I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)

by Laurie Notaro

  “I would like to look nice for the Japanese Tea Garden,” she replied, very matter-of-factly. “It’s a very formal garden, and I’ve been wanting to go there since I was a kid. I want to dress appropriately.”

  “But we’re on vacation,” I said, motioning to her pleated wool skirt, her thick, cable-knit crew-neck sweater layered over a T-shirt, and a string of treasured pearls her parents had given her when she graduated from college. “You look like you’re about to be knighted, or run for president of the Junior League. Put on some jeans. You’ll be happy you did.”

  “You may be happy visiting the VERY FORMAL tea garden dressed as a mechanic,” she replied, motioning to my overalls, “but you never know when you might run into a foreign Japanese dignitary, because I read in Sunset magazine that a lot of them visit this place. I don’t want them to think that I’m the stereotypical crass American.”

  “You know, I really wouldn’t worry about that if I were you,” I volleyed. “The first President Bush fixed it for all of us because after yakking in the lap of the prime minister of Japan during a dinner, I’ll bet a pair of overalls on an American girl wouldn’t even get him to turn his head, unless I suppose I lunged at his fly while making a retching sound.”

  “Just how many days in a row have you worn those things, Gomer Pyle?” Jamie asked. “I checked your suitcase. You brought those, five T-shirts, and a toothbrush. You know, if Gap knew you were planning on wearing them every single day from solstice to solstice, they would have laminated them so we could have at least hosed you down.”

  “I am comfortable,” I said adamantly. “I can move around, I have room to spare, and I just don’t want another episode of the Spontaneous Corduroy Combustion, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie immediately apologized as she lowered her head.

  It was a sad day when that happened. Sad, sad day. Even thinking of it now almost kills me. I was on a weekend trip visiting Jamie in Marina del Rey, and I had packed economically so that I wouldn’t have to check any bags on the flight over. That meant in my tiny little suitcase—which essentially can’t be any bigger than a tampon box if you want to keep it with you—I had to pack economically. You could manage to squeeze a wider variety of wardrobe in your pack for climbing Mount Everest than you can in the dimensions of a suitcase the airlines deem as carry-on. I was basically able to bring a couple of pairs of underwear, a T-shirt or two, my pajamas, a stick of deodorant, and a little ball of dental floss because fitting in my toothbrush was nearly impossible. Now, this is where my favorite pair of brown corduroy pants came to the rescue, because they matched everything. Everything. And not only did they match everything, but those pants loved me so much that they expanded with me, and kept fitting me even when I got too fat for any of my other clothes. Plus, denying all rules of physics, they made my butt look deceptively smaller, almost like an optical illusion or fun- house mirror. My brown cords were my savior, my precious pet, my pride and joy. I loved them. I loved them. And because they matched everything so well, all I had to do was toss a couple of shirts next to the ball of dental floss and I had enough clothes for several days. I was a genius!

  Unfortunately for me, Jamie and I headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant straight from the airport, where a large dollop of refried beans plopped right down on my leg, which sometimes happens with anxious eaters such as myself. I tried to wipe it off, but only succeeded in spreading the dollop into a large smear, simultaneously grinding the beans into the fabric of the cords as well. So, later that night, I changed into my pajamas, tossed my beloved brown cords into the industrial capacity washer and dryer in the laundry room of Jamie’s apartment building, and they were good as new and ready for another day of wearing.

  Oh, sure.

  The next morning, I showered and got dressed, sliding into my brown cords, which, frankly, seemed a little tighter than usual, and looked even tighter. I was sure it was the industrial dryer that had made them shrink a little smaller than they normally did.

  No problem, I thought, and looked around the bathroom to make sure that I had enough room for some deep knee bends, which, I’ve always found, can give you a little wiggle room if you do them right and stretch out your pants when you’re in danger of popping up in a fashion magazine photo entitled “Big Mistake!” or “Think Again!” with your eyes blacked out.

