My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (5 page)

By the way, I don’t have a day job.

But from the looks of your pajamas, you do.

Check and mate, bitch.

Best,

Jen Cognito, Association President

P.S. Next time, I’m breaking out my Wham CD. Consider this a warning.

CHAPTER FOUR

Do You Have Love for New York?

I
’ve reached a new height in procrastination.

Thirty-four thousand feet, to be exact.

With a book deadline looming, I decide the most effective use of my time is to join my friends in New York for a girls’ weekend instead of sitting down at my computer and finally putting a dent in my book.

My friends planned this trip last year but I knew I’d be on deadline, so I begged off months ago. All that changed last week when I got an e-mail from an associate producer working for the Travel Channel. She was in charge of finding residents to appear on a Chicago edition of Samantha Brown’s
Great Weekends
show and would I be interested?

Would I be
interested
?

In seeing my enormous head
on national cable television
?

On what’s technically
a reality show
?

Which in turn might be seen by the producers of
Survivor
, who will immediately appreciate how snarky I am and fall all over themselves to cast me because even though I trend a little acerbic,
⁴²
I’m way more likable than that mean girl Courtney from the China season. Sure, she came up with the greatest zinger in reality show history, describing the bemulleted lunch lady as someone who “sucked at life,” but still . . . I’m pretty sure I’d be better. Plus, I have some
strongs
left inside me from all the working out I did for
Such a Pretty Fat
, so I would kick ass in the challenges, especially those I had to throw my weight into.

Also? I rock the house at Scrabulous and can totally solve puzzles.
⁴³
And the plotting and the scheming and the cultivation of minions that goes along with
Survivor
game play? I mean, I was the rush chairman of my sorority—believe me, I can bully people into doing unpleasant shit. You think those kids
wanted
to cut literally thousands of stars out of aluminum foil?

The only problem could be that with my big, fat mouth, I may eventually get on other survivors’ nerves, especially when I keep crying about how bad my hair looks—unless we were in the desert, in which case I would be fabulous—so there’s a possibility I wouldn’t make it to the tribal merge, but who cares?

Yeah,
I wrote back to the associate producer,
I think I might be interested.

(Sidebar? Much as I’d like to be on television, I’d never want a reality show where cameras followed me in my everyday life because I like being married to Fletch. Seriously, look at the Hogans, Carmen and Dave, Nick and Jessica, the tattoo-necked guy and Miss USA, Britney and Kevin, Danny Bonaduce and his stupid wife, and the Osbournes. Everyone divorced!
⁴⁴
Okay, fine, Ozzy and Sharon made it, but their kids went to rehab!
⁴⁵
Try to give me my own TV show and I say no, no, no.)

The AP told me everything sounded good after a preliminary chat, but she said a New York-based executive producer needed to meet me before any decisions could be made. Then the EP and I went through all the machinations of getting together, but unfortunately his scouting trip to Chicago was too hectic, and at the last minute, we couldn’t coordinate.

My desire to see my enormous head on national cable television transcends most rational thought, so after our missed connection, I told him, “Hey, I’m going to be in New York next weekend with my girlfriends—why don’t we meet up while I’m there?” Seriously, I’m as crafty as Yau-man when he made that fake hidden-immunity idol on
Survivor: Fiji
or when Eval Dick spent the week terrorizing the
Big Brother
house and STILL got Eric to vote to keep him.

The producer agreed, which meant that I found myself scrambling for a ticket with a week’s notice and suddenly felt a tad less brilliant. As I clicked around Orbitz, I winced at the last-minute prices and was almost ready to give up when Fletch suggested I check our banking rewards points. I logged on and found we had enough saved up for a nonstop round-trip ticket. Victory!

“Aw, wait,” I said, remembering. “I can’t use these points.”

