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? (42 page)

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Until I made out with their boyfriends. What can I say? I was very friendly in college.

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We were a
Good Times
household.

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An Indian word for “Land of Many Strip Malls.”

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I wish this were a euphemism for something really dirty so we don’t sound like tremendous nerds. Unfortunately, it’s not.

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Scully and Mulder said I could, so it’s not cheating.

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Polish for “I think you left your lunch on my lawn.”

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I can see how he’d be pissed, but, really,
she
should have thanked me.

¹⁰
No bonus points were awarded for gaining a dorsal fin, either.

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And the bumper of his hybrid electric car.

¹²
I don’t pay our rent in person anymore—I can’t keep a straight face.

¹³
My dog Maisy and niece Sarah appear to be the same size—what better way to check the fit?

¹⁴
And current-day temp. Also, I have no idea on the pending fame bit. But since my book doesn’t come out ’til next spring, it’s not outside the realm of the possible, right?

¹⁵
Or possibly for a piña colada, but only if it’s made with sweet coconut milk. If I’m going to commit treason, it had better be delicious.

¹
I’m reminded of this each time my small-town mother visits and wants to call the police when she hears a car alarm. Although for someone so concerned about grand theft auto, you’d think she wouldn’t make a habit of keeping her keys in her unlocked car.

²
Her sweater-wearing teacup terrier, Donatella, shivers in her thousand-dollar carrying bag—strategically placed in its own chair—dying for a bite of the chocolate chip muffin his owner has no intention of ingesting.

³
But I ask you, how could the company who created Lucky Charms be evil? Impossible! And magically delicious!

⁴
Oh, Mr. Knotts. If only you could have lived long enough to make
A Few Good Fish
—it surely would have been your swan song.

⁵
I like to keep tabs on what’s happening so I can catalog suspicious doings on the Internet.

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No, scratch that. He was only a year old at the time and likely not yet strong enough to carry heavy amplifiers.

⁷
Or at least long enough for him to carry in the cat litter.

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Henceforth known as Captain Whackypants.

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But he’s almost six feet three and I swear it looks good.

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Actually, I’m not 100 percent sure about Cruella, but she was always surrounded by her toadies, and one of them must have played cabana-boy when the cameras were off, yes?

¹¹
Good thing we got paper towels!

¹²
Coyotes hate the Gold Coast, a.k.a. “the Viagra Triangle.” Too plastic, too much of a “scene.”

¹³
Now I have big jeans and little hair. And that’s bad.

¹⁴
Also a problem considering I get skeeved out just flossing my
teeth.

¹
Baby got back, indeed.

²
Alcohol may have been involved.

³
Slurring may have been involved. And possibly making out.

⁴
FYI, currently there are over nine million Google entries on Ashlee Simpson. Nietzsche was right: God is dead. And we killed him with all our Ashlee Freakin’ Simpson Google entries.

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Two of her other habits. (Which are fine because she is a beautiful and loving woman who has never charged me interest on the money I still owe her.)

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Well-thumbed because it took me two years of carrying it around in my beach bag to finally finish it.

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Ugly.

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Annoying.

⁹
Darling!

¹⁰
No, I didn’t try to stop him. I figured after living with stupid boys he’d be begging to live in a clean, pretty apartment where the seat was always down and the fridge was always full. (Also, I was a lot cuter than his friend Greg.) He moved in with me a few short months later.

¹¹
I mean, come on—Paris thought they sold
walls
at Wal-Mart. How do you
not
watch?

¹²
If you show up with bad hair, it sets the bar too low. Tress to impress, people.

¹³
Although my hair still looks really good.

¹⁴
Jenilee Harrison.

¹
Sometimes with a mouth crammed full of Oreos.

²
His words, not mine. But I like the idea that even my blood kicks ass.