The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, Page 2

  “No, I’m telling you. Look at them over there, all lost in a whirlpool of criminal thought,” I insisted as the man with the google eyes tried to catch a reflection of himself on the back of his spoon. “Not all scallywags are deviant and smart. Just like in any group, there are bound to be the ones who took Beginning Larceny more than once, you know. They’re the ones on the short prison bus.”

  “Are you that bored that you really need to fabricate some drama?” my husband asked. “Because if you are, I’ll sit you down on the couch and turn on the TV for our next vacation. We’re supposed to be relaxing, and taking it easy. But all you seem to be interested in doing is getting yourself all worked up about a family whose tempo is considerably slack and who you believe is the James gang. Well, they’re not. They’re just a bunch of people with potholed DNA looking for the cheapest thing on the menu, I promise.”

  “Maybe they’re planning on robbing us,” I added. “Maybe they’re planning on robbing everyone here. This lodge is in the middle of nowhere. No one would hear a thing.”

  “Yes, we’re at a cabin in the middle of nowhere,” my husband reminded me as he took the last bite of my bananas Foster. “We’re not on the Riviera, we’re not in the Caribbean, we’re not even in Phoenix. What is the most valuable thing people bring with them to a log cabin? An iPod and a bag of marshmallows. I doubt there’s a safe behind the microwave at the front desk with Vanderbilt jewels in it, and if someone wants our bag of marshmallows, I know I’m not the one willing to wrestle them to the ground for it.”

  “Listen,” I hissed. “All I know is that someone has been peeping at me through windows, and so far, the Clan of the Cave Bear over there are my best candidates.”

  “Are you done with dessert?” my husband asked curtly as he took his napkin from his lap and placed it on the table. “’Cause I’d like to get out of here before you start putting people under citizen’s arrest for having lopsided eyes and giant man boobs.”

  “I bet it’s a disguise,” I mumbled under my breath as I followed him out. “I bet they’re faking being a special-needs family.”

  For the rest of the night, while my husband sat on the porch with his iPod earphones inserted in both ears, I couldn’t stop thinking about that family. The facts fit, in my opinion; none of it added up. Why would they take a vacation all the way out here? They didn’t look like the outdoors type. It wasn’t like they were going to go hiking or skiing with their walking aids and huge butts. And there were no phones at the lodge, no televisions, no radio. What could they be doing all day? Over dinner they hadn’t said one word to each other as far as I could tell, so conversation was out of the question. They didn’t look particularly happy, or like they were on vacation. And, if the oldest “son” had to ask the hostess if she was “selling” food as opposed to “Are you open?” they clearly didn’t get too much social interaction. I had only one feasible explanation for the whole scenario.

  Bandits.

  Then, as I was peeking out the window, I saw the group of them emerge from the lodge restaurant and head over to the biggest cabin on the property. I knew how much our cabin had cost, and it was an arm and a leg for a double bed with polyester sheets, a pellet stove, and dirty bathroom. Their cabin was a two-story deal with picture windows all along the back that looked out right over the lake.

  “For a quick getaway!” I whispered to myself.

  I jumped when I heard a noise behind me, and I saw our front door open.

  “What if there’s a machine gun in that cane?” I asked my husband when he stepped back into the cabin and pulled an earphone out. “The rubber stopper was off of it, and there could easily be a trigger in that handle.”

  “One more word and I’m putting this back in,” he said, nodding to the earphone. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “What could they be doing over there? They have the big, huge, expensive cabin, you know,” I added. “What are they doing over there? They didn’t even talk to one another.”

  “That’s how you know they’re a family,” my husband insisted. “Hand me the marshmallows so when they come to conquer us I can throw them our riches to avoid getting mowed down by a piece of medical equipment.”

  Then he gave me a dirty look, put his earphone back in, and went outside.

  From across the way, I saw the clan mammary male lumber toward the front window, give me a long, solid stare like a Bigfoot, then reach over and shut the curtains.

