Have a Nice Guilt Trip (3 page)

The only problem with chocolate calcium is that it’s hard to limit yourself to forty-five servings.

I’m starting to think that all of our medical treats are compensation for being middle-aged and having to take all these dumb pills. In fact, whoever invented gummi medicine is a great person. Why shouldn’t we get to have a little bit of fun with our cholesterol? Why can’t we whoop it up while we make our bones stronger? And what’s wrong with making a game out of whatever it is that CoQ10 does?

And think of the possibilities. If they made gummi birth-control pills, nobody would ever forget to take them.

And if they made gummi Viagra?

Run for cover.

The Married-Ex Milestone

By Francesca

Your twenties are jam-packed with life’s milestones—graduations, serious relationships, new jobs, major moves—and as Facebook notifies you when each of your friends makes any one of them, it’s hard not to compare yourself and come up short.

A major milestone for me was actually the milestone of somebody else: when the first of my ex-boyfriends got married.

It was over a year ago now, just days before my twenty-sixth birthday. I had been cooped up during the homestretch of a book deadline and had been avoiding the distractions of the Internet. But on the very last day of editing, in a moment of weakness, I hopped on Facebook. In the first thirty seconds of looking at the home page, a new update appeared in the Newsfeed:

My college boyfriend was married.

It knocked the wind out of me. I instantly closed the Internet window but not fast enough to undo the knowledge. I didn’t burst into tears, but I stood up from my desk, full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. Facebook only lets you
think
you know everything about everyone, and as my ex was never one to disclose his relationship status online, I didn’t see this coming. No girlfriend, no engagement, just married. Just, all of a sudden, married.

Until then, I had felt like I was over the relationship; I’d had several relationships begin and end since ours. But he was the only boyfriend with whom I had ever discussed marriage. He was the only one I had fantasized about seeing at the end of the aisle.

And now he had already walked it, in real life, with somebody else.

My last relationship had ended almost a year ago, and I hadn’t met anyone special since. Now even the most recent ex had a new girlfriend, and my college sweetheart had a wife.

Where did that leave me?

It sounds crazy, but I held a magazine up to cover the majority of the computer screen as I carefully navigated into my Facebook settings and blocked all future updates from my married ex. We had over a hundred mutual friends, and I didn’t want to be inundated with all of the congratulations and “likes” on the news, or—oh God—the pictures.

Seeing your ex’s wedding pictures is unnatural.

I did the remainder of my book edits in a daze, distracted by my complicated feelings. We had been off and on for a period of years. Through other relationships, I had always held a candle for him, and he for me. If you’ve read my writing before, you may recall that he was the one for whom I traveled across the country as part of a grand gesture to win him back.

It didn’t work.

After everything, it was me who had put an end to the back-and-forth, the undefined in-between, because I knew it wasn’t good for me. I needed a clean break.

And a year later, he was married.

Part of me was truly happy that the closure had worked for him. But had it worked for me?

I took account of my life. I was living in New York City, as I had always wanted to. I was working full-time as a writer, a dream I hadn’t thought I’d get to pursue so soon. I had no right to complain.

But I wasn’t in love.

I didn’t even have a crush.

So I moped around my apartment, wearing sweats and listening to Adele’s “Someone Like You” on repeat. On the third day, my friend Lucy emailed me. She invited me to see some band play that Friday and meet her boyfriend, the band’s producer. I agreed, not so much because I wanted to go, but because I knew I needed to get out of the house.

I had reached the red zone of unwashed hair.

Getting ready on Friday night, I put extra effort into looking good in the hopes that I’d feel better about myself. My makeup felt like war paint, applied with a delicate brush. With my glumness hidden by a great blusher and some lip-gloss, I was ready for the night.

This was Sparta! Emotionally speaking.

It almost worked. My
tromp-l’œil
fabulousness fooled everyone but me. At preshow drinks with the girls, I felt a beat behind the happy conversation. All I really wanted to talk about was my ex, his startling elopement (or at least as I imagined it), his mystery wife (I mean, who
IS
this person?), and how lucky I was to have dodged that bullet, right?

