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? (10 page)

To:
angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
adventures in gastroenterology

Good morning,

Yet another scene from my oh-so-glamorous life.

Setting: Check-in desk for GI lab work at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. An adoring Yuppie wife with perfectly coiffed hair has her elbow linked with that of her adoring Yuppie husband. They appear to have walked right out of an Eddie Bauer ad. Fletch and I are in line behind them. I am holding part of my shirt out in front of me, trying to determine the origin of the grease stain. Bacon? Salad dressing? Not sure.

Yuppie Wife:
(to Nurse, hands clasped in earnest concern)
I know an endoscopy is a routine procedure, but I’d really like to be in the recovery room to hold his hand while he comes out of the anesthesia. Can I be there? Would that be all right? Please?

Nurse:
I think it would be okay.

Yuppie Wife:
Thanks
so
much.

Nurse:
(to Fletch)
You’re also here for an endoscopy—would you like your wife to join you in the recovery room?

Me:
Pfft. I’m heading to the oatmeal bar at Au Bon Pain.

Good luck and see you in an hour.

Ha!

Jen

P.S. The doctor determined that Fletch is completely fine.

P.P.S. And I had grits!

P.P.P.S. What? I brought him back a muffin.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Rachael Ray

A
lthough plagued by a number of irrational fears, I have a few that are legitimate. I’ve been in a couple of serious auto accidents, so the sound of squealing brakes never ceases to send chills down my spine. Whenever I hear that noise, even from the safety of my living room, I stiffen in dreaded anticipation of impact and the sickening crunch of metal on metal.

Home invasions also terrify me, since we were actually the victims of one when we lived in the supposedly-safe Yuppie enclave of Lincoln Park. Okay, so technically we were one floor up behind a locked door, the police arrived in thirty seconds, and the criminal pleaded no contest and went directly to prison.
1
Plus, our perpetrator’s alias was
James Taylor
. And really, does anything say “bad to the bone” more than Mr. “Sweet Baby James” Taylor? (Didn’t Carly Simon even kick his ass at one point?)

To this day, we snicker about the guy “Going to Carolina
State Penitentiary
in My Mind,” “Walking Down a Country Road
to Jail
,” and discuss whether or not he’s “Showering the People” he loves with love in his cell block.

Still, you’d think the crash of breaking glass and scraping metal in the dead of the night would be the scariest noise I’d ever heard, right? Well it’s not. It’s the clanging of pans coming from my kitchen because that means Fletcher is about to cook something.

“Shalom, bitches!” I shout and dump my bookbag full of temping essentials—Kleenex, pens, notebook paper, spare panty hose, and enough candy to anesthetize myself—on the table next to the front door and kick off my incredibly painful shoes. Back when I used to do business there, I realized none of the chic New Yorkers sported the obnoxious sneakers-anda-business-suit look so prevalent with the dowdy, sensible Chicago commuters, and ever since then I’ve sacrificed comfort for style.
2

The dogs react to my arrival by lunging at me, the cats tacitly ignore me, and Fletch waves distractedly from the couch. I ask him, “What are you looking at so intently?” Normally in this house it’s me engrossed in television, not Fletch. And at the moment, he is giving the TV an
American Idol
–worthy level of focus.

“Show. Busy. Cooking. Watching show,” he mumbles, nodding and hastily scratching notes on a pad.

“Huh?” I sit next to him to see what’s drawing him in so much. An annoyingly perky brunette is whizzing around a kitchen set in a painted-on shirt, grabbing random things from cabinets while blathering something about “Evieohoh.” Fletch nods, mesmerized.

“Who’s Evieohoh?” I ask. Fletch continues to stare, his jaw ever so slightly slack. I poke him in the shoulder. “
Hey!
I’m asking you a question.”

“Oh, sorry. It’s E.V.O.O.—extra-virgin olive oil,” he mutters, concentration unbroken.

“That’s dumb. Why doesn’t she just use the whole name? It’s only four extra syllables.”
3

We watch for a couple of minutes, not because I care what she’s making but because I never see Fletch this engrossed in anything. The host continues to blather on in a language that may or may not be English.

“She said to put the scraps in a Geebee, which is a what?”

“Garbage bowl.”

“Huh. Well,
yay, her
for not going all traditional and throwing junk away in a trash can,” I snort. She’s cooking some sort of soup, but it’s kind of thick like a stew so she calls it “stoup,” and she’s giggling the whole time at her own cornball jokes and it’s incredibly annoying. “Why’s she so goddamned giddy? She whipping up hash brownies or something? Or did they pump the studio full of nitrous oxide? I hate when—”

“Ssshhh!”

