The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club

by Laurie Notaro

  I opened my eyes.

  The doctor was looking at me, his hands on his hips, and his mouth twisted in a grin.

  “So,” he said with his head cocked to the side, “we feel like being a crybaby today, do we?”

  I was in such shock after this comment that I didn’t even bite down when he plunged his hand back in my mouth and pushed even harder.

  “Well, we’re halfway through!” he taunted.

  I decided right there and then that I’d rather pull the tooth myself with a steel-link chain and a trailer hitch and was ready to shoot out of the chair when he laughed and tossed something in front of me on the silver tray. When I looked down I saw it was my tooth, covered in blood, roots and all, and I realized that the animal had ripped it out with his bare hands.

  I had been orally manhandled.

  I gasped then but laughed six months later when I saw on the evening news that the bastard had signed a lease in the state pen for five to fifteen for tax evasion, substance possession, and intent-to-sell charges. Sticking his entire hand in my mouth and wrenching a tooth out of my head was kitten’s play compared to the talents of his new neighbors.

  So, by ignoring my newest dental/gummi bear catastrophe, I was following my own best advice, and I followed it faithfully. I stopped chewing altogether on that side, didn’t drink on that side, and was very careful with my toothbrush.

  I ignored it for quite a while, until it started to pinch me every now and then, until the pinch evolved into a pulse, the pulse into a throb, and the throb into shooting knives of pain. I knew I had to do something and most likely do it in a hurry. I mentioned the situation to a coworker, who suggested that I might need a root canal to save the tooth, and then went on to document the procedure, which included drilling, screws, needles scraping the inside of my tooth, and, finally, some type of molten lava.

  It didn’t sound pretty. In fact, it sounded worse than having my tooth ripped from my jaws by the bare hand of a convict, but when the ache reached my eyes and my neck, I called my mother’s new dentist.

  They rushed me in immediately, offered me headphones for a CD player or for the TV, which was turned on to The Sally Jessy Raphaël Show. This is a dentist’s office? I thought to myself. I didn’t hear anyone moaning or sobbing in pain, and I finally came to the conclusion that I must be at the rich folks’ dentist.

  The two dental assistants, Mimi and Gigi, dressed in identical outfits and wearing name tags in the shapes of molars, introduced themselves and began taking X rays. The doctor finally came in and started poking around. He looked at the X rays and gave me my options, which I already knew. I could have the tooth pulled, which naturally brought back horrible memories, or have the combination platter of root-canal-and-crown procedure, which might require some additional surgery to some bone in my mouth.

  “Which one do I get knocked out for?” I asked, trying to weigh the pros and cons.

  “Neither,” the dentist said. “But I’ll give you nitrous oxide if you get it pulled.”

  “I hope you have an Incredible Hulk grip!” I decided. “Get that thing out of my head!”

  So I opened wide, the doctor positioned his tooth-puller tool, and I breathed in deeply from this artificial-heart-looking contraption that Gigi or Mimi put on my nose. It made me happy, though I could feel my tooth sliding downward. Meanwhile, Sally was interviewing a man who accused his ex of being a tramp, telling the audience that “she had more things stuck in her than a porcupine has stickin’ out,” but before the ex even had a chance to respond, the dentist stuck something in my mouth and told me to bite down.

  “All done,” he mentioned happily.

  As happy as he was, I was ecstatic.

  “Ah duh?” I reiterated defectively, due to my gauze-packed mouth and my novocained lips that made me feel like I had just had a stroke.

  The gentle dentist nodded and showed me the shell that used to be my tooth, all cleaned up and tidy, to which I burst forth in a spray of indiscernible gratitude babble which meant, “You, my dear sir, are no dentist! You are an artisan! A magician! A wizard! And if you give me pills that I need to show an ID to pick up at the pharmacy, I will totally be a character witness at your trial!”

  He looked at me oddly, half-smiled, and handed me a prescription.

  “It’s codeine,” he told me. “And with codeine, you need to take it with—”

  “Wee-wee!!! Wee-wee!!!” I said, in my best attempt at whiskey.

  “—food,” he finished.

