I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me (7 page)

Music superstar Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his father. In court the father said, “This is probably the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Probably??????

He was being his adventurous self when he was stung by a stingray and died. So I say to all of you: Forget crocodiles. Be a
bargain
hunter—no one was ever killed by a Louis Vuitton knockoff.

She survived the burning of Atlanta in
Gone With the
Wind, but died while cooking in her own apartment. Since that day I like to think of her as Batter Fried McQueen.

Died of throat cancer in 1939. He blamed it on his mother.

I hate “love at first sight.”
Unless you’re Stevie Wonder there’s no such thing. Stevie can walk up to a woman, feel her face and shriek, “Isn’t she lovely.” But for the rest of us, love is a process—like filing taxes or doing monthly colon cleansings.

Do you think Franklin Roosevelt took one look at Eleanor and thought,
Back that thing up here, bitch
? Do you think Siegfried saw Roy across a crowded room and said, “I’d like to put my tiger in his tent?”

My late husband, Edgar, and I got married after knowing each other for four days. He had no idea who I really was. Edgar had no clue that the hair he loved to touch he could take with him to the office. By the time I took off the hair, the contacts, the partial
bridges and the padded bra, he didn’t know whether to get into the bed or into the drawer.

I hate women who say, “I knew he was the one.”
How could you know that? Did you already fuck everyone else? Yet with Edgar it
was
love at first sight for me; he was simply everything I wanted in a man: breathing and not repulsed.

I hate dating.
Women go on dates to get free meals. Men go on dates to get free feels. And lesbians go on dates to get camping equipment and unattractive footwear.

Even as a young girl I was terrible at dating. Compared to me, Carrie had more fun at her prom. Guys didn’t try to get me into the backseat of a car; they tried to get me under the back wheels. I said to one guy, “Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable?” He slipped into someone else’s apartment.

I hate first dates.
Why is it always dinner and a movie? Why not dinner and a trip to Europe, or dinner and a new car, or, if I’m in failing health, dinner and a new valve? Men think going to a movie is a safe first date: They don’t have to make conversation and for eight bucks they might even be able to cop a feel. Or, if they’re on a date with me, four bucks, as I’m a senior citizen. And two bucks if they feel me before 3:00.

I hate women who date much younger men.
I’ll never be a cougar. I don’t like younger men. I don’t
ever want to wake up in the morning and wonder,
Is this my date or did I give birth last night?
Yet for some it works. I have one friend who dated a guy who was so much younger that when she bought him the book
The Joy of Sex
he sat down and colored in it.

I hate dating small talk.
People don’t tell the truth. Chatting about the weather or movies or books is a complete waste of time. I say be honest right from the get-go. If he says, “How are you?” tell him the truth: “Constipated. I haven’t had a good shit since 9/11.” Get to it right away: “I believe in bestiality, incest and sixth-trimester abortions. I’m in favor of shooting old people who complain about the room being too drafty, and I loathe people who find fault with dogfighting. I have halitosis, my lower jaw clicks when I chew and when I eat soft food it comes out of my nose.” By the time you’ve finished the appetizers you’ll know if the evening is going to end up in a warm bed or a shallow grave.

I hate couples that make out in public.
I always want to yell, “You’re disgusting! Can’t you finger each other in the back of the bus like the rest of us?”

I hate pretending to like the afterglow of love.
You know, that special moment when the sex act is finished and you’re sweating like Roman Polanski at a Girl Scout jamboree and wondering if you’re going to have genital warts in the morning? What
are
you supposed to do when you’re done making love? Some
people like to smoke, some people like to eat… I like to clean under my nails to get rid of any signs of a struggle.

The only thing worse than the afterglow is the cuddling.
It’s annoying. You crushed my pelvis, chafed my thighs and ruined my sheets. Why would I want to hug you? You got on, you got off, now get out.

I hate people who say, “There’s someone for everyone.”
There’s not. Do you
really
think there was a “special someone” for the Elephant Man? Do you believe that somewhere in the moors lived a nubile, raven-haired beauty who longed for a smelly, pus-oozing, deformed man with greasy hair and an English accent? Don’t be stupid. He could’ve been hung like a hippopotamus and it wouldn’t have mattered. Even ugly girls have a limit. Trust me, if he was getting his cockney sucked, he was paying for it.

I hate it when ridiculously mismatched couples think their relationship is based on love.
Believe me, one of them knows it ain’t. Case in point, Hugh Hefner and Miss May… That’s not a May–December romance; that’s a Miss May–Please-God-may-he-not-live-to-December romance. And I hate it when the hot runway model with the 38Ds is “dating” an eighty-seven-year-old man with a catheter and early dementia and she says, “My Bobbykins is so smart and funny. I love him.” Her Bobbykins is drooling onto his
tie. Believe me, he doesn’t make her wet. The
only
person he’s making wet is himself. And the only thing she wants to get out of Bobbykins’s pants is his wallet.

