Laurie Notaro, EXCUSE ME WHILE I DISAPPEAR: Tales of Midlife Mayhem
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[0:58]Laurie NoTERo is the author of Excuse me while I disappear tales of midlife mayhem
[1:03]Which by the way, I found to be one of the most hilarious and helpful books that I have read of late
[1:09]Laurie NoTERo is the number one New York Times best-selling author of the humor memoirs the idiot girl's action
[1:15]Adventure club out of biography of a fat bride. I love everybody
[1:19]The idiot girl in the flaming tantrum of death, which was a finalist for the third reprise and housebroken among others
[1:26]She is also the author of three works of fiction, including the historical novel crossing the horizon
[1:32]Born in Brooklyn, New York
[1:33]She then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, Arizona
[1:38]Where she created something of a checkered fast
[1:40]Laurie Noresides in Eugene, Oregon has a cute dog and a nice husband and Mrs. Mexican food like it was her use
[1:46]Welcome, Laurie. Thank you so much for coming on mom. Don't have time to read books to discuss your book
[1:52]Excuse me while I disappear tales of midlife mayhem
[1:56]Thank you for having me. I'm I'm really happy to be here
[1:59]I'm really happy to meet you and thank you for being so nice about my book
[2:03]I love your book. I laughed at lads so many times and learned a lot and want to give this to like every single person
[2:10]I know
[2:11]Without offending them. Yeah, I think there's something still about like oh, I know I'm in midlife
[2:16]So therefore everyone who's my age is also in midlife, but somehow like telling them that is not the nicest
[2:23]No, I know I totally get it, but that's kind of why I wrote this book was not as
[2:31]Only a hey, I'm going through this. You're going through this too
[2:35]But also as a primer as what to expect. Yes, like no one told me like my mother
[2:42]What could I expect? You know when she told me about the facts of life
[2:45]She I was in the bathtub, but she sat on the toilet with a cigarette and said like girls have eggs
[2:53]Right, and then that was it. It was just like
[2:58]So I had no experience. I have no knowledge of what was going
[3:03]Was gonna happen to me in adolescence, right? So it was always a really scary thing like
[3:08]Just crazy just like am I becoming a monkey? What is going on here? Why why is there pimples? All this stuff
[3:15]I didn't know just happening. I know I do the dirty girls, right?
[3:19]Because I was part of what the dirty girls like the popular girls like the ones who are like all blonde and tan
[3:24]Didn't have these problems. It was the hairy little Italian girls
[3:28]All this stuff and thinking of my changing species
[3:31]So with this book, I thought I want to be that person
[3:38]That shows people this is what's gonna happen to you, but it's not all bad. There's so much good in it
[3:45]So don't fear the Reaper
[3:47]The Reaper has AARP he gets really good discounts on stuff, so it's not all bad
[3:54]There's a really positive side to it too. So that's what it was meant for
[3:59]So I think it's okay for people who are not quite there yet. It's just like this is coming
[4:05]But you you don't need to like don't Botox yourself in preparation for that. It's just gonna happen
[4:12]And it's gonna be awesome. I love it. I have been looking for a manual
[4:16]I read all these like midlife indignities, you know, or whatever
[4:20]I've read gen man's book midlife fights and Kristin von Agtra for like
[4:24]Midlife and ding-dong news bubble, but I mean it's it's like
[4:27]I read as many of the midlife
[4:29]Primers as possible, but this is like and not to
[4:33]Desperage those those are also amazing, but this is like okay
[4:36]Here's what I am going to go through and so many of these things
[4:39]I am already going through and
[4:41]Nobody has been talking about them
[4:43]And so I feel this massive sense of relief even like as I lean back to get it in my like shoulder pops out
[4:49]No, like oh no, it's normal now. I don't have to go to the doctor. This is so perfect. Thank you
[4:55]Part of the disintegrating process. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with you. Yeah
[5:00]You had you had some line where you said something about how like so many of your tendons at this point like pop or disintegrate
[5:06]But like you could you could like
[5:08]Melt and like go under the doorframe like you could start slithering out of your front door at this point because you're held up together by just like one lone
[5:16]Tendon exactly and it might pop during this podcast
[5:21]I don't know you might just all of a sudden lose me, you know, it's like
[5:26]Everything is just held together by like one thin little string
[5:32]I also have to say that in your book
[5:34]You talk about this one coffee meeting that you had for a job that you took that was at eight o'clock
[5:40]And you were like, well, do they really mean coffee at eight or was that like
[5:43]Is that a typo and they really meant noon?
[5:47]And now and now here we are and I
[5:50]Realize as we were talking before that it's 6 a.m. Where you are and are you still in Eugene, Oregon?
