I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool

by Lisa Scottoline

  All I had to do was Google “garter snake ball.”

  Well, you guessed it.

  The snakes were having a ball.

  Literally.

  This mass of mating snakes is called a “mating ball.”

  Apparently I had witnessed the mating ritual of garter snakes, a sight that will turn your stomach or make you jealous, depending on how single a girl you are.

  I’m not that single.

  The bottom line is this time of year, a female snake will come out of hibernation and give off pheromones to attract male snakes. Dozens of male snakes will pick up the scent and attempt to mate with one female. One article said that a matting ball has “up to 25 males per female,” but another article said that the males mate with a single female “in droves.”

  So Susan gets around.

  I hate to slut-shame a snake, but still.

  Sssssslut.

  One article said that a single female will attract so many snakes that “homeowners sometimes think garter snakes are overrunning their neighborhoods.”

  Great.

  I am that homeowner.

  But I don’t think the snakes are overrunning my neighborhood. I think they’re overrunning my garden.

  But wait, it gets worse.

  Garter snakes bear live young, and they give birth to seven to eighty-seven baby snakes.

  WHAT?

  I’m going to have eighty-seven snakes in my front yard? To add to the snake that I already have?

  Not only that, but I researched further and found out that the gestational period for garter snakes is two to three months, so I’m looking forward to a ssssssssssummer of sssssssssnakes.

  But then I read more, and it turns out that the female garter snakes are able to store sperm in their body and fertilize themselves at will.

  This is good news for the female garter snake.

  But bad news for me.

  I’m looking forward to a rolling tide of baby garter snakes as long as Susan decides she likes kids.

  I have no idea what to do about this.

  My reaction got only so far as to write about it, so you can share my horror.

  Because that’s what friends are for.

  My only other thought was how fast can I get a sign at the curb:

  FOR SSSSSSSSSALE.

  Going Where the Weather Suits My Clothes

  Lisa

  I have yoga pants, so sooner or later, it was bound to happen.

  I went to a yoga class.

  And I lived.

  Barely.

  It came about because my friend Nan had started going to yoga, then my friend Paula started going, then all of a sudden every other middle-aged woman I know, all of whom had yoga pants, started going to yoga.

  Yoga pants are the gateway drug to actual yoga.

  I don’t even remember why I got yoga pants in the first place.

  I suspect it had something to do with the elastic waistband.

  Anyway, everybody I know was raving about yoga, and I was feeling very achy and blobby after winter, so I decided to join Nan at her beginner class on Saturday morning.

  I figured, how hard can it be?

  I got dressed in my yoga pants, but then I realized I had no yoga shirt, or basically anything that fits close enough so that when you go upside down it will not reveal your elastic waistband.

  Or your elastic waist.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  I got to the class early because that’s how I am on the first day of school.

  I felt vaguely nervous waiting for everyone in the woo-woo yoga studio, which had a lot of stuff for sale.

  Maybe shopping was the warm-up.

  Unfortunately, the only things they sold were crystals, worry beads, and gluten-and-dairy-free candy bars.

  By which I mean, candy bars without the candy.

  Also I don’t need beads to worry.

  I can worry without accessories.

  I’m a professional worrier.

  It comes with the ovaries.

  Evidently, new-age gifts don’t appeal to me, in my old age.

  There was only one thing for sale that tempted me, and it was called Be Happy Mist. It was a small spray bottle of clear fluid that claimed to “restore peace, ease suffering, and clear negative emotions.”

  The sign said, “Do you want to be happier?”

  I thought it was a trick question.

  It’s hard to imagine you could be any happier than wearing a pair of pants with no waistband.

  It was also safe for “adults, children, pets, and plants.”

  Which is quite something.

  I don’t think it’s possible to restore peace among my pets.

  And my plants come with negative emotions.

  Because my garden is growing snakes.

  So I didn’t buy anything while I waited for the teacher to arrive, but in time she did and so did Nan, and we introduced ourselves, went to a pretty room, and immediately started what is called the “practice.”

  Unfortunately, I should have practiced for the practice.

  The very first thing we did was lie down on a mat on our back, reach our hands over our heads, and try to curve our bodies into the shape of a C, to the right and to the left.

  Which was impossible.

  The most I got was a backslash.

  I couldn’t make a C on either side, and at one point while I was trying, I actually fell down, which is incredible because I was already on the floor.

  Ten minutes later, we had gone through an array of poses, or stretching exercises, and I couldn’t do any of them. I was sweating, burping, and cursing.

  In my mind.

  Profanity is unwelcome in a yoga studio.

  Also farting.

  I held it in.

  Correction, them in.

  Really, all that squeezing toned my butt.

  Maybe that’s how yoga works?

  My muscles wiggled if I tried to hold a position, and the instructor said you were supposed to time your breathing to the stretching, which was when I realized I was holding my breath, probably trying to pass out so they would call 911 and rescue me from class.

  All the poses had names, like Downward Dog, which was named by someone who never met a dog, since all of mine are Upward Dogs.

