Wow, No Thank You.

by Samantha Irby

  Add flour to the Dutch oven and cook, stirring occasionally, for two minutes. Add the milk, the canned tomatoes and juice, and the broth, then bring to a simmer. Add the cooked pasta and 11/2 cups of the cheese and stir to combine. Season it to your liking. Sprinkle with what’s left of the cheese, then bake in the oven until it’s bubbly and browned on top, twenty-five to thirty minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool for five minutes before you serve it so you don’t burn your goddamn taste buds off.

  Then you eat it, preferably out of a plastic shatter-proof bowl. I’m not an expert, but kids love this shit. It’s just fancy Hamburger Helper! It’s not even good for you; it just seems like an upgrade because you had to cut up some vegetables to make it. And children love it! I once made it for a post-soccer “can all my friends come over?” kind of party, which was very scary, because there were now an exponential number of tiny brains floating around waiting to soak up all the colorful combinations of swear words pouring out of my mouth as I get steam burns and accidentally cut my hands. Also, what if they had decided to band together and rise up and overtake me? A gussied-up meat-and-cheese soup was not going to save me! How would I bat ten pairs of cleated feet away from my precious face? It didn’t matter, because they happily gobbled it up. Kid tested, evil stepmother approved.

  I bought a car, because you have to have a car in the Midwest. Only, when you live with children, you don’t need a car as much as you need to have a ROLLING VEHICLE FILLED WITH MISCELLANEOUS SHIT FOR THEM TO SPILL FOOD IN. The last car I owned ten-plus years ago was almost as old as I was. It had a tape deck and no heat or air-conditioning, and its most impressive feature was ~very fancy~ automatic seatbelts that could decapitate you if you weren’t paying attention when you got in the seat and shut the door. If I came to pick you up, there was no working horn to honk. I’d have to double park in the middle of the street, because there is never a spot anywhere you need one, and ring your buzzer until you yelled into the intercom that you were coming down, while a line of furious drivers spewing creative strings of curse words formed behind my car on your one-way street (FUCKING CHICAGO). Then, after I’d circled your block a few times or put my hazards on in a nearby alley, you’d come down and have to climb over gooey bowls of half-eaten cereal, an extra pair of shoes for the club, and a self-defense crowbar just to get in. Then I’d drive us to dinner bumping Smokey Robinson on V103 with the windows partially down no matter the season, because they did not roll all the way up. I’d self-park in a sketchy lot two blocks away from our destination because I was too embarrassed (and also poor!) to explain the literal wreck I was driving to the valet while paying him in dimes: “You have to pump the gas six times, then you really gotta lean on the ignition when you try to start it, then immediately put it in neutral for at least six minutes.”

  That was back in the good old days, before time ravaged my body and spirit. I swore that if I ever got another car, especially one that hadn’t come off the lot of a combination car dealer/burrito stand, I would keep it pristine and full of both oil and coolant. No more changing my own windshield wipers in the parking lot of an AutoZone, no more buying bald tires from dudes who just happened to have one lying around the garage, no more climbing in my own trunk with a Dustbuster I’d “borrowed” from work. I was going to take care of this new car better than I had anything else I’d ever owned, including my body and pets. When my old car died in the middle of Lunt Avenue on a Sunday morning because it needed a new alternator (a what, now?), I walked away from car ownership and spent years riding late-ass buses and overcrowded, sweaty trains, grocery shopping with a camping backpack so I could lug my food home on foot, and negotiating with cab drivers outside the Target in Uptown about whether or not they could fit an entire dining set into the back of a Crown Vic. And that’s fine, you do what the fuck you have to do, but that’s the baggage I dragged into the car dealership with me one day after moving to Kalamazoo, the baggage that dissolved under the watchful eye of Eric the Used Honda Salesman, in the armpit sweat that soaked my T-shirt during the test drive he forced me to go on. I would’ve bought the car without his demonstrating the moon roof on a busy fucking highway, but I digress.

