Chick Wit Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Post-Holidaze

January 11, 2026January 11, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

We have our phones with us all the time, but here’s the thing:

You can’t call anybody.

Or you can, but they won’t answer.

I say this because I tried to call my bank the other day, but no one picked up. It rang and rang.

Then I called my car dealership, and the same thing happened.

I’m feeling like no one answers the phone anymore.

And if you look on a website to see how to call them on the phone, there won’t be any number.

They used to say Contact Us, but they lied.

I remember when you could call a company and somebody would pick up the phone. It might not be a person, but it would be a message machine with options one through 7. You’d pick one, wait while music played, then a message would come on and say, “Your call is important to us. Please wait.”

Now, the jig is up.

They’re not even bothering with a mechanical message.

You would think that they could put on a fake voice to tell me how much I matter.

This would be my second marriage in a nutshell.

To return to point, the one bright spot was on Christmas Eve.

No, not that bright spot.

We’re not talking the Star-of-Bethlehem bright.

It was Michael’s.

Yes, the crafts store.

Actually to call Michael’s a craft store is to sell it short. Michael’s sells decorations, art supplies, glue, picture frames, and glittery stuff that you didn’t think you needed until you saw it in its vast store. Also there are rows of candy bars, and I always treat myself to a Snickers.

In our family, the holidays mean a trip to Michael’s to get stuff for the tree, and we even bring the two dogs. We all had a great time there, and I treated myself to a Snickers. Daughter Francesca is our tree designer and she picked out the items we needed, among them a spray can of fake snow.

When you spray a tree with fake snow, it’s called flocking.

Who knew?

You have to hang sheets on the walls so you don’t have an interior blizzard.

Otherwise you’re flocked.

Anyway when we got home it turned out that we’d left a bag on the counter.

This is the problem when you go shopping during the holidays with two dogs. You get distracted by the holidays and the dogs.

Okay, you get distracted by the Snickers, but that’s neither here nor there.

So I called Michael’s.

Guess what happened:

They answered!

A human being!

Wow! I felt like I had entered a portal to an alternative universe or maybe the 1950s. I actually said, “You answered!”

And the man said, “Of course.”

So I told him, “Do you realize that no one answers the phone anymore?”

“I know, but here at Michael’s, we always answer the phone.”

And I thought, I might be in love with you.

But I didn’t say that.

And the next thing that happened was even greater, because he said he would look for our bag, which he actually did and then called me back because he could not find it. So I went to the store anyway to rebuy the missing stuff and Michael’s didn’t even charge me twice. They just swapped it out for the stuff that I left behind in my Snickers haze.

And so on Christmas Eve, my faith in corporate America was restored.

A miracle!

Naughty or Nice?

December 21, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s the time of year when it we find out whether you’ve been bad or good.

Unfortunately, my little puppy Eve has been Evil.

She’s a year old now, so her personality has shown itself, and it ain’t pretty.

Simply put, she’s an total alpha female.

Or more accurately, a boss bitch.

Let’s begin with the fact that she doesn’t like to walk.

In fact, she doesn’t like to leave the couch.

As soon as I get the leash, she throws herself on the ground and refuses to move.

With one exception.

If I ask, “Wanna go in the car?” Then she jumps off the couch and runs over for her leash.

As in, she knows car.

She wants to Uber around the block.

I think a sedan chair would work, too.

She basically doesn’t want her feet to touch the ground.

What woman does?

Don’t worry, there’s nothing physically wrong with her. I took her to the vet, and the diagnosis is that she’s a princess.

And that’s not all.

She doesn’t eat out of a bowl.

At first I thought the problem was her food, so I did the whole thing where you order various overpriced ipsy-pipsy dog meals they ship to you, which involves defrosting, cleaning dishes, and special containers.

But she still didn’t eat.

Then one day I happened to drop some kibble on the floor and she started eating.

Which is when I realized that she likes to eat off the floor.

Now, I have to throw her kibble on the kitchen floor to get her to eat.

This isn’t a problem except that she leaves a fine grit of chicken byproducts.

After every meal, I Dirt-Devil the floor.

Because of my dirty devil.

