Chick Wit Archives – Lisa Scottoline

What’s A Girl To Do?

October 5, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m powerless.

Literally.

Not because I’m living in a country roiled by crazy politics, climate change, or agita in general.

I mean I got no electricity.

And I can’t get no satisfaction.

Tell you why.

I lose power all the time in my house, maybe twenty times a year.

No joke.

I also get power surges, which is like the evil twin of a power outage.

Listen, I’m no physicist.

I don’t know enough about electricity to tell you what either of these things are.

All I can tell you is that they’re engaged in a conspiracy against me.

I’ve had power outages and surges that fried my dishwasher, a dryer, and several computers.

My power goes out or surges during any thunderstorm, snowstorm, and even on a sunny day that happens to be windy.

Give me a break.

Snow and thunder are good excuses, but wind?

Sack up, power grid.

When did you get so delicate?

They tell me wind is a problem because trees get knocked down, and that causes a power outage. But I look outside and none of my trees are knocked down. I drive around the neighborhood and no other trees are knocked down. It’s a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze, like a blow dryer on cool.

But somewhere, someplace, a downed tree is frying my appliances.

It’s like a butterfly effect for housewares.

Okay, I’m not stupid, so I tried to protect myself.

I bought a generator.

And last month, I got a power surge that fried the generator.

I was actually sitting in the kitchen when all the lights flickered, then went black, and in the next moment I heard a large popping noise, which was my checkbook.

Just kidding, it was my generator.

I talked to the electrician, and he told me that I should install a power surge protection system in the house, which would prevent this sort of thing.

So I reached for my checkbook, and they installed the power surge protection system.

And last week I got another power surge which fried the power surge protection system.

I’m not even kidding.

And it also fried my burglar alarm system, which is another thing I put in to protect myself.

I await the estimate. I’m going to tell them to put it on my tab.

The alarm company suggested that I put in a claim for all of these damages on my homeowners’ insurance.

And I do have homeowners insurance, to protect myself.

But we all know that if I put in a claim, my rates will go up, because that’s the way insurance works.

So bottom line, how do I protect myself when all of my self-protection fails?

At this point I have installed four backup systems, none of which are backing up.

Do you know what is backing up?

My agita, in general.

Get In, Losers

September 28, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m not in menopause.

I’m in adolescence.

I realized this the other day, when it occurred to me that I was turning into a thirteen-year-old boy.

Because of videogames.

By way of background, I never played a videogame in my life.

I’m more of a book person.

Also a dog person.

And a carbohydrates person.

But I got interested in F1 racing from a Netflix show entitled Drive to Survive.

Even though my idea of driving to survive is going to the cardiologist.

Nevertheless I got completely sucked into the show, which follows the stories of superhot men driving fast cars.

Evidently I’m not dead below the waist.

Who knew?

Anyway this led to me actually buying a sports car, which is a thing of beauty, even though I never go above the speed limit.

I don’t drive fast, I drive beautiful.

Then I started imagining myself behind the wheel of a real F1 race car.

No, I didn’t buy one.

But it turns out that there’s an F1 videogame and I thought that would be really fun, so when my bestie Laura asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told her:

A superhot F1 driver.

Just kidding.

I told her, an F1 videogame.

I knew she would know the game because her husband and sons are also F1 fans. I was imagining some kind of game that I played on my computer and used my headphones for. It didn’t occur to me that I would need a joystick or anything else.

In other words, I didn’t think it through.

Which is so like teenage me.

And what happened next was that Laura and her amazing sons came through with flying colors, and gave me not only a videogame but some kind of F1 race simulator, which comes with a real car seat, an actual steering wheel, cushy headphones, and a wraparound screen.

It even has seatbelts.

I might need to increase my collision insurance.

Her family came over and built the whole damn thing, which was incredibly nice of them.

Yes, I feel totally guilty.

But also totally excited.

It’s like a racecar that goes nowhere.

Except in my imagination.

We put it in my office next to my computer, which is also a machine that doesn’t work without imagination.

So maybe a race simulator is perfect for an author?

