My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [115]
“What about Vietnamese?” Gina asks.
The rest of the group finds this to be a capital idea. And I agree, too, mostly because whatever the ladies at my nail shop have for lunch smells amazing.
“Then it’s settled,” Tracey confirms.
“So . . . ,” I say, “that brings us to the most important question of the night. Who’s watching The Real World?”
Tracey is shocked. “That’s still ON? I thought it ended years ago.”
And Stacey says, “I haven’t watched it since they were in San Francisco.”
I slump in my seat. “You people hurt my heart. This season kicks ass. Don’t get me wrong; I’m only watching because Eudora Welty sucks.”
This comment requires some tortuous backstory on my part.
I continue. “It’s like the people they’ve chosen are caricatures of caricatures. They’ve moved so far away from the original concept of the show, it’s an entirely different entity. Remember how once on The Simpsons Marge said, ‘FOX turned into a hard-core porn network so gradually, I didn’t even notice!’ Same thing. I mean, I bet these little bastards have never even heard of Eric Nies or The Grind. No one ever has a meaningful conversation or a decent fight for that matter. Remember when Pedro was in a rage because he couldn’t live with Puck anymore, saying he compromised his health and sanity? That was riveting! The biggest drama these idiots ever contend with is whether or not someone’s ‘fake.’ I mean, really? Fake? This is the end-all, be-all of insults now? Give me a fucking break. And there’s this one guy on it who’s supposed to be all punk rock, but when he got kicked off the show for being too big of a dumb ass to set an alarm clock, he was crying like a little bitch—”
Gina interrupts, “You mean Joey?”
My eyes light up. “You’re watching? YAY!!”
“Yeah, but you know what’s sad?” Gina says slowly, shaking her dark curls. “We were the target demographic when the damn series premiered, and now we’re old enough to be these kids’ parents.”
No.
NO. That can’t be right.
“Wait, what? No. These guys are, what, early twenties? I guess, yeah, Derek celebrated his twenty-first birthday a couple of weeks ago. Major drama. Boy troubles. Anyway, if he’s twenty-one, that means I’d have been . . .” I furiously do the math. Fingers and toes may or may not be involved. “Oh, God. They don’t know what The Grind is because they were three when it premiered. Which means I’d have been twenty-one when some of these kids were born. Which means I actually could be their parent.”
I stare at the table in stunned silence.
I guess I was wrong.
Apparently there IS something in this world that sucks more than Eudora Welty.
We’re having Lebanese today, and there’s almost no difference between it and other kinds of Mediterranean cuisine, save for the liberal use of sumac, which is kind of a bumpy red, sour spice that Stacey had to assure me was not poison but it totally sounds poisonous but I guess they wouldn’t be in business long if they made a habit of poisoning customers but other than the sumac everything was like every other Mediterranean place, which by the way totally encompasses the Middle East but no one actually says it’s the Middle East, kind of like how the rugs are called Persian and not Iranian because that’s not a selling point and anyway the hummus was like any other hummus and the falafel was like any other falafel and of course there was lamb because there’s always lamb and the Middle East must have as many sheep as they do grains of sand as in there are so many that they cause traffic jams but instead of horns all you hear is “Baa! Baa!” because they’re frigging everywhere kind of like Bank of America ATMs and it’s probably a lot like in the movie You Don’t Mess with the Zohan where Adam Sandler is always using hummus for everything like brushing his teeth and styling his hair only in real life everyone would be washing their glasses with lamb and waxing their cars with lamb and when something great happens, they’re all “That’s