  And that’s why I needed knee bends, my arms stretched out in front of me, bend one, nice and deep to get the maximum stretch potential, bend two, a little deeper just to get the ass compartment a little baggy, and right when I was in midbend on bend three, I heard it. A large, popped-bubble of sound, POP!!! like the crack of a baseball bat, loud and strong and quick. There I was, my knees bent, my ears ringing, and then I saw that millions of tiny, minute particles of brown fuzz had completely invaded the air around me, what looked like tiny brown flies were now silently floating slowly toward the ground as I automatically began swatting and blowing at them.

  “WHAT WAS THAT?” I heard Jamie yell from the other side of the bathroom door. “Are you all right? That sounded like a rifle! You’re okay, aren’t you? Say something!”

  “No, no, I’m okay,” I said, finally standing up so I could open the bathroom door, and that’s when I understood.

  “Oh . . . my . . . God,” I said slowly, not even remotely believing what I was seeing with my own eyes.

  “Oh, Jesus, are you shot? Are you shot?” Jamie cried. “Open the door!”

  “Oh . . . my . . . God,” I repeated as the bathroom door swung open so Jamie could see.

  She gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh . . . my . . . God! What happened?” she breathed.

  “My pants exploded,” I said as I shook my head. “My pants just . . . detonated. They . . . kind of . . . blew up.”

  And then I showed Jamie how, just at mid-inner-thigh level, my pants had been pushed to the brink, and how, just at the inner seam, the pressure of my knee bends had cut through the fabric with the precision of a laser beam at a complete 360 degrees, slicing the pant leg off as if it were horizontally chopped by a guillotine. Not vertically, but horizontally, that’s how much my gargantuan double-wide ass should NOT have been in those pants. They tore against the grain. The inner seam was still miraculously held together by several threads, although the remainder of the fabric that once bound the leg to the rest of my pants was now reduced to a brown thread cloud, some still floating in the air, some settling finally on the floor.

  “Oh!” Jamie gasped again, covering her mouth. “Knee bends!!”

  “Knee bends,” I confirmed, aghast and nodding.

  “It’s amazing,” my best friend offered. “It’s as if they were cut by a knife. Right across. I’ve never seen anything like it! Or, for that matter, like that little brown haze behind you! Wow, look at that. It’s the soul of your pants leaving its earthly prison.”

  “I thought those were flies,” I confessed. “I was swatting at them, like a monkey. It turns out that my pants were not growing with me as I originally thought. It appears that my Chub Rub had simply worn away nearly all of the material of the inner thighs, giving me more room as they disintegrated further and further. Until, apparently, they could take no more. And they finally died of exhaustion.”

  “This is jaw-dropping,” she marveled. “Those things were held together by nothing but dust mites! I’ve never seen the leg of a pair of pants simply shoot off before.”

  “It’s just a miracle that this didn’t happen in public, as I was trying on shoes or bending down to get taco shells at Safeway,” I added. “But at least if I was home, I’d have something else to wear. Now I have nothing. Nothing!”

  “You can wear something of mine until we buy you new pants,” Jamie said, trying to solve the problem.

  “You’re a pear. I’m an apple,” I reminded her. “This will never work.”

  “Even though you and Donald Duck are both apples, one of you still has to wear something on the bottom when you go outside,” she procla
imed as she went to her closet and handed me a pair of pants with an elastic waistband, then added, “Please be gentle.”

  “Donald Duck always looked like a pear to me,” I protested as I went back to the bathroom, peeled off my dead brown cords, and slipped on Jamie’s pants.

  “Are you kidding me? Look at that paunch, he is SO APPLE,” she declared. “The Country Bears, those are pears; Eeyore, pear, Piglet, pear, but Winnie-the-Pooh and Donald Duck are of your kind, Johnny Apple Seat.”

  From there, we went to the Gap and I bought myself a nice big pair of farmer overalls with enough room to squeeze in an additional person in case I got that fat. And I have worn those overalls pretty much every day ever since, partially out of laziness, but mostly out of fear.

  And I was reminding Jamie of precisely that in our hotel room after she cruelly called me Gomer Pyle.

  “Listen,” I said firmly. “Have you ever had your clothes explode while they were ON YOU? You don’t know what it’s like. The shock. The horror. The guilt. I mean, I DID THAT. I did that. I abused my pants to the point of murder. I can never have that happen again, do you see? Especially not on vacation when I have no other clothes. I just can’t risk it. I can’t.”

