The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club (17 page)

Special Thanks

I would like to issue a special thanks to my family (yes, Mom, that means you, and Dad, Nana, Lisa, Linda, Taylor, Nicholas, and David) for letting me not only air but spin-cycle all of our dirty laundry out in public and for hardly ever getting mad, even though some of you have threatened to sue me. But remember, I can PROVE IT ALL. Thanks to the ball and chain for letting me say the unthinkable when I needed a punch line, and for not telling his family what I do for a living.

Thanks to Jamie Schroeder-Gomez, Jeff Abbott, Joel Abbott, Nikki Adams, Kate McGinty, Krysti Lindemoen, Patrick Sedillo, Sandra Quijas, Sara Cina, Dionne Gonzales, the Feeney sisters, and all of my friends who let me tell their secrets just so I could make my deadline.

Thanks to Michelle Savoy, Meg Halverson, Bill Hummel, Coni Bourin, Laura Smith, Kathy Murillo, Beth Kawasaki, Eric Searleman, Shamsi and Jamal Ruhe, Jenny Ignaszewski, Sean Fitzpatrick, Troy Fuss, Charlie Levy, Robert Sentinery, Amy Silverman, Theresa Cano, Sarah Wallace, Laura Greenberg, Beth Deveney, Ann Grigsby, Jeff Unger, and my seventh- and ninth-grade English teachers, Mr. Homuth and Mrs. Gaio, for your support and encouragement.

A big thanks to the readers, whom I love and worship for sticking with me longer than any boyfriend did.

A hearty round of applause to all the boys who said they loved me but LIED, which made me a mean, bitter woman. (P.S.: I have lost seventeen pounds after I ate some pork the doctor says was probably way too pink, gotten a lesson in plucking, and learned to apply eyeshadow properly since you last saw me. I haven’t gotten my one weird bicuspid fixed yet, but when I get my tax refund this year—and if I don’t need new brakes or a D&C—you will no longer be able to call me “Snaggletooth.” I am a goddess, and I bet none of you have even made parole yet. So there.)

Oh, yes, and to all of the bosses that fired me from shitty jobs. You know who you are. If I ever have the chance to squeeze another unemployment check out of you or plunder your supply of Post-it Notes, I will briskly seize the opportunity. You have been warned.

With the greatest reverence to Hopkins, who understood everything, who shielded me from the rain on the steps of Tempe Long Wong’s so my dress wouldn’t get wet, and who taught me the most important, honest things I will ever learn. You may be somewhere in the distance, but you are never out of my sight.

Undying gratitude to the Amazing, Incredible, and Marvelous Jenny Bent, to whom I owe a kidney, both eyes, and the ovary that looks the least gray. She unconditionally rules and is tons better than psychotherapy, even with a really good copay. I can never thank her enough.

Thanks to Nina Graybill for going to bat for me over and over again, and a million American Beauty thank-you’s to Pamela Cannon, who took a chance on this supersized dork, and not only because she thought one of my legs was totally shorter than the other. I’m not above embracing pity, so I let her believe it for a minute, but aside from that, she deserves thanks for repeatedly polishing the product of a hunter and pecker, and, EVEN WORSE, a journalism major.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And absolutely, I humbly bow to Idiot Girls everywhere.

We simply rock.

Love,

Laurie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurie Notaro is a humor columnist for the
Arizona Republic
at
www.azcentral.com
. She has been fired from seven jobs (possibly eight) and lives with her first husband and pets (two dogs—a miniature Wookie and a lab that makes doody in her sleep—and a cat with no teeth) in the hot, dry dust bowl of Phoenix, Arizona.
The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club
is her first book.

Published in the United States by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.

Villard and V Circled Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Villard Books website address:
www.villard.com

eISBN: 978-1-58836-243-8

v3.0