Who cares, I love it!

I just got off deadline for my next book, and I can’t wait to get in the driver’s seat, learn how to play, and waste tons of time.

I’m about to become a videogamer.

Sorry, I mean gamer.

That’s what we call us, for short.

I feel pretty sure that I won’t be the only fossil gamer.

I wonder how many of us there are.

I’m about to find out.

I logged on to pick a gamer name, which took me way too long.

I rejected Superhot1.

Also ReadingIsFundamental.

And AgeIsJustANumber.

I eventually settled on a name that matches my vanity license plate, which I can’t tell you because it’s too embarrassing.

But if you log on to the F1 game, you’ll know it’s me because I’ll be the one going 35 miles an hour on the straightaway.

I intend to be a virtual traffic hazard.

You might call this a midlife crisis.

Or, more accurately, an end-of-life crisis.

But I call it a let’s-live-life crisis.

And I’m buckling up.

Plot Twist

September 21, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

My friends, these are plot-twisty times.

Of course I’m talking about my new puppy Eve.

Before I get started, let me thank you for your patience in reading my classic columns while I’ve been finishing my next book. I can’t do two things at once, so I had to take a break in the homestretch of the draft, but now it’s done, so I’m back writing fresh columns.

And you know how fresh I can be.

Also let me say thank you so much for your support of my book The Unraveling of Julia, which came out this summer. Many of you have been reading me for years, even decades, and I’m grateful for you every day.

Okay, back to new puppy Eve.

You may remember that I got Eve a few months ago, for lots of reasons, but mainly because I wanted a dog to take walks with me every day.

My two other dogs, Boone and Kit, are thirteen years old, and they don’t share my enthusiasm for the walk.

In truth, I don’t share my enthusiasm for the walk.

I make myself do it because it’s the laziest form of exercise.

I say that with love.

I have friends who run, hike, ski, and bicycle. I make excuses not to do those things.

Even I can’t find an excuse not to walk.

But we all love a plot twist, and Eve doesn’t like to walk.

As in, Eve will not walk.

If I go towards her with the harness, she runs away.

If I jingle a leash, she scoots under the bed.

If I actually succeed in putting a harness on her, she plants her front end down and her back end up and refuses to move.

I didn’t know why.

Dogs love to walk, right?

And who wouldn’t want to walk with me?

I’m a gas.

Actually I have gas.

Maybe that’s it?

Anyway I wondered if she had something wrong with her, so I took her to the vet, who examined her legs, and at my insistence, even did an x-ray.

Her legs are fine. She just doesn’t want to walk.

By the way, she doesn’t want to go to the car, either.

I jingle keys like the people in commercials, where the dogs jump up and bolt out the door to the car.

Eve bolts to the couch.

I even took her to obedience school.

She was a champ there, like the teacher’s pet.

Literally.

But now Evil is back to her old ways.

Finally I did what any mom would do.

I bribed her.

I carry her outside, then give her treats as we walk along.

You can imagine how comfortable this is, me bending over every ten steps and cheering “good girl” all the way.

Still, I’m into it. I love her and I love walking, so I’m going to make it work.

We parents can’t predict what our children will do, for good or for ill.

I say that because this summer also produced a different plot twist for me, a wonderful one in that my daughter Francesca’s second novel Full Bloom was published. It’s an amazing novel, and thank you to all of you who supported her book with the same enthusiasm you have shown mine over the years.

And because of you, in a wonderful plot twist, Francesca made the USA TODAY Bestseller List, right next to me! In the same week, my novel was the 79th and hers was the 80^th bestselling book of all sold in the country.

Wait, what?

Wow!

We were side-by-side on the list, as in life!

What are the odds?

It’s a harmonic convergence, family-wise.

By the way, I didn’t know Francesca would grow up to be a writer.

I wanted her to be a veterinarian.

For obvious reasons.

But I’m so happy and proud of her, and this summer taught me a great lesson:

You really do not know where life will lead you, or your family.

Sometimes there’s trouble, other times there’s joy.

I celebrate those joyful moments.

