Laurie Notaro - I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl

Acknowledgments

Thank You...

Bruce Tracy, for being the incredible editor that he is and letting me go full-tilt boogie with this book. I am amazingly fortunate to have him as an editor and a friend, and I truly cherish that, as well as for the opportunity to teach him just what and who a Chupacabra and Otis Campbell are.

Jenny Bent, for not laughing when I tripped over a curb in the East Village, stumbled about fifteen feet, and then landed flat on my belly with a loud HUMPH!!! If that doesnt show your love, nothing does, JB. I know it took a lot to hold it in. Thanks for everything.

My family; Curtis, my UPS guy; Hugo and Allan, my mailmen; and anyone else who has to put up with me on a daily basis.

Nana, who lets me say horrible, filthy curse words in front of her and just pretends to be deaf and not hear them. I love my Nana.

Jamie, for still being my best friend after thirty years, and to my other best friend, Jeff, despite his sad little attempts at three-way calling. Just so you know, we hate it when you do that. Please get a better phone; yours sucks.

The sweet, kind, and patient Annie Klein, for sticking by me still; the darling and irresistible Adam Korn, for letting me talk his ear off; and the charming and delightful Mickey Rolfe, for always, always, always making me laugh.

Kelly Kulchak, Shari Smiley, Kathy White, and Sonya Rosenfeld, for still accepting my phone calls and for working with me. You guys kick ass. Thanks also to David Dunton; Nina Graybill; Pamela Cannon; Beth Pearson; Amelia Zalcman; Dan who makes the book covers; Kimberly Obitz; Meg Halverson; Bill Hummel; Theresa Cano; Kathy Murillo; Doug Kinne; Katie Zug; Sessalee Hensley; Jules Herbert; Donna Passanante; Craig Browning; Duane Neff; Amy Silverman; Deborah Susser; Cindy Dasch; Sonda Andersson-Pappan; Beth Kawasaki; Eric Searleman; Charlie Levy; Patrick Sedillo; Charlie Pabst; Becky, Marie, and Rhonda from Fairfax; Bill Homuth; Sharon Hise; Leigh, Jeff, Val, and everbody else from Metro; the Public Library Association; the Arizona Library Association; bookstores big, bookstores not so big, and bookstores little, for being so kind when I come in and start scribbling in your stock; and, absolutely without a doubt, the girls Nikki, Sara, Kate, Sandra, and Krysti.

And the biggest thanks to all of the Idiot Girls out there who took the time to e-mail me, join the club, submit their Idiot Girl story to the clubhouse, come to a reading, or read through the books, nodding their heads because they knew. Thank you, from the bottom of my soggy little rotten-tomato heart, and I so totally mean that. You make me so proud to be an Idiot Girl because you undoubtedly prove I am in excellent company. Rock on, my sisters. We shall rule the world one day.

Love,
Laurie N.

ALSO BY LAURIE NOTARO

The Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club

Autobiography of a Fat Bride

LAURIE NOTARO is currently unemployed and childless and enjoys spending her days searching for Bigfoot documentaries on the Discovery Channel, delights in a good peach cobbler, and has sadly discovered that compulsively lying on her headgear chart in the seventh grade has come around to bite her in the ass. Despite several escape attempts, she still lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where she is technologically unable to set up the voice mail on her cell phone, which she has never charged, anyway.

Gun to the Head

I cant believe it, my mother said from her end of the phone, I simply cant believe it. First you got married, and now this. Who would have thought a year ago that I would be hearing news like this!

I know! I exclaimed from my end of the phone. Ill get to go shopping for new clothes and everything!

Its a big thing, my mother added. It will change your whole life, you know.

I know, I said happily. But I think its time. That clock was ticking, and it was just time I did something about it.

Youre sure this is what you want? my mother asked.

Its too late to turn back now, isnt it? I laughed. I took the test, got a little pee on my hand, and everything says were good to go.

I cant wait to tell my friends! my mother gushed.

Well, maybe thats not such a good idea just yet, I suggested. Maybe we should see if it sticks first. But you can tell Dad and the rest of the family.

Hes going to be so happy to find out that youre going to havemy mother paused, I believe to wipe a tear of elation from her eyea job!

A job.

I really couldnt believe it either. A job. After I had successfully passed the drug screening test (simply and vaguely put, I was a freelance writer with a mortgage payment and a husband in college who barely had enough money for a generic box of macaroni and cheese, let alone a hit of X just so I could have a good excuse to wear a Dr. Seuss hat), the newspaper at which I had been a freelance columnist also offered me a job as a columnist for the newspapers websitea full-time gig. I could hardly pass the offer up; it was a good salary, came with health insurance, my potential boss seemed cool, and after I discovered that the 401(k) was not an annual marathon that every employee was required to participate in, I nodded and then we shook on it.

In all honesty, it was a relief. The last time I had held a steady job it was as an editor for a small magazine several years before. I worked for a man who commonly came back from business lunches with a big purple wine mustache and had the habit of uttering phrases such as make that more better, irregardless, for all intensive purposes, and picking a five-syllable word from the dictionary then e-mailing it out to the staff as the word du jour of the day! which for an average drunk boss would be fine, but for an editor in chief was somewhat unsettling.

After he called me into his office one day and slid two envelopes across the tableone for my last paycheck and the other for severancehe tried to soften the blow with the comforting words, Dont look so upset! Youre not being fired, your position has just been eliminated! It wasnt a surprise per se, I had expected the Two Envelope Incident ever since I had freely used the phrase blow your wad in an editorial meeting when vocalizing an opinion about why it would be a mistake to name the murderer in the headline of an investigative piece about a longtime unsolved crime. From across the table, I had seen his purple mustache quiver, then collapse into a frown.

Matter of time.

Since then I had embarked on a series of freelance jobs that led me down the creative, soul-drenching path of writing about air conditioners with pollen-capturing filters; weaving prose about toenail fungus and the bacteria living happily in the track of your shower door that can kill at will; two hundred witty and classic-caliber-status product reviews of kitchen gadgets, including profiles of slotted spoons, rubber spoons, stainless steel spoons, serving spoons, and the good old spoon spatulas (spoonulas); a pamphlet about the money-saving benefits of hiring temps; and a booklet about gun safety.

Honestly, I didnt go to journalism school to write pamphlets advising otherwise oblivious parents that it would be in their best interest to store their loaded weapons out of reach of their younguns, but one day I found myself in a job interview discussing just that.

With a gun in the middle of the table.

Have you ever held a gun before? the lady whom I was meeting with asked me.