“Why not?” Fletch asked, reading over my shoulder. “I don’t see any restrictions or blackout dates.” Since apparently Fletch standing next to me constitutes a party, Maisy hopped off her couch and wedged her way under my desk. She perched her head on my knee and gazed up soulfully at me. I began to stroke her silky ears.

“Yeah, but if I waste these for a flight, then I won’t have enough to get the reward I really wanted. Check this out.” I pulled up the page and showed Fletch an image of a group of fit, attractive people in matching pink life vests careening through a deep canyon on a churning river. “See how much fun that blond family’s having on those rapids?”

He scanned the page. “You want to redeem award points for a trip to the Grand Canyon? Wow. Never thought I’d see you opt for an active vacation.” Whenever we’ve gone to Vegas, I’ve parked myself at the pool from ten a.m. until six p.m., taking every meal in my lawn chair and only getting up to swim and use the bathroom.
⁴⁶

“Oh, please, I don’t want the trip; I want the boat!”

Fletch squinted at the screen and then back at me. “What
the hell
are you going to do with a twelve-foot raft?”

“
Pfft
, white-water rafting, dude!”

Fletch drew in a really big breath and slowly released it through pursed lips, causing a little plume of dust to fly up off my desk and onto Maisy’s sweet head. I brushed it away, prompting her to give my knees a thorough licking. “You have any idea how to operate a white-water raft?”

“I’m sure it comes with an instruction booklet. And how hard could it be? You sit, it goes. Kind of like a riding lawn mower. Easy-peasy.”

“You have any idea how to operate a riding lawn mower?”

“No, but that’s beside the point. Forrest Gump could drive a riding mower. Think about it—he was s-l-o-w.”
⁴⁷

“Your logic is irrefutable.” He rocked back on his heels, placing a hand on my shoulder. I detected a hint of smug about the eyes but chose to ignore it.

I pointed at a line of text on the screen. “Says here this is a twelve-foot rigid inflatable. I’m not sure what the means, but it sounds awesome!”

“Awesome,” he agreed. “And you plan to white-water raft . . . where? The wild rapids of the Chicago River? Gonna perfect your sweep stroke while you cruise past the steel recycling plant on Elston? Or navigate the strainer at Navy Pier?”

“There’s got to be somewhere in Illinois to go, right? Oh, but we’d have to get a couple of those silly little helmets first.
⁴⁸
We might have enough points for those, too.” I tabbed through the other pages of rewards.

“Sure, sure, that all sounds like a fine plan. But, um . . . where will you store your twelve-foot rigid inflatable?”

“In the rafters up in the garage. Naturally, I’d have to deflate it first. Also, I’d have to get rid of the baby pool currently up there, but I’d be willing to make that sacrifice.” Maisy lay down on my feet in a show of solidarity. “See?” I asked, pointing to the dog. “She supports my decision fully. Remind me to get her a doggie life jacket so she can come with us.”

“I’m certainly glad you’ve secured the dog’s vote. But tell me, you plan to reinflate the raft . . . how?”

“Bicycle pump,
duh
.”

“Of course, bicycle pump. You could blow up your raft while you watch television.”

I nodded. “That’s the plan.”

“Our living room’s only eleven feet long.”

“I’ll angle it.”

“We used a twelve-foot rigid inflatable in the Army. Took seven men on either side to paddle it. Wasn’t easy paddling, either; each stroke of the oar was like lifting a shovel full of wet sand. So, if fourteen fit men had trouble moving the raft from point A to point B, how do you plan on making it go?”

“I have plenty of
strongs
, and the rapids will do most of the work for me. Plus, Maisy can sit in back and provide ballast.” At the sound of her name, her tail began to thump.

“Well,” Fletch said, clapping his hands together, “I can see that you’ve thought long and hard about this. Tell you what. I
insist
you give up your opportunity to see yourself on television and have a great weekend with your friends in New York to get this raft. Here, let’s get it right now.” He scooted me out of the way and went for the keyboard.

