Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim

by Lisa Scottoline

  In the end, we split up amicably, I got no souvenir song, and my only parting gift was five breakup pounds.

  Now if he read this, I would never cop to the weight gain. Luckily I don’t have to worry.

  So I’m still longing for the artist whom I can inspire or, at the very least, damage.

  I’d love to be a masterpiece, but I’ll settle for your severed ear.

  I think most women find the notion of being a muse romantic. So why don’t men?

  Maybe it’s because the role of the artist’s muse was historically female, so men don’t share the fantasy.

  Well, that’s not true either, because history has been rewritten as of late. Experts now believe that Shakespeare likely wrote his love sonnets about a young man, and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was a portrait of his pretty-boy assistant.

  Historical proof all the good ones are gay.

  But these straight men are missing out. Guys, don’t you see? This is your chance at real immortality—not with sperm but with ink. The pen is mightier than the penis! You can leave your mark on the world without having to pay for its college tuition.

  Are you a great lover? Get it in writing!

  Are you a total jerk? Revel in your infamy!

  Or don’t. I’m over it. I’m not writing to get male attention anyway. I write to share my perspective, laugh at myself, and hopefully connect to my lovely, intelligent, and sensitive readers. My boyfriends may not be among them, but that’s for the best. It’s better I be uninhibited, or at least it’s more fun that way. Like my favorite Real Housewife and spiritual leader Camille Grammar says, freedom is a girl’s best friend.

  When I first tell guys I’m a writer, they’ll often make a joke along the lines of, “Uh-oh, I better be good. I don’t want to end up in a book!”

  I always smile and assure them they have nothing to worry about.

  And I mean it.

  What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

  Shortcut Sally

  By Lisa

  The world divides into two categories of people: Those Who Like Shortcuts, like me, and Those Who Don’t, like Daughter Francesca.

  These worlds collided last week, when I was in New York visiting her.

  Before I explain, let me point out that I don’t take shortcuts in everything. In fact, once again, the world divides into two categories: Things In Which I Never Take Shortcuts, like my writing, and Things In Which I Always Take Shortcuts.

  Which is everything else.

  Most of the time, this serves me well. For example, I couldn’t figure out how to program my VCR, so I never did, and that didn’t hurt me in the end, because now VCRs are extinct.

  Joke’s on you, VCRs.

  To follow up, I got a DVD player, but I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to my new big TV, so I didn’t bother. And that didn’t matter either, because my cable company invented On Demand.

  Comcastic!

  See, if you just wait long enough, some problems solve themselves, which is a special form of shortcut.

  In fact, my favorite.

  It works well, but don’t try it at home if you’re not an expert, like me. It requires years of practice ignoring things, and you have to know which things to ignore. I also have a genetic predisposition, as Mother Mary is a master at ignoring things, like oxygen and me.

  I’ve been living my life, taking my shortcuts, but it became a problem visiting Francesca, because she doesn’t. We were doing things around her apartment when we decided to hang up four pictures. They were of equal size, and they had to be mounted in a straight line. Francesca has her way to do it, and I have mine.

  The shortcut!

  I grab the hammer and want to bang a nail into the wall, hang the print, eyeball it, then hang the second print next to it. If it’s not level, I’ll take off the print, pull out the nail, and hammer in another nail. It won’t matter, because all the nail holes will be hidden behind the picture and no one will ever know.

  You may recall that I’m the girl who painted around my pictures rather than taking them down and painting the wall.

  Francesca says, “We should measure before we hang them. Each print is six inches across, and if we leave two inches between each one, we can make a little tick mark on the wall and…”

  I stop listening. I love her, but I hate math. Discussion ensues, after which I say, “Look, you wanna do it yourself?”

  “Yes,” Francesca answers, already reaching for the hammer, as she knows me and loves me anyway.

