Have a Nice Guilt Trip (19 page)

My embarrassment turned to desperation. “Sir, I’m begging you. This is a medication, and I need it desperately. If you don’t believe me, I can show you a picture that will make you throw up.”

The TSA agent met my gaze, returned the tube of butt paste to the bag, and handed it to me. “Okay, take it. I understand, I got kids.”

So for once, I got the government off my butt.

Of course, I thought this was funny enough to call Mother Mary and tell her, especially since it was almost Mother’s Day. “Ma,” I said. “Guess what? I couldn’t wash my jeans and now I have diaper rash.”

“You’re a dirty pig.”

But I know she meant it, with love.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother Mary Talks to God and Luis

By Lisa

I visited Mother Mary, but it wasn’t all laughs.

I had a night free on book tour in Naples, Florida, so I made the trip to Miami to take her out to dinner for Mother’s Day. I arrived to pick her up, but she wasn’t dressed, because she had decided she didn’t want to go.

“We should stay home and order Papa John’s,” she said, frowning.

“Ma, you can’t have Papa John’s on Mother’s Day.”

“Why not?”

“Let me take you out.”

“No.”

“Please. It’s my Mother’s Day, too.”

“Hmph.” So Mother Mary went into her bedroom to change her clothes. She emerged in a nice black top and long skirt, but something was missing.

“Ma, you’re not wearing a bra?”

“Why should I?”

I paused. “I’ll give you two reasons. Right and left.”

“No. No more bras.”

“Ma, you have to.”

“No I don’t. I’m eighty-nine.”

“Yes, you do. You’re eighty-nine.”

“No.”

“Yes.” We reach an impasse, which she breaks.

“I’ll wear something over the top. It’s the same thing.”

“Okay, good idea,” I say, relieved. Any women over fifty knows camouflage trumps support.

But Mother Mary comes out of her bedroom in her lab coat. She’s only four-foot-eleven, so it reaches to her ankles, and with her snowy white hair, she looks like a superannuated Doogie Howser.

“Ma. No lab coat. It’s too nice a restaurant.”

“So what?”

“Please, Doc. You’re not on call tonight.”

“I need the pockets.”

“You have a purse.” I form praying hands. “I’m begging you.”

Mother Mary rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

I hurry into her bedroom, grab an embroidered jacket I got her from Chico’s, and dress her as if she were a stubborn child. “There.”

“
Now
will you shut up?”

I can’t, yet. “What about your hearing aids?”

“No.”

“Ma, please wear them. I’ll have to shout at you.”

“No, you won’t. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” I say, after a moment. I won on the pizza, and I know when to fold ’em, but I want to cheer her up. I reach for my phone. “Let me take a picture of you. You look so cute.”

She rolls her eyes again. “Come on. Always with that stupid camera.”

“Please, we can send it to Francesca.”

“Fine.”

Later at the restaurant, I’m about to ask for a quiet table when I see that the place is completely empty because we’ve arrived at six o’clock, which is too early for dinner in South Beach. We sit down, I order a margarita, and Mother Mary orders a Bud Lite, but they only have Amstel Light, so she sniffs. “Fine.”

She’s saying fine so often that I know nothing is fine. “Ma, are you okay?”

“I had a talk with God about when I was going to die.”

Bam
. “Okay.” I try not to look surprised, and I shouldn’t be. The Flying Scottolines have a history of bringing up personal subjects in public. For example, Mother Mary told me she wanted a mausoleum while we were in the produce aisle at Whole Foods. My brother told me he was gay when we were standing on a city street. I told you in print that I have diaper rash.

See what I mean?

We lack boundaries. The Western Hemisphere is our living room.

Mother Mary frowns. “God told me I have to live until I’m 110.”

My chest feels tight, and I wish my margarita would come. “Okay, so that’s good news, right?”

At this point a different waiter comes over, and he’s tall, young, and handsome. Like everybody in this town, he looks like a model. He sets a beer in front of my mother, flashing her a dazzling smile. “Why, you look lovely tonight, young lady.”

