We Thought You Would Be Prettier

by Laurie Notaro

  I joined the Y. In hindsight, it may not have been the best idea I’ve ever had, considering my aversion to the nudity of strangers in close proximity to myself. Take, for example, the day that I was quietly washing my hands in the bathroom attached to the locker room when suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a naked lady standing next to me, leaning over the sink to get a closer look in the mirror as she ladled on her mascara. I looked at her for a moment and actually debated saying something, because, really, if you’re exerting enough effort to apply makeup, couldn’t you just go the extra mile and slap on a bra? Some panties, perhaps? Why was I forced to share breathing space with foreign nipples? Needless to say, the parts of her that should have remained private were entirely all too public, and as she leaned even closer to get a better view of her very own eye, her hinterlands were becoming quite familiar with the sink and soiling it for me forever. From that moment on, every time I spied something black and thin and curly on the floor, even if it was a thread or the plastic stem from a price tag, I’d nod my head and shudder like my skin was about to fall off. I don’t care what your views of public nudity are, a random pube encounter is never a welcome one, no matter who you are. However, I kept my observations and conclusions to myself, and as long I wasn’t forced to use the dirty sink the Naked Mascara Woman had vagina-ized, I was relatively okay.

  Other than that, I loved it. I loved the Y. I tried to go every day, and after a while, people even started to know me—like the receptionist, the weight-trainer guy, and all of the other regulars who went the same time I did. They weren’t exactly my friends. I mean, we didn’t take Gatorade breaks together. But I’ve learned in my life that if you just keep waving at someone no matter how blankly they look at you, eventually they start to wave back.

  Now, my days at the Y started with me putting my stuff in a locker, getting a towel, and going to work on the treadmill. If I was lucky, a trashy talk show would be on the big screen at the front of the gym and I’d get to watch the bottom of the barrel push each other around on a stage as I continually pushed my glasses back up my perspiring nose and trudged along.

  One day I decided after I got off the treadmill that I would give the exercise bike a shot. It wasn’t a spinning sort of bike, more like the motorcycle Dennis Hopper rode in Easy Rider, with long handlebars that arched up in front of the big bucket seat, and holding on to them put my hands up almost level with my ears. True, it wasn’t a sexy image, and I rather looked like I was riding a Big Wheel, but listen, I was at the Y and didn’t think I’d need to be impressing an audience. Being that the bike was stationed right along a huge glass wall that looked out over the parking lot and not the big-screen TV, I took my glasses off and set them on the console of the bike and started pedaling away. It was hard work, but I was determined to do a full half hour, not just to see if I could, but also to sweat away my ankles’ spare tires, and because an old Polish man with a pelt instead of a back was lying on the weight-lifting bench without a shirt on, getting it nice and gross for everybody else, and the weight-trainer guy was going ballistic.

  While I was watching the fight develop—the weight-trainer guy explaining the “shirts-only policy” and the Polish man accusing the weight-trainer guy of accusing him of being dirty, so that the Polish guy invited the weight-trainer guy to smell him to prove that he was not—a line of students had begun to gather on the other side of the glass wall. It was summer, and it made sense to me that there was probably something of a day camp at the Y. The line began to grow, and within a few minutes, there were male students all along the glass wall, laughing, joking, and chiding each other.

  That was when several of them noticed me. Which was fine, I can be friendly, I can play along. A group of middle-school-aged boys waved to me. So I waved back. Then they pretended to ride a bike, and, naturally, they placed their hands up by their ears since I was on the retardo bike, which I knew, sure, but it’s another thing to have it pointed out to you by a twelve-year-old that you’re a spaz. But whatever. Okay, fine, I thought, it’s funny, I’m a clown on the circus bike, yeah, okay, I laughed back, made a goofy little look on my face. They laughed.

  We were all entertained.

  Well, almost all of us.

  Apparently, that wasn’t enough for one of the boys in this silent little repartee. Making fun of the fat lady with the swollen water-balloon ankles on the dork bike just wasn’t enough.

