I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) by Laurie Notaro Read Free Book Online Page A

left the net at home. I figured if Charlie Watts felt like showing up at work, that was fine, but I needed to be able to walk around without people pointing and whispering in the elevators, “There’s that nut job who plays with her own pee and thinks she’s always on
Candid Camera.
”
    Plus, as it turned out, Charlie never made an appearance at all that week, and my doctor wasn’t too happy to hear that when I had my next appointment.
    “Well, that’s quite unfortunate,” he said with a deep breath. “We still need to find out why you’re getting kidney stones. I’m going to need some samples from you.”
    “I’m game as long as it doesn’t require a hook and bait,” I replied, “or any other kind of sports equipment.”
    Down at the lab, the tech had just finished taking my blood when she asked me if my doctor had explained the “other” part of the sample.
    “Just point me to the rest room!” I joked. “Believe me, I’m such a pro at that kind of sample that I don’t even need a net underneath me anymore!! Ha ha ha!”
    The lab tech gave me a funny look. “I don’t think you understand,” she said slowly as she pulled out something that looked exactly like a plastic gas can with a spout and everything. “It’s a twenty-four-hour sample, which means everything for twenty-four hours goes into here.”
    I looked at the gas can, and I wanted to laugh, but I just couldn’t. I mean, it even had a
handle
on it. Forget about the duffel bag, I was going to have to bring a
suitcase
to work. Now, not only was I going to be a pee handler, but I was a pee saver to boot.
    I looked at the tech, who simply shrugged, and I could only think of one thing to say.
    “Please tell me,” I implored earnestly, “to look into that spout and smile.”

         
    Pain in the Assisi

    T he moment I saw it, I knew it was perfect. The perfect Christmas gift for my impossible-to-buy-for mother.
    Let’s just say that it’s a given that courtesy of QVC, whatever my mother wants, my mother gets, and typically within eight seconds of seeing it. My mother gets so many packages that she’s on a first-name basis with the UPS guy and he knew the results of her last mammogram before my father did. However, there is an upside to my mother’s passion for collecting abstruse gadgets. As a result, my sisters and I have begun a new family tradition on holidays called This Is Your Brain on QVC, in which we try to guess the purpose of any new QVC purchase, how many times my mother will use it, and how long it will be before she will throw it out. Last Christmas, it looked like she got nipple clamps by mistake, but after a lengthy ponder, she insisted that it was an accessory to bind the legs of the turkey while roasting that had a dual purpose as an eyeglass chain.
    On the last scouting expedition of This Is Your Brain on QVC, my sister and I discovered these delicious-smelling muffins, which is what they looked like, but on closer inspection it was discovered that these were no muffins at all. They were candles. Muffin candles. I mean, they smelled like muffins, they looked like muffins, but eating them would have been like eating a Glade Solid or a stick of Mennen. So I was forced to ask her what they were, and she looked at me like I was stupid. “They’re muffin candles,” she said, much like she would say, “This is a candle. And this is a muffin.” Separately, they’re fine, I was dying to tell her, it’s
together
that they’re a problem.
    So I said, “Well, why don’t you burn them?”
    And she said, “Because they’re not for burning. Burning would melt them.”
    So I said, “Well, what are they for then?”
    And she said, “To look like muffins.”
    So I said, “Then why don’t you just get some muffins?”
    And she said, “What, are you an idiot? You just can’t leave muffins on the counter day in and day out without people thinking that you live like an animal! I don’t want people running around