So it’s going to be like
that
today, is it?

I huff on the couch for another minute, which is just enough time to vow that the TV cooking chick is now my sworn enemy.
You, missy! Yes, you with the EVOO and GB and LMNOP and the rest of the stupid abbreviations. Enough with your toothy Joker smile and all the giggling. You’re on television and you’re teaching people to prepare a meal. Show some decorum. Also, cooking—especially when dealing with food chemistry—is one of those areas where it’s nice to be specific. If you’re going to chop, dice, or practically puree something, use one of those descriptive words and not “gonna run my knife through it,” because that doesn’t tell me anything. And how about a specific unit of measure and not just “eyeball it.” Do not
make
me come on your set and take you to school with my world-famous crusted chicken, little lady. And please either turn up the heat in the studio or wear a looser shirt. ’Cause I ordered the
arugula,
not
areola,
thanks.

Still steaming from my shushing, I stomp upstairs to change out of my work clothes. When I return, the perky brunette is gone and Fletch seems to be back to normal.

“Exactly what were you watching that led you to believe it was okay to shush your wife?”

“It’s a new show called
30 Minute Meals
. The host, Rachael Ray, shows how to make a whole dinner in a half hour.”

“Interesting.” Not. “But what’s her deal? She’s so enthusiastic that I kind of want to whack her with a board full of nails.”

“Really? I like her. A lot. She’s all about time-saving ideas and easy, healthy, delicious meals.”

“Didn’t realize you were suddenly on her payroll. My apologies.”

“No, no, she’s totally cool and so real. She worked hard to get to this position; she wasn’t some starlet who read for a part. She was knee-deep in the food-service industry and fought her way up.”

“Not impressed.”

“How about this, then? Did you know she has a pit bull, too?” I quickly revise my
I Dig Any Famous Pit Bull Advocate
stance, which previously gave passes to Rosie Perez, Vin Diesel, Michael J. Fox, and Jon Stewart, because I simply cannot support Fletch’s interest in Miss Titter McHighbeams. “Anyway, I figured since you’re working hard temping, I’d start helping out with meals.”

“That’s sweet, Fletch, but I wouldn’t classify what I do as ‘working hard.’ I mean, today I handled a very important project that involved super glue, Magic Markers, and a tube of sparkles.”

“Did you get high on marker fumes again?”

I flush with the shame of my secret Sharpie addiction. “A little bit. But my buzz wore off. I can still cook pork chops just fine.”

“Um, Jen, about the pork chops…they’re nice and all, and of course I like them, but I’m just saying it might be interesting to have something else once in a while. If I eat any more hog I’m going to grow hooves and a curly tail.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer something with a side of nipples then?” I say out of the side of my mouth.

“What?”

“I said I also like to save nickels by making all kinds of pasta dishes.”

“Yes, and each involves tomato sauce, ground beef, and Parmesan. There’s not a whole lot of variety going on here, and we need to expand our repertoire. I like how Rachael takes simple ingredients and quickly cooks a great meal. Today’s program gave me some ideas and I’m going to make dinner tonight. Why don’t you sit down and relax?”

I grab a glass of wine and plant myself on the couch, idly scanning the channels for something slightly less breast-acular. It feels weird not to be standing around on sore feet in the kitchen right now. Correction, it feels kind of good. Like, kind of really good.

You know, I always cook and I completely hate it. If Fletch wants to help, I should probably encourage him, not stifle him. Maybe he’ll want to help when we have parties, too? How awesome would it be to have a gathering where I actually get to interact with my guests rather than slave over the stove in a sweltering kitchen?

Honestly, my life would be a lot easier if I weren’t tied to meal preparation five or six hours each week. That’s, like, 250–300 extra hours a year. Gosh, think of all the things I could accomplish with that kind of time. I could write a screenplay or learn a foreign language. I could take up knitting. I bet by my three hundredth hour with needles and yarn, I’d be churning out kick-ass sweaters. And, really, the mayor of Chicago totally encourages small businesses, so if I knitted cool stuff, maybe the city would give me a loan and I could set up a twee little shop on Damen Avenue with all the other boutiques and sell my rocking knitwear? And I’d have books there so I could read on the job and I’d call my shop
Lit One, Purl Two.
And I’d develop such a following that all the celebrities would wear my stuff and they’d be on the red carpet telling Joan Rivers,
“Of course I’m wearing Jen Lancaster. Because she? Is totally the Cashmere Queen of Chicago.”

Wait a sec—what on earth is he making that uses oatmeal
and
sun-dried tomatoes?

