I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool

by Lisa Scottoline

  Maybe the Committee couldn’t get concert tickets?

  And then, when he was asked if he would go to the award ceremony, he answered, “Absolutely, if at all possible.”

  Now he’s starting to sound like my ex-husbands, Thing One and Thing Two.

  I searched in vain to see if Dylan simply said, thank you.

  No.

  Oops.

  And no word from him on the million-dollar prize, either whether he will accept it, donate it, or use it to mix up the medicine with Johnny in the basement.

  But I figured out a surprise ending, a way for everyone to come out of this perfectly.

  Dylan should have been given the Nobel Prize for Peace.

  He has written and performed so many antiwar songs that they defined more than one generation, and his music really does build empathy worldwide and unite the entire globe.

  Not a bad idea, huh?

  Bob, call me.

  Sniff Test

  Francesca

  Every woman has one department at the shopping mall that calls to them, nay, sings to them, like a choir of angels, radiating a warm, golden light from the top of the escalator.

  For me, it’s fragrance.

  I’m hypnotized by those glittering little bottles on glass countertops, each one with a secret inside, winking at me from across the room.

  I’ve always loved perfume, ever since I was a little girl, when the crystal bottles on my mother’s dresser seemed like magical potions.

  And whenever I smelled them on her, I knew she was going somewhere glamorous, mysterious, and as-yet-off-limits to me.

  Douleur exquise!

  Now that I am grown-up, perfumes are the closest thing I have to fairy godmothers. Scents have the power to turn me, a regular girl in dog-hair-covered yoga pants, into whatever sort of woman I want to be.

  Bibbity-bobbity-spritz!

  I’ve accumulated a lovely perfume collection of my own, but there’s always more to be explored. And the best thing about the fragrance department can be summed up in one word:

  Testers.

  Makeup departments have testers, but often you twist up the lipstick to find its head all deformed and tacky, maybe a stray piece of lint stuck to it, and you have to ask yourself:

  “Is this going to give me herpes?”

  I need more elegance than that. With perfume, you spritz the fancy cardstock, give it a limp-wristed shake, like it’s a Polaroid picture you already know you look great in, and voilà! A new scent to delight or disgust you.

  In fashion, if you try on a pair of jeans that look bad, you blame yourself.

  In fragrance, if you try a perfume that stinks, you move on.

  And boy do I move. I require a very patient salesperson, because if I get in my head that I want a jasmine scent, I will need to smell every perfume with a jasmine note in creation before I can decide.

  Only the best contenders get valuable real estate on my skin. I tell myself I will pick the top two and put one on each wrist. But then I discover another great scent, so I have to find a new spot, maybe my left inner-elbow. And before I know it, I need a map of my body labeled like a butcher’s chart to remember what I put where.

  I know I’ve walked out of the fragrance department looking like I’m smelling my armpit, but really I’m revisiting the perfume I tested on my right shoulder cap.

  But I can’t hang out in a fragrance department all day, can I?

  I asked and they said no.

  So I had to find a new outlet for my insatiable curiosity. And where does one go for insatiable curiosity?

  The Internet.

  That’s where I discovered Fragrantica.com, a website for maniacs.

  It’s a self-described “perfume encyclopedia” of mind-boggling dimension. It details forty thousand perfumes with over six hundred thousand reviews written by nearly half a million registered users from around the world.

  In addition to user reviews, it also has industry news, blog posts, reference material, discussion forums, and something called “fragrant horoscopes.”

  The webpage itself is cluttered, the interface looks like it hasn’t been updated in years, and the discussion forum still uses that AOL chat room font.

  And I love it. I can kill hours on that site.

  If I type “Fra-” into my web browser, it immediately suggests Fragrantica.

  Mind you, my own name and website URL begin “Fra-” but my browser knows it’s a distant second.

  Fragrantica has eclipsed Francesca.

  Of course I registered and made a profile on it. I’m FrancescaInFiore, “Francesca in Bloom” in Italian.

  I know, it’s so dorky, but it’s hardly the worst. Scanning the usernames, there are a lot of puns, like “Neckromancer,” and a few questionable choices like, “Smelly Finger.”

  I had to make a profile so I could leave my own reviews and fill out my virtual-fragrance wardrobe. That way other users can see what I have and what I like. We can make recommendations to each other. Some users even arrange perfume swaps.

  But I’m not ready to meet these people in real life.

  Primarily, I use it to scout out new scents at home. I can search by fragrance note, or brand, or parfumier, or any category you can imagine. When I find a perfume I’m curious about, I can read its official Fragrantica profile, see the rating it gets from users about what season they wear it in, what time of day, longevity, etc, and, finally, I pore over all the reviews of what it’s like.

  If it sounds good enough to try in person, I click the “for test” button and it’s instantly added to my personal “for test” list in my profile page—very handy the next time I go to the fragrance department.

  And so we’ve come full circle.

  Get the coffee bean sniff-palate cleanser, because I’m going to be here for a while.

