Furiously Happy (10 page)

Unless, that is, in his next life he comes back as a customer. Then he'll shake his head a little confusedly as he steers his third wife away from the cat on the counter eating a spaghetti pie. But I bet Victor'll turn back once more to see a very happy woman handing a potato sandwich to her glittery monkey-waiter, and I imagine he'll feel a small pang of regret and sadness. Probably because he'll never know that potato sandwiches are fucking
delicious
.

PS: Victor just read this and he agreed that “mashed potato sandwiches
are
delicious” but stated that he'd more likely be looking back to see a woman covered in stolen ferrets getting arrested for not handing in her taxes on time because none of her glitter-eating monkeys loved her enough to make her do required paperwork.

I
really
hate it when he's right.

 

What I Say to My Shrink vs. What I Mean

“I feel like I'm making some real progress.”

I
HAVEN'T STABBED ANYONE IN THE FACE IN WEEKS.
S
OMEONE GET ME SOME KINDA TROPHY.
B
UT NOT A BOWLING TROPHY.
I
ALREADY HAVE ONE OF THOSE.

“I've been having problems concentrating. I think I might have ADD.”

I
'VE BEEN WATCHING
Y
OU
T
UBE VIDEOS OF KITTENS FALLING TOO MUCH WHEN
I
'M SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING AND IF MY EDITOR FINDS OUT
I
'M GOING TO NEED FOR YOU TO WRITE ME A DOCTOR'S NOTE EXPLAINING THAT IT'S A MEDICAL CONDITION.

“Your waiting room is
so
cheerful.”

W
HY DO YOU HAVE ALL THOSE
C
AT
F
ANCY
MAGAZINES IN THE LOBBY?
A
RE THOSE SOME SORT OF TRAP, OR IS IT JUST SOME SORT OF PROFILING?

“But I didn't look at those magazines because I'm not some kind of crazy cat lady.”

I
STOLE THE CENTERFOLD.

“Although I do,
of course
, love my pets as much as any normal person.”

T
HE OTHER DAY
I
HAD INSOMNIA AND
I
MADE MY CATS A WATER BED OUT OF A
Z
IPLOC BAG AND A SHOEBOX.
T
HEY POPPED IT WITH THEIR CLAWS AND THEY ALMOST DROWNED.
T
HEN
I
TRIED TO PUT BABY SOCKS AROUND THEIR FEET BUT THEY KEPT PULLING THEM OFF SO
I
TRIED WRAPPING RUBBER BANDS AROUND THE SOCK HEMS AND THEN MY HUSBAND WOKE UP WHILE
I
WAS PINNING ONE OF THE CATS DOWN TO PUT THE SOCK ON HIM AND HE WAS ALL, “
W
HAT ARE YOU DOING?
W
HY ARE THESE CATS ALL WET?” AND
I
WAS LIKE, “
I
'M TRYING TO
HELP
THEM ENJOY WATER BEDS,” AND THEN
V
ICTOR MADE ME GO TO SLEEP.
I
T WAS A DISAPPOINTMENT TO EVERYONE INVOLVED.

“Who let all these squirrels in here?”

N
O, SERIOUSLY.
W
HO LET ALL THESE SQUIRRELS IN HERE?

“I swear I saw two squirrels duck behind your receptionist's desk.”

F
OR REAL.
T
HERE ARE SQUIRRELS INFILTRATING THE BUILDING.

“No?
Really?
Huh. Must've just been a trick of the light. Ha ha.”

W
HAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL, LADY?
I
TOTALLY JUST SAW THOSE SQUIRRELS.

“So, how are you?”

I
S THIS SOME SORT OF TRICK?
D
ID YOU PURPOSELY LET SQUIRRELS IN HERE TO SEE IF
I
'D PRETEND TO NOT SEE THEM JUST SO THAT YOU CAN SEE IF
I
'M PRETENDING NOT TO SEE THINGS THAT AREN'T THERE?
B
ECAUSE THAT IS FUCKING SNEAKY AND UNETHICAL.
A
ND PROBABLY A CRUEL USE OF SQUIRRELS.

“I've been well, thanks.”

B
ETTER THAN THESE SQUIRRELS YOU'RE HOLDING HOSTAGE, AT LEAST.

“What's that? I seem ‘distracted'?”

H
OLY SHIT.
W
HAT IF THERE AREN'T ANY SQUIRRELS AND
I
'M JUST SEEING IMAGINARY SQUIRRELS?
W
HAT IF SQUIRRELS DON'T EVEN EXIST?
I
S THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

“I'm
not
distracted.”

D
AMN IT.
I
PROBABLY NEED TO PROVE THERE ARE SQUIRRELS IN HERE OR ELSE THIS DOCTOR IS GOING TO THINK
I
'M REALLY INSANE.
T
HIS IS THE LAST PLACE
I
NEED TO IMAGINE NONEXISTENT SQUIRRELS.
M
AYBE
I
SHOULD SMUGGLE SOME IN SO SHE SEES THEM TOO.

“Honestly, I'm doing
really
well.”

W
HERE COULD
I
GET SOME SQUIRRELS AT THIS TIME OF DAY?

“Sometimes when I'm staying in thin-walled hotel rooms I'll open up my laptop and play TV murder scenes really loudly to see if anyone ever calls the police to report a murder. No one ever does though. It's like people just don't care anymore.”

M
OTHERFUCKER.
I
CAN'T BELIEVE
I
JUST SAID THAT OUT LOUD.

“I can't believe I just said that out loud.”