You haven’t lived until you’ve walked in bare feet and ended up with Purina Pro Plan between your toes.

And if your feet are as dry as mine, you’ll end up with kibble in your heel cracks, which guarantees you’ll be single forever.

The other thing about Eve is that she does not play well with others.

I took her to puppy obedience school, and she graduated, but she’s socially awkward. If she sees another dog on a walk, she barks nonstop at them, which is her way saying hello.

It never works.

Other dogs avoid her.

Yesterday she scared off a German Shepherd.

Or gave him a headache.

As far as people go, she’s picky. She loves Daughter Francesca, me, and a few other of my girlfriends, but she can’t be bothered with strangers we meet. She lets them pet her, but she’ll stand there.

She doesn’t wag her tail.

She checks her watch.

She’s rude.

And it’s awkward.

But randomly, she likes workmen.

Any carpenter, electrician, or plumber who comes over, she flirts like crazy.

Who doesn’t love a man in uniform?

She sees that jumpsuit and she jumps.

Yesterday I had a burglar alarm guy over, and Eve climbed into his lap and wouldn’t move.

Meanwhile she won’t sit on my lap.

She’s supposed to be a lap dog, but evidently it has to be a lap with benefits.

So when it comes to the question whether Eve is Naughty or Nice, I guess I have to say Naughty.

But I love her anyway, which if you ask me, is the point of the holiday season.

Let’s not get all judgy.

There’s too much of that going around lately, and we all need a little more acceptance.

Understanding, even forgiveness.

I love Eve for the little dog she turned out to be.

And that’s Nice.

Happy Holidays!

‘Tis The Season

December 14, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I have great news.

Elastic waistbands have gone public!

Let me explain:

The holidays are upon us, which means I have to go to the mall.

Which is outside.

By that I mean, I work at home, so I’m in sweats and fleece 24/7.

My daughter calls it my teddybear clothes.

Because she loves me.

But really, I’m a slob.

And working from home has only encouraged my slobbiness.

I have an entire wardrobe of sweatpants.

I even have dress sweatpants, in cashmere.

They look like 1,000,000 bucks, which is about what they cost.

Worth every penny.

Anyway, since I live in sweatpants, I look at jeans as the enemy.

Because they have a waistband.

And a button.

And a zipper.

Jeans are like a denim chastity belt.

Even though believe me, I’m chaste.

Only Mother Teresa is more chaste than I am.

And she’s dead.

I’m only dead below the waist.

But I digress.

Because jeans feel so confining, I’ve dreaded wearing them, which is a problem for going out.

Meanwhile, let’s pause for a moment and think back to the time when women had a pair of nice pants, usually wool and in navy or black.

Mother Mary called them slacks, but you get the idea.

There was no slack in slacks.

They had a real waistband, usually with the button and a zipper, and they had a crease down the middle. I have them at the back of my closet, but I can’t remember the last time I put them on.

Maybe people still wear them, but I don’t.

Remember I warned you about the slobbiness.

If I have to dress up for a signing, I wear black stretch pants with a nice jacket on top. No one knows my waistband is elastic.

Until now.

What’s funny is in the old days, I wore jeans all the time and dreaded putting on a pair of pants.

Now I wear sweats all the time and dread putting on a pair of jeans.

In other words, I’m devolving.

Unfortunately my waistline is evolving.

To return to point, I had to go shopping for presents, so I stuffed myself into jeans and left the house.

I was walking around the mall for five minutes when I realized that no one around me was wearing jeans.

What?

Every single person was wearing sweatpants or a tracksuit or some kind of teddybear clothes.

Drawstrings abounded, swinging back and forth.

Yes, I stared at people’s crotches.

Men and women, but mostly men.

Bottom line I was the only throwback in jeans.

What?

Since when?

This is great news!

I could’ve been a teddybear, no problem.

Meanwhile I had a vise around my waist, like a do-it-yourself hysterectomy.

The only people not wearing some form of sweatpants were women who had gone in the complete opposite direction, wearing yoga pants showing a midriff.

In December.

Now listen, if I had a waist like these women, I’d probably show it off too.

I spotted abs for miles.