“Thank you.” Mother Mary brightens. “What’s your name?”

“Luis.”

“I’m Mary. This is my daughter. She has a camera. She’s crazy with that camera.” She gestures at me. “Get your camera, honey. Take a picture of me and Luis.”

Luis snuggles my mother while I grab my phone and take a picture. They both look adorable.

Mother Mary smiles up at Luis. “Thanks, doll.”

“No problem, Mary,” he answers, then leaves.

Mother Mary looks flushed. “He has bedroom eyes,” she says, then laughs.

I laugh with her. “Hubba hubba.”

“So I was telling you about God. He said, 110. Maybe 112, tops.”

“And that’s fine with you, right?”

Mother Mary grins. “Absolutely fine.”

With Our Powers Combined

By Francesca

Some people have a freezer full of ice cream, frozen meats and veggies, maybe some leftovers. My freezer is full of trash.

I’m composting.

Compost is a fancy word for trash. Compost means only biodegradable food waste. Composting helps the environment.

Just not the environment of my apartment.

Food trash stinks, so during the week, I keep it all in a plastic bag in my freezer until Saturday, when I walk it to my local farmers’ market where they have special receptacles for it, and there’s a woman who acts as the Mistress of Compost. She’s a fit, attractive Asian woman who keeps her hair buzzed short. Her typical uniform is cargo pants, boots, a white tee with rolled sleeves, and mirrored Aviator sunglasses. Oh, and dishwashing gloves.

She’s like the GI Jane for the environmentally conscious.

I’m telling you, she’s pretty fierce, and not just for a woman who hangs out by a Dumpster. Because her hands are inevitably covered in trash, she greets you by bumping elbows. Call it the Compost High Five.

My dog adores her. Finally, a woman who shares his love for stinky trash. If she had used tissues falling out of her pocket, he might actually leave me for her.

And I like her, too. She has a passion for the environment, and she uses her considerable charisma to get people to listen to her from her trash-can pulpit. She convinced me that composting would be a cinch, and now I’d feel guilty to pass her on a Saturday without my bag of frozen trash.

With recycling, fear and guilt serve a higher purpose.

It’s not just guilt; the psychology behind composting is complex. For me, it appeals to my dual inclinations to laziness and self-congratulation. I get to take the trash out less often during the week and feel like Captain Planet come Saturday.

That said, there are hazards. Everyday foods, when frozen, become an arsenal of tiny weaponry. Rotten asparagus forms daggers, poking holes through the plastic compost bag, so that when I pull it out of the freezer, it rains a trail of frozen vegetables. One time I spilled a bag of frozen kale, which crumbled like confetti all over my kitchen floor.

Unlike confetti, the pieces became instantly soggy and defied any attempt to vacuum them up. I had to sit on the floor and peel each one like scabs.

And then there’s explaining it to people. I had friends over to watch the finale of the greatest TV show of all time,
Breaking Bad.
When my friend went to get ice cubes for our meth blue margaritas, she said, “Whoa, what’s all this stuff in your freezer?”

“Oh, um, that’s just my compost bags. The ice trays are probably behind it.”

“What’s all this black stuff?”

“Oh, that’s just coffee grounds that spilled. Don’t worry about it.”

The downside of composting in an apartment is that there’s not much room in which to put it. I already have separate piles for newspapers, broken-down cardboard boxes, and bags for glass, plastic, and cans. I don’t even have room for a normal waste bin; the bag for regular trash hangs from a clothes hanger in a coat closet.

But the upside of composting in an apartment is also that there’s not much room. While the freezer offers the occasional inconvenience and embarrassment, my lack of space is my excuse for not going to the next level of home compost:

Worms.

That’s right, a bin with live worms to eat through your biodegradable waste and create fertilizer. Now, I don’t want to deter anyone from doing this; I looked into it, and it sounds like a totally cool science experiment—if you have a backyard. I’m less open-minded when the worms are sharing my five hundred square feet of personal space.

