My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto (18 page)

The service is terrible because our waiter is too busy being run around by the Cardinal fans, and we sit with dirty plates and empty glasses for far longer than is acceptable, particularly at a four-star restaurant.

I begin seething, taking the whole experience personally. And when Fletch goes to the bathroom and sees all the empty tables in the back with the primo fountain view, his mood darkens as well.

Foul and slighted as I’m feeling, I decide it’s time to fight back. Surreptitiously, I pull out a small notebook and pretend I’m jotting down notes, which leads the entire staff to believe I’m reviewing the restaurant. And then I begin to take notes for real when I discover the potatoes are bland, the lobster potpie one big crock of gluten, the Kobe beef tough, and the foie gras double-plus un-good.

When the waiter tries to bring us the last course in our tasting menu, we tell him we’ve had enough and are ready to leave right this minute, check,
please
.
¹⁶⁷
As we’re leaving, the maître d’ says something along the lines of “I hope we’ll see you back again,” to which I reply, “Not in this lifetime.” We stomp over to see a Cirque du Soleil show, and I spend the entire performance grousing about the terrible meal and poor service.

When we return to our hotel, we recount the whole experience to the concierge in righteously indignant detail before going to bed. By the time we’re back from brunch, the manager of the restaurant has called our room twice to apologize and invite us back for a dinner on the house.

That’s when it hits me—I pulled the “don’t you know who I am” card. I’m suddenly mortified by my privileged, officious behavior.

Somehow over the course of this project, I’ve managed to twist what I’ve learned over my cultural Jenaissance into flat-out, unearned elitism. I mean, just because I’ve now had Kobe and foie gras doesn’t exactly make me an expert, yet there I was, acting as though I was. My Shame Rattle sounds again and again. In the past two days, I’ve behaved with the exact amount of arrogance and egotism that cost me my job so many years ago, which means I’m missing the point of everything I’ve been working toward since winter.

This isn’t how I want to be. I don’t want to turn what I’ve learned into a weapon. I want to be a better me, not a bigger ass.

There’s a scene in
My Fair Lady
where Eliza goes back to hang out with all the other flower girls, and they don’t even recognize her. She still wants to be friends with them, but she’s changed so much, she makes everyone uncomfortable and has to leave. She finds herself trapped between two worlds, unable to feel real belonging to either. While I based some of my Jenaissance on the play, that wasn’t the part I’d hoped to emulate.

If I want to make a good impression at Authors Night, my renaissance needs to be genuine, and I have to stop worrying about the class part of the equation. I mean, I’m not going to outclass a bunch of millionaires—particularly with eight dollars in my purse—and trying to would be an exercise in futility. I need to find a way to be a kinder, gentler, more articulate me. I want to be the kind of me who doesn’t have to recount a reality show moment to best capture my feeling on a particular subject. And I don’t want other authors to roll their eyes after it’s over, saying,
“What was up with that Lancaster chick? Obnoxious!”

So over the next month, I need to figure out how to better myself without losing what defines me.

I can start by not benefiting from my own bad behavior.

I decline the opportunity for a free dinner and later, when it’s time to eat, we end up at In-N-Out Burger.

It’s one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

When we get home from Las Vegas, I set my bags down by the back door and check the voice mail. There’s a message from the vet, who in a very matter-of-fact voice tells me that Maisy’s cysts—you know, the ones they’d been saying for years are nothing and they only aspirated at my insistence—are cancerous, and I should probably make an appointment to schedule surgery.

I feel like I’ve just been kicked in the heart.

While I take to my bed in hysterics, Stacey helps Fletch find a new vet, one who won’t blithely write off a spate of cancerous tumors as “Eh, just doggie zits” for three years.

Honestly, it’s a good thing it’s Sunday and my vet’s office is closed, because I’m not sure I can trust myself right now not to do something stupid. I mean, I always joke about stuff like bludgeoning the contractor and punching bad drivers in the neck, but I actually feel like I could commit physical violence right now against a doctor either too lazy or disconnected to take proper care of my baby.

The worst part is the kennel’s closed, too, and we can’t even pick her up until tomorrow morning. Fletch tried to contact them about getting the dogs early but kept getting the answering machine.

On our last night in Vegas, Fletch and I sat by the hotel pool and split a bottle of wine while we watched the fireworks. We were both pretty melancholy about Maggie, and somehow over the course of the conversation, Fletch agreed that we should take one of the kittens from Gina’s backyard.

But I wondered how we’d take just one kitten out of three. How would we go about deciding who’s going to get spoiled rotten with all the ottomans they can shred and who might perish on the streets? And wouldn’t they miss one another?

While Fletch decided he’d get us another bottle of wine, I decided we’d take all three and sent Gina a tipsy e-mail saying as much. Fletch eventually agreed to my idea, but since I first plied him with liquor, I’m not sure his acquiescence would hold up in court.

My face firmly planted in my pillow, I beg Fletch to call Gina and find out when we can get the kittens because I desperately need something else to occupy my thoughts. We make plans to stop by tomorrow night.

