Chick Wit

DIY FU

By Lisa Scottoline

Good news, ladies!

Do-it-yourself pap smears are on the way!

Yay?

I read it in the newspaper, which still exists. Evidently, some company is coming out with a DIY pap smear that you can do all by yourself in the doctor’s office, using a swab to collect your own sample.

Wow!

They call this self-collection.

I call it a step in the wrong direction.

Before I begin, let’s state the obvious:

Don’t expect medical advice herein, and cervical cancer isn’t funny.

But I cracked up when I read about do-it-yourself pap smears.

I didn’t see it coming.

I should have known when they started self-checkout.

It’s a slippery slope, girls.

First, you look up the produce code for asparagus.

Next thing you know, you’re twirling a swab where the sun don’t shine.

Well, next to where the sun don’t shine.

Truly, the sun doesn’t shine in either place.

I wonder if anybody’s taken this into account.

Like, how do you see?

There’s no sun!

Evidently, countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden have been self-collecting for some time.

OMG, they really have no sun!

How do they do it?

My hat’s off to those women!

And evidently, so are my panties.

The idea is that you use the swab to twirl around your vaginal walls to collect cells.

Like a COVID test, only lower.

And you can’t do it drive-thru.

Or maybe that’s next.

In fairness, the self-test was developed because some women don’t like the speculum.

As in 100% of women.

But I’d rather have a speculum than do-it-myself.

Because I’m not competent.

For example, today is Tuesday but all day long I thought it was Thursday.

Also I always forget where I parked in the airport lot.

And I’m divorced twice.

The second time, I had doubts walking down the aisle.

In other words, I’m Queen of the Unforced Error.

I’m clearly not the person who should be twirling around in my vagina.

The only person who should be twirling around in my vagina is Bradley Cooper.

Meanwhile, don’t we women have enough to do?

Women work, raise children, vote, pay bills, nurse aging parents, make cupcakes, plant bulbs, follow recipes, and shuttle kids to soccer games and violin lessons.

Do we really have to do our own pap tests, too?

Can somebody do one frigging thing for us?

Namely somebody with a medical degree?

Or at least, somebody better with a Q-tip than I am?

I can’t even get the wax out of my ears.

Do we really want me messing with my vaginal walls?

In fact, I’m so bad at things gynecological that I showed up for my last pap smear the day after I was supposed to be there. And then I forgot it the next two years.

Last week I realized that I should probably get a pap smear, but when I contacted the gynecologist, they told me that because I missed three years in a row, I was considered a New Patient.

And they weren’t taking New Patients.

So effectively, I’m thrown out of the gynecology practice I’ve been going to for the past thirty years.

Thanks.

This is what I mean by Queen of the Unforced Error.

I thought I was an Old Patient.

But I was wrong.

Did you know that the pap smear is named for its inventor, Dr. George Papanicolaou?

I can’t even pronounce Papanicolaou.

That’s why I can’t be trusted with that Q-Tip.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2024

Scary Season

by Lisa Scottoline

Some call this time of year autumn.

I call it spider-and-mouse season.

It’s a time of basic vermin and moral complexity.

Let me explain.

It’s turning cold in my neck of the woods, and I’m lucky enough to have a nice warm house.

Spiders know this.

They have my number.

And my address.

This time of year, if I open the front door, spiders are waiting in my entrance hall, idling like Formula One racecars. As soon as I appear, they hit the gas, gunning for me.

Actually, gunning for my house but I’m in the way.

I can deal with most insect life, even spiders, in the summer. I scoop them up with a plastic glass and trusty postcard, then put them outside.

But these are not summertime spiders.

These are autumn spiders, as big as Ferraris.

They go from 0 to 60 in a second, and the finish line is my threshold.

But I can’t bring myself to kill them.

That’s the moral complexity part.

I respect their individual creatureness, and most of them are smarter than I am.

I mean, I can’t spin a web.

Can you?

Nor do I have the patience to sit outside somebody’s door all night and wait for them to open it.

This would be the exact feeling of my marriage to Thing Two.

God bless divorce.

To return to point, even though I can’t kill the spiders, I don’t want them inside.