  “Well, that’s true, I’ve never had my pants erupt on me, but I did hear the sonic boom it caused, remember? I thought we were being home invaded,” Jamie said. “I’m sorry I called you Gomer Pyle. But I want to go to the gardens looking nice. So don’t make fun of me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I relented, and then whispered under my breath, “Aunt Bea.”

  We had an anxiety-filled taxi ride in which the cabbie, a relative newcomer to this country, had clearly watched too many reruns of Starsky & Hutch and/or Dukes of Hazzard on TNN and was applying excessive amounts of the things he was learning to his everyday life, such as attempting to fly in an automobile and driving on parts of the sidewalk people were already walking on. It was a white-knuckler of a trip, and as Jamie handed Njrjtishnmemim his tip, she gave him some to spare: “Just because I’d like to be buried in these clothes,” she said with a pointed finger, “doesn’t mean I want to die in them.”

  As we walked up to the entrance of the Japanese Tea Garden, it did look grand, indeed. Everything was manicured and perfect, breathtakingly beautiful. We paid our admission fee and entered the first portion of the garden, where we were met by a big sign that informed us immediately to USE CAUTION! We kind of shrugged, as neither of us sensed that we were in imminent danger, and continued up the path for several feet where there was a large, decorative wooden wheel about fifteen feet in height. The wheel did not turn, as it was stationary, and clearly was not intended for park guest interaction. It was just there to look at. Curiously, however, there was a woman on the top of it, who had somehow apparently scrambled up the side like a cat or a lizard, all in her three-inch heels, what looked like very expensive pants, a glittery halter top, and toting her Louis Vuitton satchel, rivaling Jamie for best dressed. Now, however, it appeared that she was stuck, as she stood at the top of the wheel and looked down while she shook her head at her husband or boyfriend, who was speaking to her very quietly, yet very firmly, in Japanese and motioning toward the ground.

  “What is she doing up there?” I asked, trying to figure out how she even managed to scale the sides of it.

  “Apparently not USING CAUTION.” Jamie laughed. “Which she has obviously thrown to the wind! Cool. She’s gonna fall, she’s gonna get hurt, and we’ll have something to laugh about all day!”

  “If only she had used caution,” I added with a giggle, “she could have avoided being the main attraction at the Tea Garden. They have some pretty good entertainment here for not even having monkeys!”

  After standing and watching the lady continually shake her head and do nothing else for about five minutes, things got a little boring so we continued a little way down the path, where we were met again with another sign that emphasized, USE CAUTION!

  “You know, is there a wall of fire, free-roaming crocodiles, or a lava pit that I’m missing here?” Jamie mentioned sarcastically. “I mean, we’re on a path! The most dangerous thing that could happen is that I step in a freshly chewed wad of Bubble Yum.”

  “Yeah, as long as we’re not scrambling up a giant wooden wheel like a squirrel in stilettos, I think we’ll be okay,” I added. “But just in case, Jamie, use caution!!”

  “Hey!” she replied. “Don’t distract me! I’m using my caution!”

  We crossed a minuscule, minimalist concrete bridge—basically just a slab of rock—that spanned a tiny stream opening into a larger pond, a reflecting pool of sorts, where people were gathered watching the koi swim aimlessly about. It brought us directly behind the wooden wheel and the cat lady, who by now had captured the attention of people other than her husband.

  “Use caution, Jamie, use caution!” I cried. “That fluttering leaf nearly impaled you!”

  “Watch out for that boulder of a pebble someone has carelessly tossed in the path to harm us,” Jamie warned me. “It must measure at least a quarter of an inch! Use caution!”

  And then, just as I took my first step onto the second, small, minimalist concrete bridge, I saw it happen. As she walked slightly in front of me, Jamie took a step with her right foot, and as she picked up her left foot, I saw that Jamie was heading straight while the bridge curved.

  “JAMIE!!!!” I screamed as loudly as I could. “USE CAUTION!!”

