My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover if Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto Read Online Free PDF Page B

the cardboard to see what I hit, and when I get there, I shake my head. Un-frigging-believable.
    I return to my car, open the trunk, and pull out my beach towel to sop up as much of the mess as I can. I toss handfuls of ice on the side of the road and sweep out a tidal wave of sugar-free soda. Fortunately, with all the bending and stretching, I find the few stray fries and lettuce shreds that had fallen under the seat. Fletch’s going to be upset enough about the chipped paint—no need to bait the bear with Burger King, too.
    While I wait for the cops to take an accident report, I figure I’d better call Stacey.
    “Yeah, hey, it’s me. I’m running a little late. Why? Because I just got into a head-on collision with an Adirondack chair .”

    “Dude, what’s up with the frogs?” I ask. “This is, like, biblical.”
    “The frogs aren’t coming from the sky. This isn’t biblical. This is just annoying,” Stacey counters. Despite positively ominous skies, Stacey and I are in the pool. The second we see lightning, we’ll get out, but until then, we swim, damn it. Plus, I have all that soda to rinse off.
    “Well, if they’re not a plague, then where are they coming from?”
    “You’ve got me. We get a couple of them in the pool every year, but this is bizarre. Maybe they hopped in from the woods because of the storm.” As we wallow in waist-deep water, we attempt to scoop out the dozens of dime-sized frogs swimming around us. They’d be cute—like, so cute they could be manufactured by Sanrio, actually—if only they’d keep their distance. I had one work its way into my hair a couple of minutes ago, and now my throat hurts from all the screaming.
    I brush a wee amphibian off my arm. “What’s going on with you? How’s your book 32 coming?”
    “Great! I’ve spent the week entering recipe contests.”
    Stacey isn’t working on a cookbook, but this statement makes perfect sense to me. Any writer will tell you the best part of being a writer is not writing. Oh, the random, unimportant things you can accomplish when you owe someone a manuscript! In the past two weeks, I’ve: (a) started a Facebook account in order to reconnect with people I haven’t given a damn about in twenty years, (b) organized all our Christmas decorations, rewrapping the delicate ornaments I’d tossed carelessly back in the box seven months ago and testing each string of lights, (c) made significant headway in teaching the dogs to bark on command until Fletch reminded me they don’t need any more encouragement in the barking department, and (d) read the first two Twilight series books. Twice. 33
    “Yeah? How’d that happen? And what kind of recipes?”
    “I was writing and I had the Food Network on in the background. Then I noticed some woman getting a massive check for some lousy chicken recipe. Seriously, my chicken is so much better than what won, and she got something like a hundred grand. For a shitty chicken paprikash! I clicked my Word document closed and began to Google cooking contests. I found a ton of them, and I’ve been entering them ever since. Right now, I’m all about Plugra, the European butter people.” Stacey describes the various butter compounds she’s created, and by the time she’s finished, my mouth is watering.
    “The one with bacon and maple sounds amazing!” I gush.
    “Would that not be ridiculous on pancakes?” she raves.
    “How are you making all this stuff and not gaining, like, a million pounds?”
    Stacey wrinkles her nose. “Oh, please, I’m not making anything; I’m just coming up with ideas. I’ve already submitted forty different compound recipes.”
    I’m dumbfounded at this news and it takes me a moment to digest what she’s saying. “Wait, you’re not entering recipe contests ; you’re entering writing contests.”
    “That’s about the size of it.” She nods thoughtfully.
    “Ha! On the one hand, I applaud your ability to avoid your deadline, but on the other,