  Instead of being satisfied with the little chuckle we had all had, one of the middle schoolers, with his hand, made a gesture that’s very common for boys his age, particularly when they’re in a bathroom. By themselves.

  I’m sure I was visibly shocked, since I gasped and said, then mouthed, “Oh my God, stop that!”

  That, however, was the wrong thing to do. Because instead of being embarrassed by his rather graphic hand movements, because even though I didn’t have my glasses on, I knew he certainly wasn’t churning imaginary butter—instead of being ashamed the way a polite, adult-respecting child on any program on Nickelodeon would be, the kid and his friends laughed even harder, hitting each other on the back like it was a football game and they had just scored a touchdown, and then, through the glass, the nasty one pointed at me.

  Fine, I thought to myself, as my knees grazed by my ears on the next revolution, our fun little game is over. You had to turn it dirty. A little clean, lighthearted-old-chunky-lady fun just wasn’t enough for you. You had to make it about that. You had to make it about that.

  Fine, I continued thinking to myself. I’m just going to ride this bike faster, harder, I’m going to turn my anger at you into energy! That might have been a wise move if I’d been born more coordinated, or with any coordination aside from the niblet it takes to chew and swallow, or sit down, because as I was building up to my fury speed—furious enough that I could have powered all of Gilligan’s Island—my legs were so consumed with going faster that they couldn’t handle communicating to each other about who was doing what, and with the entirety of the line outside watching me, my excited foot freaked out and slipped over the pedal, lurching me forward onto the frame of the bike, and as the pedal whipped around in another rotation, it sliced my big fat calf right up the middle.

  This, of course, was better, far better, than if that line of boys had been watching an Adam Sandler movie and someone was hit with a turd (of course, I would have laughed at that, too), and one of them laughed so hard he had to pull out an inhaler.

  After I saw that, yes, indeed, I was bleeding, I looked up to the glass wall and saw that the severity of my gym-bike injury had not in any way diminished the laughter that was breaking out just on the other side of the wall. In fact, it had perhaps exaggerated the situation, because the boy who was minutes ago pretending to be merely servicing himself was now acting out a complete scene from a porno movie, complete with a partner who was invisible.

  Now, I have to admit that I’m not very seasoned about how to respond to situations such as this. I mean, I had never really openly discussed at a cocktail party what the appropriate avenue of response is when an eighth-grader is performing the denouement of Krakahoa: Bare With Me for your benefit, but I think it’s safe to say that all ability to reason at this point had crashed with me on the stationary bike, and manic instinct took over.

  I had had enough. Stationary-bike rage had me in its grasp and I did the only thing I could do.

  I flipped him off, that filthy, nasty preteen, I flipped him off. It wasn’t the right thing to do, I know that, it’s just what bubbled to the surface. It just happened.

  That actually did stop him for a minute. I guess he had never had a fat-ankled, sweaty, bleeding lady flip him the finger before. But, then again, he had never met me.

  And I understood that all too well when I grabbed my towel, got off the bike, put on my glasses, and realized that I had not really been involved in a hostile, aggressive dialogue of less-than-savory blue sign language with a surly, triple-X-minded eighth-grader, but a surly, triple-X-minded eig
ht-year-old.

  I gasped again. I couldn’t believe what I had done—now, clearly, with the benefit of corrective lenses—I had become something of a child abuser. I had just flashed an obscene gesture to a second-grader, and sure, that was one of the more mundane things we had seen during this exchange, but still. I was a horrible person. Then, the mere child made the “peace” sign with his fingers, a gesture I took to suggest a mutual truce, so I returned the gesture, slowly and softly, with a sad smile. He had, obviously, realized he had gone too far, and certainly, so had I. I was sorry, too. I was so sorry. At least that’s what I was thinking until a moment later when he raised the peace sign up to his mouth and then stuck his tongue through the middle of it, wiggling it around like a serpent.

  For a moment I almost flipped him off again, but instead I said, “You are a disgusting little boy!” and whipped around to walk out of the gym and get out of there.