  I put a down payment on this car, a used Honda CR-V, which is the single most expensive purchase I have made in my life other than the many uninsured medical procedures I have paid for out of pocket. I’m excited and also scared. I drive it home in awe of all the knobs and buttons that aren’t already smeared with another human being’s sebum. There are no salt-crusted mittens jammed next to the seatbelt or warm bottles of Diet Coke rolling under the driver’s seat. My car is empty and clean, and I make a silent promise that I will always keep it that way no matter what. I am going to buy weatherproof floor mats and go to the car wash every week and do responsible shit like “winterize” it, even though I don’t really know what that means. Eric sees me off with a wave, proud dad style, and I try not to back into any of the newer, nicer cars in the lot, because it’s stressful when somebody is watching you drive.

  It’s a beautiful day and I connect my phone to the Bluetooth, which wasn’t even an available technology the last time my name was on a car title, and then I pull into the driveway feeling like a real adult, my nostrils filled with that glorious new car smell, the triumph of my personal check having been accepted at the dealership rolling off me in waves, and immediately my lady flings open the gunmetal metallic (their words, not mine) doors and just starts filling the car with … MOM SHIT.

  I got out and stood there horrified as she expertly, in seconds, stashed mason jars filled to their brims with bulk nuts and sugar-free trail mix in every hidden cup holder and secret cubby hole; bundles of reusable grocery bags, some with actual farmers’ market dirt littering their bottoms; picnic blankets and bungee cords and bike pumps and maps; a first-aid kit and jumper cables; a fanny pack–looking thing that clips to the visor filled with “important papers.” I sank to the ground in the yard, helpless, watching in slack-jawed horror as my New Clean Thing was defiled by grimy soccer cleats and a skateboard. Bitch, I don’t ride a fucking skateboard! Why are you putting one in my fucking car?! She smiled with all her teeth as she cheerfully stuffed both seatback pockets with granola bars, and not the good Quaker kind with candy and shit, but the nasty health kind that taste like dog biscuits. “What are you doing to my car?!” I yelped. I could make out a trail of oats and chia seeds or whatever the fuck this bitch eats dotting the passenger seat of my rapidly devaluing New-ish Clean-ish Car, and my throat constricted. She paused in the middle of trying to shove a Costco-size package of tissues into the center console and smiled at me even harder. “What do you mean, babe? This is a family car!!”

  I don’t tell these kids a whole lot about myself, because, listen, I’m not sure what is and isn’t good for them to know about a greasy old dirtbag who spent ten years writing about her pussyhole on the Internet. When you know you are eventually going to have or raise a kid, you have years to start getting your shit together, i.e., burying your real self under a bunch of arbitrary rules and a fictional explanation of your past. You don’t have to tell them about that time you choked on your own beer vomit in high school; you can just say, “Don’t drink.” Okay, wait, there are laws that prohibit underage drinking. How about this better example: your kids don’t have to know that your room was so disgusting that mushrooms grew in your closet sophomore year; you can just say, “CLEAN YOUR ROOM,” and look like a good, caring parent without ever divulging your past. And your kids just trust you, you know, because you’re their mom.

  Every book and movie and country song about stepparents is fucking TERRIBLE. No one is ever like, “Wow, this new bitch fucking my dad is so nice. I love her so much. I would never even think about murdering her.” It’s always: “Damn, the dude from Nip/Tuck moved in with Richard Kimble’s dead wife and now they are fighting each other with knives!!” These fictional stepmoms sweep in, seduce the defenseless widowers with their lies and charm, then lock the child
ren in a tower and make them sew clothes with talking rats for eternity. There is literally no* depiction of stepmothers that doesn’t make us seem like bloodthirsty monsters, and while that description is the embodiment of everything my heart strives to be, in reality I understand that once I inevitably have a stroke,† these kids might be the ones in charge of whatever home my body is deposited in, so it would serve me to be nice.

