier King Charles spaniels—Little Tony, Peach, Boone, and Kit—are as fussy about eating as the name of their breed. And the weird thing is, they’re not fussy about what they eat, they’re fussy about the way they eat it.

  Don’t think I’m being a control freak, because you know me better than that.

  But here’s what happens every morning: I put a full bowl of kibble in the cage of each of the Cavaliers and I close the door of the cage.

  They don’t eat, but for the next hour, they proceed to stare at the bowl.

  Then, when I go to open the cage door and pick up the bowl of food, they start eating.

  When I put the bowl back down and close the door, they stop eating.

  This was driving me crazy, because I was spending my entire morning opening and closing crate doors and watching to see if they’d eat. And then I started experimenting, so I would take some of the kibble out of the bowls and dump it on the crate pad.

  Which is when I noticed that Kit would eat the food only if it were on the crate pad.

  And Boone would eat the food only if his cage door was open, but not if it was closed.

  So now I have four Cavaliers with four different modes of eating, and I don’t understand this behavior at all.

  I know you’re thinking that I should just take the food away, and that’s what I do. When I’ve spent about an hour dumping kibble onto crate pads and picking it up again, or opening and closing crate doors, or lifting food bowls and putting them back down again, I finally give up.

  I collect all four bowls and put them in the refrigerator.

  I vow I won’t offer any food again until the next day.

  I say to myself, if those crazy dogs are hungry enough, they’ll eat.

  And sometimes, that works.

  But still, I’m too much of an Italian mother to let anything miss a meal.

  And I worry about it all morning, in the back of my mind, when I’m working.

  And I would really like to understand this behavior.

  I don’t need this degree of doggie drama.

  Is anybody out there smarter than my dogs?

  Mommy’s Day Out

  Francesca

  The last time my mom came to visit, I lost her.

  It was like that movie Baby’s Day Out, except with my parent. I turned my back for one second, and the little rascal got away from me.

  I imagined her crawling along an I-beam at some high-rise construction site.

  But she’s afraid of heights, so more likely she’d be in Times Square, telling The Naked Cowboy he isn’t dressed warmly enough.

  It started with tickets to see the new Larry David play. My mom checked that she had the tickets for the third or fourth time.

  “It says, ‘late arrivals will not be seated,’” she read, for my benefit. My mom is early to everything. We left with an hour to spare.

  And yet, we found ourselves in a cab crawling up Sixth Avenue for a half hour with fifteen blocks to go. I checked our route on my smartphone; the driving estimate to get to the theater was fifteen minutes, the walking was only ten.

  “I think we should get out,” I said.

  She’s in there somewhere.

  “Really?” My mom looked aghast.

  “Yeah, we’re close, but this traffic is going t
o take forever.”

  But I’d inadvertently hit the panic button in my mom’s ever-punctual brain. She swiped, tapped, and banged her credit card on the automated reader before throwing it at me in anguish (“Mom, it’s a touch screen now, we’ve been over this…”), and she couldn’t wait for the cabbie to pull over before she shot out of the taxi.

  I scurried after her. “Wait, we have time, we don’t have to run.”

  But she was already jogging down the crowded sidewalk, dodging men with briefcases and women wearing pantyhose with sneakers.

  I awkwardly half-ran after her, not eager to claim the crazy woman sprinting in front of me as my own, but not wanting to lose sight of her bobbing blond head either.

  My mom turned back only occasionally to furiously mouth the words, “COME ON!” and “WHY AREN’T YOU RUNNING?”

  This made me laugh, which only made her angrier.

  I was only a few yards behind her until a major intersection, when she darted out against the light. I winced as she put her hands up to the hoods of honking cars like an action-movie star.

  Thankfully, even Manhattan drivers won’t mess with my mother.

  So she was a good ten yards ahead of me when she got to one corner and pointed west, mouthing, “This way?”

  The theater was on 48th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. We were on Sixth, so we were less than a block away—with plenty of time, I might add.

  I nodded.

  She bolted left. I figured I’d catch up to her in a minute.

  Until I reached the corner and looked up.

  The sign read 49th Street.

  I was so busy chasing her, I didn’t realize we’d overshot it by a block. But by now, the blond head had vanished.

  I called my mom’s cell phone—no answer.

  I called again. Surely, she would pick up, once she didn’t immediately see the theater where it should be.

  It went to voice mail.

  I called a third time. SURELY, she would at least LOOK at her phone, once she realized her daughter was no longer behind her.

  Nope.

  I ran all the way down 49th Street looking for her. I stopped at the corner of Broadway, at a complete loss as to which way she’d gone.

  Ten minutes to curtain. I headed to the theater, praying she’d be there waiting.

  She wasn’t.

  I called her again, and this time, she answered. Like any parent who’d been through a scare, my relief curdled instantly to anger. “Where are you?!” I screamed.

  “I don’t know!” she yelled.

  “How do you not know? It’s a grid!”

  We both calmed down, and I coached her to find me. When she arrived, her hair was frizzed with sweat. She looked so cute, I couldn’t be mad.

  We rushed inside. The usher pointed us to our seats, and a concession worker walked by. My mom asked me to buy her a water.

  “Sorry, we’re out. I only have wine,” he said.

  “Fine.”

  He handed it to me in a plastic sippy cup.

  I gave Mommy her juice just as the houselights dimmed, and I collapsed into my seat.

  Next time, I’m bringing a nanny.

  Celebrity Crushed

  Lisa

  It’s important for you to know that I’m a human being subject to the same foibles that other human beings are.

  Specifically, I get celebrity crushes.

  My first real celebrity crush was George Clooney, and you and I may have that in common.

