Free I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) by Laurie Notaro Page B

do that very thing for seven years. If she wanted to give it a shot, I wasn’t going to stop her, but I issued a supersized helping of “good luck” and didn’t hold my breath.
    Several days after Jenny sent out the book proposal, she called me and said that I had, indeed, finally fit someone’s needs.
    I was going to have a book.
    So I called my family and told them the news, not even believing it myself. After my mother contributed her slightly less than stunning reaction, my dad got on the phone.
    “Can you ask the fellow who said he’d print your book if he can put it in a spot near the
Auto Trader
at the bookstore?” he asked. “Because if it’s next to the
Auto Trader,
that’s the place to be. If I was a book, I’d demand to be next to the
Auto Trader.
Absolutely. That’s when you know you’ve MADE IT.”
    “You know,” I really wanted to tell my father, “retirement-aged men looking for a 1973 Ranchero GT with original paint, no rust, gold with orange/black stripes, 351C 2v, magnum 500’s, AT, AC, PS, PB, new brakes and shocks probably aren’t the typical readers for a book called
Idiot Girls,
” but I refrained when I heard my mom screeching in the background that she just realized something and that she needed to talk to me again.
    “Is your book going to be like Rosie’s book?” she questioned. “My God, that woman is such a
giver.
Gives and gives and gives. Just like me. I’m a giver, you know. If it came up for a vote at our church, I’d make her a saint. I told all of my friends to buy that book
and look at how good it did.
Very good. I also want to know if your book will contain the
F
word, because you’d better not use
F.
         ”
    “I’m pretty sure I didn’t, Mom,” I tried to reassure her.
    “No
F,
you hear me?” she warned. “Because if you do, I will not tell any of my friends to buy your dirty porno book. And
then
where will you be? You’ll be
F
’ed! How do you like that? Rosie didn’t need
F
in her book! That woman is a giver, you know!”
    “I know, Mom,” I agreed. “Just like you.”

         
    Prude vs. Nude:
Why I Hate Kate Winslet

    I don’t believe it, but I think I just might actually hate something more on the face of the earth than Kate Winslet.
    See, my husband has a big thing for Kate Winslet, so big that I have been forced to watch
Titanic
an unnatural number of times, despite the fact that I have repeatedly suggested that we just fast-forward to the part where she gets naked. Oh, sorry, honey. I meant, “nude.”
    Anyway. I’ve seen every Kate Winslet movie ever made, and let me tell you, that was no picnic. Harvey Keitel is in some of them, you know, and he starts losing clothes, too. I had to eventually revoke my husband’s Blockbuster privileges. I mean, you imagine yourself sitting on the couch in your elastic waistband pants while she’s taking off her top AGAIN. I can’t compete with that. There’s only so much tummy sucking you can do before gravity wants its rightful place back. I thought we had found a happy compromise when
Iris
came out; after all, it’s about an old writer dealing with Alzheimer’s. There’s no room for nudity with that plot, I thought, but believe it or not, the title wasn’t even on the screen yet before a pair of nipples made an appearance swimming underwater, and guess who they belonged to? I’ll give you a hint: the smile on my husband’s face could not have been bigger if he had just inhaled an entire tank of nitrous oxide.
    In any case, I will put my loathing of Kate Winslet aside to embrace my new object of contempt: the Rapiscan Secure 1000. That’s right. The “virtual strip search machine.” Tested at Florida’s Orlando International Airport, the Rapiscan Secure 1000 is a low-level X-ray machine that zaps just enough radiation at you to scan through your clothes—and stop at your skin. Just enough so that you pop up on the screen NAKED. And I’m sorry, because it’s not