And I hate the naïve people who look at them and say, “She adores him. She talks to him all the time.” You know what she’s saying? “Sign here, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

I hate having to play along with the happy May–December couple lie. It’s exhausting. One time I was at a book party in the Hamptons and into the soiree comes Bambi the Bimbo, pushing her boyfriend, Methuselah Finklestein (of the Five Towns Finklesteins), across the room in his wheelchair. She’s eleven, he’s a hundred and two and I’m supposed to act like it’s a perfectly normal relationship and that all blond Russian supermodels with slight overbites fall madly in love with wrinkled, liver-spotted, half-deaf pieces of petrified wood. Believe me, it wasn’t easy making conversation that they could both be involved in, but thank God I finally came up with, “Are you two wearing matching MedicAlert bracelets? That is so sweet.”

I hate it when people introduce you to someone and use the word “lover.”
What
lover
means is, “I ingest this person’s bodily fluids.”
Yuuuccck
. Do I really need to have that image in my head two seconds after we’re introduced? “Hi, I’m Jeffrey and this is my lover, Nathan, and I consider his semen to be one of the four basic food groups.” Or “I’m Bob and this is my lover, Susie, and I use her vaginal secretions as an emollient.”
This is too much information for an internist, let alone an aging yenta like me.

To me, “we’re lovers” means (a) they’re a pair of wussies who are afraid of commitment, or (b) there’s something seriously wrong with each one of them (seborrhea, erectile dysfunction, hears voices) and the other one is simply waiting for a new trick to come along before hitting the road.

The only thing more annoying than the word
lover
is the recently divorced dentist with the ponytail who stays in the back of his cousin’s house in the Hamptons (north of the highway) and introduces you to “my lady.” I usually just throw up right on him.

I was in a nightclub in Camden, New Jersey, and I was in a bad mood. The opening act was a magician/gynecologist whose big trick was pulling a hat out of a rabbit. Anyhow, a guy comes into my dressing room and says, “I’d like you to meet my lady.” I said, “When were you knighted?”

I hate the term “partner.”
“Yes, we’re partners… This is my life partner, Teddy.” Jacoby & Meyers are partners. Ben & Jerry are partners. Bausch + Lomb are partners. You and Teddy are fuck-buddies.

I hate weddings.
Weddings are nothing more than catering with virgins. Sorry, in the old days it was virgins; now it’s baby mommas.

I hate when they throw rice.
If you want to throw rice put the children of Darfur on the guest list.

I hate Viennese tables.
The only Viennese people I’ve ever heard of were Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler and the von Trapp Family Singers—and from what I’m told they all hated fancy desserts, not to mention black-tie affairs and hors d’oeuvres. (And speaking of hors d’oeuvres, never serve pigs in a blanket at a bris. It’s just wrong. Oh, and never call them
pigs in a blanket
. Use the classy term:
pork in a duvet.
)

I hate fat brides.
A fat girl in a white satin gown doesn’t look beautiful; she looks like an avalanche. I went to a fat girl wedding once. First they threw rice and then, in honor of the bride, they threw gravy. She was so fat there was only room on the cake for one. The priest said, “I now pronounce you husband and Pantload.” He gave her the wafer, she put Velveeta on it and swallowed.

And I hate it when fat girls don’t own up to their fatness.
They say things like, “I have a slow metabolism” or “It’s a glandular condition.” Hey, tubby! The tongue is not a gland. Put the cake down.

You know what’s worse than a fat bride? A pregnant bride.
Pregnant brides should not wear white. They should wear oversized T-shirts that read:
I’M A BIG WHORE
. Instead of “Here Comes the Bride,”
when she walks down the aisle they should play, “I’m Easy.”

I also hate ugly brides.
I went to one wedding where the bride was so hideous I heard
her
mother whisper to the groom, “Don’t be a schmuck. Take the maid of honor. It’s not too late.” Her father was in such a hurry to get her married he tried to give her away on the way to the church.

I hate WASP weddings.
There’s never enough food. As a Jew, can I just say that petit fours and gin do not a meal make? Protestants don’t eat at weddings. They drink and make fun of the Jewish guests who are rifling through the pantries looking for sustenance.

I hate “dry” weddings
where they don’t serve alcohol. If I want dry, I’ll spend time in the Mojave Desert or take pictures of my vagina.

There’s this new wedding trend called “destination weddings.” I hate them. This is where the stupid—I mean happy couple gets married on some far-off island and expects you to fly yourself there and put yourself up, in addition to bringing a gift and pretending that you give a shit about them. The invitation always gives you “suggestions” as to where to stay. You have three choices of hotels: For $1,000 per night you get a room with a whirlpool, sauna and automatic mood lighting. For $500 per night you get a view of the ocean and turndown service. And for a buck sixty you can
sleep in a locker in the Greyhound terminal, which is so small even the mice are hunchbacked. And you know what? For zero dollars, I can stay home, and you can go fuck yourselves.

I hate weddings with cash bars.
Very tacky. The only time you’ll see me open my purse is to give the Mexican busboy the key to my room. If they expect me to pay for the booze, then I expect them to pay for the rehab.