The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach

by Lauren Allison

  “Don’t we meet in big groups?” I asked.

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, horrified. “You are here for private consultation. Groups never work.”

  After I weighed in, she started filling out papers.

  “Tell me, Lauren, what are your weight goals?” Joan smiled encouragingly.

  “To look like Calista Flockhart.” (These thin people need to get real. Doesn’t everyone want to look like Calista Flockhart?)

  “We find that people do better if they set attainable goals.”

  “So Calista is out of the question?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She nodded seriously.

  We settled on my losing twenty pounds. Next, she left me alone to complete a “short survey about my diet lifestyle.”

  Eating Habits

  Question: Of the four food groups, which is your favorite?

  I wrote: Chocolate cake.

  Question: Do you eat three meals a day?M

  I wrote: Minimum.

  Question: Name your three favorite vegetables.

  I wrote: Corn chips, potato chips, and cheese curls (which are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, so I assume that counts).

  Question: Do you have eight glasses of water per day?

  I wrote: I don’t think I’ve had eight glasses of water in the course of my entire life.

  Question: Do you eat while you’re driving?

  I wrote: Besides putting on makeup, what else is there to do?

  I bought a week’s worth of frozen food. After Joan assured me that she had once been overweight herself, I felt encouraged.

  When I ate the first dinner, however, it didn’t satisfy me. I decided to try a different weight-loss center.

  First, I went to Target to see if they had any home liposuction kits. They didn’t. I kept watching the news for stem-cell research reports concerning thin upper arms, but nothing. I had often used prayer as a diet aid, but this time I went to a real church to pray for weight loss. Didn’t lose an ounce.

  I decided to try another program.

  As I approached the clerk at the counter area, I noticed everyone was smiling, helpful, and thin. I was told to weigh in and then join the group in the auditorium.

  “Don’t I get any private counseling?” I inquired.

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, horrified. “Private sessions never work.”

  After we had all settled in, the leader announced we would receive twenty points per day. There was a slide-rule calculator thing to calculate points. This was dangerously close to math, but maybe they had tutors.

  When I returned home, I tried to calculate how many points I had already used up that day, so I’d know how much I could eat for dinner. I kept forgetting to carry a number, so I gave Michael a list of what I had eaten.

  After adding it up he said, “How many points are you allowed each day?”

  I replied, “Twenty.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t plan on eating anything tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ve already had 157 points today.”

  “Oh.” I was crestfallen.

  “And if you can’t eat until today’s points are worked off, you won’t be able to eat until two months from now.”

  Things were looking rather bleak.

  At the next meeting, people were invited to announce how their lives had improved. I announced that I had not lost any weight, but that my math skills were better. That’s more than I could say two weeks ago.

  43

  The Conspiracy Among Men to Be Annoying Just Before You Have Company

  If Woman #1 calls up Woman #2 and finds out that Woman #2 has out-of-town company arriving later that day, Woman #1 immediately says, “Never mind. I’ll call you next week when they’ve left.” Then she hangs up.

  Not so with men. When men find out you have guests coming, it becomes their mission to consume as much of your time as they possibly can. They begin talking slowly, walking slowly—in fact, most of their major organs begin to shut down.

  One evening before Michael’s sister and her family arrived from out of town, I was frantically trying to clean up the house. There were dishes piled up in the sink, the kitchen floor hadn’t been swept, the lightbulb by the front door was out, making it impossible to even find the door, and it goes without saying that the cat had just thrown up on the living-room carpet.

  And then I saw Michael, sitting at the kitchen table, diligently working on something. I said, “What are you doing?”

  He replied, “I’m just filling out a sweepstakes form. We could win a million dollars.”

  Every woman in America knows what I was thinking after he said that, so I don’t need to repeat it here.

  Here’s another example of this annoying behavior: a friend of mine was getting ready to have a bridal shower for her favorite niece. She had prepared a beautiful lunch and placed rented tables throughout the living room. White linen tablecloths, sparkling crystal glasses, and fine off-white china had all been placed meticulously on the five round tables. Just as the first guests were arriving, her soot-covered husband walked into the front entryway and said to her, “You’ll be glad to know that I just cleaned out the fireplace in the living room.”

  I don’t need to tell you what she thought at that moment either, because all of you know what it was.

  And then there was another friend of mine who had recently moved into a new house with her husband. A couple of weeks after they moved in, she was frantically trying to get ready to have guests stay with them. Nothing was ready—the bed hadn’t even been set up in the guest bedroom, not to mention that the guest bathroom had no towels, no soap, no toilet paper, no anything.

  A few hours before the guests were to arrive, my friend said to her husband, “I need help getting the bed set up in the guest bedroom.”

  “Oh,” he replied. “I’m much too busy to help you with that.”

  “Why?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m busy replacing all the dimmer switches in the house.”

  Again, no need to report on what came next.

  When you’re in a hurry to get something done, there is a gene men possess that makes it possible for them to sense this, and then do everything they can to keep you from getting anything done. This is true for men of all ages. Even teenagers.