  The next morning, as we walked into the lodge restaurant for breakfast, I saw that my suspects were already there, slurping down oatmeal, crunching—open-mouthed—on toast, and allowing fluorescent-colored egg yolk to dribble down their chins.

  Ah, what masters you are! I thought to myself in a teeny voice. Masters of deception! But I know your secret! At least I am fairly, roughly 50 to maybe 30 percent confident that I know your secret! I am 25 percent sure I know your secret. Even though if it really came down to it, I probably wouldn’t bet money on it, to be truthful. But I am still keeping an eye on you!

  “Right this way,” the hostess said as she led us to the table right next to the clan.

  Before I could squeal with glee over the endless spying possibilities, my husband cleared his throat and then said to the hostess, “I’m sorry, the light over here is a little bright for my eyes. Do you mind if we took that table?”

  And then he pointed clear across the restaurant to an area that was completely empty and entirely out of earshot of my subjects.

  “Sure.” The girl shrugged, then led us over to the darker part of the establishment and pulled out a chair for me.

  “Oh, no. No, no,” my husband piped up. “My wife will be sitting in this chair. With her back facing the rest of the restaurant.”

  I shot him a dirty look, sat in the bad chair, and took the menu the hostess offered me.

  “This is so unfair,” I hissed after the hostess had left.

  “Shhh!” my husband demanded. “We’re going to have a nice meal, and if the only way we can do that is by severing the use of your senses by blocking your access, then so be it.”

  “But—” I tried.

  “No buts,” he said firmly. “Not another word about it or you’ll be eating breakfast dessert all by yourself. Understood, Valerie Plame?”

  “After your performance of ‘Watch Me Eat the Entire Bananas Foster in Three Bites’ last night, I’m not so sure that’s such a punishment,” I shot back. “I’d rather share custody of children that weren’t yours than go through that again!”

  To my dismay, however, the family finished their grub, got up, and left before we even got our food. I watched them through the window as they plodded across the drive of the lodge and to their log cabin. As the alpha waddled to their car and opened the trunk, I ascertained that he had had the hugest ass I’d seen on any man. I took another bite, closed my eyes for a moment in pure joy, and when I opened them again, the man was draped in black straps hanging from both shoulders.

  As I looked closer, my mouth fell open almost wide enough to allow French toast to fall out.

  They were binoculars. Four pairs of binoculars, two swinging from each side, in addition to several camera cases. And, in front of him, held by both of his hands, was a rather large telescope.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered as I watched the father look all around to him to see if anyone was watching, then head right back toward the estate cabin.

  “What now?” my husband said with a sigh as he put down his fork and looked at me tiredly.

  “‘What now?’” I mocked him as I pointed out the window. “What now? What now is that I just saw the fat-assed dad take a whole bunch of surveillance equipment from the trunk of his car into the house. That’s what.”

  My husband turned around just in time to see the man step into the cabin and shut the door behind him.

  “Wow,” my husband said as he turned back around.

  “I don’t want to say I told you so,” I admitted. “Because even I wa
s doubting my theory up until about ten seconds ago.”

  “Well, hang on,” the spoilsport replied. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Just because they have a rather large stash of stuff doesn’t mean they’re—”

  “Spying on their fellow lodgers?” I interjected. “Looking to see what everybody’s got in their cabins without having to pose any risk of getting caught? Well, guess what? If they’re planning to spy on me, I’m going to beat them to the punch. No one’s getting my marshmallows! God! I need some Tylenol!”

  I took six more very quick bites of my French toast, asked the waitress to charge the meal to our cabin, and stood up.

  “What are you doing?” my husband asked, looking panicked.

  “I’m going to go and see what they’re doing,” I explained as I folded my napkin and placed it on the table next to my plate. “You can come with me, or you can stay here. Either way, you need to leave the tip.”

