The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro Page A

left the room. That’s when I noticed a white pair of Nana’s slacks folded at the foot of the bed.
    “Is this what the nurse took off?” I asked Nana, and she nodded.
    “Nana,” I started, “you’ve had these on the whole time?”
    “Yeah,” she answered.
    “But you’ve been here for three days,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Oh, I wanted them on,” she answered. “I was worried that if I had to walk to the bathroom, someone might see my legs.”
    “Monica Lewinsky could learn a thing or two from you, Nana,” I said.
    “Oh, no,” she replied, the Demerol kicking in. “I was married for three years before I had your mother. I have my paper from the priest. That’s very moral, isn’t it?”
    I nodded and smiled. After she drifted off to sleep, I pulled another bobby pin from her hair and scratched the letters I L-O-V-E into the polish on the five fingers of her left hand.

Men Are Stupid
and I Rock!
(Ode to Dorothy Parker)
    I was stood up last night.
    Again.
    I waited at the bar for, well, all night. I kept glancing at the door every time someone entered, pretty much every fifteen seconds. A couple of times I thought I saw him, a flash of hair, a slight smile, but on a double take it wasn’t him at all, it was someone a couple of inches shorter, with crooked teeth. His teeth are straight. Perfectly straight and white, a Pepsodent smile that I would’ve liked to kick in with the heel of my boot.
    The son of a bitch. I had eaten an entire roll of Clorets already, just in case he came in without me seeing him first. I could talk freely and easily without having to talk into my hand and then smell it, no, no dead animal breath here. I had cool, minty, kisssssssable breath.
    I looked good, too, in my opinion. I had only two pimples, and my eyeliner went on smoothly, no tire tracks tonight. I had even used lip liner so that the lipstick smeared on my lips wouldn’t bleed into the little crinkles above them. I wore perfume.
    I sat on the bar stool for hours, holding in my stomach in a desperate attempt to appear alluring. At a quarter till one, I still hadn’t given up and imagined him bursting into the bar, out of breath, panting. His car had broken down. He’s run, not jogged or walked, he’s run, five miles, nonstop, to get here. He looks around frantically, scanning every face in the bar, where is she, am I too late? He sees me, that ivory Pepsodent smile extends across his face, and he’s every bit as handsome as I ever thought he was. I have waited. My patience has paid off. He holds my hand and I am not mad. Everything is fine.
    Instead, the lights above started to flicker on and off; the bar was closing. I killed what was left of my drink, sucking out every last drop of whiskey with the tiny red straw until the ice crashed together. I walked out of the bar, just a little bit too sober, and headed for home.
    It’s the next morning, I wake up.
    Immediately, I think:
    He stood me up, goddamnit. I knew he would, I knew he would, I knew he would. God!
Shit!
How could I be so stupid! I knew he wouldn’t show up, why did I wait? So stupid, so incredibly stupid! I am the jackass. It’s me, I admit, who is the jackass. I’m raising my hand. IT’S ME. Christ. All night I waited, he said he’d be there and he wasn’t, just like he should call me today and he won’t. Oh no. Oh no. No, I won’t do it, I won’t, I will not sit here all day and wait for that phone to ring I WILL NOT DO IT. I absolutely refuse to sit and look at that dead phone, no, no, no, he got me once, he won’t get me again I WILL BE STRONG. Damn that phone it better ring and it better ring right now. RIGHT NOW.
    I take a breath. I look at the phone. It looks back at me. It blinks.
    I will smoke. I will have a cigarette, and by the time I’m done, the phone will ring. I deserve that much, I do. I deserve an explanation, and when I hear it, no matter how much bullshit he spews over the phone, I will not be pissed