Because they’re scary.

So as soon as they start running for me, I chase them around with my glass and postcard, trying to trap them and take them outside.

If two race in, I can get one.

If four race in, I can get two.

So, you see this isn’t working.

I spend the rest of the morning trying to find the ones who got in, amazed at how they flatten themselves to get under the baseboard or how fast they scoot to reach the floor vent.

I actually admire the ones who get away.

I decide they deserve to live in my nice warm house with me.

Just so they stay out of bed.

I have the same problem with mice. The other night I walked into my entrance hall and there was one little mouse curled up in a corner.

Daughter Francesca happened to be home, so I called her.

Okay, I’ll be real. I screamed to her.

Then the mouse started running around and Francesca tried to catch it with a box lid, then somehow, I slipped on the kitchen floor and started laughing so hard that the mouse got away.

Basically, a cartoon.

We searched but couldn’t find the mouse.

Meanwhile, our cats Mimi and Vivi were nowhere in sight.

They’re both seventeen years old, so I forgive them.

They were probably reading AARP magazine.

So now there’s a mouse in my house.

I’m trying to be scrupulous about cleaning up, but the dry cat food is down all day, so I’m sure I’m feeding both cats and mice.

I have a friend who found a mouse in her kitchen, then a stash of dry dog food that the mouse had been storing in the oven.

That’s one smart mouse.

I bet it can spin a web.

I keep looking for my mouse, but I have yet to find it, and It’s driving me crazy.

It’s living rent-free in my house and my head.

The only solution?

Stop thinking about it.

Pretend it’s not happening.

It just wants a roof over its head.

So do I.

And everybody’s living happily ever after.

Copyright 2024 Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: Purse Quest

Let’s talk about a decision that women have to make every morning:

Big purse or little purse?

I know it’s not life or death, but it makes you nuts if you choose the wrong one as consistently as I do. 

If you carry a big purse for the day, it’s guaranteed that you’ll end up never needing anything you’re lugging around like a pack animal.  And if you carry a little purse for the day, you’ll invariably end up tucking things under your armpit or asking your husband to carry them. 

It’s Purse Lotto, and there are winners and losers, every day.

I lose, almost always.  I keep track, and if I choose the right purse four days out of seven, I’m Purse Diva.  Most weeks, I choose correctly only one day.

Purse Geek.   

Now I can already hear you menfolk, thinking that the problem can be solved by a medium-size purse.  That seems sensible, but it doesn’t work. 

Not your fault, gentlemen.  How would you know?  Unless you carry a man purse, in which case, play along.

In reality, a medium purse is the worst of both worlds.  It’s not big enough to carry everything you need, and it’s not small enough to let you feel footloose and fancy free.  And besides, medium defeats the purpose of adding fun to your life by gambling with handbags. 

So I say, live dangerously.  Choose big or little.  Pick your poison.  See if, by the end of the day, you’re a Purse Hero or a Purse Loser.

Use me as your inspiration.  You couldn’t do worse. 

Just the other day, I chose a big purse and ended up walking all over NYC with daughter Francesca, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulder.  I didn’t need the hardback book, full makeup case, or water bottle. 

Turns out they have water in New York, too.

So the next day, I carried a cute little purse, but wrong again.  I couldn’t zip it up after I bought a pack of gum, so I walked everywhere worried that my keys would fall out or I’d get pick-pocketed.  And Francesca had to carry our umbrella, newspaper, and everything else in her nice big purse. 

It goes without saying that the day you choose the wrong purse, your daughter will choose the right one.  Last week, Francesca was six for seven. 

Purse Diva. 

It was the same week I got so frustrated that I opted out of Purse Lotto altogether.  Francesca and I went to a movie, and I carried only my wallet.  

Whoa.  I threw caution to the summer wind.  I went free and easy, like July itself.

Francesca looked over.  “Why no purse?”

“Traveling light.”

“You should carry a purse, Mom.”

“Don’t need one.”

We settled into our seats at the movie, and Francesca gestured at my wallet.  “Where are you gonna put that?”