I spend most of the next twenty-four hours hugging my dog and crying. I also Google Canine Mast Cell Disease and almost throw up when I find out the typical life expectancy after diagnosis and with treatment is one to two years, if we’re lucky.

Suddenly, my baby dog, my best friend, the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten other than my husband, comes with an expiration date.

While I’m waiting for Fletch to get home from work so we can pick up the kittens, I furiously start scheduling cultural activities to keep me occupied. I sign up for foreign cooking classes, wine appreciation courses, and cheese seminars. I buy tickets for dance recitals and theater performances and book dinners at molecular gastronomy restaurants. I’m trying to be as show-must-go-on as I can, but I wonder if I’m going to be able to focus on anything in the near future.

Gina greets me with an enormous hug and a million words of encouragement. She’s baked us one of her world-famous pound cakes, too, which really touches me. I’m not close to my family anymore—let’s just say big, fat, thoughtless mouths are a genetic trait—so it feels really good to have friends filling these roles.

Gina leads us down to the basement, where the kittens are currently being kept. “How’d you catch them?” Fletch asks. When we saw her a couple of weeks ago, Gina told us the shelters instructed her not to touch them, as her scent might turn their mother against them. As far as we know, no one’s ever laid a human hand on them.

“I lured them into my gingerbread house,” Gina replies. “I opened a can of Trader Joe’s tuna, set it in the cat carrier, and then shut the door on them. Then I brought them into the basement and essentially dumped them into this.” Gina points at the largest dog carrier I’ve ever seen. Both our old dogs George and Ted could have fit in there together. Nixon, too. Possibly even Spiro Agnew.

“Why do you have this? Did you have a Malamute I didn’t know about? Or a pony?” I asked.

“No, when I brought Bailey in,
¹⁶⁸
he needed to be separated and contained while the abscess on his leg healed, so I bought this for him to live in. That is, until he took over my whole guest room.”

The plan is for Fletch to reach in the enormous doggie condo, grab the kittens, and deposit them in our more portable cat carrier. Before we do, I want to take my first peek at them. I peer into the doggie condo, which we’ve tipped on its side so the kittens can’t escape through the open door. There are three tiny gray bundles of fur, all hunkered together in the very corner of the carrier. “Oh, my God, they’re adorable!” I squeal.

“I’ve been calling them the Cherubs because they’re so stinking cute,” Gina replies.

“We’re going to call them the Thundercats until we figure out what to name them. Also, that’ll help me not get too attached in case they test positive for feline diseases, you know?”

Gina muses, “I was really surprised to get your note Saturday and then to hear from you, Fletch. I thought when we were at brunch, you made your thoughts on new kittens pretty clear. You’re really behind this?”

With an entirely straight face, he says, “Absolutely. This is the very best idea I’ve heard since you, Lucy and Ethel, got all the cats together for a playdate. I mean, what could possibly go wrong incorporating three feral kittens into our household?”

“You’d prefer I start crying again?” I challenge.
¹⁶⁹

“No, no, certainly, let’s collect our precious kittens and go home. Maybe we’ll find some stray dogs on the way and bring them, too.” The thing is, he argues, but if he didn’t want to be here, too, even a little bit, he’d never have agreed to this.

Fletch bends down and places his hand in the condo to retrieve the first kitten. I can’t wait to get a closer look at them! They seem so tiny and perfect, cuddled together. One’s all gray and white and extra fuzzy, one’s sleek and small with black tiger stripes on slate-colored fur, and one’s a blend of stone and tan colors, spots and stripes. Their eyes are huge in shades of blue and green, taking up most of their tiny faces. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything cuter or sweeter or . . .

“
AAAHHHH!
I’m bitten! One of them bit me! Look at this—blood!” Fletch shouts.

“What? That can’t be,” I say. “Their teeth are tiny.”

“Their teeth are tiny
razors
,” he snaps.

“Try it again,” Gina suggests. “Go in more slowly this time. You probably just scared them.”

Resigned, Fletch takes a deep breath and slowly lowers his hand back into the condo. He lingers with his arm in for a second before yanking it out and flailing backward. “OW! Jesus Christ, ow! They’re like piranha in there, a carrier full of fucking piranha! They just tore the shit out of my hand.” Fletch holds up the bloody stump attached to his wrist.

“Oh, no!” Gina exclaims. “I have rubbing alcohol; we can put it on your cuts.”

“Yes, because THAT will stop the rabies,” Fletch responds drily.

At this point, Gina finds a gardening glove that barely fits over his fingers. We try to help him retrieve the kittens, but it’s kind of impossible, considering how hard she and I are laughing.

Every time Fletch thrusts his hand in to grab one, a different kitten attacks. At some point, one of the kittens begins to panic and sprays diarrhea, and then Fletch has to navigate through that, too. He shoots me the world’s dirtiest look, to which I reply, “Hey, I can cry again,” and he continues his mission.

We finally get them all gathered up, and while Fletch gets a bleach-and-antiseptic bath from the elbows down, I eat some pound cake. (It’s delicious!)

As we drive back up the expressway, I feel hopeful.

I figure nothing that starts out this bad can end any worse.