  And when we came to Happy Baby pose, I wanted to give up because I felt like such an Unhappy Baby.

  But I stayed with it, and when class was over, I noticed my back had stopped hurting.

  My ego was bruised, but that’s nothing new.

  So I’m going back for a second class.

  Namaste.

  Brain Freeze

  Francesca

  I’m being gaslighted by my refrigerator.

  For months, I’d been suspicious of my freezer, specifically that it’s thawing and refreezing my food. A bag of frozen peas, once loose and flexible, is transmuted into a solid block of bumpy ice by the time I go to cook them. No matter how many times I’ve sneaked “just a spoonful” from a pint of ice cream—yes, living alone rules—the ice cream’s surface will be rendered smooth and flat, the evidence of my nibbling erased.

  “Maybe I didn’t break my diet after all,” I’d say to myself the next night I opened the container.

  Add “enabler” to my list of grievances.

  But I procrastinated on calling an appliance-repair company. After all, I wasn’t completely sure it was broken.

  Until I went on vacation. Upon return, I opened the fridge and was hit with a putrid stench. The interior of the fridge was balmy, and the food inside looked like a science experiment.

  Through the nausea, I felt validated.

  The repairman who examined it said the ‘temperature regulator’ needed to be replaced. I explained my prior concerns about the freezer, and he said it was likely the cause of that, too. I paid for the service and the new part.

  But a few weeks later, my freezer was slowing down again—this time I was certain. My shrinking ice
cubes looked like the victim of global warming, missing only a tiny polar bear waving a white flag.

  Even my bag of Ezekiel bread was sweating like a whore in church.

  Thankfully, the repair service had a ninety-day guarantee, and this was less than a month later. I called, and they sent out a different repairman.

  I caught the new guy up to speed. He opened the freezer.

  “Feels cold to me.”

  You pay extra for the expertise.

  “It’s cold now, but it’s not maintaining a freezing temperature. Look, I’m not crazy.” I brought out Exhibit A, a box of fruit pops, and showed him how each popsicle was a wonky shape, half off its stick, its cellophane bag filled with red goo.

  He pinched the popsicle between his fingers. “That’s frozen.”

  “But look at it. It clearly melted at some point.”

  “They could have been like that when you bought them.”

  “No, they were fine before.”

  “How could I know that for sure?”

  “Because … I’m telling you. It’s the reason I knew something was wrong. It’s why I called you.” I was so bewildered by his skepticism, I actually laughed. “Do you think I’m lying?”

  He smirked and shrugged, like that was a definite possibility.

  Women, am I right? Always crying wolf for refrigerator-attention.

  It was like I had slipped down a wormhole of retro gender dynamics. I stood barefoot and helpless in my kitchen while a man patronizingly explained how I don’t know what I know.

  “A freezer cycles to maintain its temperature. That’s how a thermostat works.”

  Dude, don’t mansplain cycles to a woman.

  “Cycles to the point where things melt? I swear, it’s malfunctioning. This happened before the fridge broke down a few weeks ago, and it’s doing it again. Can you think what might cause that?”

  He threw up his hands. Then he began writing something on his clipboard.

  At this point the only thing icing over was me. “So you don’t know how to fix it.”

  “I can’t fix something that isn’t broken.” He tore off a sheet and handed it to me. It was a bill.

  I explained that this was still under the last repair’s warranty.

  “The warranty is for the repair, not the service call.”

  “Right, but the last repair didn’t work. My fridge is broken again, hence this service call.”

  “Only the part we replaced is guaranteed, it still works.”

  Ah yes, the ‘temperature regulator.’ Works like a charm.

  But this was bizarro-world, where up is down and hot is cold.

  I handed over my credit card so I could get this guy out of my apartment and return to sanity.

  The truth is, the fridge is nearly fifteen years old, I don’t want to put any more money into it. I’ve decided I’m going to buy a new one entirely.

  Soon.

  I’ve continued to live with my freezer, convinced it’s not safe to eat anything from, but reluctant to pull the trigger on buying a new one. Why?

  Now it’s in my head—what if I am crazy?

  Leave a Tip

  Lisa

  There’s a new restaurant in London and you go there to eat naked.

  I’m not making this up.

  This restaurant hasn’t even opened yet but it’s already getting major attention, and not for the food. I went to the restaurant’s website and it didn’t even have a menu posted.

  Food isn’t the point, would be my guess.

  Like nobody complains about the plot in porn. Even though there’s never a twist and the ending is always happy.

  Step up your game, pornographers.

  You might think you would never go to a naked restaurant, but it has a waiting list of thirty thousand.

  I’m not exaggerating, for once.

  The restaurant is called The Bunyadi, and I’m not sure what a bunyadi is, but let’s pretend it’s something usually covered by your underwear.

  So this is a restaurant where you bring your own bunyadi.

  B.Y.O.B.

  And you and your bunyadi eat completely naked, in an area the restaurant calls “pure.”

  I would call it “hairy,” “smelly,” and “vaguely unsanitary.”

  But that’s just me.