I blinked.  The seat to the right of me was taken, and my cupholder held a Diet Coke and Raisinets.  I couldn’t admit defeat and ask her to put my wallet in her big purse, so I set the wallet under my chair, on the sticky floor.  Yuck.

“See?” I said, hiding my distaste.  “No problem.”

It worked out perfectly until we left the theater, got several blocks away, and I remembered that my wallet was still on the floor.  We hurried back, and it was still there, probably because even felons couldn’t unstick it.  Then we went out to dinner. 

“Now where are you gonna put the wallet?” Francesca asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Right here.”  I set it down on the empty chair next to me, no problem.   I didn’t forget it either.  But when we had gotten a few blocks from the restaurant, I realized that I’d been so worried about my wallet, I’d left my credit card on the table.  We hurried back, for the second time that day.

So now I lose at Wallet Lotto, too.

“I shoulda brought a purse,” I said, going home, after all was recovered.

“Next time.”  Francesca patted me on the back.  “Don’t feel bad.”

“Which purse should I have brought, oh sage one?”

“The small.”

Purse Genius.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

Tushie Time

By Lisa Scottoline

The only products I endorse are my books.

Except for today.

I’m recommending a colonoscopy.

Why?

Because it’s a damn good time.

First, let me explain that I’m not giving medical advice.

I’m not a doctor. I’m just some lady trying to make you laugh.

And I finally had a colonoscopy after putting it off for twelve years.

Obviously, I’m a procrastinator.

I’m great at procrastinating because I get so much practice.

Procrastinating is the one thing I don’t put off.

Secondly, I’m not telling you to get a colonoscopy because I got bad news and want you to avoid the same fate.

Luckily, I’m fine.

And I hope you would be, too.

But there’s only one way to find out.

And if you’re procrastinating because you believe having a colonoscopy is going to be horrible, it’s going to be better than you think.

In fact, it’s a gas.

Sorry.

We begin when I start getting texts from Penn Medicine at Radnor, which is where I scheduled the colonoscopy. The text messages came in a series the week before, and each one was cheerier than the last, like: “Lisa, it’s officially colonoscopy prep week!”

Yay?

More texts came in, and they got me thinking positively about something I had been dreading, even though they were from some mechanized, algorithmic, auto-reply bot.

Bum Bot.

Bum Bot would text me helpful directions every day, like: “Lisa, don’t forget to purchase your prep supplies!”

Thanks for the reminder, Bum Bot!

Next text, “Good morning, Lisa! Let’s take a look at your diet in preparation for your colonoscopy!”

Another great idea!

Then, “Lisa, Have you made arrangements for a ride home? Let us know!”

Why, no, thanks for asking, Bum Bot!

I began to look forward to his texts.

It’s sexting for old people.

Then: “Hi Lisa, remember that you really want to avoid high fiber foods! Here’s a short list of foods to avoid and foods to eat!”

At this point I fell in love with Bum Bot.

He cared about me and my fiber content.

The way to a woman’s heart is through her…stomach.

And the night before the colonoscopy, he wrote: “Please enjoy your dinner this evening! This will be your last meal with solid food!”

Hmm, maybe too execution-y.

On the day before the test, Bum Bot texted: “Good morning, Lisa! It’s game time!”

Go, team, go!

Push ‘em back, shove ‘em back, waaaay back.

Well, not that far back.

I had to take pills and drink liquid divided into two parts, overnight. Even at midnight, Bum Bot texted: “Great job! The first half of your prep is complete!”

Every step of the way, he was behind me.

Literally.

After I drank the second half, he texted: “You’ve come so far, and the worst is over!”

What a guy!

The worst was over!

Meanwhile I hadn’t even had my colonoscopy yet.

Bum Bot texts to me ended with clapping emojis: “Congratulations! You did it!”

I felt so accomplished!

All I did was sit on the toilet all night!

Later, the procedure was just me going to sleep via anesthesia and waking up rested under a warm blanket, which I loved.

The nurses were great, the doctor was great, and everybody was great.

And incredibly, they emailed me a colonoscopy report that even included color pictures taken from inside my colon.

Whoa!