  For example, on the day I’m expecting guests from out of town, I can always count on running into the “I’m in No Hurry to Go Anywhere” bagger at the supermarket.

  I pay for my groceries and begin walking to the exit, assuming the grocery bagger is following behind me with my cart of groceries. When I reach the door, I turn around and see him standing back at the checkout lane, talking to a fellow bagger. I politely motion to him where I am, and he hollers, “I’ll be right there.”

  I wait a little while and then go back to the checkout stand, where I find him discussing with another bagger whether my groceries show I am following the Atkins or the Zone diet.

  My bagger says, “Tom here thinks you’re on the Atkins Diet, but by the looks of this grocery cart, I’d say you’re more of a Zone person.”

  “You know, I’m in a hurry here. Can we just go now?”

  “I find the lack of carbs in your diet interesting,” the bagger continues, “but you don’t go overboard on protein either. I just can’t figure it out.”

  “I’m on the Whatever I Can Make in Ten Minutes diet since I have company coming in less than an hour.”

  Undeterred, he says, “Recent studies show that cruciferous vegetables are extremely important as part of a healthy diet. I see no broccoli, brussels sprouts, or cauliflower in here.”

  “Look, I don’t have time for this. Just follow me to my car.” I turn and walk toward the door.

  He begins following me, but when I get to the door, I realize I’ve lost him again. My grocery cart is now sitting by a wall, abandoned.

  I go over to get it, and he comes out from a side hallway. “I had to put my c
oat on,” he says, assuming control of the cart once again. “You don’t want me catching cold, do you?”

  I turn and hurry toward the door. He slowly walks behind me, as if he has just begun to regain consciousness after surgery.

  I turn to him and say, “I’m really in a big hurry.”

  Ignoring this statement, he says, “I see you’re buying Goo Gone. What do you need that for?”

  “It’s a long story. Can you walk any faster?”

  He says, “My mother uses that to get price stickers off new dishes and it works very well. Purchased any new dishes lately?”

  “I have, but that’s not what I’m buying it for.”

  “Then how were you able to get the stickers off your new dishes? With most dishes, that’s a difficult thing to do.” He is strolling along as if enjoying a sunset on Maui.

  We finally reach the outside of the store. I practically shout at him. “I am in a hurry.”

  “I’m moving as fast as I can, ma’am. Did you buy the dishes we have on sale? They’re really nice.”

  “I didn’t buy them here.”

  He stops walking. “Why not? Don’t tell me the blue flowers didn’t work for you? As I understand it, they go with most other colors. Didn’t you at least try to make them work?”

  Right then something in me snaps. I grab him by his jacket and push him up against the wall of the store. I then take my grocery cart and run to my car. I get the trunk open, fling the groceries in as fast as I can, and slam the trunk shut. Seeing him heading my way, I aim the cart for him and push it in his direction as hard as I can. I then jump in my car. Before I know it, he taps on my car window. Thinking I might have injured him, I roll down the window.

  He leans in and says, “You wanna see a sample of the blue dishes? I could go back in and get them and show them to you. I’m sure you’d really like them.”

  I push my foot against the gas pedal, so hard in fact that I’m standing almost straight up in the car. I can sense what it would feel like to be psychotic. He continues to talk at my window: “There’s a nice little green stem, too.” Finally, the engine turns over and I rev it up a few times, making sure it won’t die. People begin to stare.

  As I lurch the car forward, the engine dies. He runs forward alongside the car and says, “The pattern on the dishes is a little blue flower, like a little blue bachelor button.”

  I then lurch the car forward again and again as he runs beside me. Finally, I take off. As I look out my rearview mirror I see him running, trying to keep up with me as I tear out of the parking lot.

  Above the roar of my engine, he shouts and waves, “I’ll put some dishes on hold for you. I know you’re really going to like them.”

  44

  The Woman Who Never Loses Her Luggage When She Travels

  I won a twenty-pound turkey from a school raffle one year. I packed the bird, which would feed twenty-five people, in my suitcase and took it with us to my in-laws’ for Christmas.

  We flew into Chicago Midway without any problems, even though I lied when I was asked whether we had anything perishable in our luggage. The turkey wasn’t really perishable at that moment since it was frozen. It wouldn’t start to become perishable until well after the flight, right?

  Of course everyone’s suitcase arrived promptly—except mine. We watched and waited, but no suitcase. Michael became worried when he realized my Christmas present for him was also in that suitcase.

  While we were waiting for the representative in baggage claim to find out what had happened, I noticed a woman who was holding what appeared to be a GPS monitor. Curious, I asked her why she needed it.

  “This is the only reliable way to know where my suitcase is at any given time. The airlines lost my luggage once and they told me it had gone on to Guam, but since I installed a computer chip in it, I was able to calculate the latitude and longitude of my suitcase and found that it was right outside on the tarmac. They went out and looked again, and sure enough, there it was. The start-up cost for a GPS for a suitcase is hefty, but it ends up being worth the expense.”

  This was a woman to be reckoned with.

  Finally, a representative came out and told us that my suitcase had flown on to Idaho, but not to worry, they’d have it to me by the next morning. It was decided they would fly the suitcase to O’Hare, and then deliver it to my in-laws’ home.

