And again, as if I didn’t understand him the first time, he informed me that he was too depressed to get a job. Then he shook his fist at me. And I mean the REAL me.
“Who are you commanding to get a job now?” my flesh-and-blood husband said as he came into the room and looked at the computer screen. “Who is that fatty? Look at him go! He really wants to punch you out! Without the gut, he looks like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo.”
“No,” I said, trying to make Laurie’s Husband pick up the newspaper again. “It’s not Shaggy. It’s you.”
“Oh, great,” he said. “You made me a barrel-shaped, Schlitz-guzzling mechanic so I wouldn’t cheat on you, huh? What is up with my hair? I look like a member of REO Speedwagon.”
“I’m just trying to control my simulated universe,” I tried to explain as Laurie’s Husband took the newspaper and threw it on the kitchen counter, narrowly missing a growing colony of flies that was starting to resemble a small tornado.
“And who’s that?” my husband said, pointing to the screen. “That looks like Julia Roberts.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” I said, beaming. “That fetching vixen is your lovely bride.”
“I get to be married to Julia Roberts in this game?” he asked. “She’s okay, but she’s really not my type. Do they have a Kate Winslet type? Can I have Kate Winslet? I want a Kate Winslet.”
I just looked at him. “That’s not Julia Roberts, it’s me!” I heartily informed him. “And no, they don’t have a Kate Winslet, mainly because people keep their shirts on in this game. Kate Winslet would feel very out of place, I’m afraid, being on-screen and not popping out her boobs at least once.”
“In Iris she was underwater, Laurie, so that hardly even counts!” he replied.
“If I see an areola and a nipple, it counts, all right, whether it’s blurry or not,” I argued back.
“Why is the REO Speedwagon Shaggy threatening you with physical violence?” my husband asked. “And why is he crying?”
“He’s depressed,” I offered. “He lost his job and now he’s too depressed to get another one.”
My husband is far more familiar with computer games than I am, mainly because when the deadline for my first book was rapidly approaching, I knew he was too old for day care and we didn’t have enough money to send him somewhere for the whole summer, so I did the next best thing. I went to Costco, found the “Battle Chest” version of the “Diablo” computer game, gave it to my husband, and I didn’t see him again for three months. It didn’t take me long to understand that computer games just may be the cure for domestic hostility, and that the nuclear family could stay nuclear as long as there is a PC in the house with a CD drive. Daddy and Mommy don’t need to get a divorce; Daddy just needs to get “Diablo.” This way, Mommy will never see him again as long as she lives, but his paycheck will still pop up in her checking account twice a month. You see, as long as there’s fire, weapons, and the occasional hope of spotting a scantily clad figure with hips (even if she is trying to impale him with a javelin like a rotisserie chicken) a man will stay chained to that dream as long as you let him. And, as a result, I met my deadline.
“Oh,” the expert said, pointing to the Sims’ needs barometer at the bottom of the screen. “He’s not doing well. He needs to socialize, to clean up, and he’s hungry. Maybe if you make him do those things, he’ll be happy enough to get a job.”
“It would be easier to slip him Prozac, but I’ll try it,” I said. “Maybe they can socialize and have fun while they make dinner together.”
“Good idea,” my husband agreed as he pulled up a chair next to mine and sat down.
So I put Laurie and Mr. Sad Sack to work in the kitchen to interact and raise his spirits, and everything seemed to be going fine. I made her tickle him, which he liked, and then she told him some jokes. His “fun” level was rising, which was a very good sign. Laurie was making dinner, things were looking up, and at least he had stopped crying. I thought things were going well, until my husband pointed to the computer screen and said, “What’s . . . that?”
At first I didn’t know. It took me at least a couple of seconds to realize it was a fire. It was a fire because Asshole Sad Sack had put the newspaper too close to the stove where Laurie was making dinner, and a small fire had erupted. And Laurie and Laurie’s Husband were just standing there, watching it.
“I don’t know what to do!” I said in a panic. “I don’t know what to do! What should I do?”