I’d show you one but it’s NSFW.

More old people porn.

You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

Honestly, I was a little grossed out, but also, fascinated!

Turns out, sometimes it’s good to have your head up your ass.

Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2024

Survey Says

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m loved.

By an algorithm.

But I’ll take it.

As you may know, I haven’t had a date in forever and I write sex scenes from memory.

But now I can’t remember.

To return to point, that doesn’t mean I don’t have love in my life.

I have great friends, furry animals, and above all, a phone.

My phone loves me deeply.

And so does every place I shop online.

How do I know?

Because they tell me so, via my phone.

These days, every time I buy something, I get a text or email from the website fifteen minutes later, telling them how much they enjoyed my patronage.

All I did was click.

But now we’re in a relationship.

I’m not complaining.

I know, they’re trying to get into my pants.

I mean, my wallet.

But at least someone’s asking me questions and cares about my answer.

I didn’t get that in either marriage.

Even an algorithm is better than Thing One and Thing Two.

I should have married Al Gorhythm.

Sorry.

The same thing happens when I go into stores. I mean brick-and-mortar, like old-school buildings where you drive there, walk inside, and buy stuff.

Stores are better boyfriends than sites because they care about me, in detail.

After I leave, every store sends me a survey, asking me pages of specific questions:       

How was my experience at their store?

Were all of my questions answered?

Were the salespeople knowledgeable and courteous?

How about the store itself? Was it clean and well-lit?

Was it able to find everything I needed?

Would I recommend the store to my friends?

Or only my enemies?

I might be the only person who actually responds to these surveys.

I love it!

Ask me anything!

I have opinions!

I’m sharing them!

If it says, Is there anything else you would like us to know, I click, YOU’RE DARN TOOTIN!

Then I elaborate.

I show my work.

Every restaurant sends me a survey, too, and I tap away on my phone, rating the appetizers, the wait staff, and the specialty drink menu:

Yes, I sure would recommend that margarita with smoky mescal!

Last week I went to a horse show and even they sent me a survey.

What’s my opinion on the horse show?

I love horses!

I would recommend the show to every horse I know!

By the way, I give everybody good ratings, but it’s the truth. I’m not out to ruin anybody’s day or get anybody fired. I waitressed in college and I love everybody. I’m a five-star machine.

Why?

People don’t get enough positive reinforcement in life.

My point was proven last week, when I watched a Formula One race and British driver George Russell radioed in the middle of the race, “I need a bit of encouragement, mate.”

OMG, can you imagine?

He’s driving a racecar at 200 miles an hour.

I’d give him all the encouragement he needs.

I give him so much encouragement he wouldn’t need gas.

Meanwhile you should see me drive at 70 miles an hour.

My teeth start to chatter.

To return to point, I’m going to shop more often because I love all the surveys, which I answer in a loop of recycled love.

I even recommend stores on Yelp, if they ask me to.  

After all, I have my career because readers have been kind enough to recommend my books to others, so I pay it forward.

Thanks, mate!

Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2024

Terra Firma

By Lisa Scottoline

We live in uncertain times.

My TV remote told me so.

Let me explain.

I love TV, and there’s so much to watch that I record shows while I’m watching other shows. I have Comcast, so I can navigate to Guide, press Record to record a show.

In theory.

But it’s not that simple.

After I press Record, a popup appears and asks, Confirm or Cancel?

And I think to myself, Why do I need to Confirm? I just asked to Record.

I don’t change my mind that fast.

Except in my second marriage.

I was changing my mind down the aisle.

Too late.

The same thing happens with restaurant reservations. I booked a few during my vacation with Francesca, and every restaurant sent me a text, Do you want to Confirm, Y/N? I pressed Y.

But I wanted to say, Y do you ask?

Mother Mary used to tell me, “I said what I said.”

Right again, Mom.

One of the restaurants even called me, a woman asking, “Are you still joining us tonight?”

I was like, “Who are you? I’m going to a restaurant.”

She explained she was “just confirming.”

I said yes. I’d already confirmed by text, so now I was double-confirming and since I’d made the reservation only two days ago, I was triple-confirming. I think that’s enough certainty for eggplant parm, don’t you?