But still, even my chubby tummy was cold.

By the way, no one was wearing shoes either.

Everyone was wearing sneakers.

I looked like something out of the 1950s, with my jeans and loafers.

So bottom line, I bring tidings of great joy.

‘Tis the season for sweatpants in public.

Truly Happy Holidays!

Column Classic: Christmas With The Flying Scottolines

December 7, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

It’s time you knew the truth.

My childhood Christmases were not the norm.

I’m reluctant to tell you because it makes the family look bad.

But I’m a fan of the truth, especially if it’s funny.

Here’s what happened.

When I was little, The Flying Scottolines were a family of four, living in a tract house in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. But my mother had a very large family and she was the youngest of nineteen children.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Nineteen.

I had eighteen aunts and uncles. Their age span was so large that some were dying while others were being born.

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.

What does this tell you about my family?

I don’t even want to know.

Let’s just say they were good Catholics.

Maybe too good.

What does that tell us about my grandmother?

That she had more estrogen than the northern hemisphere?

Can you imagine being pregnant nineteen times?

It’s like a puppy mill, only with babies.

By the way, my grandmother was married twice. Her first husband died.

You can guess how.

His heart wore out.

Before anything else, evidently.

I would’ve said, Dude, before bedtime, maybe read a book instead?

Anyway, when I was growing up, most of the aunts and uncles would come to our house for Sunday dinner and on holidays. The house would burst with colorful Italian relatives, like in an Olive Garden commercial but not as well-dressed.

Everybody brought potluck, which meant that we had 37 different kinds of pasta.

I adored all of my aunt and uncles, but my favorite was Uncle Mikey, the Fun Uncle.

He drove a convertible Thunderbird, love to sing and dance, and did God-knows-what for a living. He loved to play with me and my brother, tickle us, and tell us dumb jokes. But best of all, he always brought us presents on Christmas Eve, like Santa, only smoking a cigarette.

All the other aunts and uncles would give us a Christmas gift by placing them under the tree for us to open on Christmas morning.

But not Uncle Mikey.

He would bring his gifts unwrapped, so we could play with them right away.

Of course, we loved that, as kids.

Delayed gratification was not in our vocabulary.

I always noticed some tension between my parents and Uncle Mikey on Christmas Eve, and one year, the presents from Uncle Mikey stopped abruptly.

Bummer.

I asked my mother why, and that’s when she told me that Uncle Mikey’s presents “fell off a truck.”

Not that that explained anything.

I remember thinking that Uncle Mikey was the luckiest guy ever, always driving around behind trucks full of toys, just when things started falling off the back.

What a guy!

And he must’ve been the greatest catch, too, because when the toys fell off the truck, he caught them.

Merry Christmas!

Some kids believed in Santa, but I believed in Uncle Mikey.

I didn’t care where the presents came from, only that I got them.

Evidently, Uncle Mikey felt the same way.

Then one day, after I had become an adult, I heard the term “fell off a truck” used in a movie. And I learned that it meant the goods were stolen.

Which is when I realized that Uncle Mikey wasn’t such a good catch, after all.

No wonder Mother Mary made him stop.

And no wonder the presents were never wrapped.

And no wonder they were always the best.

Because they didn’t cost him anything.

The Flying Scottolines were receiving stolen goods.

Luckily we didn’t end up behind bars.

And so you get the idea.

That’s who we were.

Are you impressed yet?

The truth is never impressive.

It’s just real.

And sometimes funny.

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

November 30, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline / Francesca Serritella

Here is a true classic and the first column Francesca wrote while in college, before she became a regular contributor.

Intro from Lisa Scottoline

Thanksgiving is about family, so I thought I’d ask my daughter Francesca for her thoughts about the day. We spend so much time talking to and teaching our children that sometimes it’s nice just to ask them what they think, and listen to the answer. So take a minute this Thanksgiving to ask your own baby birds what they think about the day, and listen to whatever they chirp up with.

Because I bet that the thing that you’re most thankful for is them.

