Chick Wit

• Column Classic: Love Boat June 29, 2025

  By Lisa Scottoline

  I’m getting ready to launch THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA on book tour, so I’ll be running Classic Columns for a month.

  Details about my signings are on my website, and I hope you’ll come see me on the road! Thanks so much for the love and support! I’m grateful for each and every one of you!

  

  It’s everybody’s favorite time of year again.

  My birthday!

  That’s how I feel about my birthday, and that’s how I feel about yours, too.

  I celebrate your birthday in my head, so I hope you’re celebrating mine your head.

  It’s cheaper that way.

  Also we don’t get drunk.

  Well, maybe I do.

  But this birthday felt different to me, in a good way.

  I feel super happy just to be alive.

  Let’s pause a moment.

  I know that sounds kind of Splenda, but it’s really true.  And the fact is, absolutely nothing has changed from last year. 

  In fact that’s exactly what is making me happy.

  It really is a good thing to be grateful sometimes that you’re still living.

  I get constant reminders of this, and I had one just this weekend, with Francesca. We were scheduled to give a speech about our collections of funny stories like these, the newest of which is out this July 11, entitled I NEED A LIFEGUARD EVERYWHERE BUT THE POOL.

  Actually I need a lifeguard at the pool, too.

  But that’s another story.

  Literally.

  Anyway we were supposed to speak at the American Library Association conference in Chicago, and we were both excited because we love librarians.  

  Hug your librarian the next time you see him or her.

  They don’t get enough hugs.

  Nobody does.

  See what I mean?

  Splenda!

  Anyway, when I go on a business trip, I fly out, do my gig, and fly right back.  I don’t do anything other than the gig, because it’s business.

  But Francesca had a different idea.  “Mom, I’ve never been to Chicago,” she said.  “Why don’t we go sightseeing and leave later that night?”

  I rolled my eyes.  Inwardly.

  Don’t roll your eyes outwardly if you’re a mother.

  You’ll get in a lot of trouble.

  But I said yes, and Francesca went online, researching the things you could do in Chicago, which I heard about with an inward eyeroll.

  Because I didn’t think you were supposed to have fun on a business trip.

  And before I knew it, we were in Chicago, we did our gig, talked about our book, and gave a lot of hugs, then we woke up the next day, ready for tourist fun in the sun.  

  What did we do?

  We saw the cool bean statue at Millennium Park.

  Cool beans!

  And we went to the gorgeous Buckingham Fountain, which is next to a body of water they say is a lake but anybody from Philly would call an ocean.

  But the best thing we did was take a boat ride with a billion other tourists down the Chicago River, with a volunteer telling us the architectural history of the skyscrapers.

  Inward eyeroll?

  Same here, but I was wrong.

  It was awesome.

  Because this amazing volunteer knew everything about architecture and gave us almost two hours of her time simply because she loves architecture and her city.

  And because we learned everything about the brilliant architects and engineers who imagined and then built a slew of incredible buildings, each of them a tribute to human ingenuity and hard work.

  And even because people on the bank waved to our boat as we floated by, and Francesca and I waved back, even though we had no idea who they were, or they us.

  In fact, we waved at people on the riverbanks the whole damn boat trip, and people on the riverbanks waved back, and that made Francesca and I tear up, unaccountably.

  Okay, accountably, since we’re Italian-American.

  We cry all the time.

  That’s how you know we’re happy.

  The boat trip was a reminder of the simple truth that we’re all just human beings, floating down some river, waving at each other as we go by.

  And when I thought of the architects, the engineers, the volunteers, and the librarians, I felt awed by all of us, just normal people, filled with so much vision and heart, following whichever endeavor we choose, our passion or our job and sometimes both.  With just ourselves, we build communities, cities, and even countries.

  Like this one.

  And by the end of the day, I remembered I was happy to be alive.  

  You probably already know this lesson, but in my life, I need to teach it to myself from time to time.

  Which is to go slower.

  Enjoy yourself.

  Feel the sun on your face.

  Wave.

  And do really touristy things, because there’s a reason so many people like to do the same things, wherever they go.  

  Because people are basically the same, everywhere you go.

  We’re all tourists in this life, aren’t we?

  None of us is from here.

  And none of us is staying.

  And so my biggest birthday present was that I got another year on my trip.

  I pray that will be your present, too.

  Happy birthday to us.