“Um, do you have a phone?” My husband said from behind me as he moved closer to the screen.
“I don’t know!” I cried.
“There it is!” my husband pointed to a phone on the kitchen wall. “Make them pick up the phone to call 911!”
I clicked on the phone, and clicked, and clicked, and clicked, but neither one of them made a move. This was primarily because Piece of Shit Sad Sack just shook his stupid head and gave me another sad face, and Laurie couldn’t get to the phone, well, because Laurie was now entirely engulfed in flames.
I started screaming.
“I’m on FIRE! I’m on FIRE!!” I yelled as Laurie batted at the flames that were surrounding her, and then as she really started to freak out and called out to me for help.
I was still clicking on the phone, and I searched the screen frantically for a garden hose or anything to put the fire out.
While Laurie’s Husband, the one who actually lived in that house and was to its same scale, so he could see things far more clearly than I—I mean, really, I’m a giant in this world, the whole house is about a foot across, and being a giant sometimes does not give you a vantage point, contrary to popular opinion—just stood there, Laurie’s arms were flailing about, and she was yelling and hollering. The flames were almost out of control now, the entire kitchen was ablaze (except for the area that Bastard Son of a Bitch Sad Sack was observing from a corner). Frankly, I was about to throw my Diet Vanilla Coke right on the screen when my real husband suddenly had an idea.
“Click on the flames!” he yelled. “Click on the flames and see if you get an option!”
Immediately, I clicked on the flames, and what popped up but the option to extinguish, and that’s when Sad Sack finally coughed up a goddamned fire extinguisher and sprayed it all over the kitchen. The fire subsided.
But it was too late.
A computerized version of the Death March was heard, and when the fire extinguisher spray had cleared, Laurie was gone. Where she had stood just moments ago, batting at the flames licking at her tiny simulated body, was now a small, gray urn.
“Oh my God,” I said quietly.
A message from the game popped up on the screen.
“Laurie Notaro has died,” the box said.
“I’m . . . dead,” I said weakly. “I’m dead. I died. I DIED. I am DEAD!”
“No way,” my husband whispered.
“How can I be dead?” I questioned.
“Oh, man, demons eat me all the time in ‘Diablo,’” he said. “One time, I was mauled by evil devil strippers. It was gruesome, but also strangely erotic.”
“This is all his fault,” I said, pointing to Laurie’s Husband. “You! This is your fault, you lazy, stupid asshole! You just stood there as she sizzled like a Jimmy Dean sausage link!”
“Click on the urn,” my husband offered. “Maybe there’s a way to bring you back.”
So I clicked on the urn, but the only thing that happened was that an option to “mourn” popped up. So I took it.
And then, a beautiful thing happened.
Someone started to cry. But it wasn’t simply crying; it was more like heart-wrenching, pain-filled weeping, almost as if your soul had been ripped from you, or worse, in this case, your meal ticket. Like if the only person in your house with a job was suddenly transformed into a pile of talcum powder that could fit into a can of fruit cocktail.
“I’m . . . crying,” my husband said simply, pointing to Laurie’s Husband as he wandered about the filt
hy, charred, trash-strewn house. “I’m so sad.”
“Look at that,” I said unbelievably. “Look at that bastard cry.”
“HOO HOO HOOOO!!!! HOO HOO HOOOOO!!!” Laurie’s Husband wailed.
I clicked on my urn again. Mourn. And again. Mourn. And again. Mourn. Again. Mourn. Mourn. Mourn. Mourn. Mourn. Mourn.
“Cry, you big baby, cry!” I commanded. “Look what you did to her! Look what you did! I’m going to keep you so goddamned depressed you’ll never be able to get a job, have a normal life, or marry anyone else! Do you hear me? Cry! Let me hear you cry!”
He deserved it. You know he did.
That’s when the fireman finally showed up, and Laurie’s Husband moaned all the way out to the front yard to greet him as the fireman stood next to a bunch of decomposing turkey legs.