  I had a crush on him because I thought he was funny, smart, and liked smart and funny women, and I was proven correct when he married a lawyer.

  Just not this lawyer.

  (Me.)

  Of course the lawyer that George Clooney married was almost twenty years his junior, but we have all come to learn that the dating ground for single men is decades-younger women, even if that means they have to help them with their French homework.

  In fact, especially if that means they have to help them with their French homework.

  But the thing about a celebrity crush is that it isn’t realistic.

  It’s fantasy.

  That’s probably why its object is a movie actor, in other words, somebody who acts crushworthy for a living.

  They could secretly be a jerk, but just a terrific actor.

  After George Clooney got married, I knew I had to move on, because I would never date a married man, even in my dreams.

  I immediately latched on to Bradley Cooper because I thought he was funny, smart, and he liked funny and smart women.

  So you see the pattern.

  Guess who thinks she’s funny and smart?

  (Me.)

  (Rather, I.)

  Bradley Cooper, however, started dating a model who was roughly twenty years his junior, then moved on to another model who was twenty years his junior, but as he is not yet married, he remains my celebrity crush.

  Also alternative babysitter.

  But I have a secret celebrity crush, one I’ve never written about because I didn’t realize it until recently, when I watched my umpteenth episode of Seinfeld.

  But my crush isn’t Jerry Seinfeld.

  The more I watched Seinfeld, the more I realized that the writing is what turned me on.

  Because I’m a writer!

  And the writer was Larry David.

  I know, purists will say that Jerry Seinfeld wrote, too, but Jerry Seinfeld is already married and you know my rule about that.

  But Larry David recently became unmarried.

  So fast-forward to me visiting Francesca in New York, and we have nothing to do for the night and I say, “Hey, why don’t we get tickets to that new Larry David play, which will be funny and smart?”

  Unsuspecting, she agrees.

  Francesca just told you the story about how we got to the theater, but I want to focus on what happens after the end of the play, when, as luck would have it, Larry David and Rita Wilson come out on the stage, as themselves, and announce that they are holding a fundraiser for Broadway Cares, which is a charity run by actors to benefit people with AIDS.

  Go on, I think to myself, listening with interest.

  Typical of Larry to have such a big heart.

  Or so I fantasize.

  So then Rita Wilson announces that anybody who is willing to donate to this charity will get to meet her and Larry David and have a picture taken with them.

  I can’t believe my ears.

  It’s embarrassing to admit, but I jumped at the chance, raising my hand.

  Francesca looked over, bewildered. “Mom, what are you doing?”

  “Giving to charity, of course,” I told her, because no mother tells her daughter the absolute truth, especially when the mother is about to make a complete fool of herself.

  “Do you realize this is an auction?” she said, gesturing at the crowd.

  Which was when I realized that bidding was going on, and all of the hands were going down, but my hand was still up.

  I say this as an excuse, but the truth is, I would’ve bid anyway.

  Because the next thing that happened was that Rita Wilson pointed at me and said, “Sold!”

  For $2,000.

  “Mom?” Francesca’s face went white. “Really?”

  Now, look, I know that’s a lot of money, but it was for a good cause, which was me meeting Larry David.

  Anyway, we jumped out of our seats, hustled down the aisle, and joined a line of people, all of whom were willing to spend $2,000 because they had a crush on Larry David.

  Not really; all of them were married couples from New Jersey.

  I was the only single woman, if you don’t count Francesca, who has no romantic interest in Larry David. But if she did, I would knock her down and step over her body to get to him.

  My first thought was, I didn’t look good enough to meet my celebrity crush. I hadn’t showered or blown out my hair because the evening had been so last-minute, and I was wearing my glasses, not my cont
acts.

  Between us, there’s not much difference in me either way, but for some reason I’m more confident in my contacts.

  Nobody has to know they’re multifocal, which are contacts for old people.

  And anyway, I told myself, Larry David is pretty old.

  Plus he wore glasses, so maybe he liked women who wore glasses.

  But for one problem.

  Guess what I wasn’t wearing?

  A bra.

  Can you imagine?

  I had on a big sweater, and since I didn’t realize I was going to meet my crush, I hadn’t bothered finding my push-up, which is bound to the bottom of my underwear drawer by cobwebs.

  To state the obvious, braless isn’t a good look for a woman my age.

  Especially one trying to catch Larry David as her next ex-husband.

  Thing Three!

  Anyway, so we neared the head of the line, and my mouth went completely dry.

  I could spot Larry David because he was so tall and he looked smart, funny, and vaguely uncomfortable as all the couples pumped his hand and told him how much they loved Seinfeld.

  As the line inched forward, I tried to think of something smart and funny to say, but I was too nervous. I kept my coat wrapped around me, to hide the effects of gravity, and I even put Francesca in front of me because I was such a chicken.

  It’s one thing to have a celebrity crush.

  And another to actually meet him.

  I considered running away until they took my credit card, and the next thing I knew, we were at the head of the line.

  Rita Wilson was standing ahead of Larry David, greeting everyone, because she was clearly the warmest and nicest person ever, and she gave Francesca a big hug and thanked us for giving to such an “important charity.”

  I kept my secret to myself.

  Then Francesca shook Larry David’s hand, apparently unaware of his animal magnetism, and she told him how much she liked Seinfeld.

  He nodded politely and said, “Thanks.”

  What a guy!

  At which point I was engulfed in a Rita Wilson hug, and I hugged her back, just for comfort’s sake.

  She smelled great.

  I was almost too nervous to let her go.

  But I did, and then I was face-to-face with my celebrity crush, who smiled, stuck out his hand, and said, “Pleased to meet you.”