Classic Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: A Woman With a Plan

March 8, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m not a planner.

But I got a letter from my local funeral home, asking that I plan a funeral.

For myself.

I tried not to be insulted.

I mean, do I look that bad?

I might, since I just finished a draft of my next novel, and the truth is that daily showers, nutrition, and grooming go by the wayside when I’m on deadline.

Of course, deadline takes on a whole new meaning when your funeral home is sending you love letters.

The letter offered to save me 44% on funeral or cremation costs.

This would be the ultimate final sale.

But to take advantage, I have to decide right now if I want to be buried or reduced to ash.

Are we having fun yet?

The letter said that the sale price was “guaranteed, no-increase pricing.”

To which I thought, You’re darn tootin.’

Try and collect after I’m dead.

Oh, wait. Maybe you can.

The only things guaranteed are death and taxes, and there are taxes after death, so why not a price hike?

I just wish they’d hike me out of the ground.

Maybe that should be my epitaph:

GET ME OUT OF HERE.

How about, I GOT THIS 44% OFF. ASK ME HOW.

Or, I’D RATHER DIE THAN PAY FULL PRICE.

The letter said I should take the deal because it would “protect positive memories” for my family.

That’s my kind of sales pitch.

In other words, buy this, so your family won’t be pissed that you left them holding the bag.

You old bag.

The letter called it a Prearranged Funeral Program, which I have to admit, appealed to my vanity.

It’s not a funeral, it’s a show!

The Bye-bye, Lisa Show!

Unfortunately there’s only one episode.

The premiere and the finale are the same thing.

Bring a lot of popcorn.

It’s not a surprise ending.

You might even cry.

At least, you’d better.

You guys, when I die, I want you all there, sobbing your eyes out. Saying how wonderful I was. And also what a smart shopper.

“Her books are great, plus she got a deal on the casket!”

But I’m not sure I want a half-price deal on a casket.

Maybe you don’t get a lid.

You get a tray.

Or maybe you only get a lid and they flip you over like a cake you just took out of the oven.

If you follow.

None of these jokes apply to cremation, which is inherently unfunny.

I don’t even like hot water.

Or a sunburn.

Ouchie.

Cremation goes against our natural instincts, doesn’t it?

We tell every child, “Don’t put your hand in fire.”

But someday you’ll get a letter that says, “See that fire? Jump in!”

Really, the letter is offering a fire-sale price on an actual fire.

How meta.

This is the best part of the letter: “In short, don’t put it off. As more time passes, the more your loved ones could end up paying for this kind of security.”

HAHAHAHA.

Tick-tock, Scottoline.

Don’t delay because you could die any minute.

And it’s gonna cost somebody 44% more.

You selfish bitch.

I mean, that puts the fun in funeral.

But in the end, I’m going to take advantage of the offer.

I can’t pass up a sale.

And I like to clean up after myself, so to speak.

So maybe I’m a planner, after all.

I’ve become one, after a lifetime.

Literally.

Plus I have loyalty to the funeral home, since they buried my father and mother. And when they came to pick up my mother the morning she passed, there were tears in their eyes, and they actually said, “Is this the famous Mother Mary?”

Aw.

So you know they have my business, from now on.

Because they read me.

People who read my books are my second favorite people on the planet.

My most favorite are people who buy my books.

Why?

Who do you think is paying to put me in an ashtray, at a date yet to be determined?

I sincerely hope it’s you.

You’ll be happy to know I got you a deal.

Thank you for your support.

Now, and later.

Classic Column: Technology Hag

March 1, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m not old, but I’m getting older.

I know this because of technology.

Meanwhile, where do I even begin with the story?

Let’s start with the time a few months ago, when I trip over a dog gate, go flying, and can’t walk.

I’ve been hobbling around since then.

Seriously, I’m bent over like the old witch in Snow White. Plus I have stringy gray hair and a big nose.

All I need is the carbuncle.

Oh, wait.

Never mind.

Check.

But not the point herein.

I hobble around for about three weeks, barely able to straighten up, much less sit or drive, and so I finally get my butt to an orthopedist, who takes an MRI and tells me that I have a labral tear in my hip.

At first I thought I heard him wrong.

I didn’t think my labral was in my hip.

I got it mixed up with another body part, which should give you an idea of how good I was at sex.

Kind of not very.

But honestly, who cares anyway?

I’m great at writing!

Anyway, it turns out that a labral tear is a tear in the ligament that’s somewhere in your hip joint, and when I leave the doctor’s office, he gives me a DVD of my MRI.

Like a party favor for the middle-aged.

I take it home, and the first thing I want to do is look at my MRI.

Which is when I realized that I don’t have a DVD player in any of my computers.

What?

I don’t even know when that happened.