  My husband shook his head, stood up, and followed me outside.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked as I marched out into the sunlight toward the lake, taking the same path I had the day before.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” I said as I waited for him to catch up. “I’m just going to walk past the back of their palatial cabin and see what’s going on behind those massive picture windows.”

  Just then, my husband gasped. “Don’t turn around,” he warned. “But someone was just looking at us from a window up at the lodge and closed the curtains as soon as I saw them.”

  “What is this, a stakeout? Do they have a lookout up there?” I cried as I got closer to the lake. “Are we surrounded on all sides?”

  “Wait, wait,” my husband said, grabbing my arm just as the back view of the estate cabin came into sight. “Wait. What are you going to do if they are peeking into people’s cabins with binoculars? What are you going to do?”

  I stopped. Honestly, I hadn’t thought of that. At all. I suppose it was a good question—just what was I planning on doing? Was I going to yell at them to stop it, inform the lodge, or call the police and tip them off that people at the lodge I was staying at had binoculars…and were using them? I would get the same kind of response I got when I called the police on the county fair, thinking it was a party down the street and that someone was playing a Loverboy album awfully loud. “It is Loverboy. They’re working for the weekend,” the officer who answered the phone said, then uttered a guffaw and delivered a dial tone.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I was pretty much making this whole thing up before I saw all of their Peeping Tom equipment. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

  “Well,” my husband said, then paused. “Maybe you should start by looking up at the second floor of the cabin right now.”

  I turned around, and there, all gathered on the terrace of the second floor, was the entire family, all four members of the freak show. The ample-bottomed father was setting up the telescope, the mother already had her face stuffed into a pair of massive binoculars, and the man with googly eyes was slurping on a grape Popsicle as a purple stain spread down the front of his shirt. The man with Tara Reid–esque boobs was flipping though a small book, and when he looked up and saw us, he smiled and waved.

  I waved back. Their binoculars and telescope were facing out, toward the lake, not in, toward the cabins.

  “Bird-watchers,” I whispered.

  “You’re an asshole,” my husband whispered back.

  I turned around and started walking back as quickly as I could.

  “Where are you going?” my husband shouted after me.

  “I’m going to try and get back to the restaurant before they clear our table,” I announced. “I still had six to eight good bites of that French toast left!”

  But as I got closer to the main lodge, I saw the third-story peeper out in front of the lodge next to a truck, and the peeper saw me. There was no doubt about it. She looked to her left and then looked to the right, then finally realized I had gotten a good look at her and gave up all hope of a smooth escape.

  “What are you doing here and why are you spying on me?” I asked the peeper point-blank when I got about two feet away; I was very, very tempted to reach out and deliver an open-handed slap. Right across the thigh, where I knew it would hurt the most.

  “I hate family vacations,” she said. “I didn’t want you to feel like you were on one.”

  “Well, I can’t see Phoenix, can you?” I replied. “Mom said you were staying in a fancy-pants hotel.”

  “I have a hotel room at the lodge, and you have a cabin at the lodge,” my sister explained. “Why would I tell her I was staying at a lodge? She’d tell me that the sheets would be dirty and bugs would get into my hair and then lay eggs. I saw you yesterday when you guys pulled in and I’ve been holed up here, trying not to run into you or make you feel obligated. I got out of the dining room this morning just in time. Boy, you should see the cast of characters we sat next to. There was a man with boobs like a stripper and a man with eyes that rolled around in his head like Cookie Monster’s.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you have any Tylenol?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m on vacation,” my sister said, looking incredulous. “Of course I do. I was just thinking I could use some myself.”

  Stink Bomb

  I wish my husband would stop getting the newspaper, because now it all makes sense. Angelina Jolie is a line of cocaine and I’m just a burp born after a sausage sandwich. I look like what a belch smells like, and all because men are basically nothing but bald monkeys.

  No, I didn’t accidentally take the same medication twice today. What I’m talking about is real science! Real science, people!