  And of course, to America.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2017

• Classic Column: Love Bites June 22, 2025

  by Francesca Serritella

  Bust out the citronella candles, it’s mosquito season! Here’s a Classic Column about feeling favored by the summer pest and what these bloodsuckers might have to teach us about attraction. Tell me, do mosquitos like you, or love you?

  

  Mosquitos love me.

  I’ve always believed I get an inordinate number of mosquito bites, but I never said it out loud.  Everyone feels this way.  Brandish a bottle of OFF! at any summer barbeque, and five people will proclaim that mosquitos love them with equal parts self-pity and pride.  It’s almost a humble-brag, as if mosquitos are real aesthetes, the blood-sucking playboys of the insect world.

  The subtext is: “There’s just something about my exposed skin that attracts all species, whatta hassle!”

  Then I recently came across an article explaining mosquitos actually do have a “type:” they’re most attracted to humans with the blood type O.

  My blood type.

  I wasn’t imagining it, it wasn’t some messed up version of vanity, it was science!

  Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

  Copyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella

• Column Classic: Greased Lightning June 15, 2025

  By Lisa Scottoline

  

  I’m a big fan of combinations, like soup-and-sandwich.  Peanut butter-and-jelly.  Spaghetti-and-meatballs.

  You may detect a pattern.

  Carbohydrates are the leitmotif.

  Or maybe the heavy-motif.

  One combination I never thought of is jeans-and-moisturizer.  Lucky for women, marketing has thought of that for us!

  You may have read the news story which reported that Wrangler is selling a line of jeans that embeds microcapsules of moisturizer in the fabric, which evidently explode on impact with your thighs and moisturize them.

  I think this is an awesome idea.  I often fantasize about things that would explode on impact with my thighs, such as Bradley Cooper.

  It gives new meaning to the term thunder thighs.

  The line of jeans is called Denim Spa, which is quite a combination, right there.  Denim and Spa are two words I have never experienced together. 

  Like love-and-marriage.

  But to stay on point, Wrangler markets three types of moisturizer jeans.  One comes embedded with Aloe Vera and another with Olive Oil, but choosing between the two is a no-brainer for me.  I wouldn’t pick Aloe Vera, because she sounds like someone I went to high school with and I don’t share jeans.

  I’d leave the aloe alone.

  Instead I’d pick the olive oil.  If I added balsamic, those jeans would be delicious.

  But only extra virgins can wear them.

  Count me out.

  Come to think of it, if I were going to infuse jeans with food, I would go with Cinnabons. 

  Extra frosting is more fun than extra virgin.

  The moisturizer in the jeans lasts up to fifteen days, but Wrangler also offers a “reload spray” that you can squirt your pants with.  I’m not sure I’d buy the spray.  It would be cheaper to pour olive oil on my pants, like a salad.  I’d dress them properly, before I got dressed.

  But the third type of moisturizer jeans is my favorite, and it’s called Smooth Legs.

  I need Smooth Legs.  I have only Scaly Legs and Hairy Legs, or a combination of the two, which is Scary Legs. 

  The amazing thing about the Smooth Legs jeans is that they not only moisturize your legs, they fight cellulite.

  Wow!

  According to the website, the way they do this is by a “special formula” embedded in the jeans, which contains “caffeine, retinol, and algae extract.”

  Which contains mayonnaise.

  Why fight jeans that fight cellulite?

  I wouldn’t.  I’d be scared.  They can “reload.”  I wouldn’t buy them without a background check.

  If you ask me, fighting cellulite is a lot to ask from a pair of pants, much less clothing in general, and you’ve got to hand it to Wrangler, which charges a mere $150 for a pair of these hard-working jeans.  That’s only $75 per leg or approximately $.03 per cellulite dimple, if you have 2,928,474,747 million dimples, like me.

  In fact, I just got another 4,928,749, in the time you took to read that last sentence.

  In my experience, cellulite comes only in packs of 4,928,749.

  I wouldn’t mind having a pair of pants that fought cellulite for me, which would be like having a lawyer for my butt.

  This is because I don’t spend any time fighting my cellulite.  On the contrary, my cellulite and I have an arrangement.  My cellulite agrees to stay on the back of my legs, thighs, and tushie, and I agree not to look at myself from behind. 

  This turns out to be easy.  Because I always move forward and never look back.

  Metaphor not included.

