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? (14 page)

To:
angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
pots and kettles, part 2

Apparently Fletch has to have gum surgery.

(But it’s still a little funny.)

Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ (and Bruisin’)

E
ver see those blissfully happy couples at the supermarket? They dress all matchy-matchy in brightly colored North Face jackets and have that weird twin-speak shared dialogue? You know the ones—she says, “Hey, did you?” and he replies, “Yeah, Thursday,” and then she goes, “But what about?” and he’s all, “Covered,” and then when they walk past a display of Cheez Whiz they exclaim in perfect unison, “Monterey!” before dying over their private joke?
1
And because of their whole mind-meld, they’re, like, so
into
their romance they can’t seem to keep their paws off each other? And you’d be happy they were both able to find the lid to their pot, as it were, but they’ve started making out
directly
in front of the ice cream, and all you want to do is grab a pint a Phish Food and go home to watch
Project Runway
, but you can’t because their damn
love
is blocking the cooler?

Well, Fletch and I are that couple. As long as you substitute “hitting” for “making out” and “fists” for “paws.” (We’d prefer DOA over PDA, thank you very much.) One of the reasons we mesh so well is we’re both insanely competitive. Back in the dot-com era, we used to spur each other on professionally. He made $24,000 at his first job, so I had to find one that paid $24,500. Then when he became a manager, I had to try for director. When he was promoted to director, I strove to make it to VP level, which was great, until we both got laid off and had to find a different way to compete.

Were either of us athletic, I’m sure one would start speed-walking and the other jogging. Then I’d enter a 5K, so he’d have to top me with a 10K and our athletic arms race would eventually escalate to the point that we’d swim, bike, and run to our deaths in Kona’s Ironman competition. Fortunately, we consider ourselves stand-and-fight people, rather than runaway people, and our current physical exertion generally manifests itself in twelve-ounce curls.
2

As an outlet for our misplaced professional aggression, Fletch and I make bets and play games. One night at dinner he wagers $5 I won’t eat the chunk of rock salt from our clams casino serving platter. Not to be deterred by a bit of sodium chloride the size of a bottle cap, I take that bet. Sure, I spend the next three days trying to slake my unquenchable thirst with gallons and gallons of water, but still…
I win, I win, I win!!
We carry on with culinary challenges until our blissfully married mealtime resembles an episode of
Fear Factor
, and we call a truce. Incidentally, this competitive drive is why we try to avoid fighting with each other—too much potential for mutually assured destruction.
3

Eventually we channel our competitiveness into Slug Bug, a game we play whenever we get in the car. If you aren’t familiar, you’re allowed to punch your friend in the arm when you see a Volkswagen Beetle as long as you shout “Slug bug!” first. Fletch normally wins these rounds because as the driver his attention is more focused on the traffic around us. He almost always drives, what with my tendency to drift onto the sidewalk when behind the wheel. We’ve found we’re much happier if I’m not in control of the little bit of metal standing between our living long, healthy lives and being smashed to bloody bits.
4
However, when the new-school VW Bugs come out, my arm is perpetually sore from being hit so much since everyone in Chicago owns one now. Stupid safe, economical city car.

Luckily, the only thing Fletch likes less than losing is listening to me whine, so the game morphs into Slug Pug. Same rules, only the object in question is my favorite kind of dog. In this version, I’m the far superior player. The best day of my life is when we’re sitting in an outdoor coffee shop as hundreds of black-and-tan pugs dressed in tiny bee suits and tutus parade past, and I pound Fletch so many times the waitress threatens to separate us.

Being the better sport, Fletch allows the game to continue until it proves too dangerous. We’re on our way to the grocery store, having a perfectly lovely conversation about Jennifer Garner, when it happens.

“Hey, guess what?” I ask.

“What?” he replies.

“I did it!”

He glances over at me from the driver’s seat. “You did what?”

“I can’t just tell you, you have to guess!”

He clicks on his turn signal and we drive up Racine on the way to Webster so we can cut up to the Jewel on Ashland. “Is this one of those situations where I’m never going to guess correctly because what you’ve accomplished is so esoteric?”

Curses, foiled again! “Okay, probably, so I’ll just tell you. I finally finished watching the first three seasons of
Alias
on DVD—that’s sixty-six episodes.”

“The show wasn’t just Jennifer Garner wearing a variety of wigs? It was actually well done?”