I seem to remember that I got new computers a year or so ago, because I like to have a nice big screen. And I don’t mind spending the money, because all I do all day is stare at a computer, and the least I can do is have a nice one. But I never really noticed that they didn’t have a slot for a DVD player.

So I went over to my big TV, figuring that I could watch my MRI on TV, like a medical reality show, maybe one called, YOUR LABRAL ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

I managed to locate my DVD player underneath the TV, but it needed to be hooked up, since I am addicted to Netflix and haven’t watched a real DVD in a long time. It took me a full hour of struggling to hook it up, and even then, I couldn’t get it to work.

Which is when it struck me.

I am so ancient that I have lived through several stages of technology, like the Jurassic and Pleistocene era of dinosaurs.

I remember when there were VHS tapes because I still have them.

I remember when there were camcorders because I filmed Francesca when she was a baby, plus static scenes of my feet, with me saying, “Is this thing on or off?”

Now I have lived through DVDs, which sucks, because I have an entire set of operas in DVD that I was saving to watch in my retirement, and by the time I retire, operas will be transported telepathically into your brain.

Plus I paid to have those camcorder tapes of Francesca transferred onto DVD’s, and now there’s no such thing as DVD players.

So you’re getting a fairly complete picture of what life is like as me, which I’m hoping is like life as you, too.

Who here remembers actual records?

I do.

Who remembers little 33’s?

I do.

Who remembers cassette tapes?

I do.

How about trying to rewind them and having them unspool out of the slot like brown tinsel?

I know. Me too.

So there you have it. Many of us live a life measured in obsolete technological stages.

It’s enough to make your hip hurt.

Column Classic: Handbag Time Machine

February 22, 2026

By Francesca Serritella

I was going through a closet at my mom’s house when I spotted an old handbag I felt worthy of rescuing and bringing back to New York. Upon opening it, I found a folded piece of yellow paper inside. It had a list of questions written on it in my handwriting, but that I didn’t remember writing:

“In whose house was he raised? Yours or Barbara’s?”

“How much does he eat, how often?”

“Introducing to other dogs?”

I pulled out the next items: two tickets to Dressage at Devon 2008.

Suddenly, my heart swelled at the memory.

I was transported to September 2008, when I first met Pip as a puppy. I had written these questions down, because I was so nervous and excited, I was afraid I would forget to ask them.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Column Classic: The Off Switch

February 15, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Do you remember a commercial that used to say, “Reach out and touch someone?”

If you do, you may also recall that the product they were advertising was a telephone.

Because back in the day, people needed to be encouraged to use the phone.

Let’s pause for a moment of silence.

Not necessarily to mourn, but to consider how times have changed.

Because these days, you have to encourage people not to use the telephone. In fact, you have to beg them not to use the phone. You have to put up signs in hallways so that they won’t use the phone, and you have to designate special railroad cars so they won’t use the phone, and you have to pass laws so they won’t use the phone while they’re driving, because everybody uses the phone all the time, twenty-four seven, nonstop.

In other words, we’re reaching out.

But we’re not touching anybody.

We’re too busy on the phone.

We have priorities.

We’re also watching TV all the time.

Do you remember when you used to have to wait a week for your favorite show to come on? The commercials called it “appointment television” and they encouraged you to “make an appointment” with your television to see your show.

Between you and me, it wasn’t that hard an appointment to get.

Try and see my gynecologist.

Next year.

But to stay on point, somewhere along the line, the appointment book got thrown out the window. And we started watching TV all the time, one show after the other, all the time, twenty-four seven, nonstop.

I do it, too.

Last night, I was watching a new television show, and as soon as it finished, a commercial came on saying that I could get the second episode right away.

But it was already midnight, and I should have been asleep by eleven.

I pressed the On button and started watching.

I watched the whole entire second episode, half-asleep and half-awake, so that not only am I tired today, I didn’t even see the stupid show.

I cannot be trusted with a TV in my room.

I’ve done the same thing when I watch shows on Netflix, where you don’t even have to press the On button to watch the next episode, thus eliminating that single volitional act, that tiny moment when you have a choice about watching another episode or returning to your life.

Nah.

Plus I have been known to combine these nonstop activities, and undoubtedly so have many of you, so that you can be watching your 303rd episode of The Whatever Show, while you’re texting nonstop on the phone or cruising Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter nonstop.

When was the last time you were on the phone with somebody and you suspected they were scrolling through their phone during the conversation?

Or:

When was the last time you were barely listening to somebody while you were on the phone with them, because you were scrolling through your phone during the conversation?

Okay, guilty.

On both counts.

Anyway it’s very clear what the problem is here.

It’s not our fault.

It’s never our fault.

You could’ve guessed I would say that, if you have read me before.

I never blame me, or you.

This is a place where you can come and I will reliably tell you how to solve problems in your life without changing anything you do.