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

By Francesca Serritella

My family is small. Since it’s only my mom and me at home, our Thanksgiving has never been the Martha Stewart production it can be for some other families. My dad’s family has Thanksgiving in New York; my grandmother and uncle have Thanksgiving in Miami. My mother and I buy a last-minute turkey, make up some wacky ingredients for a stuffing, and eat together with Frank Sinatra playing in the background and a lot of warm, furry dogs warming our feet. It has always been nice, and I know we’re lucky to have each other, but sometimes it has just felt small.

Until Harry.

Harry is our neighbor, he’s in his eighties, and we got to know him from running into him when we walked our dogs. He used to go for a long walk every day, waving a white handkerchief so cars would see him. He would stop to chat with us, always cheery and warm, even when the late-autumn wind made his nose red and his eyes tear.

A few years ago, my mom invited Harry to our Thanksgiving dinner, and he arrived at four o’clock sharp, wearing a cozy and Icelandic sweater and graciously removing his Irish tweed cap as soon as he came inside. During dinner, my mom asked him about his hobbies, and to be honest, I didn’t expect this to be the most thrilling conversation topic. After all, my grandmother’s hobbies are crosswords and yelling at my uncle. But Harry’s face lit up at the question.

“I’m a Ham!” he said.

We didn’t get it.

And with that, Harry turned into a live-wire. He talked about his hobby as a Ham Radio operator, a mode of amateur radio broadcast first popular in the 1920s. Harry told us all about using radio technology while serving in WWII, and we sat, rapt, as he described sending a signal into the air, bouncing it off the stratosphere, and bending it around the earth. He seemed like Merlin, hands waving in the air—his fingers had lost their quiver and his watery eyes were bright and shining.

Well-meaning, but being somewhat of a teenage buzz kill, I asked, “Have you ever tried email? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

No, he said. He enjoys the effort—a foreign concept in my wireless Internet, instant-messaging world. Even though Ham radios can communicate through voice, he still uses Morse code sometimes, just for the fun of it. Most of all, he enjoys belonging to the community of Hams. “I get to meet people I would never meet. I have friends around the world.”

That night, it didn’t matter that Harry and I didn’t share a last name, or that we didn’t share the same relatives or the same nose. That Thanksgiving, he was family. He still is.

What Harry and my mother taught me that Thanksgiving, whether they knew it or not, was that you don’t just get your family, you can create your family. We do it all the time without realizing it; we form bonds with the people we work with, live with, learn with. I’ve felt homesick up at college, but I’ve also created my own little family of friends at school. I hope all those brave soldiers overseas have found second families in their comrades, people to support and lean on when they’re forced to be away from loved ones at home.

These second families don’t replace our first one, they just extend it.

It wasn’t until that Thanksgiving with Harry that I really got it: there are no rules for what or who makes a family, no limit on love. The holidays especially are a time when we can reach out and say “thank you” to all the people who make up our many families. And sometimes, if you’re lucky like me, Thanksgiving can even be a chance to set an extra plate at the table.

Looking out the dining room window, I can barely see Harry’s house for the trees. But inside that house is a man who is not alone. There lives a man who is an expert at reaching out to people, whether by angling radio waves around the globe, or by flagging us down on a walk around the block. He has us, he has our other neighbors, he has friends around the world. Even better, we have him.

And for that, I am thankful.

Reindeer Games

November 23, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

The holidays are almost upon us.

Let the game begin.

What game am I talking about?

Not food-shopping.

Not gift-buying.

Not home-decorating.

I’m talking, of course, about Hide-and-Seek.

That’s the game I play with myself, before every holiday season.

Because invariably, people will be coming over, so I want to make the place look clean, and I get busy.

No, not cleaning.

Have we met?

I don’t clean, I hide.

By this I mean, I look around the kitchen and all of a sudden my eyes go automatically to piles of clutter that I’ve been ignoring all year, like:

A stack of bills.

Catalogs.

Sweaters that need to go to the dry cleaner.

Purses shoved in a kitchen chair.

Books to be read.

Yes, books are stacked everywhere in my house.

I actually like that about me.

And what I start doing is taking the piles and hiding them.

This is so that when people come over, they’ll think I keep a clean house.

But I know better, and now, so do you.

Please tell me that I’m not the only one.