Meanwhile it’s a miracle I took the call. I never answer calls from people I don’t know, but I started to for fear of losing my reservations.

Like, Confirm or Else.

Look, I know there are people who make reservations and don’t show up, but I would never do that. I couldn’t live with the guilt.

I never got over a $37 late fee I had to pay at Blockbuster.

I have guilt from paying it, plus guilt from incurring it.

My guilt is weapons-grade.

My hair salon needs confirmation, too, often more than once, and don’t get me started on doctor’s appointments. I got two text confirmations from one doctor, for a colonoscopy.

Okay, that one I get.

Are you still joining us for your colonoscopy?

The text should’ve asked, Are you going to chicken out?

Or, are you going to wait another decade?

Actually my favorite confirmation text came from Penn Medicine, which read verbatim, “Hi Lisa, this is Penn Medicine! Congrats on scheduling your colonoscopy!”

Thank you, alma mater!

It only took me ten years to make the call.

For eggplant parm, I’d call in ten minutes.

Anyway I don’t remember everybody needing confirmation all the time. I’m guessing that we live in an age of increasing uncertainty, and it’s giving everybody agita. Like, there are a lot of big questions we’re unsure about, namely:

Who will be our next president?

When will the icecaps melt?

Will JLo and Ben get back together?

Me, I’m rooting for those crazy kids.

Bottom line, we can’t answer any of those questions, so maybe we need to confirm the things we can and let the rest go. As in, we could be heading for nuclear war, but let’s button down recording My Brilliant Friend.

We’re all looking for solid emotional footing, like psychic terra firma.

Or terra confirma.

But if you ask me, I wouldn’t mind somebody sending me a confirmation text on questions like:

Do you really want another helping of spaghetti?

Do you really need a second glass of Lambrusco?

Do you really want to renew your membership for a gym you haven’t gone to in a year?

Yes, to all of the above.

But really, Y?

Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2024

August – September Hiatus

from Lisa Scottoline

Dear Readers,

Please forgive me, but I’ll be taking an August and early September hiatus from the column because I’m on deadline for my next novel!

It’s entitled THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA and it’ll be published on July 15, 2025! I know you’ll all love it, and I hope you get a copy!

So I’m sorry there’s no Chick Wit for a while, but I want to make the novel the best it can be, because you deserve it!

I hope to be back to you with a new column in late September.

Thank you for being such loyal friends!

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

XOXOO

Column Classic: It’s Not The Heat

By Lisa Scottoline

Hot enough for ya?

That’s right.  I like to talk about the weather.  More accurately, I’m fascinated by the weather.  We begin where I begin every day, on weather.com.

For me, weather.com is online porn.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the middle of writing a book, and I’m not sure where the plot is going or what the characters will do, but I love that if I log onto weather.com, I get answers. 

Answers, answers, and more answers.  

I click to weather.com, then click again to Hourly, to break down the weather for the coming day, complete with adorable pictures of shiny suns or thumbnail thunderbolts.  At a glance, first thing in the morning, I can find out that it will be 92 degrees at 11:15 a.m. today. 

Wow! 

Where else can you get someone to foretell your future, humidity index included?    

Come to think of it, that’s what I love most about weather.com.  It can tell all sorts of information about the future with precision, and I want to know everything I can about the future, especially if it includes when my hair will frizz.

For example, once I find out that the sunshine today will morph to light rain at 3:17 p.m., I click over to the Mosquito Index.  Yes, on weather.com, you can click to find out when you’re most likely to get bitten by a mosquito, which turns out to be between 5:06 p.m. and 6:37 a.m., tomorrow morning.  And tonight, if you want to know, the Mosquito Activity will be between None and Limited, as opposed to the top of the scale, which is Very High.  You don’t want to plan your picnic for when the mosquitoes are at their worst, which is Really Frigging Annoying.

And on the Mosquito Index page, there’s even a sidebar asking, Want To Know When The Fish Are Biting?

And suddenly, I do! 

I want to know when the fish are biting, even though I don’t fish.  In fact, I didn’t even know they bite.