Please, I finally got rid of my roommate.

So storing trash in my freezer each week is the least I can do, literally.

The truth is, I enjoy composting. I like the whole process, of taking a minute to be more conscious of the waste I’m putting out, walking to the farmers’ market with it, and talking to the Compost Queen and the other people dropping off their trash. People who compost have a little extra compassion and kindness, and they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty. It’s a nice community to be a part of, the composters.

And it’s good to be reminded of that other nice community I’m lucky to be a part of:

Earth.

God, Man, and Prada

By Lisa

You may have heard that the Pope is stepping down because he no longer feels he can do the job.

Congress should take a lesson.

Consider that the Pope got his job from God, and he just quit.

Congress got their jobs from mere human beings, yet they would never dream of quitting, despite the fact that they cannot perform the most basic function of government, like making a budget.

They don’t have the decency to step down.

Or the grace.

Like His Grace.

As if between the Pope and Congress, only one of these is supposed to admit that he is fallible.

And the wrong one just admitted it.

I’m trying to imagine the enormity of the ego that allows you to think you’re entitled to your job, which has great pay and benefits, even though you don’t do it. You must think you’re handpicked by God, or at least a flock of cardinals.

But no.

The guy who was handpicked by God and the cardinals is the one who just packed up his desk.

The guys who failed to do their jobs just took a vacation. With pay. And benefits.

Because Congress’s pay and benefits are always included in the budget.

That is job one in Washington, and it’s the only job that gets done.

I give the Pope a lot of credit for stepping down, considering the great privileges that come with his position. He did the unselfish thing for the greater good. Also he had to give up a gorgeous pair of red shoes, made by Prada.

Now we’re talking sacrifice.

By the way, the Pope is the only one on the planet allowed to wear those red shoes, which guarantees that he’ll never find himself on the losing end of a who-wore-it-better picture.

Don’t you hate it when you go to a party and someone walks in wearing the same vestments?

Congress seems unfamiliar with the concept of the greater good. This is unfortunate, given that they are in the greater-good business, but there’s only so much you can ask of the American worker.

Correction.

Congress is made up of the people who allegedly work for the American worker, but they’re on vacation now, which they call recess.

Because they act like third-graders.

Congress doesn’t make clear how many recesses it takes a year. I know because I tried to figure it out online, and I’m sure this is completely inadvertent, or maybe for the greater good.

I did find a congressional recess schedule, but it was completely impossible to read. However, if you have so many recesses that you need a schedule for them, you have too many recesses.

I did read online that some members of Congress want to rename their recesses and call them “district work periods.”

I think this is a great idea. I’m thinking of renaming my cellulite and calling it “muscle.”

Congress has a lot of unusual names for things. For example, they call their inability to reach a budget
the sequester.

This is a hard term to understand, because it comes from the Latin word
sequestrare,
which means
to remove
or
separate.
Allow me to use the word in a sentence for you, so you can understand it:

Congress is sequestered from reality.

See?

It’s interesting that in a time when the Catholic Church has decided to abandon the Latin Mass, Congress has decided to become a Classics major.

I took four years of Latin, but I will never understand Congress.

Because I speak English.

By the way, Congress itself comes from the Latin word
congressus,
which means
meeting
or
intercourse.

I will leave to you which meaning is more relevant to Congress.

And I will remind you that Congress is on vacation, so it isn’t meeting.

My guess is that it’s having vacation intercourse, which we all know is the best kind.

Except that they’re not the ones getting screwed.

Hobby Horse

By Lisa

I’m trying to decide if I should start a garden.

Or if I do, will I turn it into meth for the menopausal?

These are the kind of questions that occur to me when I have a few days off, between books. I’m supposed to sit on my duff, but I do that for a living, so when I have nothing to do, I tend to get very active.

Last time I painted my downstairs.

Enough said.

This would be part of my tendency to overdo everything. In my view, whoever said “less is more” is wrong. Life is an
all-you-can-eat
buffet, and less isn’t enough.