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

town, saying that I keep the same old muffins on the counter!”
    She was also very anxious to show us her newest arrival from QVC, which was some sort of food preserver/laminator thing. Everything she put in it came out looking like my employee badge at work, and you basically had to use a table saw or a blowtorch to get at the food once you “preserved” it.
    “You can save ham for up to two years with this thing!” she said excitedly.
    Now, I don’t know if she has some inside scoop that the Three Little Pigs and Wilbur are now considered members of an exotic or endangered species, but to be frank, even if the last pig on earth were snorting his last breath at this very moment, I’d eat my own toes before I ate two-year-old ham that’s really just a floppy pink fossil. I don’t even want to drink water that’s two years old, let alone something that died well before the last presidential election or when I had a whole different and much quicker metabolism. Plus the fact that she just completely ruined Easter for me; there’s no way now that I’m going to trust any ham that she puts on that table. I’d have to carbon-date it before I even remotely considered taking a bite.
    But this gift, the magnificent one I had found for my mother, was something she couldn’t get on QVC, and as the clerk swiped my Visa, I couldn’t help but smile.
    “This is the last thing my mother would ever expect I would get for her,” I said with a little laugh.
    Only several days before, she had anxiously called me after her two-week trip to Italy, and frankly, I was surprised. Previous to her departure, she had informed me that the trip was not really a vacation but a pilgrimage to Assisi for the sole purpose of following in the footsteps of Saint Francis, and frankly, I couldn’t resist making some fun out of it.
    “A pilgrimage, huh?” I had asked. “You might want to buy Dramamine at Costco this time. You threw up for the whole three weeks of that Princess cruise, so sailing on the
Mayflower
should be a very enjoyable trip for you.”
    “That’s not funny,” she responded. “It’s a religious mission and I’m going with people from church because your father got a little aggravated about my nausea on the last cruise and said the only trip he would ever take with me again would be out to dinner.”
    “Make sure to pack your buckle shoes.” I giggled. “And a big white collar.”
    “This is nothing to joke about,” she continued quite seriously. “We’re staying at Father John’s house and it’s supposed to be clean, but I’ll tell you right now, if I so much as spot a fly, I’m booking myself into the first Super Otto I find. The last thing I need is a big, filthy foreign Italian bug crawling into my head!”
    “Hey, bring some beads to trade with,” I added. “And don’t forget your wampum!”
    “I’m not laughing, Laurie,” she informed me. “And Saint Francis isn’t cracking a smile, either!”
    So when my mother called when she came back, I was kind of shocked but very intrigued.
    “Did you have fun on your pilgrimage?” I asked coyly. “Did you eat a lot of turkey?”
    “I,” my mother said slowly, “had a
wonderful
time. I had a
wonderful
time. For the most part. As long as I knew where I was, I had a wonderful time.”
    “What do you mean?” I prodded.
    “Well, I got a little lost,” she added quietly.
    “You got lost in Italy?” I questioned, trying not to laugh.
    “It’s not that big a deal, it’s just that when you suddenly find yourself on a dirt road in the middle of an Italian nowhere, dragging a heavy saint behind you and it starts to get dark, it’s a little frightening, that’s all,” she replied.
    “Do me a favor,” I insisted, “and start from the beginning. I want the biggest laugh potential possible.”
    Apparently, during some time off from being a pilgrim, my mother and her friends decided to walk around Assisi, get a bite to eat, and then I’m sure secretly