I click my way to the Fishing Forecast, where you can search by zip code or by lake, and this astounds me.  Weather.com can tell you when the fish will be biting in a particular lake? 

How great is that? 

It bodes well for our country, if we can foretell when fish will be biting in Lake Whatever, and at what time.  If we can do that, we can put a man on the moon. 

Or back on the moon. 

Or at least make my hair not frizz.

The first lake that pops into my mind is Lake Winnipesaukee, because it’s mentioned in a movie I love, What About Bob?  Of course, Lake Winnipesaukee is impossible to spell, which is a joke in the movie, so to get the right spelling, I have to navigate to google.com, where I plug in the wrong spelling and it asks me, DID YOU MEAN….and supplies the right spelling.

Yes, Google, I did mean that.  What you said.  Thanks for saving my face, online.  Google.com is almost as smart as weather.com.  It can’t tell the future, but it can read your mind.   

Anyway, I go back to the Fishing Forecast, plug Lake Winnipesaukee into the lake search, and am rewarded with a multicolored wiggly line showing that today, the Lake Winnipesaukee fish will be biting the most between 12:01 p.m. and 2:06 p.m.

Ouch. 

If I were you, I’d stay away.

And the same webpage also informs me that the Moon Phase tonight will be Waxing Gibbous.

See? Toldja!  Answers, answers, and more answers.   

I’m so happy to know this about the moon, though I have no idea what Waxing Gibbous means.  I could find out, but I don’t need to to marvel at how great it is to know it, precisely. 

And I’m not talking about horoscope-level precision.  I’m talking, real, no-joke, scientific-type precision.  In my experience, weather.com is never wrong.  Or if it’s wrong, it changes its forecast right away, which is still kosher. 

Politicians do it all the time.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

Fun With Aging

by Lisa Scottoline

This week, everybody’s talking about aging.

But don’t worry, this column isn’t political.

I never write about politics.

Agita is Italian for politics.

And this is an agita-free zone.

So we’re going to talk about age, but the lighter side.

There’s only one lighter side.

You’re still alive.

Like if you’re aging, you’re lucky.

It’s good to talk about aging, in a funny way.

Because as every woman who’s getting older knows, somebody has to be kidding.

Like, I find signs of age on my own body and they’re the worst joke ever.

I had one this week.

I looked down and my arm hair was gone.

I swear to God I don’t know what happened to it.

I can never find my cell phone, but I used to know where my arm hair was.

The trick is in the name.

Now you see why I’m a mystery writer.

I cracked the case.

I’m Nancy Drew in The Case of the Missing Body Hair.

But it’s true, suddenly I looked down and I didn’t have any arm hair.

The last time this happened, I looked up and didn’t have any eyebrows.

I didn’t know what happened then, either.

I used to pluck my eyebrows.

Now I need to paste them back in.

And then I realized, I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs.

And it’s summer.

Wait, what?

If you’re a woman of a certain age, you might remember when shaving your legs was a big thing.

I used to shave my legs every morning.

I even shaved my legs again, before a Big Date, if you follow.

Because God forbid a man run his hand up my legs the wrong way.

Women grow up thinking there is a Right Way to run your hands over a leg and a Wrong Way, like a one-way street.

By the way, while we’re in the TMI category, no man has ever run his hand over my legs in bed, whether the Right Way or the Wrong Way.

In my experience, men are not interested in legs in bed.

They forget you have them.

You’re lucky if you can get them to run their hands over anything.

They don’t like to waste time.

They find something else to do.

I’m not complaining.

There’s lots to do.

To return to point, when I was a teenager, I used to do the hairy-legs check several times a day.

I was way too intense about the whole thing.

I even remember chasing razors with frequency.

Now I don’t even know where my razor is.

I ain’t crying.

Now that I don’t have to pluck or shave anything, I’m saving time.

Which I immediately put to good use searching for things on Netflix.

Note that I didn’t say watching Netflix, but searching for things on Netflix.

Because if you’ve ever used the search function on Netflix, you know it’s a treat.

You’re confronted with a square of letters and symbols that looks like a puzzle you never wanted to do.