  *

  It took me a long time to even decide to get married because just setting up a life with another consenting adult is a harrowing enough decision. (We still don’t share a bank account, because, look, I have plenty of shame by my damn self and I don’t need somebody seeing how much I actually spend on magazines; plus, there’s all the other shit you have to consider before taking the eternal plunge, like, “Do we agree on essential condiments?”) Then you factor the kids into it, and that adds an even trickier set of questions. At least for me. Because I’m not a parent, I had no desire to ever be a parent, and up until now I never thought I would have little eyes watching everything I do, which is mostly nothing. I am self-conscious, and I hate for anyone to be watching me, and kids notice every-fucking-thing. I don’t need these young, impressionable people out in the world quoting Mike Epps’s stand-up and saying “bitch” all the time, which are two things I very much enjoy doing, especially while talking on the phone to all my old bitches back home. I am 100 percent not concerned with helping the children chart a course through life. They have white parents who understand interest rates for that! But I do think a lot about how many times they might have overheard me watching The Hateful Eight at top volume on the big TV in the back room and shudder.

  I’m not a monster. I know how to keep my shit in check when in front of a son-of-a-bitching child, okay? I just don’t want to accidentally teach one how to ignore a parking ticket or that you can actually survive on jalapeño Doritos and smoothies for days at a time. What kind of role model am I if I literally show them how you can watch TV all day and still occasionally make money and contribute to society? Or that it really doesn’t matter if you eat dessert before dinner? I’m nice to the animals and I have a lot of fun gadgets, but I listen to the classic rock station in the car instead of NPR. Am I a bad influence? I have a lot of plastic soap bottles in the shower, and I don’t always remember to compost my banana peels and eggs. Will this negatively affect the futures of two youths who don’t even know my middle name?

  They are not allowed to read my books. I refuse to expose them to my scumbag friends, and if they had to name three facts about me, I have no idea what they’d say other than “she likes mango vitaminwater,” which they only know about because they know they aren’t allowed to drink mine. Is that bad? My sister sent us an Easter card last month, and they were like: “SAM HAS A SISTER?” (Sam, in fact, has three sisters. Oops.) On the one hand, this is great because the fewer of my family members they can pick out of a lineup, the better, but on the other hand it makes me think: Am I too private? Is this nuts? Am I so worried about having a negative impact on them that I won’t end up having an impact at all?

  God, I don’t know, you know what? For now, I think it’s fine. I don’t want anyone to ever get the upper hand on me, even if it’s a miniature one that hasn’t yet touched a steering wheel or a beer. I’m not going to give them my Netflix password, but I also won’t give these dudes any poisoned apples. We’ll see how my detachment parenting style works out for everybody. Maybe we’ll never know, or maybe they’ll take a page from my book and write about how I sold their voices to a sea witch or made their beloved spotted dogs into a coat.

  *I am not doing research, but I’m reasonably sure this is accurate.

  †I’m taking atenolol, but, come on, can you really trust science?

  season 1, episode 1

  After my first book, Meaty, came out, I got an e-mail from a Very Famous Person. I was sitting in the breakroom at my animal hospital job slurping down old soup (probably) while my coworker Lori and I placed bets on which Maury contestants were indeed the fathers of the children they were loudly refusing to claim. I checked my e-mail and there was one that read (this isn’t exact, because it was a long fucking time ago and periodically I just clear out all my e-mails in the hopes that doing so will make my problems immediately disappear):

  Hi, my name is Abbi and, dude, I loved your book! If you’re ever in New York, I would love to meet up for coffee and talk about some ideas. Best, Abbi Jacobson

  I thanked Abbi in my mind and forgot about it for approximately eight months.

  *

  In my defense:

  She did not say: HI, I AM A VERY FAMOUS PERSON WITH A TELEVISION SHOW at any point.

  I had seen maybe three episodes of Broad City be-cause I couldn’t pay for cable, so her name did not immediately ring a bell for me, and I am not in the habit of googling people, because that’s intrusive.