  The next afternoon, when the turkey, I mean the suitcase, didn’t arrive, I called the airline. “Oh, they always tell the poor fool it’s going to arrive the next day,” the airline representative laughed hysterically, “but it never does. Call sometime next week.” She hung up.

  “Next week?” I said, thinking of the E. coli poisoning that was about to spread across the United States when my suitcase made contact with other luggage.

  Very early the next morning the phone rang, waking me from a deep sleep during which I was having a nightmare about dealing with the U.S. Health Department. The woman on the phone said, “I’m calling from O’Hare, and I have your suitcase here but I’m afraid I can’t send it to you.”

  “Why not?” I replied in a stupor.

  “Well, I don’t have any record that you ever flew with us.”

  “But you just said that you have my suitcase,” I said.

  “Well, that doesn’t qualify as evidence that you flew with us.”

  “So what do you suppose it means that you have my suitcase?”

  “Well, I need documentation.”

  Then it dawned on me that they had flown the turkey, I mean suitcase, to O’Hare, and that Midway had the documentation. Finally, she believed that the suitcase she had should be sent to me. She then said, “Well, I’ll send your suitcase to you, but I don’t know if I can get it out today or not.”

  So I figured she had it coming. “Say,” I said, “did you happen to notice if there was any blood coming out of that suitcase?”

  She became quiet. She had been pretty verbal up until then. Finally she said nonchalantly, “Why?”

  “Oh, no reason,” I said offhandedly.

  Needless to say, my suitcase arrived at my door within the hour. The turkey was okay except for the legs, which had defrosted slightly. The day after we returned home, my mother-in-law cooked it and served it to some of my father-in-law’s relatives she had never really liked.

  And I decided I would remember to use the “blood coming out of the suitcase” approach again should they ever lose my suitcase in the future. It’s a lot cheaper than a GPS.

  45

  The Woman with the Easily Assembled, Beautifully Lit Christmas Tree

  I just love your Christmas tree,” I said while observing a beautifully decorated tree at my neighbor Kristen’s house. “I wish I could do more around the holidays, but dealing with trees is so time-consuming.”

  Kristen said, “Well, this one is artificial, and the lights are already on it.”

  “You’re kidding! That sounds so great, but my husband loves a live tree.”

  “Well, let him know that the lights are already on; it just comes in two pieces, and then it’s done. My husband liked live trees too, but I ordered this and put it together myself. It was the easiest thing in the world! You can order it from the Easy Holiday Solutions website.”

  The next August, I thought I would get an early start on the holidays, so I ordered a two-piece tree with all white lights from Easy Holiday Solutions. Since our tree always has white lights, I knew Michael would never notice.

  As Christmas approached, Caroline and I decided to assemble the tree. I opened the box and pulled out the bottom half of the tree. Then I reached back into the box and pulled out the other half. I put them together. I said to Caroline, “This is so much easier than the trees Daddy gets.”

  “Mommy, why does our tree look like a Christmas bush?”

  I stood back to look. Our tree did look like a Christmas bush. We had received two bottom halves of a tree. But it was three weeks before Christmas, so we still had plenty of time.


  I called the customer service department and received the following recording: “The elves at Easy Holiday Solutions wish you the very merriest of holidays. We take the stress out of Christmas.” Holiday music came on. As soon as the customer service representative said hello, there was a loud click and my phone went dead.

  I immediately called back and again I heard: “The elves at Easy Holiday Solutions wish you the very merriest of holidays. We take the stress out of Christmas.” The first time, I hadn’t noticed how irritating that high-pitched elf voice was. As soon as the customer service representative said hello, there was a loud click and once again, my phone went dead.

  After two more tries, I finally got ahold of an elf named Blizzard. He sounded a bit irritable. “Order number, please,” he said gruffly. I gave him my order number and explained the problem.

  “Are you sure you have two bottom halves? This has never happened before.”

  “Look”—you little twerp, I thought, as I was feeling a little irritable myself—“I’m sitting here looking at a Christmas bush instead of a Christmas tree. How fast can you get a top half to me?”

  “You’ll have to talk to a supervisor elf for that. Let me get Snowflake.”

  Snowflake came on with the same irritating high-pitched voice.

  I explained the problem again. “Really, I have two bottom halves.”

  Snowflake said, “I can’t imagine you’d make up something that stupid. We’ll send you a top half, but there are a lot of orders in front of you. I can’t guarantee anything by Christmas.” He hung up.

  I was excited when the new box arrived late one afternoon a few days before Christmas. Caroline and I pulled out the new top and placed it on the bottom half. It looked beautiful and the pieces fit together perfectly. This was so easy! Michael was going to be totally fooled! I plugged it in.

  Caroline immediately said, “Mommy, why are the lights on the bottom half of the tree white and the lights on the top half of the tree colored?”

  “Damn those stupid elves,” I thought to myself.

  “Okay, I can do this,” I said, as Caroline went out to make a snowman. “I’ll take the colored lights off the top and replace them with white lights.”