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By Root 618 0

LAMB-tastic!” and I had Lebanese coffee, which is like Cuban coffee on crack, which is like regular coffee on crack, meaning it’s like coffee to the second power and I had a whole pot of it because they put cardamom in it which made me exclaim, “This must be what it was like to drink coffee with the three wise men!” and then I interrupted myself and said, “No, wait, this is what Jesus tastes like!” and did I mention I drank a whole pot, which probably translates into about twenty regular cups of Joe and I told Stacey I’d turned into Cornholio and she didn’t understand what I meant and I was all “How can there be a pop culture reference that I get and you don’t since we’re kind of the same person except for the politics, pets, and pearls?” and she said that when the show was on she was working full-time and going to grad school and married and also working part-time to make ends meet, so there wasn’t a lot of room in her schedule to watch cartoons and now I kind of think I can fly.

Comin’ down, man.

from the desk of ms. jennifer ann lancaster

Dear Karen,

I forgot to give you the number of where we’re going to be in New York, so it’s taped next to the phone in the kitchen.

Thanks again for being so flexible about us adding three kittens to the cat-sitting reservation. I think you’ll find that they’re loving and sweet and should be no problem whatsoever. Your check with the new total is attached. Please enjoy this bottle of wine on the counter, too.

Thanks,

Jen Lancaster

P.S. Out of curiosity, are your shots up-to-date?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I Love New York 2

“We’re here for our panel van, please.”

Fletch and I have just flown into LaGuardia. The Hamptons are two hours away, and we’ll be on our way as soon as we pick up our rental car. I thought a convertible at the beach would be really fun, so that’s what I reserved. However, Fletch has an unbroken string of bad luck when it comes to rental cars and has never once gotten what he ordered. He’s sure that there’s no way we’ll get a convertible, and instead we’ll be stuck with the only vehicle left on the lot—a big white contractor panel van.

“Stop it,” I hiss at him before turning my attention to the clerk. “Last name is Lancaster—we have a reservation.” I hand over my credit card and driver’s license while the clerk puts my information into the computer.

“Here we go, Miss Lancaster. I have a LeBaron convertible waiting for you.”

“Ha!” I bark at Fletch. “I told you so!”

We complete the transaction and place our bags in the car, and we’re ready to go. All we have to do is hook up the GPS.

Twenty minutes and one profoundly explicit string of profanity later, we’re on the road. Fletch has chosen to drive because I’m too slow and too cautious, and I prefer to have both hands free in order to flip birds when needed. Yet I don’t need to make obscene gestures at anyone, not even once. I’m deeply impressed by how much more polite New York drivers are than Chicago drivers. That’s not a bet I’d have taken. At home, braking is for cowards and turn signals for the weak. George Wallace says anything going less than sixty miles per hour in Chicago is considered a house. But when other drivers here see a car trying to merge, they get out of the way, rather than considering the move a thrown gauntlet.

I don’t know what to expect in the Hamptons. None of my friends has ever been there, since it’s not a Midwestern thing. Depending on traffic, today’s drive could take three hours. If you start the clock when we left our house this morning, by the time we get to our hotel, we’ll have been traveling for more than nine hours. I guess Chicagoans would rather spend nine hours going somewhere else.228

The other weird thing about the Hamptons is there aren’t any hotels, per se—you won’t see a Hyatt or a Holiday Inn, and if you run into a Hilton, most likely she’ll be walking Tinkerbell on the beach. New Yorkers have tried to explain the concept of the Hamptons to me—essentially, it’s a tourist area that goes to considerable lengths to discourage tourism.