Huh. So
that’s
what chicken sautéed with bumblebees and paper clips tastes like.

So far this week we’ve had white chili that I can only describe as “pointy,” a shrimp stir-fry that burned a whole layer of skin off my lips, and broiled oven mitt.
4
On the upside, I’m not dieting, but since Fletch has taken over the kitchen I’ve lost five pounds.

I’m probably going to hold off on the loan application for my knitting store, though.

I can’t say I’m impressed with Rachael Ray yet. I believe she encourages good men to do bad things with innocent foodstuff. I confirmed this with my female friends. They all hate her, but their husbands adore her. Either it’s her constant Nipplepalooza or she emits some sort of high-pitched sound that only dogs and straight men can sense? What’s worse is every time I hear the opening theme to her show, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my gag reflex triggers a little. As for the whole thirty-minutes aspect of her meals? Yeah, in your dreams, maybe. Fletch’s last thirty minutes spanned almost two hours and dirtied up every pot, pan, and plate in the joint.

Complicating matters further, my sister-in-law just gave Fletch one of Rachael’s cookbooks.
5
Since he swears these recipes are foolproof I decide to give him (and her) another chance.

And then I see him pull out a Dutch oven and a hunk of…something.

“Honey, what is that?”

“Salt pork.”

I mentally digest this for a moment.
6
“I thought they stopped making salt pork once refrigeration was invented.”

“Nope.” He begins to hum along to White Zombie on his iPod as he chops his vegetables. I also didn’t know we owned a Dutch oven. When did we get that? Is that one of the weird things he put on our Williams-Sonoma wedding registry? I eventually deleted it because it was full of $350 toasters and $250 garbage cans when we were completely broke, but not before people bought a few of our less pricey
7
items.

Then Fletch murmurs something about “succotash” and I predict a gastronomic shipwreck of
Titanic
proportions.

Fearing local Native American tribes are going to (a) catch wind of these ingredients, (b) naturally assume such a menu is part of a Thanksgiving celebration, circa 1621, and (c) scalp us when they taste Fletch’s current culinary atrocity, I err on the side of caution and sneak upstairs to call Pizza Hut.

Fletch is dicing extension cords and cotton balls to add to his vile witches’ brew when the doorbell rings.

I answer the door with a couple of twenty-dollar bills in my hand, pay the all-too-familiar deliveryman, and set the boxes on our breakfast bar.

“What are you doing? I’m making dinner right now!” he exclaims.

“I know you are, sweetie. The pizzas are for just in case.”

“You’ll toss those pizzas in the trash when you taste this.”

“Of course I will,” I condescend. “Because Rachael isn’t the devil
at all
. She’d never sing her siren song every night from five to five thirty p.m., making you crash against the dinner rocks since I wasn’t wise enough to lash you to the mast. Or maybe she’s part of a conspiracy to help devoted husbands starve a couple of pounds off their chunky wives.”

“Okay, if you don’t love this meal, I promise I will never watch
30 Minute Meals
again.”

“Deal.”

He opens the lid of the Dutch oven to show me its gelatinous contents.

“Honey,” I ask, “is our supper supposed to be purple?”

Rachael Ray?

So banned in this household.

The Blue Line train isn’t running this evening because some unfortunate person stepped in front of it. All the folks who normally take it from Lake Street to LaSalle are being shuttled on the number 56 bus.

After watching three full number 56s pass me at my normal stop, I realize that unless I want to wait an hour, getting home on the bus is not an option. I figure I can take a cab but then remember I gave Fletch my last $10 to get coffee on the way to his meeting, and no money equals no taxi. I call Fletch to pick me up, but he doesn’t answer, so I assume he’s still with clients.

So what do I do when I find myself downtown with no money?

I walk.

Twenty blocks.

Uphill.

In the rain.

With a broken umbrella.

In a pair of heeled sandals that are crippling when strolling a mere five paces to the copier.

All the way home.

When I finally get to my front door, I find Fletch sprawled out on the couch, unaware of the blinking message light, enraptured by Rachael Ray.

I don’t know if the person who stepped in front of the train committed suicide.

But I guarantee you someone’s going to die.

It’s been a few months since Fletch went cold turkey on Rachael Ray. I’m finally at the point where I can hear him open the drawer where the pans are kept without my wanting to hide under the bed while dialing 911.

I’ve just finished reading two hours of Internet conspiracy theories on whether Professor Snape truly turns evil in
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
—neatly proving that given an extra three hundred hours per year, I would
not
use them wisely—when I hear excessive banging coming from the kitchen.