I felt dirty then, and I felt dirty now. It was happening all over, but not only were there lentils, there were things my mother never taught me the names of, but then again, I was a little sheltered. Until I was a junior in high school, my mom insisted that the Kotex pads under the bathroom sink were special sponges she used to clean the toilet.
The naked lady, now bending over to dry her legs off, was showing me a whole other view, like her marshmallows.
“Just what is going on here?” is what I wanted to say to the naked lady, because I didn’t know this woman. I had no business seeing her NAKED, especially since there was a bathroom stall several feet away. I had no right, and, furthermore, I had no idea when I paid for my gym membership that I had also joined a nudist colony.
Who could be that free? I thought. Who could be that free that they could just strut around “in all candor” in front of other people? Who has that much self-esteem that they could bare it all and not burst into tears? I mean, I have trouble walking from the bath mat to the shower without any clothes on, let alone put on a show for a bunch of strangers. My bra doesn’t come off until the sun goes down, and that’s the law. I feel perverted if my dog catches a glimpse of me in all my glory, let alone someone I’ve never even met. When I have to go to the gynecologist, I have to practice sitting on the edge of my bed with no pants on for a week before my appointment, just to get ready.
Obviously, the naked lady had no such problems. I didn’t know what to do, and I was so freaked out that I forgot the combination to my new lock. I went home and called my mother.
“You saw a streaker?” my mother said from the other end of the phone. “That is just disgusting. And there was a bathroom stall five feet away? Some people are raised like animals, barnyard animals! They never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
“When your sister and I joined that gym last year,” she continued, “there were so many of them walking around that I just had to stop going. It was like a topless bar! I felt like I should be handing out dollar bills! ‘Here’s one for you, here’s one for you . . .’ The last thing I need is to see strangers’ lentils! How do I tell that to a priest? You should just stay home and run in place like I do.”
Then my sister got on the phone. “Once, when I was in the locker room, I met a friend of mine that owed me money for a lunch, and she wrote me a check right then and there. Completely naked.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I cashed the check and bought a Tae-Bo videotape,” my sister replied. “And I run in place when no one else is home. I can’t go to the gym anymore. There’s so many naked people around that I feel like I’m in a porno movie. And as for my friend, well . . . I can’t eat lunch with someone like that. She can be wearing seven sweaters and a parka, but she’ll always be naked to me.”
When my boyfriend came home from work that night, he asked me about my first day at the gym, but I told him how the naked lady scared me so badly I had to go home.
“You thought she was dirty, didn’t you?” he said.
“Yes,” I answered. “Yes, I did.”
He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “So? It’s a gym, Laurie. People have to take showers. And you’re kind of . . . repressed. I can’t believe you’ve never seen a naked lady before.”
“Well,” I started, “it’s not like all of us girls go into the Gap dressing room, take off our clothes, and chase and tickle one another.”
“What about your family?” he suggested. “You never saw any of them naked?”
I gasped, sucking in a breath so hard it nearly knocked me backward. “We’re a very careful people,” I said slowly. “We don’t believe in naked!”
“It’s very normal to be naked in the locker room,” my boyfriend said, trying to calm me. “If you go back, you’re probably going to see more naked people.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not playing games with them,” I answered. “And I’m not wiping off anybody’s back!”
A couple days later, I got up enough courage to go back to the gym. I was getting ready to put my new lock on my locker when I heard an elderly, grandmotherly voice call out to me.
“Dear?” the voice said gently. “Young lady? Could you please help me? I’ve dropped my comb, and I can’t seem to reach it.”
“Oh, sure,” I said, noticing the comb on the ground.
I picked it up and started to hand it to her, but as I looked up into her sweet little grandmother face, I saw that the only thing she was wearing was a smile.
Special Thanks
I would like to issue a special thanks to my family (yes, Mom, that means you, and Dad, Nana, Lisa, Linda, Taylor, Nicholas, and David) for letting me not only air but spin-cycle all of our dirty laundry out in public and for hardly ever getting mad, even though some of you have threatened to sue me. But remember, I can PROVE IT ALL. Thanks to the ball and chain for letting me say the unthinkable when I needed a punch line, and for not telling his family what I do for a living.
Thanks to Jamie Schroeder-Gomez, Jeff Abbott, Joel Abbott, Nikki Adams, Kate McGinty, Krysti Lindemoen, Patrick Sedillo, Sandra Quijas, Sara Cina, Dionne Gonzales, the Feeney sisters, and all of my friends who let me tell their secrets just so I could make my deadline.
Thanks to Michelle Savoy, Meg Halverson, Bill Hummel, Coni Bourin, Laura Smith, Kathy Murillo, Beth Kawasaki, Eric Searleman, Shamsi and Jamal Ruhe, Jenny Ignaszewski, Sean Fitzpatrick, Troy Fuss, Charlie Levy, Robert Sentinery, Amy Silverman, Theresa Cano, Sarah Wallace, Laura Greenberg, Beth Deveney, Ann Grigsby, Jeff Unger, and my seventh- and ninth-grade English teachers, Mr. Homuth and Mrs. Gaio, for your support and encouragement.
A big thanks to the readers, whom I love and worship for sticking with me longer than any boyfriend did.
A hearty round of applause to all the boys who said they loved me but LIED, which made me a mean, bitter woman. (P.S.: I have lost seventeen pounds after I ate some pork the doctor says was probably way too pink, gotten a lesson in plucking, and learned to apply eyeshadow properly since you last saw me. I haven’t gotten my one weird bicuspid fixed yet, but when I get my tax refund this year—and if I don’t need new brakes or a D&C—you will no longer be able to call me “Snaggletooth.” I am a goddess, and I bet none of you have even made parole yet. So there.)
Oh, yes, and to all of the bosses that fired me from shitty jobs. You know who you are. If I ever have the chance to squeeze another unemployment check out of you or plunder your supply of Post-it Notes, I will briskly seize the opportunity. You have been warned.
With the greatest reverence to Hopkins, who understood everything, who shielded me from the rain on the steps of Tempe Long Wong’s so my dress wouldn’t get wet, and who taught me the most important, honest things I will ever learn. You may be somewhere in the distance, but you are never out of my sight.
Undying gratitude to the Amazing, Incredible, and Marvelous Jenny Bent, to whom I owe a kidney, both eyes, and the ovary that looks the least gray. She unconditionally rules and is tons better than psychotherapy, even with a really good copay. I can never thank her enough.
Thanks to Nina Graybill for going to bat for me over and over again, and a million American Beauty thank-you’s to Pamela Cannon, who took a chance on this supersized dork, and not only because she thought one of my legs was totally shorter than the other. I’m not above embracing pity, so I let her believe it for a minute, but aside from that, she deserves thanks for repeatedly polishing the product of a hunter and pecker, and, EVEN WORSE, a journalism major.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And absolutely, I humbly bow to Idiot Girls everywhere.
We simply rock.
Love,
Laurie
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurie Notaro is a humor columnist for the Arizona Republic at www.azcentral.com. She has been fired from seven jobs (possibly eight) and lives with her first husband and pets (two dogs—a miniature Woo
kie and a lab that makes doody in her sleep—and a cat with no teeth) in the hot, dry dust bowl of Phoenix, Arizona. The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club is her first book.
Copyright © 2002 by Laurie Notaro
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.
Villard and V Circled Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
Villard Books website address: www.villard.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-243-8
v3.0
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