  Pasta Impasse

  Lisa

  You know how on Facebook, people say their relationship is complicated?

  Well, my relationship just got complicated.

  I’m talking about my relationship with pasta.

  Let me take you back in time to the dark ages, when we didn’t even use the word pasta.

  Back then, we called it spaghetti.

  And growing up in a household of The Flying Scottolines, we had spaghetti every night for dinner.

  I’m not even kidding.

  I have mentioned this before but it bears repeating.

  We thought spaghetti was what you had for dinner.

  Sometimes we had it with meatballs, sometimes with chicken, but always spaghetti. You would think this got boring, but it never did. All my friends wanted to come to our house for dinner.

  Why?

  Because we had spaghetti.

  On holidays we had ravioli or gnocchi, but even then, we still served it with spaghetti.

  Yes, we had carbohydrates with a side of carbohydrates.

  And we were as happy as clams.

  Spaghetti with clams.

  So naturally, I grew up loving spaghetti, and it’s still the food I crave. I would eat it every night if my jeans would permit.

  My sweatpants are fine with it, however.

  Then, in the evolution of spaghetti history, everybody started calling it pasta, which enabled restaurants to charge three dollars more.

  At about the same time, I started reading about how you should eat whole-wheat pasta because it was made of healthier ingredients.

  Like it didn’t have semolina.

  Until then I didn’t know that regular pasta was made of semolina, which sounds like a last name.

  Meet Lisa Semolina, author and dog-lover.

  But I read that whole-wheat spaghetti was better for you because it had more protein. I compared, and on the box, it said that regular spaghetti had seven grams of protein, but whole-wheat pasta has eight grams of protein.

  You might not think that one gram makes a difference, but I never underestimate the power of one.

  Not only literally.


  Literally, it takes me three years to lose a single pound, so I don’t take one for granted.

  So I made the switch to whole-wheat spaghetti and I told myself that it tasted the same.

  It didn’t, but I lived with it.

  I completely replaced my semolina-laden spaghetti with whole-wheat spaghetti and drowned it in tomato sauce.

  Or gravy, to those of you who speak the language.

  The language being South Philly.

  I went happily/unhappily on my way, eating whole-wheat pasta until I saw a different type of pasta that was supposed to be even healthier, called Protein Plus.

  Plus is definitely good, right?

  Protein Plus pasta seems to be somewhere between whole-wheat pasta and regular pasta, and it has ten grams of protein.

  Wow!

  That’s three more grams than seven—proof that I can subtract.

  Or add.

  Or get suckered in by anything.

  So I bought the Protein Plus pasta, drowned that in sauce/gravy, and kept telling myself how much fun I was having.

  Until I came across a new kind of pasta that was made from chickpeas, and it had thirteen grams of protein.

  In other words, I hit the protein jackpot!

  For a long time, I subbed that in, burying it in gravy and also mozzarella.

  Obviously, we’re abandoning the calorie count. I needed the mozzarella to smother the taste, which I never needed with regular pasta, which tastes awesome all by itself.

  So I have more protein but also more carbs and fat.

  And I have four different types of pasta in my pantry—regular, whole wheat, Protein Plus, and chickpea. On any given night, when I want pasta, I never know which one to choose.

  So you see why my relationship with pasta is complicated.

  But it isn’t over.

  Nobody divorces spaghetti.

  Let’s Twist Again

  Lisa

  They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

  But they never met me.

  I think it’s the definition of adorable.

  Besides, I don’t do the same thing over and over—I do a different thing over and over.

  Still it doesn’t work out.

  Because I don’t work out.

  I’m talking about the “Simply Fit Board—The Abs Legs Core Workout Board with a Twist.”

  That’s the actual name of the product.

  I didn’t make it up.

  I’m not illiterate.

  I use commas.

  And I’m the kind of person you would buy that actually says in the corner, As Seen On TV.

  I have officially become Mother Mary.

  But I don’t blame her, I blame the election.

  Because I had the news on most of the time during the election, and every commercial was either for a catheter, a copper waistband, or the Simply Fit Board, which is what we’ll call it for short. And their commercials showed really trim women swiveling on multicolored plastic boards, i.e., getting in shape in a fun way.

  And also boring a hole in the rug, but never mind.

  It seemed easy, and I thought it might make some sense since I never do anything for my waist, which seems to be melting.

  My core lacks core values.

  I’m always on a diet but I never seem to lose weight, and yoga doesn’t make me lose weight, even though now I can touch my toes.

  Though I can’t see them over my belly.

  When I watched the commercial for the Simply Fit Board, I realized the women were doing The Twist.

  Please pretend you know what The Twist is.

  Google it if you’re not sure. Search under, Mating Rituals of Ancient Peoples.

  To save you the trouble, The Twist was a dance that people did back in the sixties, which became a dance craze.

  You’re going to have to look up Dance Craze, too.

  Again to save the trouble, a dance is something that people did before they had smartphones to entertain them.

  These were the olden days, when people made eye contact and enjoyed each other’s company without taking even one selfie.