I
BLAME THOSE FUCKING SQUIRRELS.
W
HICH MY SHRINK PROBABLY SMUGGLED IN TO THROW ME OFF SO
I
'D ADMIT TO STILL NEEDING HER.

“Well played, Dr. Roberts. Well played, indeed.”

PS: That was obviously a slightly hyperbolized account of how my psychiatrist achieves job security but last week I went in for my appointment after getting a call reminding me of an appointment I didn't even remember making. When I got there the nurse insisted that I didn't have an appointment and that no one had called me. And I stood there in the office wondering if I'd just imagined someone calling to tell me I needed psychiatric help, or if the office had intentionally called me so that I'd come in and question my sanity when I was told that I wasn't actually supposed to be there. It seemed like a highly questionable but also somewhat brilliant way to increase customer loyalty.

Then I walked outside the office and checked my phone and that's when I realized that it was my other doctor I had an appointment with and so I yelled, “Oh, shit!” and ran to my car so I wouldn't be late and then I looked back and saw the nurse staring after me in confused concern. It's almost like I showed up there just to show them how little progress I was making.
And
I was too frazzled to look at the cat magazines.

It was disappointing on all accounts.

 

LOOK AT THIS GIRAFFE

Last week a stranger showed up at my parents' house with an antique, six-foot, dead giraffe head in the back of his truck that he wanted to get rid of. This sounds
slightly
less weird when I explain that my dad is a professional taxidermist who has a reputation for trading dead animals for strange things. Or maybe it sounds weirder. Honestly, I'm not good at judging what our lives look like to normal people.

The stuffed giraffe was the head and neck, ending at the shoulder blades and mounted to stand on the floor like a strange, questionable hat rack with eyeballs. My father decided to pass because it was weird looking. But then he remembered that I like terrible, old taxidermy and this giraffe seemed exactly like the kind of fucked-up thing I'd love, so he called and said, “There's a guy here with a third of a dead giraffe in the back of his truck and it looks pretty messed up, so I thought of you.”

I considered responding with “
Who is this?
” but it was perfectly obvious who it was and I wasn't sure if I should be insulted or perhaps flattered that my dad knew me so well.

“Which third?” I asked. He explained, and I asked him to buy it for me, but only if it died of natural causes and was cheap, and only if it was
truly
weird looking. “But ‘funny and whimsical' weird,” I explained. “Not ‘sad and awkwardly depressing' weird.”

“I'm not sure I can tell the difference,” my dad replied. The love of taxidermy had not skipped a generation, but the evaluation of it certainly had.

*   *   *

Victor overheard part of the conversation and told me that I could
not
have a giraffe because we had no place to put it,
1
and I pointed out that it was only a third of a giraffe
and
that it was the most interesting third, so it was almost impossible to say no to. Victor then proved me wrong by saying “no” several times. He argued that we had no way to get the giraffe to our house but I explained that I could pick it up from my parents' home and put it in the passenger seat of our car. And then I could roll down the window so Monsieur Giraffe's head could stick out and then I'd even be able to use the HOV lane. Victor disagreed
because all of a sudden he knows everything about HOV regulations
, but it didn't really matter because my dad called back and said he couldn't get a good deal on the giraffe head so he passed. Victor was relieved, but I reminded him that my father is a terrific liar so there was still a small possibility that he'd bought the giraffe stalk himself and was fixing it up for me as some sort of weird Christmas present. That's the thing about my father. You never know when he's hiding a giant surprise giraffe head from you. I can't really tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm leaning toward good.

Victor seemed concerned that a surprise giraffe might show up at any moment, but he didn't need to worry because my dad really did pass on the head, but oddly enough he ended up picking the head up from a local auction when the woman who won it hired him to fix the damage. He was shocked she'd paid double the asking price but when he was driving the giraffe back to his taxidermy shop another woman saw the giraffe's flowing mane and followed my dad home offering to pay double that price. The lady who bought it at auction refused because she'd fallen in love with him and my dad shook his head in bafflement. He called me that night and said in a hushed tone, “My God.
There's more of you.
”

But that's another story. Let's get back to the story of gift taxidermy. I'm quite good at giving gifts. Several years ago for our anniversary I gave Victor a giant metal chicken named Beyoncé. Then last year I surprised him with a live sloth, a loose wallaby, and a hedgehog in our living room. This year Victor decided to surprise me instead. And he did. First, because it was like a month away from our eighteenth anniversary, and second, because when I opened up the big box Victor had left on the kitchen floor, a giant bear attacked me. Mostly because my sleeve got hooked on the wooden frame that was securing the bear in the box and I got off-balance, and when I fell backward it rolled over on me and I was suddenly pinned by an unexpected bear in the middle of the kitchen.

This gift is especially sweet because 1) Victor does not like taxidermy and the fact that he bought me a bear head makes him the greatest husband ever, 2) he assured me that this bear died of natural causes, and 3) now I have a quarter of a bear to hide around the house. Sometimes I hide him outside Victor's office so it looks like he's being eavesdropped on by a bear. Sometimes I stick his head quickly through the shrubbery outside our house so that people driving by will think they've seen a bear, because I like to add intrigue to other people's lives. Victor says it's because I have too much free time on my hands. I think it's because
I'm a giver
. It could be both.

No one knows where the other three-quarters of that bear are but I'm okay with having just the face, although I
did
mention that I would have liked for the bear to have arms because that way it could hug you when you were having a bad day. Victor argued that bears give terrible hugs because they're made of claws and teeth but he's wrong because everyone knows that bears give the best hugs.
That's why you call a good hug a “bear hug.”
I didn't mention that to Victor though because it's probably not cool to look a gift bear in the mouth.