Read Online Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? by Jen Lancaster - Free Book Online
Authors: Jen Lancaster
Tags: Humor, Fiction, General, Humorous, Humorous fiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Essay/s, Authors; American, Women, City and Town Life, Form, 21st Century, Chicago (Ill.), Jeanne, Lancaster; Jen, Authors; American - 21st century, Chicago (Ill.) - Social life and customs
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Errr…one of your account managers? Although it seems like if he were entertaining clients, he should have dressed a bit more professionally.
Fletch: (exasperated) No, it’s James Denton.
(silence)
Fletch: From Desperate Housewives ?
(silence)
Fletch: Which I know you watch because you make me watch it with you?
(silence)
Fletch: The plumber??
Me: Oh, okay. I didn’t recognize him without Teri Hatcher attached to his face. Yeah, I see it now.
Fletch: That’s it? That’s all you have to say?
Me: I guess I didn’t realize he was scrawny. No wonder those housewives are so desperate.
----
All Quiet on the Westerville Front
S omeone has broken into my house!
And, aahhh!! They are naked!
But…I’ve been here in the kitchen this whole time. Wouldn’t I have heard someone breaking in through the glass door fifteen feet directly in front of me? Or maybe have seen them through the open blinds?
And wouldn’t the dogs be barking instead of snoring away on the couch?
And if someone were going to home invade me, why naked? That’s dumb simply because it would be so easy to identify them to the police afterward. “Can you tell me what he was wearing, ma’am?” the officer would ask. “Yes—a guilty smile and a pair of tube socks,” I’d reply. Besides, it’s forty-eight degrees outside and raining sideways. It’s curl-up-by-the-fire-with-cocoa weather, not run-around-naked-and-steal-my-stuff weather. Plus, with no pants, there are no pockets, so where would the intruder put my cash and jewelry?
Still, I’d better grab that big-ass machete Fletch bought when he went to Thailand so I can stab the intruder. Yes, sir, I shall stab them good because I am half Sicilian and stabbing is my birthright.
Oh, wait…
That’s not a naked person. That’s my tan tapestry jacket hanging on the coatrack.
And I almost stabbed it. Heh. Wow.
Fletch should never leave me alone again.
Fletch left today for an indeterminate amount of time. He works for a telecommunications company and their hourly employees are going on strike, so managers like him have to do union members’ jobs during contract negotiations. He could be gone anywhere from a day to a month, depending on which side is willing to make more concessions. Contract negotiations broke down over benefits; the union has balked because the new contract would give them a $5 pharmacy copay instead of paying nothing. Interesting, because management employees pay $30 per prescription, and that’s only after meeting a $2,100 deductible. But at this point, I’m thrilled to have any medical coverage so I can’t complain. I take comfort in knowing the next time I almost bite my finger off eating French fries, I can have someone other than the kid who works the drive-thru look at it.
Although I’ll miss Fletch while he’s away, that’s not really the issue. We’ll talk and e-mail whenever he has a free minute. I remember the great conversations we used to have on the phone when he’d graduated and I hadn’t yet joined him in Chicago; we connected on a whole different level.
The problem is I really should not be left to my own devices for any period of time. Fletch is the stabilizing force that keeps me “adorably eccentric,” instead of “that fucking weirdo with dirty hair who talks to her dogs while gardening in pajamas.” I don’t know what happened to me—I was fine living alone in college. 1 But there’s something about an urban environment that brings out the propensity for insanity in all of us. Every week you hear about some bat-shit-crazy old lady who’s found harboring thirty pit bulls in her tiny apartment. The newscasts always start: “In downtown Baltimore today” or “Police raided a squalid Detroit home,” because it seems like this kind of stuff never happens out in the country. Or maybe it’s just if you live on a forty-acre farm, your neighbors would be fine if you kept your goat indoors. Smoke up! Enjoy! Be careful he doesn’t
Fletch: (exasperated) No, it’s James Denton.
(silence)
Fletch: From Desperate Housewives ?
(silence)
Fletch: Which I know you watch because you make me watch it with you?
(silence)
Fletch: The plumber??
Me: Oh, okay. I didn’t recognize him without Teri Hatcher attached to his face. Yeah, I see it now.
Fletch: That’s it? That’s all you have to say?
Me: I guess I didn’t realize he was scrawny. No wonder those housewives are so desperate.
----
All Quiet on the Westerville Front
S omeone has broken into my house!
And, aahhh!! They are naked!
But…I’ve been here in the kitchen this whole time. Wouldn’t I have heard someone breaking in through the glass door fifteen feet directly in front of me? Or maybe have seen them through the open blinds?
And wouldn’t the dogs be barking instead of snoring away on the couch?
And if someone were going to home invade me, why naked? That’s dumb simply because it would be so easy to identify them to the police afterward. “Can you tell me what he was wearing, ma’am?” the officer would ask. “Yes—a guilty smile and a pair of tube socks,” I’d reply. Besides, it’s forty-eight degrees outside and raining sideways. It’s curl-up-by-the-fire-with-cocoa weather, not run-around-naked-and-steal-my-stuff weather. Plus, with no pants, there are no pockets, so where would the intruder put my cash and jewelry?
Still, I’d better grab that big-ass machete Fletch bought when he went to Thailand so I can stab the intruder. Yes, sir, I shall stab them good because I am half Sicilian and stabbing is my birthright.
Oh, wait…
That’s not a naked person. That’s my tan tapestry jacket hanging on the coatrack.
And I almost stabbed it. Heh. Wow.
Fletch should never leave me alone again.
Fletch left today for an indeterminate amount of time. He works for a telecommunications company and their hourly employees are going on strike, so managers like him have to do union members’ jobs during contract negotiations. He could be gone anywhere from a day to a month, depending on which side is willing to make more concessions. Contract negotiations broke down over benefits; the union has balked because the new contract would give them a $5 pharmacy copay instead of paying nothing. Interesting, because management employees pay $30 per prescription, and that’s only after meeting a $2,100 deductible. But at this point, I’m thrilled to have any medical coverage so I can’t complain. I take comfort in knowing the next time I almost bite my finger off eating French fries, I can have someone other than the kid who works the drive-thru look at it.
Although I’ll miss Fletch while he’s away, that’s not really the issue. We’ll talk and e-mail whenever he has a free minute. I remember the great conversations we used to have on the phone when he’d graduated and I hadn’t yet joined him in Chicago; we connected on a whole different level.
The problem is I really should not be left to my own devices for any period of time. Fletch is the stabilizing force that keeps me “adorably eccentric,” instead of “that fucking weirdo with dirty hair who talks to her dogs while gardening in pajamas.” I don’t know what happened to me—I was fine living alone in college. 1 But there’s something about an urban environment that brings out the propensity for insanity in all of us. Every week you hear about some bat-shit-crazy old lady who’s found harboring thirty pit bulls in her tiny apartment. The newscasts always start: “In downtown Baltimore today” or “Police raided a squalid Detroit home,” because it seems like this kind of stuff never happens out in the country. Or maybe it’s just if you live on a forty-acre farm, your neighbors would be fine if you kept your goat indoors. Smoke up! Enjoy! Be careful he doesn’t
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