  Ten minutes later, we have a second incident, when we were unpacking a new carbon-monoxide detector. By way of background, Francesca has a detector in the hallway of her apartment, and it had gone off in the middle of the night, as had her neighbor’s. Her super had determined that the cause was a waning battery, and not lethal gas.

  Good to know.

  But being the excellent mother that I am, I wanted her to have an extra detector in her bedroom, so we bought one. It said on the package that all you had to do to install it was to plug it into an electrical socket, which is my kind of installation. If VCRs had worked that way, they’d still be around.

  Let that be a warning, laptops.

  Anyway, I’m about to plug the detector into a power strip when Francesca notices a little door on the back. “Look,” she says, pointing. “It has a place to put in a battery, for backup.”

  I think, So what? I’ve never put in a backup battery in my life. I have plenty of appliances, from alarm clocks to coffeemakers, and they all have little doors for backup batteries, but I don’t bother. People who love shortcuts scoff at backup batteries. And when I look at the little door on the detector, I notice that it requires a screwdriver to open.

  I say, “Let’s just plug it in. It’s too much trouble to get the screwdriver.”

  “But what if it falls out of the surge protector? Doesn’t that mean it won’t work?”

  I think, Well, yes. Technically.

  Francesca shrugs. “It probably doesn’t matter. Let’s just plug it in.”

  But I look at her big blue eyes, and I love her more than shortcuts.

  At least this particular shortcut.

  “I’ll go get the screwdriver,” I tell her.

  Doggie Universe

  By Lisa

  You would think that if you live alone, you get to be the boss.

  As in, you’re not the boss of me.

  Because now that it’s only me, I should be the boss of me.

  In fact, I’m self-employed, so I am, literally, my own boss. But that’s just literally, or maybe for tax purposes, but not in real life. In real life, my dogs are the boss of me.

  And my cats are my slavemasters.

  I realized this a moment ago, when I was working on my laptop, with two dogs sleeping on either side, Peach and Little Tony, each with its head on my lap. I like to work with the TV on, and some horrible show came on, but I couldn’t reach the remote to change the channel without waking up Little Tony. And he’s cranky when he wakes up. In fact, he growls if you move him once he’s asleep.

  He’s not a morning dog.

  So I let sleeping dogs lie, and it became the moment when I realized that I wasn’t the boss of me. The only way it could have been clearer was if the show on TV was Who’s the Boss?

  Answer: Little Tony Danza.

  Something similar had happened the night before, during which I slept with three dogs. Why three? Because two slept on the floor.

  Even they didn’t want to sleep with three dogs.

  Normally I sleep with Peach and Little Tony, and they flank me at night, one on my left side and one on my right, their positions as established as seats at a family dinner table. We arrived at this arrangement because they’re jealous of each other, and they fight at night.

  Over me.

  Yes, I still got it.

  Peace is maintained if one dog sleeps on either side, with me in the middle, like a postmenopausal Switzerland.

  But I’m dog-si
tting for Daughter Francesca’s Cavalier, named Pip, and it put us over the top. Who knew that Pip would be the tipping point?

  Or the Pipping point?

  We all went to bed last night, and Peach and Little Tony settled into their customary positions. Evidently this left Pip feeling as if he had nowhere to sleep, so he spent the night walking around the bed, trying to cuddle with my head, then moving down by my feet, then circling up to my head again, orbiting me until dawn. Of course, that created a disturbance in the canine solar system, roughly akin to the introduction of a new planet.

  Not only do the dogs take over, so does Mimi.

  Do you want to tell Jupiter to move over?

  I don’t.

  Especially not if Jupiter growls.

  So Peach and Little Tony went into their own new orbits, and everybody circled me all night long, trying and rejecting their different sleeping spots, hoping to reconfigure their canine galaxy.

  I was at the center, like a cranky sun.

  Just because I’m postmenopausal doesn’t mean I’m postcranky.

  I’m still a woman.

  I think.

