Read Online The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Laurie Notaro
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
waved the envelope at me as excitedly as her smile was wide. I knew why. Nothing, not a package from QVC, not her new Miracle Mop that has a handle so she doesn’t have to wring out the sponge with her hands, gets her as worked up as the possibility of one of her daughters encountering a balding, sexually repressed twenty-seven-year-old attorney strangled in a Perry Ellis necktie. She doesn’t understand that the only way I would get close enough to a creature like that is if I were the defendant.
“Look what came today!” she exclaimed. “It’s a job, Laurie, a job! You’ll make twelve dollars! It’s a very rewarding experience! And think, maybe, if you brush your hair, you’ll meet a nice young lawyer, and then you can get married to someone who has a job like your sister is going to!”
I snatched the envelope out of her hand.
“Make sure you pack a lunch,” she continued. “That cafeteria has horrible food. The ham is fatty. It was disgusting. I have never eaten a four-dollar sandwich like that in my life. I’ll tell you, they have no business charging that price for food I wouldn’t feed to my dogs or your father. The tuna looked good, but who the hell knows what they put in it? Remember,
I
was on a jury once.”
Oh, I remembered. She spent two weeks convinced that she was a character out of a Susan Lucci Monday night movie who was involved in the most judicially important case in the history of the United States. Every night at dinner she would sit down and say, “Don’t ask me about the Case. Don’t ask me. I’ve taken an oath in front of God. Pass me the ashtray. I can’t smoke in that goddamned courthouse, and I just have too many facts to think about in the Case.”
My sisters and I deduced that the Case was probably something really cool like the trial of a transvestite multiple-personality serial killer or a kiddie-porn ring involving clowns that entertain at children’s birthday parties, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even involve one single death. The Case was just all about some guy who hit an old lady in a crosswalk, bounced her off the car a couple of feet in the air, flattened her two-wheeled grocery cart, and then broke her hip. We were all very disappointed.
But not as disappointed as I was when I found out that I had to be at the jury assembly room at 8:30 A.M., coinciding with my deepest REM sleep patterns, which is usually when I dream of winning the cigarette lottery, that all of my pubic hair has just fallen out so that I never have to shave again, or that Gregg Allman asks me to be his old lady, we get drunk, and he tells me that Cher had more body hair than a silverback.
There I was, though, stuck in traffic and assaulted by a Journey rock block, smoking the third soldier and thinking that this was why I couldn’t hold on to a real job.
I found the courthouse without any problems, probably because I’ve been there many, many times before for reasons I won’t go into now. As I approached the steps, a woman jumped out of a station wagon and ran toward me, a brown bag in her hands. This is pretty brazen, I thought. Someone is going to try and sell me drugs in front of superior court. “Miss! Miss!” she cried, waving at me as she ran. “Are you hungry?”
Why, yes, I thought, I am, and nodded my head. I had run out of Pop-Tarts the day before, fed the dogs the last remaining three slices of bread that morning, and attempted to drink the last of the milk until I discovered that it had become Brie overnight. Sure, I was hungry.
“Well, here,” she said, shoving the bag toward me. “Here’s something to eat, it’s a sandwich and an apple.”
Wow, I said to myself, my mother didn’t tell me about this. I don’t need the cafeteria, obviously my mother didn’t know about the Juror Free-Lunch Program. She couldn’t have complained about fatty ham then.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the bag. “This is really cool.”
She smiled and nodded. “Anything we can do
“Look what came today!” she exclaimed. “It’s a job, Laurie, a job! You’ll make twelve dollars! It’s a very rewarding experience! And think, maybe, if you brush your hair, you’ll meet a nice young lawyer, and then you can get married to someone who has a job like your sister is going to!”
I snatched the envelope out of her hand.
“Make sure you pack a lunch,” she continued. “That cafeteria has horrible food. The ham is fatty. It was disgusting. I have never eaten a four-dollar sandwich like that in my life. I’ll tell you, they have no business charging that price for food I wouldn’t feed to my dogs or your father. The tuna looked good, but who the hell knows what they put in it? Remember,
I
was on a jury once.”
Oh, I remembered. She spent two weeks convinced that she was a character out of a Susan Lucci Monday night movie who was involved in the most judicially important case in the history of the United States. Every night at dinner she would sit down and say, “Don’t ask me about the Case. Don’t ask me. I’ve taken an oath in front of God. Pass me the ashtray. I can’t smoke in that goddamned courthouse, and I just have too many facts to think about in the Case.”
My sisters and I deduced that the Case was probably something really cool like the trial of a transvestite multiple-personality serial killer or a kiddie-porn ring involving clowns that entertain at children’s birthday parties, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even involve one single death. The Case was just all about some guy who hit an old lady in a crosswalk, bounced her off the car a couple of feet in the air, flattened her two-wheeled grocery cart, and then broke her hip. We were all very disappointed.
But not as disappointed as I was when I found out that I had to be at the jury assembly room at 8:30 A.M., coinciding with my deepest REM sleep patterns, which is usually when I dream of winning the cigarette lottery, that all of my pubic hair has just fallen out so that I never have to shave again, or that Gregg Allman asks me to be his old lady, we get drunk, and he tells me that Cher had more body hair than a silverback.
There I was, though, stuck in traffic and assaulted by a Journey rock block, smoking the third soldier and thinking that this was why I couldn’t hold on to a real job.
I found the courthouse without any problems, probably because I’ve been there many, many times before for reasons I won’t go into now. As I approached the steps, a woman jumped out of a station wagon and ran toward me, a brown bag in her hands. This is pretty brazen, I thought. Someone is going to try and sell me drugs in front of superior court. “Miss! Miss!” she cried, waving at me as she ran. “Are you hungry?”
Why, yes, I thought, I am, and nodded my head. I had run out of Pop-Tarts the day before, fed the dogs the last remaining three slices of bread that morning, and attempted to drink the last of the milk until I discovered that it had become Brie overnight. Sure, I was hungry.
“Well, here,” she said, shoving the bag toward me. “Here’s something to eat, it’s a sandwich and an apple.”
Wow, I said to myself, my mother didn’t tell me about this. I don’t need the cafeteria, obviously my mother didn’t know about the Juror Free-Lunch Program. She couldn’t have complained about fatty ham then.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the bag. “This is really cool.”
She smiled and nodded. “Anything we can do
Similar Books