“HOO HOO HOOOO!” I made him say to the fireman. “HOO HOO HOOOO!!”
“Come on, quit clicking on the urn,” my husband said. “I’ve been through enough. Don’t you want me to get on with my life? Hey, can we make a fake girl who looks like Kate Winslet now?”
“NO!” I protested. “I’m sorry, but did you or did you not just see me being incinerated like a Duraflame log? Huh? Did you? Did you or did you not see my simulated face crying out for help as my skinny, thin, and perfectly toned arms tried to beat at the flames that were licking my body, which looked like to me was probably a size six? I finally had inner thighs that had never rubbed together, they had never even once touched, and now they are gone! That is a tragedy nearly unparalleled!”
And then I clicked the urn numerous additional times to emphasize my point.
It was right about that time that my husband stood up, leaned in closer to the screen, and pointed again.
“What IS THAT? What is that thing right near the fireman’s foot in the front yard? Oh my God. Oh my God. What . . . what have you done?!!”
“It’s just a turkey leg, you leave them all over the place,” I let him know, and then went back to my keyboard for more clicks on the urn. “I’m going to make you cry until you’re dehydrat—”
And then I saw what my husband saw. A big, spreading puddle right at the tip of the fireman’s boot.
“Oh dear Lord,” I commented quietly as my hand covered my mouth in shock.
“I hope you’re happy!” my husband yelled. “I hope you are happy. LOOK AT THAT. I’ve peed my pants!! I’ve wet myself in front of a fireman!”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, you certainly have.”
“HOO HOO HOOOO!” Laurie’s Husband continued to cry as pee-pee ran down his leg and pooled in the front yard, and left a big, round dark spot on the front of his jeans.
“You were so busy making me cry and mourning you that you didn’t bother to notice that my bladder needs were at alarming levels!” my husband scolded me.
“Well, it’s not my fault. Maybe if you realized you had to tinkle when I was a bonfire,” I replied, “I might still be alive!”
“Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I do need to use the rest room,” my husband said. “And all of that mourning has made me hungry! What are we making for dinner?”
“Oh,” I said as I shook my head. “Not on your life!”
The Attack of BeanieQueenie
I’ve always been the mean sister. Always.
In my family, there’s the nice sister, the sensitive sister, and then me. In my role as the oldest child, I believe I have the right to be a little resentful, since my territory has been invaded not once, but twice.
So when the sensitive sister—or “BeanieQueenie,” as she’s known to the cyber world as an homage to her love for Beanie Babies—left for Flagstaff earlier this summer to work on her master’s degree, I was really good and answered all of her e-mails. In them, I even offered to bring her warmer clothing and told her how I was pretty sure I had seen Divine, Gertrude Stein, and the Venus of Willendorf naked at the gym.
Soon, however, her e-mails trickled off as she made friends with other students, and her phone calls became more infrequent. And then, two weeks ago, something odd happened.
She started e-mailing again. It was slow at first, maybe one every couple of days, then one every other day, then every day. Two every day. Three every day.
Every time I got a message from BeanieQueenie, I sighed and shook my head. I knew what it was.
It was all CRAP.
Crappy jokes. Crappy stories with crappy punch lines. Crappy good-luck totem poles. Crappy psychological tests that are supposed to determine your crappy personality by playing word-association games. I didn’t even get a personal greeting anymore; instead it was, “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word ‘coffee’?” to which I naturally answered, “Only if I’ve had a lot to drink,” just to discover at the end of the message that “coffee” was supposed to represent my attitude about sex.
When the damage escalated to four messages in one day, I knew something had to be done and sought commiseration with my other, nicer sister.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, also with a sigh. “BeanieQueenie has been sending all that stuff to me, too, but she’s sending it to me at work and at home. I’m getting double crap. It took me forty minutes to download a picture of Tweety Bird that someone made with all V’s and M’s. Did she send you that personality test?”