  There’s also a “non-naked” section, where the stiffs sit.

  Or presumably, the less stiff.

  I don’t know, it’s kind of confusing.

  I think you’re allowed to put your napkin in your lap.

  In fact, you’d better.

  Still, I would never go to a naked restaurant. I don’t want anyone to see me eating naked. In fact, I don’t want anybody to see me sitting down naked. I own an entire wardrobe of shirts and sweaters to hide what I really look like when I sit down, because of my rolls.

  If I ate at a naked restaurant, I’d have to hide my rolls behind the rolls.

  In fact, my rolls are the first thing I’d want to hide, not my breasts or my bunyadi.

  I bet I’m not alone in this, as a middle-aged woman.

  Am I right, sisters?

  Aren’t our rolls keeping Chico’s in business?

  If every girl’s best friend is an elastic waistband, every girl’s other best friend is the insanely blousy shirt that goes over it to hide our rolls.

  I’ve seen it called Goddesswear, which is as good a euphemism as any.

  It’s really clothes for women who have better things to do than sit-ups.

  Me.

  I shudder to imagine a world where all the restaurants turn naked.

  It would be a disaster for middle-aged women.

  All of a sudden, we’d start cooking like fiends.

  Like we used to when we were feeding families or had something to prove.

  Back when we cared.

  Do you remember those days?

  I don’t.

  Maybe the way you feel about a naked restaurant depends on whether you have an awesome body or not.

  And if you remember the days of the smoking section, you’re probably not in the smoking-hot section.

  Naked restaurants would be a disaster for middle-aged men too, but men are never ashamed of their bodies, even when they should be.

  Just saying, gentlemen.

  It’s a scientific fact that mirrors don’t work for men.

  Or on the contrary, maybe they do.

  Because a man will look at a mirror and think he looks great, no matter what he looks like, and a woman will look in a mirror and think she looks terrible, no matter what she looks like.

  So clearly, the problem is mirrors.

  What are they up to?

  Anyway, to stay on point, I wouldn’t go to a naked restaurant because I don’t want to see anyone eating naked.

  Nobody looks good when they’re eating, whether their bunyadi is showing or not.

  The proof is on CNN. Political candidates look dumb when they eat, and even though Hillary Clinton declined to eat in front of the cameras in New York, she couldn’t stop eyeing the cheesecake.

  That would be me.

  It’s not nudity that turns me on, it’s food.

  In other words, my cheesecake is cheesecake.

  Scrambled Eggs

  Lisa

  The hits just keep on coming at the Scottoline farm, where the animals outnumber the people.

  They like it that way.

  I don’t, especially when I wonder who’s running the joint. The only thing I’m sure of is who’s paying the bills.

  Right now the chickens are in charge.

  Because bottom line, they’re not producing any eggs.

  Neither am I, but that’s another subject. No one’s counting on me for breakfast.

  The chickens have no excuse. They still have estrogen.

  By the way, my chickens might not be laying eggs, but my snakes are.

  Ssssssensational.

  In fact, just today I found a molted snakeskin in the garden.


  Don’t you hate it when your snakes leave their clothes around?

  To return to the story, one day my chickens stopped laying eggs, which bugged me.

  Ingrates.

  They have it great, in that they’re a small flock of fifteen and they live in a big wooden coop.

  For free.

  They also have a large outdoor run, so they can exercise.

  Like a gym that you actually use.

  Also, it takes work to keep chickens, in that their coop has to be cleaned, and they have to be fed and given fresh water, so the least they could do is squeeze out an egg or two every day, like they used to before they started slacking.

  By the way, don’t get the idea that I do all the work for the chickens, because I hire someone to do that, as I am too busy and/or lazy, and if you think it’s easy to pay people to do all the work you are too busy/lazy to do, you need to think again.

  Slackers!

  But then one day, I went to the coop, noticed some broken eggshells, and realized that the chickens were laying eggs—but eating them themselves.

  They were the Hannibal Lecters of chickens.

  Hennibal Lechters!

  This had never happened before, and I had no idea what to do about it. I started checking the coop twice a day, trying to beat the chickens to the eggs, but they won every time.

  I can’t outsmart a chicken.

  Still wanna read my books?

  I did some research online, and it said that chickens could develop a habit of eating their own eggs and the only way to break them of it was by mixing some eggs with Tabasco sauce, pouring the eggs back into an eggshell, and returning it to the henhouse.

  So I did that.

  Yes, I made eggs for chickens.

  I made food for what other people think is food.

  Plus I delivered it to them like room service.

  Remind me again who’s ruling the roost.

  Anyway, it didn’t work. The chickens ate even more eggs, and I got the distinct impression that they would’ve also enjoyed a side of home fries, buttered wheat toast, and a cup of hot coffee.

  I went back to the Internet, where it said you could also try training them not to eat their eggs by replacing their eggs with golf balls.

  Fore!

  So I dug up some of my golf balls from last year’s lessons and put them in the coop, but the next thing that happened was that the hens began fighting over which one got to sit on the golf balls.