  According to a story I just read, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management have published results that indicate “seeing a beautiful woman triggers a pleasure response in a man’s brain similar to what a hungry person gets from eating or an addict gets from a fix.”

  So, see, Angelina is a big heaping pinkie nail of blow, and the rest of us are the brownish liquid that gathers at the bottom of the crisper when the organic vegetables you bought in the spring at the farmer’s market repeatedly lose out to the ease of a box of the Jolly Green Giant. When men see Angie, they just want to inhale her, but when the opposite sex spies me coming, all they want to do is light a match.

  The scientists went on to say that “feminine beauty affects a man’s brain at a very primal level, not on some higher, more intellectual plane,” like that’s some sort of news flash. Us women have known that for years, but really, it’s probably not any man’s fault. After all, how intellectual can they get when their brain is working at the same level as the coordinates of their fly?

  Still, the news is rather disappointing; even though it came as no surprise to me that I would never reach supermodel or, apparently, heroin status. You see, it’s hard for a girl to give up hope—there’s always the possibility that Neutrogena will come out with a pore-shrinker rinse or that Clinique will invent a foundation that gives you perfect, plastic skin you just peel off at the end of the day. But with this latest revelation, walking around completely aware that I am a stink bomb in physical form is almost enough to make me be nice to my husband, because by now he’s simply used to the smell, and I should be happy that he’s not trying to fumigate me with Oust every day.

  The trouble with this story is that things your mom taught you to make you feel better about being ugly were never even mentioned. It’s not like the scientists said, “Well, at first glance, men equated Laurie with a large head of simmering cabbage, yet, because of her kindness to strangers and her great personality, they upgraded her to a plate of Brussels sprouts swimming in a delightful butter sauce.” There’s simply no option for an upgrade like “a great sense of humor” or “oh, she’s just so great with kids” because either you’re pretty or you’re not. End of story. And that’s double bad new
s, because I don’t possess any of the upgradeable attributes after all.

  Then I tried to debunk the whole study by pointing out to my husband that no one ever even heard of the stupid school the study was conducted at anyway, until he pointed out the M, the I, and the T in the initials.

  And then commented that it was obvious that someone in the room most likely had eaten a sandwich of spiced meats and looked straight at me.

  Death of a Catchphrase

  Last Saturday night, at approximately 8:23 P.M., the phrase It’s All Good quietly passed away while appearing in a prime-time commercial for Buick. The cause of death was officially determined as “overexposure,” though the phrase had indeed lived an extended and prosperous life, having a long-standing returning role on The Jerry Springer Show and The View.

  Survived by his wife, You Go Girl!, and his children, Don’t Go There and Talk to the Hand!, the slang star was born in a school yard when several third-graders were fighting over a piece of Laffy Taffy and it fell onto the ground. Kenny Moses, a grammatically challenged fat child, scraped the dirt off of the taffy with a Popsicle stick and proclaimed, “It’s All Good!” After spreading through the school like wildfire, it was apparent that the phrase showed promise of a future in slang when several adults repeatedly asked, “Will you please stop saying that! What does that mean?” Soon It’s All Good found a home in the hallways of middle and high schools. It was just a matter of time before someone noticed that It’s All Good had star quality with a potential for greatness.

  Spotted soon after in a nightclub by agent and retired slang star Dy-NO-mite!, It’s All Good immediately signed with the once household name and found himself trudging to cattle calls.

  “It was hard on him,” said Dy-NO-mite!. “You go to these auditions, you give them all you got. You’re spit and polished. And for what? They come back and say, ‘Sorry, we need something with more pizzazz,’ or ‘Thanks, but we’re really looking for a noun.’ That gets to you, man, that can really eat you up. There were a couple of auditions when I thought, ‘This is it!’ but later we’d find out that it went to Hasta La Vista, Baby, or Run, Forrest, Run! Those were hard times, I tell you, hard times.”