“Oh yes,” I added. “According to Dr. BeanieQueenie, I’m frigid. I said ‘only when I’m drunk’ to ‘coffee.’ ”
“I said ‘Smells good, but tastes bad,’ ” my sister added. “Where is she getting all of this stuff from?”
“As far as I can tell,” I mentioned, “she’s being supplied by a user—or shall I say pusher—known as LadyDi. Apparently, she’s BeanieQueenie’s funnies connection.”
“Did LadyDi also send her the one about how bad an egg’s life sucks?” my sister asked. “ ‘Because you only get laid once.’ ”
“ ‘And the only girl that ever sits on you is your mom,’ ” I said. “BeanieQueenie is out of control. We can’t handle this on our own. I think we need to seek professional help.”
So I took a big breath and did what I had to do. I called my mom, who was dealing with e-mail problems of her own after she somehow meandered into a chat room a couple of weeks ago.
“I didn’t do any chatting,” she quickly assured me then. “I didn’t like any of the chatters’ names, they all sounded like prostitutes and truck drivers.”
Nevertheless, she apparently didn’t leave the chat room unnoticed, because later that day she began being barraged with illustrated mail from assorted porno sites.
“I didn’t know what it was. It said ‘Juicy Fruit’ at the top, so I opened it,” she explained. “I thought it was you trying to be funny. But what I saw was real sin, I tell you, real sin. People forget that God once destroyed the world because of that kind of sin, and they weren’t even taking pictures of it then! What I saw would blind a holy person.”
But I didn’t even need to explain about the BeanieQueenie situation, because my mom was on that mailing list, too.
“Oh, I don’t know why you two can’t get along,” my mother said. “Leave your sister alone. She is just sharing her joy with you!”
“Mom,” I whined, “she’s not sharing joy. She sent me something nasty about an egg.”
“I thought that was funny,” she replied. “ ‘You have to share a room with eleven guys!!’ But I didn’t understand the one about ‘sitting’ . . .”
“The thing is,” I continued, “never once in, say, thirty years has she ever called me to tell me a joke. But put a ‘forward’ button in front of her and all of a sudden she becomes Lenny Bruce.”
“Don’t you say anything mean to her!” my mother warned. “She was born tender, not with a rawhide heart like you!”
“COFFEE!!” I shouted.
“Never had it until I got married,” she replied before she hung up.
I didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling my sensitive sis
ter and telling her that if she didn’t stop the e-mails, I would wreak havoc by going in her room while she was away and touching EVERY SINGLE THING. To a girl that has her clothes arranged by the color order of the rainbow, that spelled Years of Intensive Therapy. If that didn’t work, I knew I could break her if I threatened to mutilate one Beanie Baby at a time by removing the protective tag cover with each crappy e-mail I got.
I made the call.
“Hello, BeanieQueenie?” I said into the phone. “It’s QueenieMeanie, and we need to talk about those e-mails.”
“Aren’t they funny!” My sister giggled. “Did you get the one about the egg? ‘Five minutes to make one hard and two to make it soft!’ You work so hard all the time to make other people laugh that I just wanted to put a smile on your face. I was imagining you laughing when I sent it and it made me so happy!”
“Oh” was all I could say as I felt my meanness level plummet.
Go on, say it! Say it! the cruel little voice inside me yelled. Tell her you’re going to go for all of the retired Beanies first! Tell her you have Doodle the Rooster in your hand right NOW!
“I didn’t get the egg one,” I heard myself say. “Could you send it again?”
Fill ’er Up
When the paper I worked for was bought by a large chain that installed its own management, things changed. We had a new editor in chief, who watched me blow a zeppelin out of my nose during a meeting, which in turn resulted in a bevy of phone messages and e-mails submitting an apology regarding the booger bubble, and also requesting an additional audience, none of which he bothered replying to.
My direct editor for my once-a-week newspaper column was replaced as well, and Gretchen, a six-foot-three emaciated giantess with a shock of cropped black hair and a closetful of safari clothing (including a khaki bandanna around her neck), became my new editor.