Let’s play Holiday Hide-and-Seek!

Yesterday I stuck all the bills in a tote bag.

Luckily I have 327 tote bags, and I think I used up 150 of them.

I moved the stack of catalogs to a drawer, but the drawer was already full of other catalogs.

At least they were in good company.

Have fun, catalogs!

I put the sweaters that have to go to the dry cleaners in the trunk of the car, so I’ll take them the next time I go.

Or more accurately, I’ll forget they’re in the trunk and drive around with them for the next three weeks.

My favorite place to hide things for the holidays is the steps to my basement. This is because I am actually too lazy to take stuff all the way down to the basement, or sometimes it’s too heavy.

Yesterday I actually put two dog cages on the basement steps and they slid right down to the bottom like they were sledding.

How much fun is that?

Another game!

Clutter sledding!

Except afterwards, I realized I couldn’t get down to the basement because there’s too much stuff on the steps for me to get by.

To get toilet paper.

How long can I hold out?

I’ll let you know.

After the holidays are over is when the chaos really begins.

Because when you play Holiday Hide-and-Seek, you can forget where you hid all your stuff.

You can’t find it anymore.

The clutter has vanished.

Or it escaped, like Clutter Houdini.

Or maybe somebody sneaked in and stole my clutter.

I played Holiday Hide-and-Seek, but I ended up playing myself.

And every year, the same thing happens: I start to get overdue notices for bills that went unpaid over the holidays.

I buy another copy of the book I hid because I couldn’t find where I put the one I bought.

Or sometimes I end up with a stack of papers and This Is Not a Bill whatevers, and since they’re completely miscellaneous, I put them away to go through them later.

By later I mean never.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this.

But that’s all a problem for another day.

As of now, my house is clean.

Or more importantly, it looks that way.

Happy Holidays!

Classic Column: Tryhard

November 9, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

Mother Mary knew the secret to great parenting.

Don’t try too hard.

And I mean that in the best way.

The thing that both of my parents gave us in abundance was love.

That came naturally to them.

They didn’t have to try very hard at all.

My brother Frank and I were adored, unconditionally.

They thought everything we did was great.

It was the only thing they agreed on, until they divorced.

Their love for us was all out of proportion with any reality. For example, I remember getting ready with my brother to go with my father to the World’s Fair in New York City.

Yes, that would be in 1964.

Welcome to The History Channel, or in other words, my life.

I was born in 1955, so I was nine years old at the time.

Believe it or not, I just had get a pencil and paper to do the math, including carrying-the-one, which shows my great affection for you.

I remember telling my mother that I was excited about seeing New York.

And I remember distinctly what she said to me, which was, “Honey, New York is excited to be seeing you.”

Wow.

That’s love.

Or maybe delusional behavior.

But either way, I grew up feeling pretty great about myself.

And not because I got good grades in school or for any other reason, except the fact that I breathed in and out.

My father was the same way.

I remember that after I had become an author he would come to my signings, and someone said to him, “you must be very proud of your daughter” and he said, “Lady, I was proud of her the day she came out of the egg.”

I’ve told that story before, I tell it all the time, because I think I have the same attitude, and think it’s one of the reasons that Francesca and I are so close.

I just adored her, the moment she came out of the egg.

I still do.

And I said all the dumb things to her that my mother said to me, like “don’t study so much” and “it doesn’t matter whether you get A’s, just so you’re happy” and “stop reading so much, it will ruin your eyes.”

And paradoxically, Francesca turned out to be a wonderful student and accomplish great things, despite me telling her that she didn’t need to bother.

And I can’t say I caused that, or even that it planned it, only that when I think back to my childhood, I realize that there was absolutely no trying going on in my household, at all.

We just were.

And that applied to little things as well, like Halloween costumes.

Nowadays, Halloween costumes have been raised to an art form and there are parades in my town, where they give out a variety of prizes for the most original costume and such. All of the costumes are homemade, and I can see how hard the parents and kids tried to make a wonderful costume.

But we Scottolines never tried that hard.