  But, you know, the possibility of a clean getaway never crossed my mind until I turned around and saw that the Polish guy and the weight-trainer guy had halted their “smell me” argument in order to watch the crazy fat-ankle lady at her best, yelling at the small, little boys behind the glass who were at the Y for an educational day of summer camp and telling them how repugnant they were; the receptionist was staring at me, mouth agape, while her phone went crazy; and no eyes were on the daytime talk show, and there were midgets on. Nope, all eyes were on me, StairMaster, rowing machine, treadmill, everyone on the real bikes. Me.

  Looking at me.

  I really did think for a minute about explaining the situation, about how it had all started so innocent and nice and fresh and then the next thing I knew, the little boy had turned into Ron Jeremy and I felt like I was in a Vivid video and before it was over I had flipped off a child I had clearly mistaken for a nearly grown man, I really did. I thought about that.

  But in probably what was my wisest idea of the day, I abandoned that thought and headed straight for the locker room, where I opened my locker, grabbed my stuff, noticed three aberrant pubic hairs near the sink, and then fled, never to return.

  And that is how I ended up in Sears seriously considering spending my Europe money on a treadmill—not that I had actually planned on going to Europe on $800, but thought that if I mentioned it enough times to the seventeen-year-old salesman he might take pity on me and give me a deal.

  “It’s just sooo much money,” I whined again.

  “Why don’t you just join another Y?” the sales kid said. “There’s more than one in this town, you know.”

  I shook my head. “I heard something about posters being put up,” I said quietly. “Apparently, there are cameras at the Y.”

  “Well, I don’t want to pressure you, but I’m going on break in ten minutes,” the sales kid said.

  “Fine,” I said. “Fine, fine, I’ll take it. You worked for that commission, I’ll tell you!”

  “You could have done the same thing with a priest,” he commented.

  “When can I get the treadmill delivered?” I asked, eager to get back on schedule.

  “Next week looks good,” he replied.

  “Perfect,” I agreed. “Here’s the credit card. But before I go, could you point me to the big-screen TVs?”

  Don’t You Know Who I Am?

  I’m afraid I’ve been a victim of identity theft.

  Apparently, I’ve been identified as an impotent old man with a weenie the size of a golf pencil who is too cheap to buy cable, has a wife who may be cheating on him, trailer-park credit, an identity that may have been stolen, and many, many maladies.

  That’s the only explanation I can figure out for the amount of junk e-mail I get on a daily basis hawking bottles of Central American “Vibagra,” enlargement accessories for certain body regions promising that “When Your [sic] this BIG they call you MISTER,” really cheap mortgage rates, and software promising to find “ANYTHING about ANYBODY!!”

  Well, it’s the latter I know I’m certainly not purchasing, because if their software was really that good they could have easily discovered that I was not a frustrated man with a limp noodle and past due account at a Rent-to-Own joint; I’m a girl with excessively high blood pressure, a freak show for a family, and a credit rating that has completed rehab who got the same stupid junk mail day after day after day for months. I mean, if they really knew me, if they really cared, I’d be getting junk mail for Anna Nicole Lose-Half-Your-Body pills, medical equipment, a spot on Jerry Springer, and anger-management videos.

  Not to mention that these spam e-mails are just simply unfair to women. Goddamn it, spam makes me wish I had a penis! With all of these irresistible offers served up to me on a plate, I WANT A PENIS NOW!!!! Day after day after day I am taunted by the fact that God left one off of me and decided to give me a stupid, worthless uterus instead. How lucky the penis-bearing population is to be able to take advantage of such incredible offers as “Nothing to lose; inches to gain!!” and offers to “Make Your TOOL a WEAPON!” with a massive supply of Honduran “Vibagra” for the unbelievable price of only $79 if purchased from a Central American country with no pharmaceutical quality control. I mean, come on, we like bargains as much as the next guy, you know. How mean is it to flaunt an unbelievable deal in front of a woman’s face and know we can’t do a thing about it? Honestly, when I see an opportunity to turn my sex pistol into an AK-47 for $79 full well knowing that I can max out my Visa in hopes of Hilton-sister sex experience that is never gonna happen, that is nothing less than tragic. There in my inbox are deals simply too good to pass up, yet I must, yet I must. I want to be called MISTER, my inner penis wants to shout, I want to be that BIG!!!