  Well, I thought to myself, no one’s funny with a yard of gauze in their mouth and the lips of a dead woman.

  “Give this girl some oxygen,” he said to Mimi or Gigi. “I’ll be financing her early retirement if we let her drive home like this.”

  So Mimi or Gigi made me sober up by inhaling a lot of oxygen, which I really didn’t want to do. In fact, at that point, I didn’t care if they had torn out every tooth as long as I could keep breathing from the tank. I’d even get my legs waxed if that stuff came in the kit.

  When I got home, I waited a little while before I dared do it. I waited until the blood clotted a little and, more important, until the double dose of codeine I had taken kicked in.

  I ran my tongue along the gum where the tooth used to be, above and behind, and finally, in the fleshy, wet hole that used to be the nest of my favorite tooth.

  “Let that be an example to you,” I said to the surviving teeth. “If any of you has any ideas about acting up, just look at the hole. Any more bad behavior and you’re out. No second chances.”

  That’s how we treat revolutions around here.

  Waking

  Angela Up

  Until six months ago, I’d never lived in an apartment. I didn’t know what it was to hear my neighbors flush a toilet, do their dishes, or talk on the phone. But when I went to Tucson to start a new job, I moved into a tiny place and became immediately aware that I was not alone.

  My neighbors downstairs, affectionately known as “the Trolls,” were partial to loud, passionate arguments. They swam in the pleasure of standing in the breezeway at five in the morning, fighting about which one of them had the keys to the car, or banging on the walls with a heavy object to really put their point across.

  So I was relieved when my landlord said that their lease wasn’t getting renewed because they “looked like drug people.” Who doesn’t look like drug people? I said to myself, but I was just glad they were leaving.

  I had almost forgotten about their departure when someone knocked on my door last night. I nearly didn’t answer it—no one comes to my apartment without calling first, because you can’t get in the building unless you have a key. And, besides, I wasn’t wearing a bra.

  But as I shuffled toward the door, my nose dripping from allergies, curiosity got me and made me turn the doorknob.

  And there she was.

  “Hi,” she said awkwardly.

  I nodded.

  “Is this the back apartment?” she asked. “The apartment in the corner of the building?”

  I nodded again.

  She was tall. Thin. Tan. Blonde. Cute black glasses. Short, spiky haircut. Shaved legs.

  “Oh, okay,” she continued. “I just moved in. I’m your neighbor downstairs. I’m Angela.”

  No you’re not, I thought to myself. You’re Uma Thurman. And me, with a tissue pressed against my left nostril, a cigarette in my other hand, my permed, frizzy hair that I cannot control, and no bra—well, I’m Janeane Garofalo. The Truth About Giraffes and Water Buffaloes. I immediately felt inadequate.

  She was the AntiLaurie.

  “I, um . . . I keep a late schedule,” she started (because I’m sure she’s a model, my brain snapped), “and I guess you get up at eight?”

  “Seven,” I shot back. “I have a job.”

  “Well, in the morning . . . I guess because of the wood floors, when you walk across the room, I can hear it.”

  “I’m on a diet,” I said defensively. “I’m trying
to lose weight.”

  Angela paused. “It’s when you wear high-heeled shoes. They make a lot of noise. Could you wait to put them on until you get in the hallway?”

  “Do you want to fight?” I knew I should have asked her. I could have totally taken her down to the parking lot and fought her. I’m spunky and quick, and hate gives me the strength of a monkey.

  Instead, I said, “Sure,” even though Angela’s schedule was no more important than mine; even though my true friends would say that I was super-cuter than she was; even though I felt as if I were in seventh grade again, and the head cheerleader had just come over to me in English class and told me that I was in her seat and was making it hot and sweaty.

  Angela smiled and bounded down the stairs, but I didn’t let her off so easy. I yelled back, “You’re lucky I don’t drink anymore, Prissy Pants!! I would have punched you! Tomorrow morning, you’ll be waking up to my version of Riverdance!”—right as the door closed behind her.

  I know. I was embarrassed. “Prissy Pants” just flew out of my mouth.