For Halloween’s when I was growing up, my mother went to Woolworth’s and bought a costume in a box. It had a plastic mask that was stiff and attached to your face with a cheap piece of elastic that would undoubtedly break by the end of the evening.

Which was fine because the mask was too hot to wear anyway.

You could’ve welded in my Halloween mask.

I remember being Cleopatra five years in a row, and thinking back on it now, I realize I wore the same costume.

I mean the same exact costume, which my mother must have re-boxed after Halloween and put away, only to present to me the next October.

“Cleopatra!” I would say with delight, each time.

Because for me, Halloween was when you got to be Cleopatra.

No one ever suggested you could actually change costumes, and I couldn’t imagine why you would want to.

If you could be Cleopatra, why would you be anybody else?

I had diva tendencies even then.

Which Mother Mary evidently encouraged, being something of a diva herself, even though she was only 4 foot 11 inches.

Size really does not matter, people.

The costume was a sheath of turquoise polyester with pseudo-Egyptian hieroglyphics on the front, and the mask was authentically Cleopatran because it had triangle hair on either side of the face, a snake for a headband, and really bad eyeliner.

And I remember loving Halloween, with my father taking us from house to house, me swanning around in my Cleopatra dress and my brother in his pirate headscarf with a fake-silky blouse.

He was a pirate for five years in a row, too.

That was before we knew he was gay.

But he did look damn good in that blouse.

We’d carry paper bags to collect the candy and orange cartons to collect pennies for UNICEF, though we had no idea what that meant, only that it was a good thing to do and made a lot of noise when you shook the container.

All my memories of Halloween, like most of my childhood, are happy, filled with polyester, preservatives, and sugar.

We were happy because we loved each other and it showed.

My parents told us so, and hugged us, and kissed us.

When we fell and skinned a knee, it was a tragedy.

No injuries were ever walked off in the Scottoline household.

They were fussed over, worried about, and cured with food.

No failures or setbacks were ever shrugged off and anytime we were rejected by anybody or anything, fists were shaken.

“It’s their loss,” my father would always say.

And my mother would curse.

One time, in my lawyer days, she wanted to go to my law firm to yell at one of the partners for working me too hard.

I stopped her, saving the day.

For them.

Because an entire law firm was no match for my mother.

Now, that’s love.

Column Classic: Homey for the Holidays

November 2, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

The holidays are coming.

Do you feel happiness? Or pressure?

If the latter, you’ve come to the right place.

Because Mother Mary has the cure.

Let me explain.

The horror begins at Halloween.

And not the fun kind of horror, which involves kids in costumes and fun-size Snickers bars, but the kind that tells you you have to go apple-picking, then come home and make an apple pie, but you’re not allowed to eat it because it’s too fattening.

Or the kind that tells you you have to visit a pumpkin patch, pick a pumpkin, then come home and carve it, then bake the seeds into snack that nobody wants.

Mind you, I’m not putting any of these things down.

I go by the motto, Don’t Yuck My Yum.

The Internet definition of the term is, don’t hate on things that people love.

And I totally agree with that.

So if you want to go crazy on Halloween, decorate your house, wear funny costumes, and even throw a party, go for it.

But I was in the mall yesterday, and everywhere I turned were signs for the holidays, and all of the signs were pushing one thing, but it wasn’t love, peace, or understanding.

It was perfection.

One sign said, MAKE YOUR HOME PERFECT FOR HOLIDAY ENTERTAINING!

And another one promoted gifts that were “absolutely perfect for the holidays.”

I even saw a display for candles that smelled “holiday-perfect.”

That’s not even good grammar.

Evidently, your house not only has to be perfect, it has to smell perfect.

My house smells perfectly like dogs.

Is that perfect enough?

I want to talk to the people who feel the pressure for holiday perfection, beginning about now.

Because you don’t have to be perfect.

Instead, you can enjoy the holidays in a manner that doesn’t involve a glue gun.

Again, I know lots of people who like to decorate their house for the holidays, and they should enjoy themselves. But if you don’t enjoy that, you shouldn’t feel pressure to decorate. And the last thing you need to worry about at the holidays is perfection.

I’m here to tell you it’s okay to be lazy.

Put your feet up.

