divorce

Scary Season

by Lisa Scottoline

Some call this time of year autumn.

I call it spider-and-mouse season.

It’s a time of basic vermin and moral complexity.

Let me explain.

It’s turning cold in my neck of the woods, and I’m lucky enough to have a nice warm house.

Spiders know this.

They have my number.

And my address.

This time of year, if I open the front door, spiders are waiting in my entrance hall, idling like Formula One racecars. As soon as I appear, they hit the gas, gunning for me.

Actually, gunning for my house but I’m in the way.

I can deal with most insect life, even spiders, in the summer. I scoop them up with a plastic glass and trusty postcard, then put them outside.

But these are not summertime spiders.

These are autumn spiders, as big as Ferraris.

They go from 0 to 60 in a second, and the finish line is my threshold.

But I can’t bring myself to kill them.

That’s the moral complexity part.

I respect their individual creatureness, and most of them are smarter than I am.

I mean, I can’t spin a web.

Can you?

Nor do I have the patience to sit outside somebody’s door all night and wait for them to open it.

This would be the exact feeling of my marriage to Thing Two.

God bless divorce.

To return to point, even though I can’t kill the spiders, I don’t want them inside.

Because they’re scary.

So as soon as they start running for me, I chase them around with my glass and postcard, trying to trap them and take them outside.

If two race in, I can get one.

If four race in, I can get two.

So, you see this isn’t working.

I spend the rest of the morning trying to find the ones who got in, amazed at how they flatten themselves to get under the baseboard or how fast they scoot to reach the floor vent.

I actually admire the ones who get away.

I decide they deserve to live in my nice warm house with me.

Just so they stay out of bed.

I have the same problem with mice. The other night I walked into my entrance hall and there was one little mouse curled up in a corner.

Daughter Francesca happened to be home, so I called her.

Okay, I’ll be real. I screamed to her.

Then the mouse started running around and Francesca tried to catch it with a box lid, then somehow, I slipped on the kitchen floor and started laughing so hard that the mouse got away.

Basically, a cartoon.

We searched but couldn’t find the mouse.

Meanwhile, our cats Mimi and Vivi were nowhere in sight.

They’re both seventeen years old, so I forgive them.

They were probably reading AARP magazine.

So now there’s a mouse in my house.

I’m trying to be scrupulous about cleaning up, but the dry cat food is down all day, so I’m sure I’m feeding both cats and mice.

I have a friend who found a mouse in her kitchen, then a stash of dry dog food that the mouse had been storing in the oven.

That’s one smart mouse.

I bet it can spin a web.

I keep looking for my mouse, but I have yet to find it, and It’s driving me crazy.

It’s living rent-free in my house and my head.

The only solution?

Stop thinking about it.

Pretend it’s not happening.

It just wants a roof over its head.

So do I.

And everybody’s living happily ever after.

Copyright 2024 Lisa Scottoline

Column Classic: With Apologies to Mary Poppins

By Lisa Scottoline

My life just changed in a good way. In fact, in a great way. 

By gummi vitamins. 

I’m supposed to take a multivitamin, B complex, calcium, CoQ10, and Crestor. 

But the only thing I take is Crestor. Why? Because I don’t like taking pills, or I forget, and pills suck. 

That would be a medical term. 

So, imagine my delight when I’m cruising the aisles in the food store, and I see a massive jug of gummi vitamins. I don’t mean gummy, like my pie crust. I mean gummi, like the bears. 

I get my gummi vitamins home and they’re exciting and colorful, shaped like blueberries, orange slices, and red cherries. In other words, vitamins morphed into Jujyfruits. 

I’m so there. 

And I’m picking red goop out of my teeth as we speak. 

There’s a visual. Now you know why I’m divorced twice. 

All of a sudden, I can’t wait to take my daily multivitamins. I’m like a little kid. They’re better than Flintstone vitamins because they don’t stick together. Don’t ask me how I know. 

I get to have two gummi vitamins a day, and every morning, I look forward to picking my flavors. Never mind that they all taste the same, like the first ingredient, which is Glucose Syrup. 

It’s candy with a medical excuse. 

Sugar with a doctor’s note. 

A spoonful of gummi helps the medicine go down. 

But it doesn’t stop there. 

I go back to the store, where they had Vitamin B Complex in gummi form, too, and they’re awesome, too. Soft and chewy, in flavors that taste basically of floor wax. 

But still. 

Gummi! 

And like a gummi addict, I went on another hunt and managed to find Gummi CoQ10 at Costco. 

Don’t ask me what CoQ10 is. It’s not even a word. It’s a password. It can’t even make up its mind between numbers and letters. It should have to choose. 

All I know is that my doctor said I have to take CoQ10 because I take Crestor, and he’s the one man I obey. 

Unfortunately, my gummi CoQ10 is only peach-flavored, but that’s still an improvement on CoQ10 in conventional pill form, which tastes like a conventional pill. 