[5:55]I am but I am still I'm still employable. I'm still employed which is the real miracle there
[6:02]I still have a job not with that not with the University of Oregon with a different university so
[6:07]But I get to work. This is the beautiful thing is that you know
[6:11]I know a lot of people didn't have a good COVID year
[6:14]But I got to tell you it was like the best time of my life. I'm a germaphobe by nature. So I'm finally like
[6:22]Dude, I can wear a mask all the time. This is fantastic. This is so great
[6:27]Because I've been wanting to do this for like 10 years, right? I think about moving to China just so I could blend in right
[6:34]So you blend right you'll blend right in Laurie
[6:37]The tallest gray haired person ever but in any case, so I've gotten used to now waking up at 8 o'clock
[6:45]I'm still working at home, which is great
[6:48]So that was a result of the pandemic which like I said was really good for me
[6:52]It was a really beautiful time in my life
[6:54]No, but I feel like I you were convincing me that going into an office could actually be super fun
[6:59]Because I work from home and now have my team all works from here to because
[7:04]Like I'm not leaving and so you're coming, but you have this whole chapter on
[7:09]You know discovering like mine people where you felt like you were
[7:13]You know in the boring section with all the other gray haired people and you realize they were like such badass cool women and
[7:18]Yeah, it was like it was like being on death row. It was totally realized they stepped they set me in that thing
[7:23]And I was like in that row and I thought no, I should be in that row because I
[7:30]I should be with the young girls because I'm young and then dawned on me sister
[7:36]Come on like own it like no one so I got to know them and like yeah
[7:42]Melodies a barrel racer
[7:45]Marta designed iron made covers. It was amazing
[7:49]And actually I think one of my friends just put a picture of all of us in the death row on Amazon attached to her review
[7:56]So it's hilarious. Oh my gosh
[7:59]And you even organized a renovation of the very slippery slate that everybody
[8:07]tripped on and you really hurt your knee and you did and that's out
[8:11]That was like amazing that you stuck with that for so long and finally affected change
[8:16]Yeah, I'm tenacious. I was far gone from from that job
[8:19]I was still at the university
[8:20]But I was way out of that position when they finally realized yeah
[8:24]This is a lawsuit people like almost died on this stupid slate in Oregon where it rains every single day
[8:31]So that was one they still didn't pay for my medical bills
[8:35]I'm sorry about that. I know like election agency so because it was a matter of pride right
[8:40]It was a matter of pride. I'm not paying this bill. It wasn't my fault. It was the last okay
[8:44]It was the last time I will ever do the splits
[8:47]So that kind of gave me some street cred right
[8:50]It wasn't it was not an intentional splits, but I still did it
[8:53]I still knew that I had the capacity to do it even though I would really really injure myself
[8:57]Oh my gosh, but yeah, so that finally got in taking care of and then the building lost you of always their tenant
[9:02]Which was awesome
[9:04]I just have to to read a couple the couple things first of all
[9:08]You have this whole list of of what to expect and questions to ask for example
[9:12]Why is my ass where my belly used to be?
[9:15]Conbending over kill me. Why can't I lose weight after 50 my boobs are stretching like saltwater taffy. Why?
[9:25]I'm so many more and then you have this whole funny thing about memory which I'm like
[9:29]I mean
[9:29]What you're like he said my point is the problem is not that we are losing our memory
[9:33]It's like that we are at capacity and if new stuff wants to come in we have to start throwing
[9:38]Old stuff overboard
[9:39]I deleted seventh and eighth grade just to remember the names of my coworkers once I started my new job
[9:44]Frankly, I can't handle any new stuff. I really don't even want new stuff. I held out on getting a smart TV
[9:49]Oh, this is the funniest, but this is a very long section of math. The smart TV night you had to post that you wanted a teenager to help your
[9:55]Turn on you
[10:00]Please just come up and show me how to use Roku.
[10:02]Oh my gosh.
[10:03]I still don't get casting.
[10:05]I still don't get it.
[10:06]You're so right too, because you're like, was it Hulu?
[10:08]Was it Discovery?
[10:09]Was it this?
[10:10]I can never remember.
[10:11]And you're like, forget it.
[10:12]And that's how I feel times two.
[10:13]I'm like, oh, I want to watch a show,
[10:15]but where on earth can it be?
[10:17]Just out there.
[10:18]I usually had to Google something on my phone,
[10:21]but then it takes me 10 steps to remember how to Google something on my phone.
[10:26]Like, okay, I had to press this button and that button
[10:29]and then what do I use?
[10:30]And to get that and then we Google it,
[10:32]and then usually that app is out.
[10:35]So I totally get it.
[10:36]Yeah, it's even if I shove more stuff in there,
[10:39]it just pops right back out.
[10:40]Yeah, doesn't it?
[10:41]It doesn't want to stay in there.
[10:43]There's no home.
[10:44]Old memories don't like the new memory.
[10:48]And your whole section on trouble sleeping at night was absolutely hilarious.
[10:53]I mean, you have like a play by play of all the times,
[10:56]but what you really say, the conclusion is like,
[10:58]wait, let me, I couldn't find that.
