Notaro - The idiot girls action adventure club

Contents

To Pop Pop, Douglas Hopkins, and Dick Vonier,
the best heroes a girl could have,
and Corbett Upton, who only seldomly complains
about playing the straight man

Wrap & Roll
and the Disappearance
of Nikkis Keys

Nikkis keys were gone.

Just gone.

I dont understand, I said emphatically. You had them yesterday.

Im aware of that, she replied. But somewhere in between being drunk yesterday and sober today, my keys vanished.

And youre going to make me help you look for them, I suppose.

No, youre going to gladly help me look for them because youre my friend and you also owe me forty dollars, she said.

Let me explain right now that Nikki does not do things in a small way, she never has. Take a simple thing like losing your keys. The last time she lost them, not only couldnt she drive anywhere, but she had also locked every door in the car for the first time in her life. This created a problem because she had left her roommates dry cleaning in the trunk. And that created a problem because the dry cleaning consisted of every military uniform that he possessed. And that created another problem because he needed to be at the airport in two hours, since he was flying out on an Army mission overseas. And that created yet another problem, because he couldnt show up in civilian clothes at the Army place because he said they would immediately shoot him in the head or give him a dishonorable discharge, because the Army doesnt fire people, they just kill them or ruin their lives forever. And we still had yet another problem on our hands, and that was that Nikki was the only ride he had to the airport.

So, because Nikki lost her keys, someone was either going to die or spend the rest of his ruined life working at the only job he could get, which would probably be working at a record store or managing a record store. But the story actually didnt turn out too sad. After spending seventy-five dollars on a locksmith to get into the trunk, we found Nikkis keys, leisurely placed right smack on top of an arsenal of khaki-green uniforms.

And if the reconnaissance of Nikkis keys had a seventy-five-dollar price tag, there was a terrifying chance my forty-dollar loan might get called in, which was bad. Especially since it was most likely being deposited at that very moment in the bank account of our favorite bar.

Please dont tell me that you were messing around with the trunk this time, or that your kid is sitting in the backseat with all of the windows rolled up, or that you left something of mine, like my CDs, on the front seat, I said as beads of worry were rolling down my forehead.

I knew youd help me! I just have to change into something yucky so I dont get dirty, she said before bounding up the stairs.

Whatever, I thought as I shook my head, and figured Id get a head start by rifling through the cushions of the couch. I found a lighter right away, which I pocketed. Then I found thirty-seven cents, which I also pocketed, and a hairy LifeSaver that I left for the next couch-cushion bandit.

Okay, Im ready, she said as she came down the stairs, wearing the T-shirt with my caricature and name on the back that was made up during my days at Arizona State Universitys State Press Magazine.

I thought you said you were going to put on something yucky, I said immediately. Thats my shirt. Its got my face on it. And my name. Thats yucky? To you thats yucky?

I didnt mean yucky yucky, just, you know, yucky, she answered.

So Im not yucky yucky, Im just plain yucky? I snapped. What would make it yucky yucky? Maybe if I had signed it or given it to you as a gift?

Yeah. No, I mean, its my favorite shirt. I love this shirt, she explained.

Well, Im just sorry that its so yucky. I should have given you the ones we made out of the silk from those endangered worms.

She smiled. Okay, I have to get my stick, and then we can go and look for my keys, she said.

What do we need a stick for? I asked. We can break the car window with a rock.

No, the stick isnt to break the window, its to poke at the trash.

Were poking at trash? Why are we poking at trash? I asked.

I think my keys are in the bottom of the trash bag that I took out yesterday.

Let me get this straight: So youre wearing my shirt while we dig through other peoples waste?

Right. See, if I thought it was yucky yucky, Id wear it if the toilet overflowed.

Nikki found the stickactually a broom handleand we journeyed to the Dumpster, which is about as big as my house and smells worse. We climbed up the side and looked down into it, down into all of Nikkis trash as well as the trash of forty of her neighbors. That day, it was 114 degrees out, and the stench of the garbage was visible in stink lines that waved before my face in wiggly patterns, like in cartoons. Nikki started stabbing the trash with the stick, trying to find her own bag that was conveniently located at the very bottom.

Things were flying and falling everywherekitty litter and kitty turds, rotten vegetables and old food, used Kleenexes, and lots of dead things. Everybody in Nikkis complex is on birth control pills, I found out. All of a sudden, a bag Nikki had poked broke open, and then this little white thing rolled right in the center of my visual zone.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHH! I screamed.

What? Nikki asked as she started to turn toward me.

Dont look! I said as I blocked her view, knowing that she has a weak stomach and gets queasy when I talk about picking noses or when I mention anything whatsoever about poo, so I knew she would get sick if she saw what I saw, which was a white, naked, and, at some point, used tampon applicator.

Jesus, I thought to whomever it had belonged to, didnt your mother ever teach you about those things? I mean, Christ Almighty, as soon as my mother suspected that my ovaries were beginning to percolate, she sat me down in the only private room in the housewhich was her bathroombroke out a roll of toilet paper and a maxi pad, and taught me how to wrap & roll. Three wraps over the middle and three wraps over the side. Roll & wrap, its the polite thing. Even I could figure it out at the age of eight. And, for added protection, you could stick Gods little bundle in a plastic baggie, so when the dogs got loose in the house they wouldnt find it and tear it apart, as our dogs, Ginger and Brandy, loved to do. Immediately following the hands-on demonstration, I got the Not-So-Fresh-Feeling speech, after which I ran to my room and sobbed for an hour because Barbie didnt have an outfit that came with a tiny maxi pad, tampon, or Summers Eve.

Well, we found Nikkis trash bag, but, of course, the keys werent in it. In fact, as of this moment, Nikki lost her keys three weeks ago, and we still havent found them. Who knows where they are?

Maybe, somehow, in the weird way that things work in Nikkis World, maybe someone wrapped Nikkis keys three times over the middle and three times over the side, and some hungry dog just ate them.

The Idiot Girls
Action-Adventure Club
and the Art of
Being Dumb

My friend Joel made an interesting point the other night.

Im happy that Im one of the Dumb Ones, he informed me. I like it better that way.

Really? I said. Why?

Well, because theres stuff that I know about, and theres more stuff that I dont know about, which makes it less stuff that I have to worry about in the Big Picture, he answered.