SUBJECT: THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING
OBJECTION!!! HE DOES NOT HAVE ALL HIS FACULTIES. HE DEFINITELY PEED ON MY SOFA THE OTHER DAY. I HAVE TO PUT NEWSPAPER DOWN WHEN HE COMES OVER! ISN'T THAT ALL THE PROOF WE NEED? HE THINKS HE'S COMING WITH US TO PUERTO RICO FOR CHRISTMAS, BUT I THINK WE SHOULD TELL HIM CHRISTMAS IS ON A DIFFERENT DAY THIS YEAR, BECAUSE HE WILL ONLY EMBARRASS US, AND I'M WORRIED ABOUT CHELSEA'S AND MY PROFILE. HER CAREER HAS HAD AN ASTONISHINGLY POSITIVE EFFECT ON MY SOCIAL LIFE, AND I'VE BEEN CONTACTED VIA FACEBOOK BY ALMOST EVERY PERSON IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT WAS MEAN TO ME. I'M NOT PREPARED TO TAKE TWO STEPS BACK AT THIS JUNCTURE. AND WHY DOES HE NEED A HOOKER IF HE HAS A GIRFLRIEND?
FROM: CHELSEA HANDLER
TIME: SEPT 18 12:45:55
SUBJECT: THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING
SLOANE, ARE YOU STUPID? OBVIOUSLY, HIS GIRLFRIEND IS A HOOKER.
MOM IS NOT ROLLING OVER IN HER GRAVE, SHE IS LAUGHING HER ASS OFF. SHE WARNED US ALL THAT HE IS A BIG ASSHOLE, AND THAT ONCE SHE WAS GONE, THERE WOULD BE NO ONE TO KEEP HIS BEHAVIOR IN CHECK. I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE THAT EUTHANIZATION IS STILL ILLEGAL. WHAT DOES THAT REQUIRE?
From: Greg Handler
Time: Sept 18 12:59:01 P.M.
Subject: The Hits Just Keep on Coming
Chelsea, Google Dr. Jack Kevorkian, and you can educate yourself on euthanizing someone. I believe Mario, Dad's new mozzarella-stick friend, has some low-level Mafia ties. With The Sopranos off the air, there's also plenty of the cast members who are no longer employed, and I'm sure one or more would be open to making a cool three hundred and fifty dollars. A different approach, but effective nonetheless.
Girls, cool it with the all caps. Ray invented capitalizing all words and proper misspelling.
FROM: CHELSEA HANDLER
TIME: SEPT 18 1:05:18 P.M.
SUBJECT: THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING
ANOTHER OPTION WOULD BE FOR EACH OF US TO KILL OURSELVES. WHO'S WITH ME?
From: SIDNEY HANDLER
Time: SEPT 18 1:25:19 P.M.
Subject: PLATYPUS RULES
If you killed yourself, Ted would kill himself, and we shouldn't be involving any other families. Let's please try and keep the hooker tale between each other and not tell spouses and/or boyfriends. This isn't something I want people knowing about.
As an attorney, I am advising all of you to stop sending emails regarding "a hit" and/or euthanasia at this time. Please call me immediately.
Sent via BlackBerry
The next week my father got a bid on his house to the tune of $600,000 and then threatened to sue the Asian family for making such a low offer. Shortly after, my brother showed him his latest legal bill, which was in the amount of $23,000 and was from a law firm that he tried to sue for malpractice after they lost my father's case to make our neighbors cut down their trees in their own yard. His issue: They were pine trees and, being a Jew, my father does not appreciate Christmas trees being shoved in his face. He believed they were anti-Semitic trees and that the people living behind those trees were clearly Nazi sympathizers. Shortly after that, Greg showed him Exhibit B: a judgment from the Martha's Vineyard court against my father in the amount of $17,000, for a case he lost when he tried to represent himself pro se against our other neighbors, who no longer wanted to share their path to the beach with my father, because he usually walks down naked.
After a little negotiating with the nice Asian family, they were finally able to come up to $625,000. This proved to be perfect timing for the last thing Greg was holding in his arsenal. It was Platypus's bank statement, which said -$42.67.
This was the day my father sold his home, and after all the bills and payments he needed to pay to clear his name (that we know about), he was left with a little over $400,000.
He agreed for Greg to be a cosigner on his account, which gave Greg access to monitor our father's account, as well as the right to deny Platypus money if the amount of any charge exceeds $1,000. Like a child. A very bad child who urinates on other people's furniture.
By February my brother had sent us a litany of charges on my father's latest monthly debit-card breakdown, which showed a total of $201,000. Most were large but not inordinate amounts at the local McDonald's, which he seemed to frequent three times a day. Others were payments to nightclubs in Newark, and one big charge was a Delta Air Lines flight for $754, which was dubious since my father doesn't fly. There were four separate charges for Sean John tracksuits, and a few basketball jerseys, plus a Bluetooth.
I called Greg and asked him how it was possible to blow $200,000 in five months.
"Well, Chelsea, he's either buying a hundred Angus burgers a day or flying to different parts of the country to visit other McDonald's."
"What?"
"That's right. There's two of them. He and his twenty-year-old cleaning hooker are seeing the Grand Ol' U.S. of A.! They're on their way to the Grand Canyon right now."
"Please tell me you're kidding."
"No, Chelsea. He's in great spirits and mailed me a poem he sent Mom thirty years ago that he wants you to put in your new book. He said he has a feeling he isn't going to be shown in the best light, because 'Chelsea has a tendency to confuse the details,' and he doesn't want to disappoint his fans. He wants to offer you the poem for a cool $25,000."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him that I'm thinking of a phrase that begins with an 'F' and ends with an 'F.' Would he like to buy a vowel?"
"And?"
"He did not want to purchase a vowel."
(The poem my father wanted $25,000 dollars for, but never got.)
I would send roses, stars to my beloved,
bouquets sweet
and bar no lilies from her feet.
Oh, I would send thrushes and martins skyward.
Hers alone would I be: how sure of love
we, who see only one another;
such blindness like a wind-swept sea, becalmed
becomes a kindness soon.
The ships sail homeward seeking port.
Love, unskilled but true, moves onward,
lost in the wake of arms and kisses,
then awakening at last, sees itself.
Storms and seas and kisses run aground
only love that's lost is ever found.
Chapter Ten.Chunk
Flying Southwest Airlines is analogous to being the last one picked for kickball in the third grade. Initially, an "A" boarding pass feels like you've bypassed some system flaw and managed to come out one step ahead of the game. Getting your preference of any row and then, on top of that, having your choice of window, aisle, or middle seat feels borderline aristocratic. When that "A" boarding pass comes flying out of the ticket kiosk into your palm, the whole airport experience shifts from Dora the Explorer to Princess Grace of Monaco.
That sensation quickly turns around once several "B" passengers walk by and look at you like they'd rather catch herpes from back-to-back elephant sex than share a row with you. The excitement of picking the middle seat in the hopes that none of the passengers will bother to sit right next to you soon diminishes into fear and shame that no one even wants to sit next to you. Traveler after traveler rejects you, causing any spike in self-esteem from nabbing an "A" ticket to plummet into LaToya Jackson territory.
"Fuck off," I wanted to tell the leathery, turban-headed anorexic who saw a more appealing seatmate farther down the plane. "Fuck you and the camel you rode in on." I generally don't start farting until the plane's in the air, so the rejection definitely was not ass-related. I was being tossed aside like a piece of Styrofoam before anyone had even bothered to inquire about my hobbies and/or predilection for prescription pills.