  Not to be a dick about it, but I get very vague fan mail all the time and I always feel weird about whether or not people actually want me to write them back. Sometimes I will send an e-mail back thanking them for reading my stuff and then I will end up in a months-long thank-you loop that can only be broken if one of us dies, but then other times I will write a brief yet passionate response and hear nothing, then I find myself checking back like, “why didn’t she respond, did I say something offensive?” when really it’s just that that person has normal boundaries.

  She specifically used the words “if you’re ever in New York,” and I rarely happened to just be there. It’s cute that you like my book, sister, but I’m not getting on a plane. Listen, I don’t mind telling you how to get in touch with my agent or anything else I can do to help, but I’m not going to fly to you, you have to be fucking kidding me

  So eight months later: I’m responding to a bunch of e-mails and hers is in the queue and I write back some form of my standard response when I’m not sure what a person really wants from me. I proved that I read her e-mail, was grateful that she enjoyed my book, and imparted that I really would drink a kale smoothie with her if we’re ever in NYC at the same time.

  She responded almost immediately. And this is not exactly verbatim because I have very little memory retention, but it’s pretty fucking close:

  HEY, STUPID, my name is ABBI JACOBSON and I star in A TELEVISION SHOW that is beloved by MILLIONS OF PEOPLE who would probably burst into tears upon receiving an e-mail FROM AN EXTREMELY FAMOUS PERSON who wants to talk to their POOR, REGULAR ASS. Like I said, I have some ideas I would like TO TALK ABOUT WITH YOU. Why don’t you go WATCH MY VERY POPULAR SHOW and maybe READ SOME GODDAMN ARTICLES ABOUT ME and then maybe you’ll understand THE MAGNITUDE OF THIS CONNECTION I AM TRYING TO MAKE. And then, next time you’re in New York, LET’S GET THAT JUICE.

  I sat there slack-jawed, blinking at my computer screen. I was like, “yes, wow, very cool way to be a moron, Sam.” And I downloaded some Broad City episodes from iTunes and then spent the next weeks feeling too anxious to write her back.

  A redirect, your honor:

  Okay, sure, I’m an asshole, but she kept stipulating that we had to meet in New York and my life at the time was: wake up, eleven-plus hours of cat dilemmas and dog vomit, go home and watch old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy while eating a burrito, bed. Hell, that’s basically my life now. Lather, rinse, repeat. I didn’t have any reason to go to New York. Also, I don’t know if you can just, like, suggest a phone call or Skype to a bitch with a security detail, so I just decided to put it off until I came up with a realistic reason to go there, or she forgot about the whole thing altogether and I wouldn’t have to spend a week agonizing over what to wear to meet her. I watched every available episode of her show and felt very special and overwhelmed (and also kind of terrified of Ilana?), but I still was too anxious to respond. Then, six months later, I wrote back again saying what a pleasant surprise it was to hear from her and I would for sure reach out the next time I went to New York, which would probably be never.

  Her e-mail r
esponse was like lightning: I’M COMING TO CHICAGO.

  *

  The hardest I’ve ever pursued anyone romantically was probably this ruggedly handsome dude named Roy, a dude who first approached me on the dance floor at this Latin restaurant in the West Loop that served exorbitantly priced tapas and also turned into a full-fledged disco after 11 p.m., which is weird to me because I don’t like to watch people dancing while I am eating or running the risk of knocking over someone’s skirt steak with my vain attempts at salsa. Anyway, this dude came up to me and introduced himself, then clocked my drink and went to get me a fresh one, which is a very seductive thing to do for a poor person. The entire time I was standing there waiting for him to return I was thinking, “this must be a trick,” because I was the least coordinated person on the dance floor plus I kept pausing every couple of minutes to run over to my table to eat bacon-wrapped dates. What was he even interested in? He came back and leaned in to give me a fake compliment, and I could clearly see under the flash of the intermittent strobe light that he was at least ninety-two years old. But he was funny and wore shiny church loafers, so I was fine with getting murdered by him when it eventually came to that. He gave me his number at the end of the night even though I know from all the magazines that I was supposed to give him mine, and I called him as soon as I woke up the next afternoon because, bitch, I’m thirsty!!!