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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Authors: Jen Lancaster

Tags: #Form, #General, #Chicago (Ill.), #21st Century, #Lancaster; Jen, #Humorous fiction, #Personal Memoirs, #Humorous, #Authors; American - 21st century, #Fiction, #Essays, #Jeanne, #City and town life, #Authors; American, #Chicago (Ill.) - Social life and customs, #Biography & Autobiography, #Biography, #Humor, #Women

BOOK: 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?
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3
Until I made out with their boyfriends. What can I say? I was very friendly in college.
4
We were a
Good Times
household.
5
An Indian word for “Land of Many Strip Malls.”
6
I wish this were a euphemism for something really dirty so we don’t sound like tremendous nerds. Unfortunately, it’s not.
7
Scully and Mulder said I could, so it’s not cheating.
8
Polish for “I think you left your lunch on my lawn.”
9
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.
11
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.
6
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.
8
Henceforth known as Captain Whackypants.
9
But he’s almost six feet three and I swear it looks good.
10
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.
5
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.)
6
Well-thumbed because it took me two years of carrying it around in my beach bag to finally finish it.
7
Ugly.
8
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.

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