“Yes. Except for all the implausible situations they resolved by using satellites. Or having Sydney kick people while wearing stompy shoes.”

“Then how come every time I’ve walked in while you’re watching it’s nothing but satellites and roundhouse kicks?” He brakes rather suddenly so a woman with an SUV stroller can cross the street in front of us, against the light. God, I hate Lincoln Park. It’s the epicenter of Yuppie living in the city, with nothing but outdoor dining and dog bakeries as far as the eye can see. The junk-bond traders began migrating up here from the Gold Coast in the eighties, snapping up cheap real estate and filling their new pads with art deco Nagle prints and Duran Duran albums. Due to its proximity to the lake and public transportation, it’s been on the rise ever since then and homes that sold for $75,000 at the time are now worth $2,000,000. Which is criminal.

“Sure, sometimes the plot holes make my brain hurt, so I always drink wine while watching. Whenever Sydney gets released from a Chinese prison because Marshall makes a couple of keystrokes thousands of miles away, I take a sip of Zinfandel and it suddenly makes perfect sense.”

We turn onto Webster, right in the heart of Lincoln Park. “Let’s see, that’s sixty-six episodes times three servings per hour equals one hundred ninety-eight glasses of wine. Congratulations. You’re an inspiration to us all.”

Before I can come up with a snappy retort, I spy a Lincoln Park Trixie
5
walking her pug on a harness in front of a trendy bistro, so I instead shriek,
“Slug pug! Slug pug! Pug, pug, pug! I win, I win! Aiiieee!!!”
and wildly flail my fists in his line of vision,
6
which causes Fletch to jerk the wheel and almost plow into the entire crowd of al fresco diners. The Yuppies drop their cloth napkins and shoot us smoldering glances.

“Never do that again!”
he shouts. “I practically drove into all those people! God!”

“Oh. I’m sorry. But still, I did win. Yay, me!”

He shakes his head and purses his lips. “That’s it. This is the third time you’ve almost caused an accident in Lincoln Park alone. We need a new game, because you know what goes well with foie gras and Sauternes?”

“Um, not dying?”

“Exactly. Start thinking.”

Once we get to the store, we grab a cart, pull out our Oreocentric shopping list, and begin to debate the new game while strolling down the aisles.

“Whatever we choose, I think the name should rhyme,” I tell him. “Maybe we could play Slug Chug? I’d get to hit you every time you take a drink.”

“No way.” Oh, boy, would I win
that
one.

I snicker. “But it would be fun for me.”

“No.”

“Okay, how about Slug Lug?”

“What the hell is Slug Lug?” he asks, loading a big bag of Arm & Hammer Fresh Step into our cart.

“That’s when we hit each other if we see someone carrying something heavy, like…cat litter!” I whack him on the shoulder and inadvertently let out a squeal of glee.

“Do it again and you’ll lose a hand. We need to agree before we play.” He rubs his shoulder. Don’t let the pearls fool you—I pack a mean right hook.

“Oh. I’m sorry.
7
Let me think. How about Slug Jug? Wait, that makes no sense. How often do we see marauding bands of jugs out on Ashland Avenue? Maybe Slug Shag Rug?”

“Dumb.”

“Slug Beer Mug?”

“Dumber.”

“Slug Prescription Drug?”

“Dumbest. Hey, Jen, why do we need three packages of Oreos?”

“Because our town house is three stories tall.
Duh.
”

He rolls his eyes. “What was I thinking?” Fletch insists we grocery shop together ever since the time I bought three mini birthday cakes and a
Star
magazine for dinner. What? It was a balanced meal—I added ice cream.

“Ooh, I’ve got it!” I exclaim. “Whenever we see someone decked out in gang colors, Starter jackets, and bling, we’ll play Slug Thug! That? Would be hilarious.”

Instead of responding to my brilliant idea, Fletch looks at the speaker in the ceiling, head cocked to the side like our pit bull Maisy when we say “Doggie Park.” “Do you hear that?”

“I hear a lot of stuff, Fletch. Cash registers, squeaky shopping carts, ridiculous girls so busy barking into their cell phones about their hookups they don’t notice they
keep cutting in front of us
.” Glaring, I address the stupid blonde with a phone glued to her head, totally blocking access to the Frankenberry cereal and utterly oblivious to our presence. “BTW, sweetie? Bob’s not calling you back because you ‘did’ him on your first date. He thinks you’re way too easy.” No reaction. I turn back to Fletch. “See? Nothing. For God’s sake, I’m a loud, fat girl in a black-and-yellow rugby shirt—I look like a school bus. How does she
not
see or hear me? Do you think I’d get in trouble if I ‘accidentally’ smashed into her with a shopping cart? She wouldn’t know it was us.”