Make eggnog and drink it all yourself.

Or better yet, buy eggnog and drink it all yourself.

Because it comes down to the question of what you think is perfect in a home, and Mother Mary taught me that your home is already perfect.

That is, if you’re in it, and so are the people you love.

If there are people you hate in your home, you should divorce them.

To return to point, Mother Mary did not do anything for the holidays except start cooking. She loved to cook, and we loved to eat, so it worked out perfectly.

She didn’t decorate for the holidays in any way.

We got a Christmas tree only the night before, and you would have liked our tree, if you really like tinsel.

Our tree was covered with tinsel.

You would think Reynolds Wrap came over and threw up.

And I remember the tinsel was super heavy, probably because it contained lead.

And maybe even asbestos.

I saw an ad for holiday candles, and it said: “Nothing is quite as cozy as a candle-lit abode, and the decadent aromas of the winter season should be embraced in your favorite spaces.”

I’m so confused by this, I don’t know where to start.

I love candles as much is the next girl, but who has a candle-lit abode?

And what if your “favorite space” isn’t your candle-lit abode, but the crook of Bradley Cooper’s neck?

It could happen, people.

And as for decadent smells, don’t get me started.

I remember with great nostalgia, the decadent smells of the holidays in our house, when I was growing up.

The aroma of ravioli was in the air, and also the smoke of More 100 cigarettes, courtesy of Mother Mary.

Bottom line, Christmas at the Flying Scottolines may have been carcinogenic.

But there was love, and carbohydrates.

And that was enough, and everything.

Happy Holidays!

Report Card

October 26, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I used to get good grades.

Until now.

Because I just got a notice from my electric company, which, in the Philadelphia area, is PECO.

I’m pretty sure PECO stands for Pricey Electric Company.

I say this because PECO just sent me a notice that says, How You Compare to Your Neighbors.

First off, stop there.

I try not to compare myself to my neighbors.

Keeping up with the Joneses is never a good idea.

Somebody smart once said, Comparison is the thief of joy.

So I try not to notice when my neighbors throw big parties that I’m not invited to, or their front lawns look greener, or their husbands are very handsome and also they have one.

But here comes PECO, giving me bad news.

I’m doing terrible compared with my neighbors.

Specifically, with regard to electrical use.

Let me explain.

According to PECO, I have so-called “efficient neighbors” are using 276 kWh.

Let’s pretend we know what kWh is.

Kilowatt Hours?

Pulled that right out of my ass.

Didn’t even have to Google it.

Because that would use electricity.

Pretty good for somebody who sucks, according to their Efficient Neighbors.

And it turns out that my “average neighbors” are using 574 kWh.

Okay, so far, so good. I’m anything but average.

I’m adorable.

But according to PECO, I am using the most of all, 1034 kWh.

Wait, what, how?

In other words, as the notice told me, Your Energy Use Was Higher Than Average Neighbors by 80%.

Ruh-roh.

I have no idea how this happened.

I’m one woman and I live in a household by myself.

I turn off the lights when I leave the room.

I don’t turn the heat on unless I absolutely need it.

I don’t turn on air conditioning unless somebody makes me.

Usually I have the TV on and a single computer.

Before I go to the movies on a Saturday night, I blow-dry my hair.

I even unplug the blow dryer when I’m done because I know that uses something called phantom electricity.

Bottom line, I live like a nun.

But somehow, I am still using 80% more electricity than my high-achieving neighbors.

Where did I go wrong?

What are they doing that I’m not?

Is it because they have husbands?

None of this makes sense to me, but the notice even went on to grade Your Electricity Use at a Glance. The grades were:

Great, Good, or Fair.

Guess what, I got a fair.

Even though I studied!

To me, a Fair is a C.

And the last C I got was in trigonometry.

But I think they graded on a curve.

Because if you’re doing 80% worse than everybody else, that’s not a C.

It’s an F -.

So I’m flunking electricity.

I hope it doesn’t go on my Permanent Record Card.

I won’t even get into my safety school.

Except at my age, my safety school is a retirement home.

But I’ve been an A student my whole life.

I even got an A in divorce.

I’m the best divorcer ever.