  Back inside my cavernous, echoing apartment, I walked around on the wood floors, mouthing to myself and pointing at no one in particular, “Late schedule, huh? Well, I was the Queen of the Late Schedules, you little snit! Who do you think made up the Twelve O’Clock Rule? That was me! That was ME!!!” (I pointed to myself at this part.)

  “That’s right! If I made it home before seven in the morning, it was an early night! My day started at Happy Hour!! We used to call it Happy Breakfast! How do you like THAT, Little Miss I-Keep-a-Late-Schedule! You don’t know what a late schedule is! AMATEUR!”

  This morning, when I woke up, I was a little bit calmer. I tiptoed across the living room and headed for the bathroom. Once situated, I stopped in a panic. If Angela could hear me walking around, she could hear every loud noise I made. I turned on the faucet for background noise and tried to go, but I couldn’t, knowing that Angela could hear any splashes or torrential wee-wee downpour.

  I couldn’t turn on the TV, afraid that I’d wake Angela up. I took a trickle of a shower in case the water was too loud and I’d wake Angela up. I drank cold coffee because I thought that the beeps of the microwave would wake Angela up. The only thing I could do in quiet was smoke. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t wake Angela up, unless the smoke seeped through the floor and set off an alarm.

  Finally, in a burst of bravado, I used the hair dryer, but only for a second. I set my shoes out in the hall, got my backpack and smokes, and headed out the door.

  Out in the hallway, I squeezed one shoe on and then the other, and started to get my keys out to lock the door.

  Suddenly, from the open back window of the apartment, I felt it reach my frizzy hair before it came shooting toward me, and I just stood and watched as the wind ripped through my apartment with both hands outward and slammed that door shut, hard enough to rattle the glass panes in it, hard enough to scare the pigeons off of the windowsill, hard enough to wake the dead.

  I smiled, turned around, and skipped down the hall.

  Angela’s Revenge

  There was a knock at my door.

  A little, petite knock, almost as if maybe someone didn’t want me to hear it.

  “Someone’s at my door!” I whispered into the phone to my friend Dionne, who had called in between Must See TV shows to tell me some gossip. “I’m not going to get it!”

  “Who do you think it is?” Dionne whispered back. “Do you think it’s—”

  “No!” I almost shouted. “No, it couldn’t be her! I bought slippers! I got them from Nordstrom’s clearance rack for three dollars. They’re pink with bows, and I could only find two left feet, but I’ve been quiet! It can’t be Angela!”

  Angela, my perfect, beautiful downstairs neighbor had recently come up to my apartment to tell me that my galloping across my living room floor like a donkey was waking her up in the mornings. Since then, I’d bought the slippers, learned to read Katie Couric’s lips while watching the Today show, and waited until I got to work to go to the bathroom, so that no walking, TV noise, or toilet flushes would disturb Angela from her very unneeded beauty rest. Dionne knew all about Angela, because I had dragged her to a million thrift stores to find an “Angela Rug” for my living room to muffle the noise, and because I had written a column about the whole thing.

  Looking through the bottom panes of my French front door, I saw someone put something down in front of it and walk away.

  “They’re gone!” I whispered to Dionne. “They’ve left something in front of my door! I think they’re gone!”

  I put down the phone and raced to the door, unlocked it, and swung it open far enough to launch the offering, now identified as a plant, out into the hallway, spilling soil everywhere.

  The knocker was not gone. She turned when she heard me and came back toward me as I crouched, attempting to scoop up the dirt with my nonsmoking hand. As she passed into the light, I knew my mistake was fatal.

  It was Angela, naturally, you knew it, I knew it, Dionne knew it. If it was possible, she looked even better than she did before, in a checked mini-suit, black knee-high boots, and a cute little purse.

  “Hi,” Angela started. “I just wanted to thank you for being so quiet. I know we got off on the wrong foot, and I just wanted to give you something to say thanks.”

  “Oh. That’s cool. I got slippers,” I said, pointing to my two pink left feet.

