Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem

by Laurie Notaro

It also turns out that I have an enormous head, which explains some of my mother’s feelings toward me.

But I made it. I am here. So why not . . . show off a little? I proved them (every one of my mother’s friends) wrong; I didn’t end up in rehab, prison, or an urn. I’m still alive! I’ve seen more than half a century of events. I’ve seen so much stuff that I had to purge 90 percent of my childhood memories from my brain in order to make room for passwords and PINs.

Aren’t you proud that you know how to use a dial phone? That you lived a whole, full life without a digital device in your pocket? You remember who Gilligan is! You watched Fonzie jump the shark! You remember when coming in second place was still awesome. You know how to use a phone book and roll down a window manually. You probably drove a stick shift. As a kid, you played outside all day until dinner. You lived in a time when you could walk your loved ones all the way to the gate in an airport.

We are the generation who didn’t give a shit, remember? We invented punk rock, then grunge. None of the Kardashians belong in our group, not even the mother.

Everyone in Arizona has skin cancer. It’s so common that it should really appear on the license plate instead of a cactus.

People act poorly because other people have let them act poorly, and they have been able to get away with it for a lifetime. There is no sense of consequence.