Twice even.

It takes practice.

The PECO notice ended with, What could have caused your energy use to increase?

You’re reading my mind, girl.

It suggested “heavy appliance use.”

Come on.

I use my dishwasher once a day.

And my washer once a week.

Okay, once every two weeks.

Okay, once every three weeks.

But maybe what’s happening is that PECO is charging too much for electricity and they’re trying to make it seem like my fault.

I’m susceptible to this argument.

I carry around a lot of guilt.

This would be the Catholic part.

Original sin is my origin story.

Or maybe PECO is gaslighting me.

Unless that’s up to the gas company.

Now that’s a report I don’t want to see.

I bet I have more gas than my neighbors, too.

Keeping it Real

October 19, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I need to get a Real ID.

And it’s giving me an identity crisis.

Let me explain.

I don’t know who made this decision or why, but we can no longer use a driver’s license to fly or do God-knows-what-else.

By the way, I just looked it up and God-knows-what else includes entering a nuclear power plant.

So keep that in mind, the next time you stop by your local nuclear power plant.

Bring your real ID and your last will and testament.

Leave your ovaries at home.

To return to point, you can still use a passport to fly, but that worries me because I had my passport pickpocketed in Sicily and it was a pain in the neck to replace.

On second thought, it wasn’t that bad to replace. I had to make a side trip to Naples and rewarded myself with the best pizza in the world.

You know the old saying: Just a spoonful of carbohydrates makes the medicine go down.

For what it’s worth, I understand why it’s not a great idea to link identity to a driver’s license, because not everybody drives or can afford a car.

But I don’t know why we can’t have an either/or system, so you can fly with a driver’s license or Real ID.

But lately we’re not a country that deals with nuance.

We’re all-or-nothing now.

And lately it looks we’re in a lot of All.

But I digress.

So I looked up to see what I need to get a Real ID, and one thing was my Social Security card.

Ruh-roh.

I have no idea where that is.

I seem to remember it was a little piece of white paper even smaller than a credit card, which was its first problem. If it were plastic like a credit card, I would have kept it. I still have credit cards from stores that went bankrupt decades ago.

If Wanamakers comes back to life, I’m ready.

That was a joke for Philly people.

Everyone else will have to insert their own defunct-but-beloved department store.

By the way, department stores were something that existed before Amazon.

Try to play along, young people.

Humor us olds.

The rules for Real ID say that you can use your tax form for your social security number but my tax form has my number redacted, evidently to protect my identity.

Great idea, every week I get a notice that my online identity has been compromised by one website or another.

Hackers have my Social Security card, but I don’t.

The notices I get all ask me if I want to reset my passwords.

Answer, no.

I’m taking my chances.

There are few things worse than resetting all your passwords.

Maybe wearing a bra.

Which resets your breasts.

But I would rather wear a bra 24/7 than reset my passwords.

But I did luck out in my document search because by some incredible miracle, I found my original birth certificate.

Wow!

I have no idea why I saved it because it’s a piece of paper and not a credit card. But it is supercute, and actually filled out in something called a fountain pen.

Pens are something that existed before keyboards.

I know, this is the old-timiest column ever.

Because I was born seventy years ago, and my birth certificate is a seventy-year-old document.

Which makes it the oldest document in my house.

It’s on yellowed paper and measures 5 by 7, which may be why it survived in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box, with Daughter Francesca’s baby teeth.

Please tell me I’m not the only mother who keeps baby teeth.

Or has a jewelry box of biohazards.

Look, if I’m not throwing away a Wanamaker’s card, you know I’m hanging on to those teeth.

Plus the Tooth Fairy bought them, fair and square.

I think Francesca got a buck a tooth.

More for buck teeth.

Sorry.

I keep them wrapped in ancient Kleenex with a rubber band, like a do-it-yourself mummy.

Or Mommy.

And I have to tell you, when I found my daughter’s baby teeth, it reminded me of who I am.

Francesca’s mother.

That’s my Real ID.

By the way, I also save two dog teeth and several cat toenails.

So pet mothers count as mommies, too.

That’s called nuance.

Intro from Lisa Scottoline

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