  I was already aware that, if possible, I looked worse than I did the last time. Again, no bra, my chi-chis tossing about like a car in a Tilt-A-Whirl ride. My Ted Kaczynski/Unabomber hair was flying all around my head, before Dionne called I had picked at my face, my eyeliner remained black smudges on my cheeks because an ash had flown into my eye on my way home from work, I was smoking, and I had a mammoth Count Chocula cereal and milk stain on my T-shirt from dinner about the approximate size of a kidney. I looked like Zelda Fitzgerald, right before the BIG fire.

  “You always catch me at my best times,” I added with a little staged, nonchalant laugh, when what I really wanted to say was “Can you hang out here for, like, thirty minutes, because I am almost cute, and I can prove it,” “Do you want to come in and see my clothes?” “From down here, I can see that booger in your nose,” or “You’re an adult entertainer, aren’t you?”

  But I didn’t say anything, except thanks, as she handed me a card. I took my blotched face, destroyed self-image, and new little plant inside. “I’m going to kill you,” I whispered to it.

  “It was Angela, wasn’t it?” Dionne questioned me as soon as I got back on the phone.

  “Yes,” I answered sorrowfully. “I’m not wearing a bra again, and I messed with that pimple on my chin that you told me not to. And she looked like a Prada ad.”

  “Did you show her your clothes?” she asked. “What did she leave by your door?”

  “A stinky plant,” I answered. “And a card.”

  “Read it,” Dionne insisted.

  As I flipped the envelope over, I noticed that Angela had written my name on the front. “Dionne, this is odd,” I said. “No one spells my name right, no one. My grandmother never got it right. But Angela did.”

  “How could she know?” Dionne replied. “There’s no way. Unless she saw it somewhere. On your mailbox?”

  “No, there’s just my apartment number. Where could she have seen it? Unless she read . . .”

  “Unless she read that column you wrote about her,” Dionne said simply. “You rock, sister!”

  “Not so hard, Aretha,” I said, looking down. “My pants are on inside out.”

  All Smut

  and Perverts

  My mom got e-mail.

  “I need your Internet address,” she announced when she called me. “Want to be my cyber pal?”

  A sudden chill cut through me straight to the bone.

  A pal, with my mom? On the Information Superhighway? My mom, akin to electronic technology? Are apes running the world, too, now?

>   Not too long ago, she was fascinated one day by a new, bright red light that kept flashing in her kitchen. “I think your father bought this for me as a surprise,” she whispered as she showed it to me. “Can you believe they make microwaves this small now?”

  “That’s your answering machine, Mom,” I said. “And that message must be important, because you’ve programmed that thing to let the phone ring forty-six times before it picks up. Wanna hear it?”

  “Nah,” she said, “if it’s really important, they’ll call back.”

  “Oh,” I said, “I bet it’s the phone call I made to you when someone was trying to break into my house in 1995. You should listen to it, it’s a good one. I cry on it and everything.”

  She also has call waiting that is nothing but a wicked myth on her cordless phone.

  She bought a VCR that requires a drum roll, an ancient chant, and a sprinkle of fairy dust just to turn on.

  And now she was playing with e-mail.

  “Mom,” I said as gently as I could, “the most technical thing you’ve ever done was to give your credit card number to a QVC operator over the phone, and that’s only if call waiting doesn’t beep in. You can’t even control the appliances you have now. Figure out how to work the camcorder first, and then we’ll move on to e-mail.”

  “I can do this,” she asserted. “I’m going to get the Complete Internet Book for Dummies.”

  “Well, while you’re at the bookstore,” I added, “pick up the Total Internet Guide for Idiots, the Absolute Internet Guide for Jackasses, and the Entire Internet Book of the Dead. That should do you.”

  “Don’t get fresh,” she warned me.

  A day later, I got an e-mail.

  “Hi, Laurie,” it said, “it’s Mom. I bet you didn’t think I could send you an e-mail. I’m not real crazy about QVC on-line, I’d rather watch it on TV. Don’t forget to e-mail me. From, Mom.”

  Two hours after that, I got a phone call.

  “Are you mad at me?” my mother asked. “Why haven’t you e-mailed me back? I’ve been waiting!”

  “I didn’t have anything to say,” I confessed.