  Now, I’ve changed my e-mail address no less than six times, have a Yahoo account for the sole purpose of registration purposes on websites, and still, still, the spammers find me. It’s nothing short of CIA-level sleuthing, I swear, and because of that I’m amazed that Osama bin Laden still hasn’t been located. I mean, really, if that bearded bundle of joy has a laptop and access to a Hotmail account, there’s a guy out there somewhere who’s trying to sell him a mammoth-sized evildoer winky and knows where he is.

  The thing I have trouble with the most is that with any endeavor, if there are no takers, there’s no business, which means that someone is anxiously waiting by his mailbox at this very minute for a package addressed to “They call him MISTER.” Once again, it’s the bottom of the barrel that ruins it for everybody, as exemplified by the popularity of the still-on-the-air sitcom Yes, Dear, NASCAR, Julia Roberts, and the return of leg warmers as an accessory.

  Who is buying this stuff? Frankly, I like to think I know a red flag when I see one, but an offer to take out a thirty-year loan with someone who spells their chosen profession as “morgich” would be akin to not only seeing a red flag, but seeing a red flag with the word “SUKKER” pitifully scrawled across it. Can anyone tell me why on earth I would even consider buying a satellite-TV descrambler from a spammer named Rusty Hooker, or “City Lips,” an exciting new alternative to getting collagen lip injections that actually “makes your lips grow!!” My lips can’t grow! I could probably stretch them with the frame of a satellite dish or take out a second morgich for some plastic surgery, but my lips are not redwoods. They’ve reached their white-girl, paper-thin potential and they aren’t getting any bigger on their own until the rest of my teeth fall out. And then there’s my ultimate favorite, an irresistible, once-in-a-lifetime chance to purchase the “Most Effective Spam Filter on the Market Today!” Spammers have filled the thin, narrow space in mankind somewhere in between crystal meth dealers and the Bush administration. Honestly, on the evolutionary scale, crack dealers have a higher scum status, since they generally don’t come into your house trying to sell you stuff unless you call them first, and spammers rank higher than our government because after you give them your money, at least there’s a chance that you might actually get a satellite dish in the mail.

  Most of us just highlight, click, and
delete, that’s true, but that’s also caused spammers to get crafty and creative with strategies to make us look. You see, if direct e-mail marketers can’t get your attention in the subject line of an e-mail by promising to make you a millionaire while you work at home, if they can’t force you to look twice in the hope that you will lose seventy pounds in a month with a magic diet pill, if they can’t lure you to double-click by tempting you with sultry ladies in the buff, well, then they’ll just do the next best thing.

  They’ll become your best friend. Literally.

  For a while there, I was even getting spam from myself. I’ve received several spam e-mails from “laurienotaro,” and unless I’m sleepwalking at night and hoofing it to another job or have a multiple personality inhabiting my body who is selling sex-instruction videotapes as a livelihood, something smells a little stinky, and for once it’s not my dog, despite her new “sensitive stomach” food.

  Surely, someone would have to be pretty desperate to want to impersonate ME. I’m past due on my digital cable bill, get caught singing in the car all the time, and it looks as if my diet is beginning to wear off and I’m almost able to fit into my fat clothes again. I don’t even want to be me! Aside from that, why would I send myself an e-mail when I could just tell myself the same thing and shave that many keystrokes off of my eventual onset of carpal tunnel syndrome? Besides, I know me, and if I’m selling instructional sex tapes, you’d do yourself a favor by keeping that credit card in your wallet. I can’t fool me! I happen to know that you could probably get better tips looking at cave paintings than watching a dirty movie with me in it. Honestly, I think the only people that spammers can fool with this trick of sending you e-mail with your own name on it is Naomi Campbell and maybe Elizabeth Hurley, who would probably squeal with delight that someone so fabulous, popular, and beautiful would be e-mailing them in the first place.