RIGHT?!?

I knew these weren’t winning conversation topics, so I kept my mouth shut and listened to the others gossip about how the band’s drummer was so hot, but more trouble than he’s worth.

Aren’t they all?

We traipsed over to the music venue, with me lagging only a little behind. I was the last to reach the bouncer.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, handing back my ID with a smile. “Do me a favor. Don’t get married tonight.”

I looked at him like he might be clairvoyant. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I answered, meaning it.

At the show, I actually began to enjoy myself. There was a happy hubbub amongst the crowd, and my mind was kept busy with a whirlwind of introductions. When the band began setting up onstage, I saw one particularly handsome player. He had to be the jerk.

I elbowed my friend. “Is that the drummer?”

“No! That’s the lead singer. It’s his band. He’s really nice.”

Yeah, right,
I thought bitterly. But I did edge my way around the crowd for a better view.

It turned out the lead singer really was nice. Three days after that night, he and I went on the best first date I’ve ever had, and he’s been my boyfriend ever since. I’m not sure he’s the one I’m going to marry, but I’m okay with not knowing. I’m okay with pretty much everything in my life right now, even if I am in between milestones.

This summer I went to my fifth-year college reunion. My ex wasn’t there, but I heard that he and his wife recently had a baby. My first thought?

Nice, but I hope he didn’t steal one of my awesome baby names. (He didn’t.)

And that’s when I knew: I was over my married ex.

How’s that for a milestone?

Brusha Brusha Brusha

By Lisa

So it turns out that dogs need more than love and food.

I learned this when I was talking to Francesca on the phone and she’s brushing Pip’s teeth, which she does every night. She also brushes his fur and trims his nails.

“Why don’t you just let him be a dog?” I ask her, only half-kidding.

“Because I love him and I want to take care of him. You love your dogs, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you need to take care of them. If you don’t clip their toenails, it messes up their feet. Plus, Cavaliers have heart trouble, and tartar in their teeth only makes it worse.”

I listen, intrigued. I remember my cardiologist saying it’s good to floss your teeth because it keeps tartar from building up in your heart. After that, I never looked at tartar sauce the same way.

Francesca was saying, “I read that if you clean your dog’s teeth, they can live one to three years longer. Wouldn’t you want Peach to live three years longer?”

“Of course,” I answer truthfully. I want Peach to live forever. Ruby, on the other hand, is a different story.

I’m allowed to have a doggie favorite. They don’t know. And they won’t tell their shrinks.

Francesca continues, “It’s not that hard to clip their toenails, Mom. Just get one of those clippers with the hole. Don’t cut the quick because it’s a vein, and make brushing their teeth a game. Use peanut-butter toothpaste.”

“I’m on it,” I tell her, meaning it, but it takes me a month to buy the supplies and another month to give it a shot. It’s a chore, when you have more than one dog. Four dogs times four paws equals a lot of toenails.

That would be the extent of my math ability.

Also I’m not sure I know how many toes a dog has, though I’m guessing it’s five more than I want to clip.

I begin with Little Tony, the least disobedient of my disobedient dogs. The nail clipper looks oddly like a pair of pliers with a hole in the middle, and its package reads, Dog Guillotine Nail Trimmer.

This would be bad marketing.

Dog and guillotine don’t belong in the same sentence.

Also it comes with a styptic pencil “to pack a quicked nail,” and already I’m looking for a tourniquet.

I pick up the clippers, put Tony in my lap, and bring the clippers toward his curved black toe, which does look a little Fu Manchu. But as soon as Tony sees the clippers, he writhes back and forth. I can’t get his nail in the hole.

The other dogs stand around laughing and pointing. The joke is on them because their nails don’t look good.

Anyway, I try again and again to clip Tony’s toenail, fighting the struggling dog, but I get so nervous I’m going to cut a doggie artery that my hand starts shaking.