  Anyway, I started to worry that all of this intergalactic travel would mean that Peach would need to go to the bathroom, which created its own problem. I was too tired to get up and take her out, but not tired enough to go back to sleep and just forget about it. In fact, I have been known to wake up at night and not go to the bathroom because I didn’t want to wake Peach, because then I’d have to take her out.

  In other words, Peach’s bladder trumps mine.

  And isn’t that the way, with pets?

  And owners like me?

  I’m not a boss, I’m a people-pleaser.

  And now I’m a pet-pleaser.

  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Unspecial Delivery

  By Francesca

  I recently moved to a new apartment, so now I get to start the happy business of furnishing it. Already, this is an easier process than it was in my old place. In my last apartment, the “living room” was like a bowling alley but not as long. It was so narrow, the heat from the TV screen could warm you on the couch—like a crackling fire with commercial breaks.

  Although it was fun to realize my childhood fantasy of living like The Boxcar Children, it was an inconvenient layout for home furnishing. Thankfully, my new apartment has a more sensible layout and is sized for adult humans, so I’ve been saving up to get the coffee table of my dreams.

  I found one I loved, but it was at the top of my price range. I needed a bargain, or better, I wanted a steal. So I staked out the company website, waiting for a sale. Every plan needs a man on the inside, so I went to the store a few times to befriend a salesperson—code name: Brendan, real name: also Brendan.

  After months of lying in wait, a sale popped up.

  I was on the phone with my boy that very day. I had just recited my credit-card number into the phone when Brendan said, “Now, as far as shipping, we recommend white-glove delivery with this item.”

  I asked how much that cost.

  He told me and I almost dropped the phone.

  I assured him “standard” was fine.

  “Just to be clear, standard delivery means curbside.”

  Curbside? Even Domino’s will bring the pizza to your door.

  I live in New York City; anything left curbside will be either stolen or peed on by about fifty passing dogs and several humans.

  “For ninety-nine dollars more, we also have the ‘Room of Choice’ delivery option.”

  I live in a tiny apartment, there’s really only one room to choose.

  And for ninety-nine dollars, they still won’t open the package for me?

  Brendan, I thought we were friends.

  “The nice thing about white-glove delivery is that they’ll make sure the item is not damaged in any way.”

  I said I assumed if the table came damaged, that wouldn’t be my problem.

  “But in that case, we can’t know whether the item arrived damaged or if you damaged it.”

  Presuming the buyer is lying at all times—customer service for the new economy.

  He continued, “With white-glove service, they’ll unpack it, inspect it, assemble it, and clean up the mess.” He proceeded to go into a lengthy explanation of how the glass is delivered in a wooden crate that’s hard to dispose of, etc., etc.

  I interrupted that, while I appreciate the heads-up, I don’t need to pay someone to take out the trash.

  “It’s not just that. The glass top weighs about 150 pounds,” he said. “It’s difficult even for me. There’s no way a woman could lift it.”

  I wondered if he could hear my jaw set.

  I don’t like to be told I can’t do something. I get that from Mother Mary.

  And I’m not some dainty little lady. I work out lifting weights. I can squat over 100 lbs. Admittedly, that requires me getting the thing across my back. Here, we’re talking about a large, round, unwieldy piece of glass, and with Pip as my only spotter, it didn’t sound like a wise move.

  But the cost of white-glove delivery would cancel out any discount earned during the sale. I smelled a conspiracy.

  But people who believe in conspiracies aren’t taken seriously, so I couldn’t say that. Instead, I thought of the one person who’s always taken seriously.

  Mom.

  WWMD?

  So in my best Mean Mommy tone, I told him I was “very disappointed” in these options and I would have to think about it.

  Then I didn’t call what’shisname back for two whole days.

  On the third day, he called me saying they could add on an employee “Friends and Family” discount to my sale price.

  They only want you when they can’t have you.

  Salesmen are still men.

  We had a deal! Two weeks later, my long-awaited table was set to arrive. I could finally stop drinking my coffee out of an adult-size sippy cup.

