It Looked Different on the Model - Laurie Notaro [9]
Ambien Laurie is also scientifically inclined, as evidenced by the memory of her responding to a dream in which my living-room wall was entirely covered, floor to ceiling, by a chart, much like the periodic table of elements. In each little box, however, was not a letter abbreviation but a number and a delightful drawing of what appeared to be distinct and different mushroom clouds, swirlies, and scrolls. In the dream, I was in awe of the complexity of the chart and all of the elaborate illustrations when my eyes finally reached the top and it all became clear: It was The Fart Chart (see this page), and every type of fart, categorized by its ferocity, attributes, bubbles, and bursts, was depicted in a very artistic rendering with a corresponding identification number.
Still swimming in the dream as she stumbled to the bathroom through the dark hallway, Ambien Laurie sat on her throne and thought to herself, Ahhh, number 248 is a good one. I should really do that one more often.
The evidence of Ambien Laurie is present not only in random crumbs around my house and bursts of nighttime brilliance but also in snippets of emails the next morning. I have woken up numerous mornings to find responses in my inbox to emails I was unaware I had sent from deep within the shadows of the previous evening, and I have to start piecing events together like it’s a crime-scene investigation. Imagine my surprise when Ambien Laurie wove a tale about Mr. Grunt, a sixty-five-year-old phys ed teacher who was covered in graying marsupial fur and kept his hamburgers warm underneath his floppy man boobs. Yeah. I already know. If you think it was horrible reading that, imagine the horror of discovering you not only wrote it but sent it to people, and I mean people as in plural. Picture that the thought of Mr. Grunt actually emerged from your unconscious and that your self-edit button was not only deactivated but completely disconnected by a ravenous eater of purse trash, who then realized there was no one in the air-traffic-controller tower, thus allowing random and crazy-ass thoughts to fly out of the brain airport unattended, Mohamed Atta–style. You could write a story about lost Germanic children, a witch, and an oven, and you would get a softer response than from a story about Mr. Grunt, who really is a bastard. I had revealed a part of myself that I never wanted others to see, kind of like when Michael Kors took his shirt off on the beach and exposed his unholy, Pluto-sized flesh-covered belly button to millions of tabloid readers. If I could insert a link right here to that mind-burning image, I would, because it is perhaps the only thing revolting enough to divert your attention away from the shame that I conjured up a PE teacher who uses body flaps as a food warmer.
Perhaps the worst thing about this tale of caution is that most nights at around 10:00, 10:15 P.M., certain friends will knock on my email door and ask if Ambien Laurie can come out to play, and if I mention, no, she’s not home, they’ll reply very simply that they’ll check back in forty-five minutes. They think she’s hilarious, and, honestly, if you think a monkey eating your food, spending your money, and poaching your friends is the bottom rung, wait till those friends start clapping for her when she flings around the Mr. Grunt talk. Watch what happens then (Ambien Laurie said of the Kors belly button: “Someone’s mother was a lazy piece of shit. She couldn’t tie a string