Suburgatory (7 page)

Gotlieb believes that the diversity in the store lends her an advantage no matter the looks of the other shoppers. “Even the best-looking Puerto Rican girl is no match for an average white lady like me. I'm coming out on top every time.” Gotlieb paused. “Except for J-Lo. But I don't have to worry about seeing J-Lo at Wal-Mart, do I?”

Gotlieb marvels at the number of children some of the patrons of Wal-Mart have, and the impossibility that they are saving for the future. “Oh God, if these people don't start saving, their kids will never have what I have. They'll
have
to shop here. Not like me, just here for fun.”

Gotlieb particularly likes the pharmacy section, where she feels “the thinnest and the fittest.” Here, Gotlieb observes, “I see all these gigantic obese people with diabetes buying crap for ‘wound care' and oh grosssssss. I am so lucky.”

Gotlieb uses the Wal-Mart pharmacy, not because it's cheap, but because, as she puts it, “I don't have those cunts from the Temple hanging over me seeing me pick up my Zoloft and Ativan.” Do her friends know she shops at Wal-Mart? “Are you out of your fucking mind? They'd think we were being foreclosed on. Or they'd bitch I was an ‘enemy of the people' or something for shopping here. Well, unlike
them,
I actually
know
people of different colors and different backgrounds, like Fred, because I go to Wal-Mart.”

Gotlieb had never heard of the popular website Shoppers of Wal-Mart, where contributors surreptitiously photograph Wal-Mart shoppers for the amusement value. On this reporter's iPad, Gotlieb began clicking through and laughing. “This is
great!
Oh my God, look at that,” referring to a photo of an overweight African-­American woman's loose back fat.

“I've totally seen that, like, a million times.” But her mood darkened when she arrived on a picture entitled “The Old & The Frizzy-full,” which showed Gotlieb on an especially bad hair day, slack-jawed, speaking to Fred Upton.

Gotlieb abruptly ended the interview and began walking out. A checkout girl said, “Terry, you haven't paid yet.” Without turning around, Gotlieb thrust her hand behind her and said, “I don't have to pay for anything here.” Upton said goodbye as Gotlieb left the store unchallenged, but got no response. “There goes my sunshine,” he said.

Home-Schooled Girl Excels in Competitive Spelling, Blow Jobs

Suburgatory, USA—A home-schooled girl excels in championship-level spelling and blow jobs, with both skills giving her local renown. “Thanks to my amazing parents, I have the confidence and commitment to excellence that I would have never had if I spent years as a slave to an educational system that creates kids who can't think for themselves, who have no real love for learning, and know nothing about the life of the mind,” said sixteen-year-old Catherine Busby.

At a very young age, Busby says, she knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish. “Memorize words to win or at least place in the biggest contests and get on the news, and, separately, to get boys to like me. So I dug in, and dug in hard.”

“Did she ever!” said Paul Minnow, seventeen, one of Busby's early boyfriends—a starter project in her quest to perfect and master her blow-job skills. “I can't believe she dumped me. If I was her ‘training subject,' I can't even believe how good Catherine is now. Those guys seriously must faint.”

Another boy expressed his pride at her success at age fifteen, coming in third in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. “I mean,
appoggiatura?
Autochthonous?
How does she know this shit? But I have to tell you, when she is up there and thinking really hard and then starts that slow spell, letter by letter, the excitement building and building, all I can think about is my cock in her mouth. Then when she gets it right? Oh my God, it's explosive. Even her dumpy outfits turn me on now.”

Busby's family members describe themselves as “neo-pagan” and believe they honor The Goddess by purchasing only secondhand clothing. Why didn't they give their daughter a more traditional pagan name? “Oh, we were psycho yuppies in the '80s and '90s.”

Busby's mother, Sophie, is very proud of her daughter's spelling accomplishments, and has little problem with the fact that she has earned the nickname ”Blow Job Babe” by local boys. “First of all, I trust Catherine's judgment without reservation. She spent years on my breast, and years more learning right at my knee. I'm convinced we gave her the security to express her deepest desire, coupled with the wisdom to do it responsibly and with integrity. Who am I to say that achievement in sexual ability is worthless? It's a skill she can utilize and enjoy her whole life!”

While she seems equally skilled in both spelling and blow jobs, the spelling holds a more sentimental place in Busby's heart.

Says current boyfriend Jonah Klein:

“I tried to get her to spell out one of her crazy words on me with her tongue, but she wouldn't do it. She said ‘Spelling is sacred.' I had to settle for ‘Heartbeat of America,' where she squeezes me, like thump-thump.” Klein demonstrated a pulsing grip. “Thump-thump. Thump-thump. And that was fine, too, of course. I really respect her!”

So where did Busby learn all these techniques? “Oh God, the Christian home-school girls of
course,
” referring to the kids she meets with regularly for home-schooling field trips and other enrichment activities. There is often tension between the neo-pagan and the Christian home-schoolers, but Busby made fast friends. “Oh, they're lovely! And they are like blow-job ninjas. But, well, not to be mean, but their spelling is for shit.”