I think immediately back to the days when Francesca was a baby and I had to clip her fingernails. I bought a pair of baby fingernail clippers, but she kept moving her hand around, fussing. My own hand started shaking, thus guaranteeing that if I kept trying, I would amputate.

So I gave up, and when she was thirteen, she clipped her own nails.

But I digress.

I gave up on doggie toenail-clipping and segued into doggie tooth-brushing, but that didn’t go well, either.

Dog toothpaste doesn’t come with a toothbrush, but a weird plastic glove that has a rough patch on one finger.

And if you try to brush your dogs’ teeth, you’re in for a rough patch.

I follow the directions, which tell me to “introduce your dog to the toothpaste.”

Dog, meet toothpaste. Toothpaste, meet dog. Everybody, meet woman with too much time on her hands.

So I open the toothpaste, which is green, gummy, and smells like pine trees. The box says it’s peanut-butter flavor, but if I were a dog I would sue.

Guaranteed this is going to taste like Pine-Sol.

I sit on the rug with the glove and the toothpaste, and all four dogs edge away, then scoot out of the kitchen. I chase them around but they run under tables and chairs. I can’t catch any of them except Penny, who clamps her mouth shut with the jaw pressure of a pit bull.

So I gave up.

Moral of the story? Sometimes it’s okay to give up.

Works for fingernails and diets.

Mother Mary and The Fighting Scottolines

By Lisa

We begin when Mother Mary falls seriously ill and has to be rushed to the hospital.

Don’t worry, this will get funny by the end.

But in the middle, we learn that her legs are swelling, which is somehow connected to her heart. This I cannot explain, and even after a week with her in the hospital, I still don’t understand. I thought the leg bone was connected to the hip bone, not the heart, but that’s beside the point.

Mother Mary enters the hospital in Miami while I’m on book tour, and Brother Frank tells me it’s serious, so of course, I cancel the end of the tour and fly down there with Daughter Francesca. I also asked my best friend and assistant, Laura, to come, which turned out to be essential because she served as referee.

It turns out that The Flying Scottolines cope with a life-threatening situation by threatening each other’s lives.

The bad news is that Mother Mary was critically ill, in that her heart wasn’t doing very well, functioning significantly under its capacity. The good news is that there are medications they put her on, blood thinners and the like, and to fast-forward so you all don’t get upset, by the end of the week, she’s stabilized and headed for cardiac rehab, with a good prognosis.

But the ones who need rehab are Brother Frank and me.

When the going gets critical, we get criticizing.

My brother and I normally get along very well, and I usually defer to Frank’s judgment about what’s good for Mother Mary, especially because they live together. But something about seeing my little mommy lying in bed, like an oddly gray-haired child, brings out the Hospital Nazi in me.

Or at least, I’m in no mood to compromise when her health is at stake.

And he feels the same way.

So we fight.

Over everything.

We spend all day at the hospital, and the scene is the same every day for almost a week: Francesca and Laura take care of Mother Mary while Frank and I fight.

What do we fight about?

Frank thinks she needs the top of her bed cranked up, but I think it’s better lower. Frank thinks she needs her grippy socks on, but I think she doesn’t. Frank thinks the window shades should be down, but I think they should be up. Frank wants the door open, but I want it closed. And don’t get me started on the volume levels of the TV.

Obviously, we fight over the important things.

We fight in front of her, but then we realize that it upsets her, so then we take it out in the hallway, where she knows we’re fighting but can’t hear exactly why. At no point do we stop fighting. In other words, if she isn’t having a heart attack, we’re going to give her one. Because we love her so much.

Yes, we love her enough to kill her.

Now
that’s
Italian.

Or maybe it isn’t. Please tell me we’re not the only family who behaves the worst when they should behave the best.

The only thing we agree on occurs on Day Five, when we both agree that Mother Mary needs to be on oxygen. Unfortunately, Mother Mary doesn’t think she needs oxygen to live.

So Frank and I, in a rare moment of unanimity, ask the doctors if she needs to be on oxygen, and they administer a test, which shows that oxygen is in order.