With enormous gratitude.

And now, Eve and I are going for a walk.

Good girl!

Column Classic: Sucking Up

September 14, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

Good news! Lisa is just putting the finishing touches on her new novel, and will be writing new columns ASAP!

I just read a story about a man who thought he had a lung tumor.

But it turned out to be a toy he’d inhaled as a child.

This is an absolutely true story.

Actually, all the stories in these columns are true, but most of them are bizarre things that happened to me.

This is a bizarre thing that happened to someone else.

It turns out that there was a postal worker in Britain who had been treated for a bad cough, and an X-ray revealed a mysterious mass in one of his lungs. The doctor thought it was a tumor, performed a bronchoscopy, and found a tiny toy cone from a Playmobil set. Which the man remembered getting for his seventh birthday, forty years before.

Wow.

The doctors took out the cone, and the man’s cough disappeared.

Plus he got his toy back.

Do endings get any happier than that?

Or harder to believe?

He couldn’t remember eating the toy cone, but obviously he must have.

I have that problem too.

I never remember the things I eat.

I could swear I’m not eating anything, but mysteriously, I just gained five pounds.

I must have eaten the entire Playmobil dollhouse.

And the dolls.

Plus the play and the mobil.

It was also incredible that the toy cone didn’t go into his stomach, but into his lungs.

That’s another problem I have.

Anything I eat goes into my hips.

But the story got me thinking about random toys I could’ve eaten at that age.

Barbie comes immediately to mind.

As in, Barbie shoes.

You remember Barbie shoes, don’t you?

They were plastic high heels that came in different colors and never stayed on her foot.

Maybe because she was permanently on tiptoe.

Or maybe because high heels aren’t worth the trouble.

I loved everything about Barbie, but I was fixated on her shoes, which I collected and sorted by color.

I took better care of Barbie’s shoes than I do of my own.

And weirder than that, I also had a habit as a child of walking on tiptoe.

Like, all the time.

I remember my mother and father being concerned about it and even taking me to a doctor.

Which was so not the Scottoline way.

We never went to doctors because Mother Mary believed in the healing powers of Vicks VapoRub.

I’m surprised she didn’t rub it into my feet and call it a day.

My entire childhood smelled like camphor and tomato sauce.

Anyway, the doctor said that there are a percentage of kids who are “toe-walkers,” that my parents shouldn’t worry about it, and I would grow out of it by age five.

He was partly right.

They shouldn’t have worried about it, and they didn’t, after that.

But I never grew out of it.

I still do it, even today.

Not all of the time, but sometimes.

Weirded out yet?

I never even realized I do it until I was speaking at a book signing and people started asking me why I was standing on tiptoe. And I realized that I speak on tiptoe at most of my signings, and I’m the most comfortable that way.

I looked it up online and it says that there are adults who toe-walk and that it doesn’t indicate an underlying neurological problem.

Obviously they don’t know me that well.

The articles say that it can mean your Achilles tendon is too short, but I don’t know how long my Achilles tendon is, and in any event, I’m short too, so my Achilles tendon probably matches me.

Otherwise how would it fit in wherever it is?

You see I’m no biologist.

Online it says that adult toe-walkers with an unknown cause are called idiopathic toe-walkers.

There’s no need for name-calling, Internet.

In any event, I don’t know why I do it.

Maybe to feel taller.

Or maybe in my mind, I’m wearing Barbie shoes.

At least I’m not eating them.

Column Classic: Junk in The Trunk

September 7, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

If Freud wanted to know what women want, he could have asked.

If he’d asked me, I would have answered:

Another kitchen cabinet.

And I just got one!

Here’s how it happened.

It was about ten years ago that I remodeled my kitchen, adding white cabinets and a trash compactor. To tell the truth, I don’t remember wanting a trash compactor and think it was Thing Two who wanted a trash compactor, but I’ve blamed enough on him, so let’s just say I wanted a trash compactor.

At the time, my kitchen contractor said, “I’ll install this trash compactor for you, but I bet you’ll never use it.”

“I’m sure I’ll use it,” said I. And I probably added, “Plus it will give me something to blame on somebody, down the line.”

In any event, the trash compactor got installed, and it came with two free bags, which I promptly lost.

Ten years and one divorce later, it turns out that the contractor was right.

I should have married the contractor.

But to stay on point, I never used the trash compactor. Not once. I even forgot it was there until three months ago, when it began to emit a mysterious and foul odor. I searched the thing and could find no reason for it to be smelly, but I washed it inside and out anyway. Still the smell got worse and worse, until it was so bad I could barely eat in the kitchen. Then one day, the electrician came over to fix a light and he said, “Smells like something died in here.”

Bingo!

The electrician showed me that you could slide out the compactor, which I hadn’t realized, and when we did, we found behind it an aromatic gray mound that used to be a mouse.

Eeek!

The electrician threw the dead mouse away, and I cleaned the trash compactor all over again, but it still stunk worse than my second marriage, which I didn’t even think was possible, so I threw the trash compactor away, too.

Which left an oddly empty space on my kitchen island, a blank square among the white cabinets, like a missing tooth.

I called the kitchen contractor, whose phone number I still had from ten years ago. As soon as he heard my voice, he said, “Told you,” and came right over.

Last week he installed a new cabinet, including a drawer, then asked, “What are you going to use it for?”

”I’m not sure yet,” I told him, excited by the possibilities. It was almost too much to hope for – a nice empty cabinet and a whole extra drawer. After he had gone, I pulled up a stool and contemplated my course of action.

The decision required me to consider the problem areas of my kitchen cabinets, which are many. My pot-and-pan cabinet is a mess because I hate to stack pots and pans in their proper concentric circles. I just pile them up any way, playing Jenga, only with Farberware. Also I can never figure out how to store pot lids, so I stick them in upside down, setting them wobbling on handles like the worst tops ever. Every time I open the cabinet door, they come sliding out like a stainless steel avalanche.

I also have a cabinet containing Rubbermaid and Tupperware, but it’s all mixed up, so that Rubbermaid lids are with Tupperware containers and Rubbermaid containers are with Tupperware lids, making the whole thing feel vaguely illicit, like a orgy of plastic products.

Then I have a cabinet of kitchen appliances I have never used once in my life, but feel compelled to keep close at hand, namely a juicer, a waffle iron, and a salad shooter. You never know when you’ll have to shoot a salad.

My kitchen drawers are equally problematic. I have one drawer for silverware, and four others for junk, junk, junk, and junk. All the junk drawers contain the same junk, just more of it, namely, pens that don’t work, pencils that have no point, extra buttons that go to clothes I’ve never seen, rubber bands I got free but can’t part with, menus for restaurants I don’t order from, and pennies.

In other words, it’s all essential.

I think I know what to put in the empty cabinet.

Trash compactor bags.

Column Classic: Reading is Fundamental

August 31, 2025

by Lisa Scottoline

With the start of a new school year upon us, I’m reminded about Mother Mary and her grammar patrol.

Cute owl wearing glasses reading a book, cartoon style

Mother Mary has a new job that benefits us all.

Before I reveal it, let me explain that over the years I’ve made a few author friends, and I buy their books and get them to sign them to my mother, which gives her a big charge. Last month I shipped her five books, including my newest one, then I called to ask her, “How’d you like my book?”

“I loved it, it was great!. But I have some corrections for it. And for the others.”

“Corrections? How many?”

“About five.”

“Five corrections?” I ask, surprised. “Like typos? That’s bad.”

“No, five pages of corrections. And for the others, too.”

I am astounded. “Five pages of typos?”

“Not typos, corrections, and I have five pages per book. So, twenty-five pages of corrections.”

Now, I officially don’t get it. “Give me an example of something you corrected.”

“Okay, in your book, you use the word ain’t. Ain’t is not a word.”

“Is it used in dialogue?”

“Yes.”

“Then, it’s fine. That’s how the character speaks. That’s not a mistake.”

“Yes, it is. Nobody should use the word ain’t. You know better than that, you went to college. I’ll mail you the sheets. You’ll see.”

“Okay, send them.”

“Ain’t! Hmph!”

So Mother Mary mails me the alleged corrections, twenty-five pages of notebook paper, each line written in capitals in a shaky red flair. AIN’T IS NOT A WORD! is the most frequent “correction.” A few are typos, but the rest are editorial changes, different word choices, or new endings to the plot.

Bottom line, Mother Mary is a book critic, in LARGE PRINT.

Still, I read the sheets, touched. It must have taken her hours to make the lists, and it’s really sweet. I call to tell her so, which is when she lowers the boom:

“You need to send the lists to your friends,” she says. “Your friends who wrote the other books. They should know about the mistakes, so they can fix them.”

“Okay, Ma, you’re right. Thanks. I will.”

I don’t like lying to my mother, but I’m getting used to it. I figure I’ll put the sheets in my jewelry box, with daughter Francesca’s letters to Santa Claus. Those corrections are going to the North Pole.

Then my mother adds, “You don’t have to worry about the one set, though.”

“What one set?”

“A set of corrections, for your new friend.” She names a Famous Author who isn’t really my new friend, but Somebody I Wish Were My New Friend. I can’t name her here, as she will never be my new friend, now. In fact, she’s probably my new enemy. Because my mother sent her five pages of unsolicited editorial changes to her terrific, number-one bestseller.

“You did what?” I ask, faint. “Where did you get her address?”

“Your brother got it from the computer.”

“Her address is on the computer?”

“She has an office.”

Of course she does. “And you sent it to her?”

“Sure. To help her.”

I try to recover. I have only one hope. “You didn’t tell her who you are, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

I want to shoot myself for never changing my last name. My last name is Scottoline and so is Mother Mary’s, and the Very Famous Author signed a book to her at my request, so in other words….

“Oh, sure, I told her I’m your mother, in case she didn’t know.”

“Great.” I sink into a chair. “And you did that because…”

“Because I’m proud of you.”

Ouch. I can’t help but smile. How can I be angry? I tell her, “I’m proud of you, too, Ma.”

It’s not even a lie.

Column Classic: Lift and Separate

August 24, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

Once again, you’ve come to the right place.

If you read this, you’re going to LOL.

But this time, I can’t take the credit.

Sometimes the world hands you an ace. All you have to do is set it down on the table and play.

I’m talking, of course, about the SmartBra.

Have you heard about this? If not, I’m here to tell you that at the recent consumer electronics show, a Canadian tech company introduced a smartbra, which is a bra that is smarter than you are.

Or at least smarter than your breasts.

Microsoft is reportedly developing a smartbra, too, and I’m sure the other tech companies will follow suit.

Or maybe bra.

If it creeps you out that the male-dominated tech industry is thinking about what’s under your shirt, raise your hand.

Just don’t raise it very fast.

They’re watching you jiggle.

Bottom line, the smartbras contain sensors that are supposed to record your “biometric data” and send it to an app on your mobile device.

It’s a fitbit for your breasts.

Or a fittit.

Sorry, I know that’s rude, but I couldn’t resist.

Like I said, the world handed me an ace.

Anyway, to stay on point, the biometric data it monitors is your heart rate and respiration rate, but Microsoft has taken that a step further. According to CNN, their smartbra is embedded with “psychological sensors that seek to monitor a woman’s heart activity to track her emotional moods and combat overeating.” In fact, their “sensors can signal the wearer’s smartphone, which then flash a warning message to help her step away from the fridge and make better diet decisions.”

Isn’t that a great idea?

It’s a bra that tells on you when you’re hitting the chocolate cake.

Forgive me if I’m not rushing out to buy one.

I already know when I’m being bad, and I don’t need to be nagged by my underwear.

By the way, the smartbra sells for $150.

If that price gives you a heart attack, the bra will know it.

Maybe the bra can call 911.

Maybe the bra can even drive you to the hospital.

Don’t slack, bra.

That’s for breasts.

The Canadian company says that wearable tech is the latest thing, and that it developed its smart bra because it had “a plethora of requests from eager women who wanted in on the action, too.”

Do you believe that?

I don’t.

On the contrary, I know a plethora of eager women who wish they didn’t have to wear a bra at all.

I also know a plethora of eager women who take their bra off the moment they hit the house.

Plus I know a plethora of eager women who skip the bra if they’re wearing a sweatshirt, sweater, or down vest.

Finally, I know a plethora of eager women who would never use the word plethora in a sentence.

Okay, maybe I’m talking about myself.

Frankly, I don’t want “in on the action” if the action means a bra that will tell the tri-state area I’m pigging out.

However, I want “in on the action” if the action means Bradley Cooper.

And nobody needs a smartbra to monitor what would happen to my heart if Bradley Cooper were around.

By the way, researchers are not currently developing a pair of smart tighty whitey’s for men.

That’s too bad because I have a name for it.

SmartBalls.

But maybe men don’t need underwear with a sensor that detects their emotional changes.

They already have such a sensor.

In fact, they were born with it.

Too bad it doesn’t make any noise.

Like, woohooo!

Cats and Dogs in 500 Square Feet

August 17, 2025

By Francesca Serritella

Francesca’s new novel, FULL BLOOM, an Instant USA TODAY National Bestseller, is in stores now. Here is a Dear Reader guest column she wrote recently:

I recently welcomed a puppy into my life. A roly-poly tricolor Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, with russet eyebrows that tilt with cartoonish expression and a penchant for belly rubs. I named him “Bobby Baby” after the Sondheim musical Company, because company is what I needed most.

Especially after I’d lost my beloved dog Pip. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel ready to get another dog, until I heard about this puppy born on the one-year anniversary of Pip’s passing.

I felt like he was heaven-sent.

My eighteen-year-old cat Mimi disagrees.

I thought hard about inflicting a puppy’s chaotic energy on Mimi’s golden years. But Mimi is aging like the feline Demi Moore.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Column Classic: Extra Extra Crispy

August 10, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

My faith in American ingenuity is restored.

We just invented fried butter.

Whew!

You may have been worried that we didn’t have any more tricks up our sleeve, but you would be wrong. We used to invent things like electricity, heart valves, and polio vaccines, but we’ve finally come up with something useful.

Somebody at the Iowa State Fair developed a recipe for deep fried butter.

It sold like hotcakes.

Fried hotcakes.

What an idea! How else you gonna meet your daily cholesterol requirements?

They make it by freezing a stick of butter, dipping it in batter with cinnamon and sugar, deep-frying it in vegetable oil at 375 degrees, then drizzling it with a honey glaze.

You know you want one.

The other bestsellers at the state fair were deep-fried pickles, deep-fried corn dogs, and deep-fried macaroni and cheese.

I might move to Iowa.

Land where the tall corn (dogs) grow.

It’s not just state fairs, either. My favorite fancy restaurant serves microgreens with fried goat cheese. Guess which I eat first, the microgreens or the fried cheese? Right, and thank God the fried cheese isn’t micro.

Tell the truth. Who hasn’t dived into a plate of fried mozzarella sticks?

Bottom line, it’s time to concede that we love fried things. French fries, fried onion rings, fried chicken. And we don’t just love fried food, we even love the fried part, all by itself.

Everybody on earth has nibbled the fry off of something.

Case in point, me.

Back in my non-vegetarian days, I used to love Kentucky Fried Chicken, extra crispy. Extra crispy was code for really really fried. When there was no more chicken left, I ate the nuggets of really really fried. Even after two days in the refrigerator, I ate delicious knots of crunchy, salty, really really fried.

The chicken was beside the point, because the only thing that mattered was the fried, and that’s true with every fried food.

It tastes the same.

Fried.

Yay!

This is why I order shrimp tempura at a Japanese restaurant. Because all I taste is the fry, and I might as well be at Seafood Shanty.

Tempura is Japanese for corn dog.

We agree that frying will make a good thing better, but the truly amazing thing about frying is that it will make even disgusting things better.

Example?

Calamari.

