Free Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? by Jen Lancaster Page A

hand, his days of B and E are over. Stabbing is nice because it allows for deep hurting and an object lesson.” I return to the bathroom, swish tooth-whitening mouthwash around, and then rinse again before we both get into bed. “Shooting just doesn’t afford the same nuance.”
    Fletch finishes fluffing his solitary pillow. “Sometimes I forget you’re half Sicilian. Too bad you weren’t in Westerville. It would have been hard for the strikers to walk the picket line with broken ankles.”
    I kiss him good night and settle into my side of the bed. “Mm-hmm. We’re a stabby, vengeful people. No bedbugs and such, Fletch.”
    We’re silent for a few minutes and I’m just about asleep when Fletch shakes me. “Hey, Jen?”
    “What is it, sweetie?”
    “I’m never leaving you alone again.”
    I hide my smile in the pillow. “Good.”

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from the desk of Miss Jennifer A. Lancaster
Dear Google Management,

I love your services and access them so often that I’ve come to use terms like “Googleicious” and “Googleholic” to describe said affection. That being said, we have a problem.

The dilemma is that old-school, semi-repressed grandfather types like my dad have also discovered the utility of your service. Now, the search engine is just dandy when older gentlemen need to find pastel plaid golf pants, local Lincoln-Mercury dealerships, and discount plane tickets to Florida.

However, a crisis occurs when they employ amorphous search criteria. For example, when my father decided to do some reading on Stephen Hawking’s theories of the nature of space and time, he Googled a variation of the term “black holes” and ended up on an entirely different type of Web site.

I could hear his shrieks one state away.

To compound this quandary, this retired executive class spent a professional lifetime with the aid of a competent secretary. Thus, they never developed an eye for the small details—that’s what “their girl” was for—because they were so busy running the world. Point is, if my dad’s right-hand Barbara had been around to assist him, he would have never accidentally clicked through to join the Log Cabin Republicans while looking for information on building a rough-hewn timber home.

I beg you to please add an “Old Businessman” parameter to your search engine. These fellows, although tigers in their prime, have been weakened by a lifetime of unfiltered cigarettes, double Manhattans, triple cheeseburgers, and quadruple bypasses. Their cardiovascular systems simply cannot handle the sustained and perpetual shock that can result from a bad Google.

Please fix.

Best,

Jen Lancaster
P.S. My friend had a similar issue when searching for a Catholic school uniform for her daughter. A “Soccer Mom” button may also be in order.
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To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work
From: [email protected]
Subject: the king’s on his throne (and all’s wrong with the world)

Ladies,

The dream is over.

Our lives will never be the same.

I blame the dog.

You guys know in the ten years we’ve been together Fletch and I have purposefully kept a bit of mystery in our relationship by attending to personal bathroom business behind closed doors. And much as I love him and desire to be privy to his innermost workings, I’d happily live the rest of my life unsure if he’s a back-to-front or front-to-back kind of guy or employs the one-or two-hand technique. (Carol, stop calling me “repressed.” Think about it—Elvis never felt the same about Priscilla after seeing little Lisa Marie born. Laugh at me all you want, but this is a boundary I won’t willingly cross.)

Anyway, I was sitting on the bed folding laundry, watching Fox News while Fletch used the mug off the master bedroom. Maisy, having found herself alone for thirteen seconds and deeming this wholly unacceptable, charged up the stairs with such velocity that she couldn’t stop herself when she reached the summit, thus