  In truth, I’ve come to accept and enjoy my cellulite.  I can amuse myself by playing connect the dots on my thighs or finding constellations on my butt.  For example, my left rump sports not only the Big and Little Dippers, but also The Serving Spoon, The Soup Ladle, and The Cake Knife.

  The best thing about the moisturizer jeans is that all that grease must make them easier to get on.  But being menopausal, I might need more lubrication.

  Like motor oil.

  Come to think of it, I won’t be buying the moisturizer dungarees.

  They’re not worth dung.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

• Big-Ass Night Table June 8, 2025

  by Lisa Scottoline

  

  Size matters in only one thing.

  Night tables.

  I’m on a quest for the perfect night table.

  This quest began forty-odd years ago.

  I’ve looked for the perfect night table longer than I’ve looked for the perfect man.

  Honestly, only one is essential in a bedroom.

  Let me explain.

  I started life with a really small night table, and I would put my glasses on the night table and they would fall off instantly, usually face down.

  I scratched glasses nonstop.

  I would pick them up if I was still awake, but if I was too tired, I would leave them there. And step on them on my way to the bathroom.

  Plus I never had enough room for a real-sized lamp, which I needed to read.

  The night lamp is itself a quandary.

  If you get one that’s big enough to read by, you won’t be able to reach the knob and turn it off when you want to go to sleep.

  And if you get one that’s too small, you’ll stop reading because it’s too hard on your eyes, then you’ll start scrolling Instagram and end up hating yourself.

  The only thing instant about Instagram is self-hate.

  I actually don’t know if the pretty shiny people on Instagram are real.

  If they are, do they scroll Instagram and end up hating their lives, too?

  To return to point, in time I learned that lamp size didn’t matter because inevitably, the dog would fall asleep on my arm and I didn’t have the heart to move him to turn off the lamp anyway.

  I’d lie wake in the brightly-lit bedroom, only one of us snoring.

  Any true dog lover knows to stay put when your dog falls asleep on you.

  Like, our dogs teach us to stay.

  The other bad thing about my too-small night table was that I had to stack my books on the floor, where they would be ready for me to slip on when I went to the bathroom.

  It wasn’t a bedroom, it was a booby trap.

  And I was the booby, trapped.

  So at some point I started using a big-ass night table, which was actually an antique card table I had for years.

  At first I was excited. I could put all my books on it, and a big-ass lamp, a big-ass Yeti of ice water, and a big-ass jug of Cetaphil. My phone charger would be closest to the bed, plus the lint roller in case I found a tick on a dog before bedtime.

  What, you don’t lint-roll your dog for ticks before bed?

  Must be nice.

  To return to point, I just fell out of love with my big-ass night table.

  It was so big that I would hit my hip on it every time I got up to go to the bathroom. Not only that, but what I learned from having the big-ass night table is that you use only the three inches closest to the bed.

  The rest is just clutter you can’t reach anyway.

  A night table that you makes you get up defeats the purpose.

  Also the dog told you to stay.

  So the quest continues.

  Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025

• Column Classic: Upgrading the Macaroni Necklace May 31, 2025

  by Francesca Serritella

  My mom’s birthday is a month away, and I’m wracking my brain about what to get her—but really, it’s my favorite thing to obsess over. Here’s a Classic Column, which might be new to you as it never ran in the Inquirer, about birthday shopping for my favorite person.

  

  When it comes to giving a gift to your mother, kids get a pass for a long time.  But when your mother has a milestone birthday like sixty, a macaroni necklace will not do.

  It was time for me to get my mother a grown-up gift.

  This is not to say that I haven’t gotten her nice things in the past, but this year I wanted it to be really special.  Maybe because I know that my mom is single, I wanted to get her a gift as nice as a husband would get. 

  Not one of her husbands—a really good husband.

  I got in my head that it had to be jewelry.

  I’d never bought a piece of fine jewelry before.  First, I studied.  For months leading up to her birthday, every moment of procrastination was spent searching the websites of jewelers and department stores for every item within my budget. 

  Since I couldn’t afford ninety percent of their inventory, this took less time than you might think.

  After obsessively zeroing in on a few favorite options, I decided to make a trip to Cartier.  Embarrassingly, I’d dressed up for the occasion.  I wore a shirtdress that I thought said, “I use ‘summer’ as a verb.”

  Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

  Copyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella