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? (43 page)

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I will still swim in Lake Michigan, but I’m generally submerged 90 percent of the time I’m at the beach, so that doesn’t count.

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Fletch? When I tell you I weigh 150 pounds? I lie.

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Which equals bitch.

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Sort of.

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Unless you want to provide me with a ten-week spa pass, I’m not giving out that number.

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It totally did.

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Hotness Potential.

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Damn. There goes my lurid donut-eating contest audition fantasy.

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Indeed I shall be the Biggest Loser for I have been to Office Depot!

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Rim shot!

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Wait, what am I asking? Of course they thought my sweater was cute.

¹⁴
Despite providing no empirical evidence.

¹
I kind of wiped out my whole hard drive when I downloaded a bottlecap-matching game. Whoops.

²
I cannot even begin to describe the horror of this situation so I shall spare you my attempts to do so.

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And we? Are
dicks
.

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The first time Fletch met Suz was when she showed up at my place early one morning and needed me to help her find her car. And her pants. God, I miss her.

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They aren’t.

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My pork chops
kick ass
and everyone knows it, so I’m having no part of his slanderous accusations.

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Mistake.

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Ma’am, I don’t even know your last name. Do
not
share your bad-touch stories.

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Obviously.

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But if there’s anything creepier than someone watching you watch TV, I’ve yet to experience it.

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The breakfast of champions!

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You know what comes between me and my Calvins? My dad.

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When we ask him about this later he says it was worth $50 to get her to stop talking.

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Shh, don’t tell Fletch.

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All the crazy to be found in New York and Carrie Bradshaw never encountered anything like this? I don’t buy it.

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Which I have since paid back in full, thank you very much.

¹⁷
And the Calcutta of our kitchen is no prize, either.

¹⁸
I’ll take
A Cry for Help
for $200, Alex.

¹⁹
See also
Paycheck, Parting With.

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It’s south of the Loop and only about three miles from where we live now. However, Chicago is divided into North Side and South Side. Pretty much no one has ever made the longitudinal switch, so we’re hesitant to be the first.

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Also known as the “West Town” area of the city, or, when we lived there, the West Si-ee-de.

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Even without the wonky eye, we’d recognize him because he’s the only one in our neighborhood who doesn’t come in standard squirrel-issue gray.

³
Good-bye, security deposit!

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I wanted to help get Tracy to rehab; they wanted me to help get Holly evicted. Guess which path I chose?

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Jen’s Budget Homemaking Tip #475: Why purchase flowers when you can steal them from a vacant lot?

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The extra
e
is for “emotion.”

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I love you, Mommy. Please don’t cut me out of the will.

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I love me some pink, but mauve is not and never will be the new pink.

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Because they’re busy
buying
them, but she’s too polite to mention this.

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Jen’s Budget Homemaking Tip #567: Costco kicks ass. The only reason they’re not part of the new Holy Trinity of shopping is Fletch yells at me every time I buy their cheesecake in bulk.

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Holding flippers?

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Or who are delicious. And, on some occasions, stylish.

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I did try to hop on Fletch’s back once we got our own keys and he walked hunched over for the next three days.

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Now baby soft and completely faded after a hundred washings.