I stiffened in my seat. “Whoa, wait. . . . Hold up. I should maybe reconsider the raft for a second. I mean, summer’s mostly over, so I won’t get in a lot of sailing—”

“Rafting. You’re only sailing when there’s a sail.”

“I mean,
rafting
—what are you, Captain Stubing now?—and I really do want to see everyone. And what if I can’t find a matching life vest for Maisy? Maybe it’s a better idea to go to New York? Plus those little helmets would mess up my hair.”

He mulled over the idea for a moment. “If you don’t get a raft, you won’t have to throw your baby pool away.”

“We do like sitting in the pool when it’s really hot out,” I admitted. Although I always have to monitor Maisy when we’re wallowing because she won’t get out to pee, either. This dog truly is my soul mate. “Maybe I should just get the plane ticket.”

“Only if you feel like that’s a better idea,” he called over his shoulder as he walked back to the living room.

I chose New York, so I’m here in my first-class seat,
⁴⁹
trying to figure out how many free Bloody Marys it will take to assuage the guilt I feel about being a thousand miles away from my unfinished manuscript.

I blot at a tomato juice spot on my black Lacoste, then lean back and sigh contentedly.

Looks like three is the magic number.

The girls pick me up from the airport and we drive straight to the beach. When we landed, the pilot said it was ninety degrees out, so it’s the perfect day for a nice wallow in the Atlantic.

Most of us live in different parts of the country and rarely get together, so the car’s alive with excited chatter as we make our way up the Long Island Expressway. If being together weren’t enough, today’s extra-exciting because we’re taking our friend Angie to see the ocean for the first time.

“I just don’t understand how someone can be our age and have never seen the ocean,” I say. I mean, I know it’s possible—the kids on
Amish in
the City
—my second-favorite reality show ever
⁵⁰
—had never seen the ocean before, but they’d also never ridden on escalators or tasted coffee or had zippers on their pants. Plus, Angie’s not Amish.

“I grew up on a Great Lake. Ask anyone in Michigan, and they’ll tell you it’s the same thing,” Angie replies. She doesn’t need to demonstrate on her hand where she spent her childhood because we already know she’s from the Thumb. Plus, she’s shown us a dozen times before. What is it with people from Michigan? They throw up their hands as often as a newly minted fiancée flashes her diamond. Is it because Michigan’s the only state shaped like something familiar? I wonder if Italian folks are always rolling up their pants to show you where they’re from on their boots?
⁵¹

My WASP-y pal Poppy, who spent every second of every summer for twenty years on Atlantic beaches before moving to the Midwest, interjects, “It’s
so
not the same.”

“Do you feel like you’ve been missing something?” Wendy asks.

“How can I miss it if I’ve never had it?” Angie replies.

I can’t wrap my mind around this. “You haven’t even been to the Caribbean? Or, like, Florida? I bet you’ve been and you just don’t remember. You’ve seen it. You must have seen it.”

Angie frowns at me. “I’ve repressed my memory of the ocean?”

“Yeah.” I bob my head enthusiastically, agreeing with my own conspiracy theory.

“No.”

I persist. “But you just flew into New York yesterday. Did you not notice that big band of blue surrounding LaGuardia?”

Blackbird glances back from the driver’s seat. “Jen, that’s the Long Island Sound.”

“No,” I insist. “I’m talking about the other water around the airport.”

Blackbird raises one elegant eyebrow in the rearview mirror. “The East River? Flushing Bay?”

I deliberately switch tracks. “Angie, did you or did you not see the Statue of Liberty on your flight in?”

“I did! How cool was that? I can’t wait to tell the boys!”

“Aha! Then you saw the ocean that surrounds her!”

Poppy chimes in, “That would be the New York Bay.”

Wendy leans around Angie, who’s sitting between us in the backseat. “Jen, I thought you lived here. Shouldn’t you know this?”

Okay, so maybe I suck at math AND geography.