You’re just trying to find some old movie, but you will find yourself using a TV remote in a way God never intended.

You will plug in a single letter and wait two minutes before it registers on the screen, then find out you plugged in the wrong letter and forgot the space bar.

That’s twenty minutes, right there.

That would have been prime plucking-and-shaving time.

Now you’re playing with your TV remote, vainly searching for something you barely wanted to watch in the first place.

What do you do next?

Give up.

Live without it.

You don’t need to keep searching.

Same thing with arm hair, leg hair, and eyebrows.

Don’t even bother looking.

You’re better off.

You’re not getting older.

You’re getting aerodynamic.

© Copyright Lisa Scottoline 2024

Vroom, Vroom

By Lisa Scottoline

It was a busy week, news-wise.

But there’s one story that didn’t make the headlines.

It was my birthday! And I had a great one!

Why?

Because I’m loving getting older.

First, I’m alive.

Like what number birthday was it?

Who cares?

Here’s all that matters:

It was Another Birthday!

Yay!

The second reason I love getting older is that I’ve lost my mind, but in a good way.

It all started with Netflix.

Like everybody, I love Netflix and I watch tons of shows, but somehow I stumbled onto Drive to Survive. If you’re not familiar, it’s real-life series about Formula One race-car drivers, and the bottom line is they’re hot drivers who drive even hotter cars.

Maybe in my younger days I would’ve watched the guys.

But I found myself looking at cars.

Their bodies.

Their muscularity.

Their passion.

The cars, mind you.

And before I go further, I have to tell you that I am the world’s slowest driver.

I not only drive in the slow lane, I live there.

I go seventy only if I’m on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and there’s a big truck behind me, flashing lights and threatening to kill me.

Especially if it has big teeth on the grille.

I love truckers, but really, with the teeth?

Do you need to scare us more than we already are?

Sometimes I see truck grilles that have a teddy bear tied to the front.

Those guys, I love.

Except sometimes it looks like the teddy bear is being throttled.

Anyway, you get the idea, I’m a timid driver.

It’s the only thing I’m timid at in my life, almost. I’ve grown into a mouthy broad and since I run my own company, I’ve learned to try to get what I want.

It’s not easy, and the world will try and stop you.

But as soon as I realized that, I stopped stopping myself.

In other words, I started not stopping myself.

If you follow.

So bottom line, I don’t obey and I try to get what I want.

This is probably why I’m divorced twice, but the good news is I had Another Birthday, I’m happier than ever, and I bought a sports car.

Yes, that was my birthday present to myself.

It has only two seats because I’m only one person. I was tired of driving around in a sedan that felt like an empty warehouse.

That’s the practical reason.

The real reason is I got excited about sports cars from Netflix and then I saw one in a dealership window and I bought it.

It’s also a convertible, and I’ve never driven a convertible in my life.

My roots are too gray for a convertible.

I was too shy to lower the top, then one time I was on the phone with Daughter Francesca, who loves her ancient VW convertible, and she said, “Mom, please, pull over right now and lower that top.”

Every mother knows that when her daughter tells her to do something, we do it.

In fact, Francesca is the only person I obey.

So I did, and it was fun, even though my gray roots showed.

And then my best friend Franca gave me a baseball hat for my birthday, so when I lower my top, I also cover my top.

Plus for my birthday, my best friend Laura gave me a Formula One video game.

This is the first video game of my life.

I can’t wait to play it and drive around fictionally!

I might even put the fictional top down!

My best friend Nan said, “It’s never too late to reinvent yourself.”

And I am reinventing like crazy.

So now I have a sports car that I drive in the slow lane, having the time of my life.

People will say I’m having a midlife crisis, but they’re totally wrong.

I’m having an end-of-life crisis.

My midlife crisis was late.

It drives slow, too.

Besides, it’s not a crisis, it’s my own personal Italian Renaissance.

Bottom line, I’m not sure if I’m going in a good direction or bad one.

All I know is I’m going forward.

And I’m in the driver’s seat.

Yay! And I’m not going anywhere without my daughter and my besties.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2024