And it’s a bitter pill to swallow. 

So far, if you’re counting, that means every day, I get to have five gummi things and call it medication. Which means that sugar, carbs, and calories don’t count. And I’m not that crazy anyway. I actually love the taste of calories. In fact, calories are my favorite food. 

Now you might be wondering about calcium, and that’s where Viactiv comes in. Because I couldn’t find gummi calcium, which would be the best thing ever. After gummi Crestor, which they have in heaven. 

But Viactiv calcium comes in chocolate and is wrapped in a square like a baby Chunky. So, I grabbed those babies and started chowing down. By the way, Viactiv calcium also comes in caramel, raspberry, and chocolate mint. Yes, there are 57 flavors of calcium, according to Dr. Baskin Robbins. 

I did notice online that Viactiv now comes in chocolate vitamins, too, but they’re no match for gummi vitamins, and I like a mixture in my meds, like Halloween candy. 

They can’t all be Snickers. 

The only problem with chocolate calcium is that it’s hard to limit yourself to forty-five servings. 

I’m starting to think that all of our medical treats are compensation for being middle-aged and having to take all these dumb pills. In fact, whoever invented gummi medicine is a great person. Why shouldn’t we get to have a little bit of fun with our cholesterol? Why can’t we whoop it up while we make our bones stronger? And what’s wrong with making a game out of whatever it is that CoQ10 does? 

And think of the possibilities. If they made gummi birth control pills, nobody would ever forget to take them. 

And if they made gummi Viagra? 

Run for cover. 

© Lisa Scottoline 

Column Classic: Can This Marriage Be Saved? 

By Lisa Scottoline

Breaking up is hard to do, especially with a credit card company. 

Our melodrama begins when I’m paying bills and notice a $50.00 balance on a credit card that I hadn’t used in a long time. When I checked the statement, it said that the charge was the annual fee. I was wondering if I needed to pay fifty dollars for a card I didn’t use when I clapped eyes on the interest rate. 

30.24% 

Yes, you read that right. In other words, if I had a balance on the card at any time, they could charge me 30% more than the cost of all the stuff I bought. 

Like a great sale, only in reverse. 

I’m not stingy, but I could get money cheaper from The Mob. 

I read further and saw that the Mafia, er, I mean, the credit card company, could also charge me a late fee of $39.95, which was undoubtedly a fair price for processing the transaction, as I bet their billing department is headed by Albert Einstein. 

So, I made a decision. 

I called the customer service number, which was almost impossible to find on the statement, picked up the phone, and as directed, plugged in my 85-digit account number. Of course, as soon as a woman answered the phone, the first question she asked was: 

“What is your account number?” 

I bit my tongue. They all ask this, and I always want to answer, “Why did you have me key it in? To make it harder to call customer service?” 

Perish the thought. 

So, I told her I wanted to cancel the card, and her tone stiffened. She said, “May I ask why you wish to close your account?” 

For starters, I told her about the annual fee. 

“Would it make a difference if there were no annual fee?” 

I wanted to answer, “Is it that easy to disappear this annual fee, and if so, why do you extort it in the first place?” But instead, I said only, “No, because you have a usurious interest rate and late fee.” 

“Will you hold while I transfer you to a Relationship Counselor?” 

I’m not making this up. This is verbatim. You can divorce your hubby easier than you can divorce your VISA card. I said for fun, “Do I have a choice?” 

“Please hold,” she answered, and after a few clicks, a man came on the line. 

“Thanks for patiently waiting,” he purred. His voice was deep and sexy. His accent was indeterminate, but exotic, as if he were from the Country of Love. 

Meow. 

Suffice it to say that the Relationship Counselor got my immediate attention. I was beginning to think we could work on our relationship, and if we met twice a week, we could turn this baby around. He sounded like a combination of Fabio and George Clooney. You know who George Clooney is. If you don’t know who Fabio is, you’re not old enough to read what follows. 

“No problem.” I said. I did not say, “What are you wearing?” 

“Please let me have your account number,” he breathed, which almost killed the mood. 

So, I told him and said that I wanted to cancel my card. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. He sounded genuinely sad. I wanted to comfort him, and I knew exactly how. 

But I didn’t say that, because it would be inappropriate. 

“I have a suggestion,” he whispered. 

So, do I. Sign me up for 5 more cards. You have my number, all 85 digits. 

“We can switch you to the no-fee card.” 

I came to my senses. “Can you switch me to the no-highway-robbery interest rate?” 

“Pardon me?” he asked, but I didn’t repeat it. 

“Thanks, I just want to cancel the card.” 

“I understand.  And I respect your decision.” 

He actually said that. I made up the 85 digits part, but the rest is absolutely true. 

I knew what I wanted to say before I hung up. That we’d had a good run, but like a love meteor, we burned too hot, for too short a time. 

Instead, I said, “Thanks.” 

Honestly, it’s not me. 

It’s you. 

Copyright Lisa Scottoline