It’s a squid, for God’s sake. Have you ever seen a squid? If you had, you wouldn’t put it in your mouth.

But fry it, and people fight to get to it first.

Same thing with softshell crabs. A softshell is a crab that has recently molted its shell, so that its exoskeleton is still soft. You wouldn’t normally eat a soft exoskeleton, much less all the stuff that’s inside a crab, namely whatever he ate last.

Do you think crabs are picky eaters?

I don’t.

So you have to factor that in.

Plus the eyes are still attached.

Enough said.

If you had to eat a softshell crab as is, you would refuse. Your better judgment would prevail.

But fried?

Everybody’s there.

The proof is that people in Thailand eat fried bugs.

Now you know why.

Tastes like (fried) chicken.

The next step is only logical. If frying makes disgusting food delicious, there’s no reason to stop at food, at all.

I’m not only thinking out of the box, I’m thinking out of the refrigerator.

If you can fry squid, you can fry flip-flops.

If you can fry butter, you can fry bark.

If you can fry bugs, you can fry Crestor.

And you’re gonna have to.

Column Classic: Handygirl

August 3, 2025

By Lisa Scottoline

I just put in a hundred perennials, which if you’re not familiar with gardening terms, means that I never have to do this again for the rest of my life.

Because perennials are supposed to be automatic, in that they come back every summer.

Like a yeast infection.

It took me five days to plant a garden, because I made every rookie mistake possible.

First, let me just say that I had no idea that gardening is so much hard physical labor. I toted sod, plants, and big rocks, in ninety degree heat.

Gardening isn’t a hobby, it’s a chain gang.

My back, legs, and shoulders ache, my leg is swollen from a sting, and I got scratches from rose bushes I bought when I was temporarily insane.

There can be no other explanation for buying a plant that bites.

The problem with gardening is that the very term is a euphemism.

It fools you into thinking that you’ll be swanning around a bunch of flowers.

Wrong.

Remember when you delivered a baby? It was called labor for a reason, so you had fair warning. Because it’s work. There’s pushing and pulling and yanking and profanity.

And that’s just conception.

Sorry.

Anyway, back to my mistakes. Second mistake, I bought plants online because they were cheaper, then I found out that the nursery near me is going out of business and everything there was 40 percent off.

What I had already spent.

The online plants didn’t come when they were supposed to, so I started thinking I’d need more plants anyway, and I could get them cheap at the nursery. I read through my new perennials books, went to the nursery with my To Buy list, and they had none of them.

So I bought whatever perennials they had on sale.

It’s the Going Out of Business Garden.

And for what these plants cost, it’s going to put me out of business.

Anyway, the books said I had to take the grass off and make a bed.

I had no idea. I thought you could just plant flowers in grass. I should have known I’d screw up. I never make my bed.

Third mistake, I thought the garden was a big area, but I’m not good at eyeballing it, as my father always said. Of course I know there are tape measures, but how would you know how many plumbago plants you need to fill a foot of garden? Until yesterday I thought I plumbago was a back problem.

Now plumbago is giving me a back problem.

Bottom line, it’s a big garden, so I got a great handyman, Dale, to help me, which is what you do when you’re divorced.

You hire a husband.

Anyway the first thing Dale said was, “there’s a machine that takes off sod.”

Oh.

So we found out the machine was called a sod cutter, and we rented one right away and started cutting the sod, which is the garden equivalent of scalping your grass.

It took all day, cutting and hauling the sod, then raking the bed so no grass seeds were left. Then we started putting in plants, with Dale doing the manly work of digging and me doing the girly work of putting in the potting soil and covering the hole.

I was a cover girl.

Yay!

Next mistake, we used up all the plants I had bought on sale, and still had two thirds of the garden left. The online plants still weren’t here, so I went back to the garden center and bought more plants.

Three times.

I no longer consulted the books.

I bought any perennial that wasn’t nailed down.

I would have planted a file cabinet if they’d let me.

But now I’m finished, and it looks beautiful, and it was worth all the trouble, like a brand new baby.

Who remembers their labor anyway?

Okay, I do.

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