Dr. Drama

“When life hands you a problem, let's make it more interesting!”

Dear Dr. Drama:

One of my best friends, I'll call her “Meg,” is being emotionally abused by her husband, I'll call him “Brad.” He berates her, controls her, and has made her a prisoner in her own home. She's so under siege she can't even imagine leaving. I'm desperate to find a solution and to force her to get help. I'm at my wit's end!

—Hopeless in Suburgatory

Dear Hopeless:

In my many years of online training to become a clinical “psychologist,” while not slaving away in that awful call center, I learned the technical term for men like “Brad.” We old pros in the biz call them Asshole Dickwads. Now, Dr. Drama doesn't want to be a Debbie Downer here, but the fact is research shows that the recovery rate for Asshole Dickwads is extremely low. You know what's even lower? The chances that doormat “Meg,” living under siege with an untreatable Asshole Dickwad, will do something about it. So that leaves you, and if this
is
a hopeless situation, I always say, why don't you have a little fun with it? Someone should!

I like to give clients action items to achieve their goals. So here goes: First, sabotage him at work. You wouldn't believe how easy this is, I know firsthand! Find even one coworker and start feeding him shit about your Asshole Dickwad. In the age of social networking, we'll have Asshole Dickwad the talk of Twitter before you know it.

Second, contact your friend's dad. Just because “Meg” says, “He'll kill Brad if he finds out what he's doing!” Hey, that's no skin off your back or hers. What do you care if Asshole Dickwad gets the shit beat out of him? I have four words for you:
It's about fucking time.

And finally, start rocking that passive aggression you always wanted to use, face-to-face, with Asshole Dickwad. Trust me, your beaten down friend can't do it, so it's up to you. Maybe you can demean his career choice: “Oh, I've heard that field is the least competitive of the fields you could have chosen, and there's a lot less money, and your peers are really not the brightest, but I'm sure the
quality of life
you have is
so worth
being in that really not-competitive field.” Or “Yes, the kids are a bit . . . large. But you must love that they're so like you!” He will smile, but inside his rage will burn with the intensity of a thousand suns. Enjoy!

Mom Befriends, Infuriates
Mormon Missionaries

Suburgatory, USA—A local mother has based her entire social life around a pair of young missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but she has unwittingly alienated them with her ignorance.

“If she offers me Starbucks one more time, Oh. My. Heck.” said Buck Berkeley, age twenty, of
Salt Lake City, Utah. Berkeley is spreading the message of the
Book of Mormon with his companion or “comp,” Cason Mabry, twenty-two, of Harris Landing, Idaho, in what is known as “tracting,” or door-to-door proselytizing of selected suburban neighborhoods.

“Case, how many times have we told her about the coffee? Six times? She couldn't give a scrud about our eternal damnation. I mean, has she ever heard of
Wikipedia? It's not that hard to figure out that we can't even get near her gross coffee.”

Berkeley was referring to Kim Ballante, forty-one, the mom who first greeted the young men at her door two months ago. “Aren't they just the cutest?” she said.

Ballante says she has learned much from the pair about the tenets and history of the Mormon faith, including a description of the angel that adherents believe visited church founder Joseph Smith in the late 1800s. “Moroni was the last Nephite prophet, whatever the hell that means, and then his angel wrote the Mormon Bible on golden plates?! Can you be-leeve this shit? Mo-RONE-eye. Buck said it's spelled like
moron
with an ‘i.'”

Berkeley laughed when this was mentioned to him. “She had no clue I was calling her a moron. She just kept going ‘uh-huh, uh-huh,' and ‘wow, that's so interesting!', which is all she says when we actually try to give her the
Word of Wisdom. One day she kept calling Joseph Smith
,
Robert Smith.
Remember that, comp?” Cason said, “Yeah, because she loves that old creepy band
The Cure. Man she is so old.” Buck agreed. “So so SOOOO old.”

On this day, Ballante welcomed the boys in and said, “You're just in time for ‘Hot Topics!'” referring to the topical portion of the show
The View,
which they frequently watch with her. “I thought they would like Elisabeth [Hasselbeck]. She's all religious like them. But they don't seem to like her. She wears a cross, and they don't like crosses, these people. Like, like vampires or something, they are seriously scared of them.”

At the end of
The View,
Ballante said, “Ethan [Ballante's two-year-old] is still sleeping! You know what that means . . . Appletini Time!” which apparently meant she would mix up some drinks for herself, even though the young men are forbidden to drink alcohol.

“
Sex and the City,
” Berkeley said quietly to Mabry when Ballante went to prepare her Appletinis. “Do you think she got Appletini Time from
Sex and the City?
” Mabry asked, “What's
Sex and the City
again?” Berkeley said, “You know, that show from when we were, like, twelve, and those movies? Those trashy old bags running around New York drinking and having sad sex and all? The women in this town pretend it's, like, real or something. It's kinda tragic. . . . They just need
real love
from their husbands. What is wrong with these men?”