Leave the diets and exercise to everyone else.

This is the true judgment-free zone, and all that we need is an Off Switch.

That’s the solution, right there.

If the television manufacturers would start making televisions with a big red Off Switch right in front, we would have a fighting chance.

It’s their fault.

In fact, the other day, I couldn’t find my remote, so I went to the television to turn it off and I couldn’t even find the Off Switch. I spent fifteen minutes looking for the Off Switch on the front of the TV, then ran my fingers along its sides, feeling up my TV.

The TV enjoyed every minute.

This is what I’m telling you, it’s TV manufacturers conspiring with TVs to get felt up.

With the phones, it’s easy to turn off the phone, but that’s part of the conspiracy.

Here’s how it works:

The phone turns itself off, in that the calls “drop” all the time.

And what happens every time a phone call drops?

We become frenzied and call back instantly.

You could’ve been ending a phone conversation with somebody, but if the call gets dropped, you’re going to call back instantly and spend even more time on the phone.

See, another conspiracy!

More shenanigans with the Off Switch.

Sometimes they don’t give us one, and sometimes they work in mysterious ways.

It’s just not our fault.

Column Classic: Snow Job

January 25, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Today, we discuss regret. Which I have, in spades, of late.

I don’t regret something I bought, which is called buyer’s remorse. I regret something I didn’t buy, and I don’t know what that’s called.

Cheapskate’s remorse?

Or just plain dumb?

I didn’t buy the thing in question because it was expensive and I thought I could do without it, but after doing without it for ten years, I find myself full of regret. I made a mistake. I wish I’d bought one. I yearn for one. I even fantasize about one.

Odd.

I used to lust after men, or jewelry. Thoughts of either could keep me up all night. Men bearing jewelry would be ideal. Men wearing jewelry would not.

But neither of those things is the object of my fantasy, anymore. There’s only one thing I don’t have that would really turn me on.

Nowadays, my idea of a sex toy is a snowblower.

Oh baby.

I want it so bad, it’s good.

But at this point, I’m not sure I can bring myself to buy one. Why?

Regret.

It all started when I was watching the TV news, during the last storm. I love snow coverage, and as soon as there’s flurries in the forecast, I switch on the TV. I wait for the anchorman to stand in the middle of the flakes, like a doll in a snowglobe. Or for him to plunge a yardstick into the drift, like a doctor with a thermometer. Or for the Doppler to creep across the map, inching ominously toward us.

Doppler doesn’t mess around.

It’s radar.

But then the storm comes and goes, and the next day on TV, everybody groans and whines as they shovel out their sidewalks, cars, and driveways. There’s only one happy person.

The guy with the snowblower.

He’s not bent over at all. His hands aren’t cramped, and his nose doesn’t leak.

All he has to do is walk around, with his snowblower doing all the work, parting the drifts like a motorboat in Margate Bay, making a frothy wake.

Oh, yes.

I want one bad.

And I regret that I don’t have one, at the same time that I’m not sure whether I should buy one.

I’ve done without a snowblower for a decade, and I worry that, if I get one now, I’ll get the worst of both worlds. If I’d bought it a long time ago, I could’ve been blowing snow all this time and gotten one cheaper. Because I didn’t, I’ll have done without for a decade, and I’ll be buying one when it cost more.

It’s two for one, mistake-wise.

Regret, regret, regret.

But I kept thinking about getting one, so I went online and studied the websites to make a decision, which is easier said than done. First problem, there’s two types of machines, one called a snowblower and one called a snowthrower.

Who knew?

I read the websites, but I couldn’t figure out the difference between a snowblower and a snowthrower. I have never blown or thrown snow. I have only shoveled it, scraped it, swept it, and cursed it. I’ve gotten excellent at cursing it, and done correctly, it won’t sprain your back.

Only your middle finger.

I bet you curse snow, too. It rarely responds. I suspect its feelings are hurt. It’s used to being wished for, around Christmastime, then oohed and aahed at, even photographed. It remembers when we loved it and called it our winter wonderland.

Then regret sets in, and we regret even the snow.

What happened to those beautiful snowflakes, each one unique?

Who cares?

Die, die, die. Get blown and thrown.

Go away.

The weatherman came on the TV and said there was another storm coming, so I chose the snowblower page and found a grid that let me Shop by Brand, Shop By Type, and Shop By Engine. Then I spotted a category that made it easy:

Shop by In Stock.

Ideal for girls like me.

Who put off buying a snowblower for ten years, and then couldn’t take it anymore and drove to the store, saying:

Gimme what you got.

Sell it to me and stick it in my car.

I don’t care if it blows, throws, or packs the snow into a cone and squirts it with cherry juice.

I want it gone.

And finally, no regrets.

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.

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!

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.

Intro from Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: Thanksgiving

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