“Shh—listen!” he hisses.

“To who? Slutty McGabsalot? I’ve heard about three separate dalliances since we’ve been behind her. She practically hosted her own personal Fleet Week last Saturday. If she tells her friend she has chlamydia, we’re so out of here.”

“No, listen to the song that’s playing—it’s Whitesnake!” He points at the ceiling.

“Pardon?”

“Whitesnake.”

As a New Wave eighties girl, I was all about Madness, the Clash, and the like,
8
so I never learned which hair-band was which. In my mind, the metal groups are all stuck together in a viscous cloud of Aqua Net, groupies, and bourbon. “Help me out here, Fletcher. Whitesnake—were those the we-thought-fireworks-indoors-were-a-good-idea guys?”

“Nope, that was Great White.”

“Tragic. Okay, so they were the look-at-my-pretty-face-and-teased-bouffant-and-bare-chest-lead-singer folks?”

“That was Kip Winger of Winger.”

“He was lovely, wasn’t he? Fabulous hair. So, do you mean the single-entendre-she’s-my-cherry-pie-and-here’s-a-fire-hose-just-in-case-you-didn’t-get-the-symbolism jackasses?”

“You’re thinking of Warrant.”

Wow. Fletch is a repository of shitty eighties music. I take one final guess. “Whitesnake, were they the Tawny-Kitaen-writhing-on-the-car-hood-and-making-me-feel-like-a-fat-chick-even-though-I-was-borderline-anorexic gentlemen?”

“Yeah.” He continues to listen and nod his head in time with the song.

“Did you know years later Tawny got arrested for assault? She kicked her husband in the junk with pointy shoes and then he divorced her. I guess they didn’t have their own Slug Nuts game. Too bad. Also? She’s totally not hot anymore. I saw her mug shot. Ha! Serves her right for getting ass-prints all over that lovely Jaguar. And ruining my nineteen-year-old self-esteem. Anyway, Whitesnake’s playing at Jewel Foods, what’s the big deal?”

Fletch shrugged. “For a brief moment in the eighties, those guys were rock gods. I saw them open for Mötley Crüe in 1987, and they were Led Zeppelin meets Deep Purple.”

“Hmm, fascinating.” I examine the fat content on a jar of Alfredo sauce and place it in my cart anyway.

“Whitesnake put on an incredible show—I thought they’d become legends like their predecessors. But where are they now? They’ve vanished, leaving nothing but eyeliner and acid-wash in their wake.”

“Number one, I can’t believe I married someone who’d pay to see Mötley Crüe—they’re more like Mötley Eeew.” I explode into a fit of giggles while Fletch patiently waits for me to compose myself.
9
“And number two, according to all the episodes of VH1’s
Behind the Music
I’ve seen, the metal guys manage to hold on to their money, unlike poor bankrupt MC Hammer.
10
What’s the big deal?”

“I just feel bad for David Coverdale. I bet he never expected the anthems of his youth to echo through the produce aisle.”

“Unless David Coverdale’s working the register here tonight, I wouldn’t waste your sympathy. After all, he got to nail Tawny Kitaen.”

He laughs and grabs a couple of cans of refried beans. “You know that most women don’t say stuff like that, don’t you?”

“And that’s why you’re with me.” Because I? Am all about the locker-room humor.

We continue to shop, one ear cocked toward the sound system. While we wait in line for deli-sliced roast beef, we hear a Journey song. While we thump melons, we hear another. While we inspect eggs for cracks, we hear a third.

“Why does this place play so damn much Journey? I feel like I’m at a high school dance. Makes me want to feather my hair, yank the zipper up on my skintight Chic jeans with a rattail comb, and be mean to the cute boys because I’ve yet to master the fine art of flirting,” I say.

Fletch exclaims, “That’s it! Journey!
Steve Perry!!
” And then he punches me in the arm. Hard.

“
Ow!
What the
hell
, Fletcher?” I rub my throbbing triceps.

“I figured out our new game! Every time we hear Journey, you have to say
‘Steeeve Perry!’
the way Matt and Trey did in
BASEketball.
11
Whoever says it first gets to take one shot.”