  I don’t know what I expected “white-glove” deliverymen to look like, but the two cranky, schlubby guys frowning at me from my doorway were not it.

  Is there some rule that deliverymen must be paired in the style of Mutt and Jeff? There’s always a short, squat one and a tall, reedy one. Ironic in a profession that requires carrying things at more or less the same height.

  And there’s only ever one who does the talking, while the other stands mute. I’m always suspicious that the talker is keeping the tips to himself.

  The two rushed in with the cardboard box (wooden crate, my foot) and assembled the table so quickly you’d think they were contestants on Minute to Win It.

  They were almost out the door when I realized the table’s asymmetrical legs did not match the picture on the instructions, and I called them back.

  Jeff said they had built it correctly, the instructions were wrong.

  Mutt blinked in agreement.

  I wasn’t buying it.

  Well, technically I’d already bought it, but I wasn’t happy. So we went back and forth about it, and in the end, Jeff won, because I couldn’t figure out how to make it match the diagram either. I had to let them go.

  After they left, I got the bright idea to make a paper-doll version of all the table’s parts so I could experiment with the assembly.

  So there I was, sitting on the floor with my arts and crafts project, rapidly cutting and folding like some master of origami, when—Eureka! In making my model, I had identified the mistake and knew how to fix it.

  Guy Fieri, where’s my million dollars?

  With no time to lose, I bolted from my apartment, burst on to the street, and ran down the delivery truck just as it was rounding the corner. When the truck stopped to see what this madwoman was doing, I actually leapt up to the driver’s side and stuck my head in the window.

  “You have to come back,” I panted. “I figured it out.”

  “We have other deliveries to make, and you already signed for it—”

  If they
didn’t think I was crazy already, they knew for sure when I exploded with, “THIS IS WHITE-GLOVE DELIVERY!”

  And back they came. I showed them my paper-crane model, and they begrudgingly reassembled it. I thanked them, they grunted and left.

  When Brendan called to check how my delivery had gone, I told him the whole story. He seemed genuinely frustrated for me, which made us friends again.

  “You’re sure it’s right now?” he asked.

  I said yes.

  “If there’s any other problem, call me. I’ll come to your apartment and fix it myself.”

  Now that’s customer service.

  There Was a Little Girl, Who Had a Little Curl

  By Lisa

  I thought the days were over when I worried about my grades, but I’ve been checking the mail with college-acceptance levels of anticipation.

  Let me explain.

  A few years ago, I went to my great cardiologist for a checkup, and he did a blood test that showed my cholesterol was 258, which was high. Oddly, this was about the same as my math SAT score, which was lower than low. In fact, it was downright embarrassing and maybe half my brain is missing.

  The cardiologist explained that cholesterol is composed of bad cholesterol, or LDL, and good cholesterol, or HDL. I remember which is which by thinking that the L stands for lousy and the H stands for you can buy green bananas.

  Also I had something called triglycerides, but I didn’t know what they were, only that I had 67 of them. I don’t know how many biglycerides I had.

  2?

  So okay, in the olden days, my LDL was 149, which earned me a bold-faced HIGH on the results, though my HDL was also HIGH, at 96. Basically I had a whole lot of bad and a whole lot of good in me.

  So when I’m good, I’m very, very good.

  And when I’m bad, I divorce somebody.

  You probably know what cholesterol is, but I read on the Internet that it’s a waxy gook that creates plaque on the wall of your arteries. I always thought that a plaque on your wall was a good thing, but no.

  Apparently, something had to be done about my cholesterol, and it didn’t help that I had gained a little weight.

  I was cholesteroly-poly.

  So the cardiologist told me to exercise and put me on Crestor, and in no time, my grades improved. My cholesterol dropped to 164, and my LDL to 66, even though my HDL stayed HIGH at 88, but that was all good. I became an honors student, even though it took drugs, but that’s okay. Half of the student population is on drugs, and at least mine were advertised on TV, albeit by men with gray hair.