  And a Dance Craze is a dance that goes viral.

  The Twist was invented by a man who sang a song about it, and his name was Chubby Checker. Ironically, he was a little chubby even though he twisted all the time.

  Evidently, he needed the Simply Fit Board!

  So long story short, I thought the Simply Fit Board would make a nice addition to my collection of exercise equipment, which already includes an elliptical machine and a stationary bicycle, both of which remain remarkably stationary.

  If not inert.

  They’re not only unused but ignored, even though they are in my office and I have to trip over them to get to the computer.

  So the last thing I needed was more exercise equipment, but I started thinking that maybe this is one I will use.

  Hope springs eternal.

  So do hips.

  Plus the commercial was on so many times that I started believing it, especially in comparison with the catheter commercial. If you show me something enough times on TV, I’m going to want whatever it is, unless it’s a catheter.

  So I ordered the Simply Fit Board, and when it came, it looked just like it did in the commercial. It’s a curved board made of hard plastic, in my case pink, and I was so excited that I took it out of the box, jumped right on it, and slid across the rug like a drunken surfer.

  Before I fell on my butt.

  It turns out you need balance.

  But it doesn’t say on the box, Balance Not Included.

  And the first thing that goes when you get older, right after your waistline, is your balance.

  So I picked myself up, figured maybe I had done something wrong, and looked for the directions. Of course no product comes with directions anymore, which serves me right. I spent all of my life assembling things without using the directions, and now the world has called my bluff.

  Ya happy now, Scottoline?

  Then I dug deeper in the box, and at the bottom I found a DVD that said Workout DVD and User Guide on the cover. The only problem was I don’t have a DVD player anymore and none of my computers have a DVD slot.

  So I went to the website, but it was geared to selling you the contraption and didn’t have any directions. Then I turned on the television, waited two seconds, and a commercial for Simply Fit Board came on, which was everything I had remembered.

  I jumped back on the board and twisted my heart out, wobbling mightily, flailing my arms, almost tripping over, and finally falling off again.

  Then I tried it barefoot and managed to stay on for two whole minutes.

  But I couldn’t twist that long.

  Next up, the Hula Hoop!

  Don’t Bot with My Heart

  Francesca

  There is one Twitter account who has been toying with me for over a year.

  The account is @WildBluePress, a publisher from Evergreen, Colorado. Nearly twelve thousand followers but following fewer than four hundred, so, discerning. I felt special when this account started following me. How had they found me? Through my writing? All the way from Colorado?

  I was touched.

  I followed back.

  We seemed to have a lot in common. We were both in the book business. @WildBluePress favorited my animal welfare and disability rights tweets, so we agreed on the issues closest to my heart. And soon, I projected a host of wonderful traits and compatibilities onto the person behind this account, chief among them:

  Friendship.

  Then one day I received another notification: “@WildBluePress is now following you!”

  Don’t you mean, refollowing me?

  This revealed it had unfollowed me, but when?

  Did I say something wrong?

  How long have you been feeling this way?

  It was like one of those times when someone you’ve met many times f
orgets and reintroduces himself. I was the one who felt stupid.

  This happens occasionally on social media, like those old, high-school friends on Facebook whom I know I was friends with in the past, who pop up as fresh friend requests.

  Thought better of it, eh?

  I accept their requests, but I note it. You weren’t that nice to me in high school and you unfriended me in college, but then you see my name on a couple books and suddenly you want to be all buddy-buddy again.

  I refriend, but I don’t forget.

  See, on social media you can get away with ghosting a conversation or relationship without word. But if you want to get away with it, you can never refriend or refollow. That’s what the “mute” function is for.

  But I wasn’t mad at @WildBluePress, I was hurt.

  Which I know is silly. Social media isn’t real. Twitter is such a jumble, I’d never notice when someone unfollows me.

  My own mother didn’t follow me on Instagram, and neither of us realized for four years.

  Twitter is particularly weird because many, if not most, of the people you follow and who follow you are strangers in real life, yet relationships can form nonetheless.

  I once went out with a guy I met on Twitter. He was a writer and teacher in South Dakota. He came to New York and we went out for oysters and cocktails, then we hugged good-bye and never saw each other again.

  It’s a strange and wonderful world, folks.

  My Twitter following is small enough that I notice my notifications when someone retweets or likes my tweet. It’s a small thing, but it makes me happy. It almost makes me happier when a stranger likes it because the approval feels more earned.

  The Holy Grail of Twitter is tweeting some observation that is so apt or witty or hilarious it goes viral.

  That’s like being made Prom King or Queen of Twitter.

  The nadir of Twitter is going viral for saying something awful or stupid or offensive.

  That’s the pig’s blood getting dumped on your head.

  But the elusive promise of gaining a swell of popularity among strangers is why people get themselves into such trouble on Twitter.

  All of these noncomics showing up at a dangerously open mic, desperate for laughs.

  We think we’re Chris Rock, but too many of us are Carrot Top.

  Point is, these strange, fragile online connections matter to us.