  But it was too late. Way too late. Her left foot was already out over the water of the pond, and I watched it happen, as if she were walking over a cliff in slow motion. My best friend stared straight ahead and upward toward the wooden wheel, smiling pleasantly, her pearls gleaming, her skirt flowing, having no idea that she was a millisecond away from disappearing in a blur of wool pleats to swim with the koi fish in the much-deeper-than-it-looked reflecting pool.

  I did the only thing I could do, which was reach out and grab her bra strap from behind, but as she went over, I heard my effort SNAP!! as I lost her to the water below.

  It was a tremendous splash. That water just swallowed her whole.

  She had not, in any way, used caution.

  When she finally surfaced a moment later, I breathed a sigh of relief as she swam to the edge and began clawing at the muddy bank of the icky, murky, disgusting green pond, stumbling to get out.

  “I fell into the pond,” she said blankly as she crawled up over the rocks like a lobster. “I fell into the pond.”

  “I know,” I said as I tried to help her up and maintain my composure and not to laugh as water rushed off her in torrents. “I told you to use caution! Didn’t you hear me? I yelled it right as you stepped into the lake like a sleepwalker!”

  “I fell into the pond,” she said again, as she looked at me quizzically, her hair clinging to the side of her head in thick, wet strands that looked like seaweed.

  I was amazed that there was any water left at all in that stinky, filthy pond because Jamie’s fancy outfit, complete with her once-pretty heavy skirt and thick, wool-knit sweater, had absorbed water like a sponge. That was evident as it now drained off her like rain and created a puddle that was spreading quickly out beneath her and getting the whole path wet. Jamie was far more absorbent than we could have ever even imagined, kind of like a human tampon placed in a glass half full of pretty blue water. This water, however, was not a pretty blue, it was algae green, and made my soggy best friend smell like the Gorton’s Fisherman.

  I was trying to wring her out the best I could, but I was starting to lose my composure.

  “At least we know you’re not a witch,” I said in between bursts of giggles, and trying to look on the bright side. “Or Jesus. You sank like a kitten in a bag of rocks! What do you have in your pockets, barbells?”

  “I fell into the pond,” she said again, still obviously stunned as I struggled to take off the wet sweater while leaving her T-shirt on and wrung out her sleeves. “The cat lady had me mesmerized. I was just going in
for a better look. When I first fell in, I thought, well, this isn’t so bad, I’m only in up to my knees, but momentum had me in its wicked, tight-fisted grip and I fell forward. Into the stinky piece of shit pond.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, as a flood of water rushed out of the bottom of her sweater as I squeezed it. “With a wire brush and a lot of Febreeze, we’ll get that shrimping boat smell off of you! Eventually! Please tell me you didn’t swallow any water! Stuck in the hotel bathroom with fishpond shits is the last way I know you wanted to spend your vacation!”

  Just then, I heard Jamie yell.

  “HEY!” She stepped forward and nearly knocked me down. “HEY, YOU!!”

  When I looked up, I saw that something of a crowd had started to form; I mean, there were people who had seen Jamie walk into the pond and then crawl out, but now, there was a growing number of onlookers and they were staring at us.

  But that wasn’t all. One of them had a video camera. It was pointed at Jamie. And he was filming.

  “WELL, GO RIGHT AHEAD!” Jamie roared at him as she stomped her foot and stretched out her dribbling arms. “GO RIGHT AHEAD! Get the whole thing! Did you get it all, huh? Did you get the whole thing on tape, you asshole?”

  Then the Angry Little Mermaid took her shoe off and emptied out a whole Thirstbuster’s worth of water. “Did you get that?” she bellowed at the video-camera man as she shook her shoe at him. “Did you get it? I hope you got it all! Sorry I didn’t drown so that you could have something really good on tape!”

  Frankly, I was rather hoping that because of this new development that people would think we were filming a movie, or perhaps that we were some young hopefuls handpicked to star in the remake of Laverne & Shirley, but I thought it was best to remove Jamie from the situation before she beat the man to death with one of her 160-pound waterlogged sleeves.

  “Let’s go to the bathroom,” I suggested as I led her away, her watery shoes leaving a trail as they audibly squished with every step, leaking out a footprint.