[11:00]For you say that, how moms like stay at home moms are that,
[11:03]oh, here, you said, you can tell if a young mother or father has been up all night
[11:06]with their kids.
[11:07]Actually, you don't even have to be a detective
[11:09]because they'll tell you the first time you see them that day.
[11:11]Two kids sick and another kicks me all night.
[11:13]They mumble, need more coffee.
[11:14]Yet the entire population of middle-aged women
[11:17]are showing them to work on three hours of sleep,
[11:19]some with their nightmares, still coursing through their bloodstream,
[11:22]running meetings, making deadlines and putting curses on their bosses.
[11:25]It was just a little packet of dirt from a graveyard sprinkled in their office.
[11:28]And the rest of the world has no idea why?
[11:30]Because we are super women, because it's how we are.
[11:33]We're high, we're sleep deprived, we're still doing all the shit.
[11:36]If my husband does again his full eight hours, he'll mention it the whole next day.
[11:40]As if he spent the dark time keeping flesh eating zombies from gaming entry to our house,
[11:44]not middle-aged women, they get up from a bed they've never slept in,
[11:47]put on an underwire and some mascara and do it all over again, and no one knows.
[11:51]That's true, that's totally true.
[11:55]I want somebody's sleep meds, and then I may say that I wake up every morning,
[11:59]stay perfectly honest, and I'm up like at all times a night, and then you just go on Facebook
[12:05]and all your friends are there and they're awake too.
[12:08]So that's another part of middle-aged that is just
[12:12]in glory, it's just in glorious, but there's other people out there who feel your pain,
[12:17]so it's just a built-in support group, absolutely.
[12:21]You and the gummies, you're like every middle-aged woman is taking pot gummies every night.
[12:26]We're all high.
[12:27]You're all high.
[12:31]Oh my gosh.
[12:32]It's like when my friends just sent me a text with a bottle,
[12:35]I don't know where you get a bottle of sleep gummies, but she's just like,
[12:40]where these are too strong for me, I think they're important for you.
[12:44]Yeah, let's think about tomorrow and pick up your box.
[12:47]Oh my gosh.
[12:48]I don't know, you start the night with a clone of Ben, and I took one once, because I was like,
[12:52]oh, I can't fall asleep, it's like 330.
[12:54]I'm just gonna take this clone of Ben, because I feel like this is what I'm supposed to take
[12:57]for anxiety, but it's like in my medicine cabinet, I'm like, all right, I'll just give it a shot.
[13:01]I woke up at like two the next day, which fortunately was Yom Kippur, and I'm Jewish.
[13:06]And so you're supposed to go to temple and fast and said I had my kids sit on top of me,
[13:10]and I was like putting the service on the TV, like casting from my phone.
[13:14]I'm like, she's watching this, I can't get out of that.
[13:17]And then finally, I woke up at two, and I was like, well, this is the easiest
[13:21]fast I've ever had.
[13:24]But you know how to cast.
[13:25]You know how to cast.
[13:26]I didn't know how to show me how to cast.
[13:29]Yeah, that's the time I figured out or maybe my husband did it for me.
[13:33]I can't even remember seeing my memory is gone, but somehow it got up there on the TV.
[13:37]Yeah, and but children of the 90s, like, it was the 90s, you know, it was really kind of the
[13:44]last good time. So we all have increasingly really great tolerances for Kalanapin.
[13:50]Like one is like, is just one is like kind of a glass of cider.
[13:57]Like just taking a little bit of the edge off. And if I really want to have a good time, I'll do too.
[14:02]You're literally like the person at the party who's like, oh, she has such a high tolerance.
[14:07]Like forget these, forget this six pack. Like let's move on to that, you know, where's the,
[14:11]I don't, where's the, where's the Jack Daniels? Where's the Jack Daniels?
[14:14]I'm not messing around. It's not going, I'm going in all the way.
[14:18]Yeah, absolutely.
[14:19]And you also had a really funny chapter. I mean, there's every chapter was hilarious about
[14:24]you and your husband joining the ARP. And now you really didn't want to do it. And then you
[14:27]found out that he got like a two-fern inside you up.
[14:31]And he's like, no, he's a collaborator. He turned me in just so he could get this little
[14:39]free gift of, and it's terrible. It is a cheapest little thing, a pill box, of course, a pill
[14:45]box, a weekly, I thought it was one of the things to pick up your socks. Oh, wait. Okay. I think
[14:50]I got the pill box that he's got a gripper. Yeah, gripper. It's actually good for stuff that
[14:55]falls behind the washing machine. It's really good. I have my, that's awesome. I got the really
[15:03]terrible gift, the really, really bad one. The pill, the top is even stay closed. The pills are
[15:08]going to go everywhere. It don't ever use that from ARP. It's very, very cheap. It wasn't worth
[15:14]turning my life over to them. But my husband felt that it was. Yeah.
[15:18]You mentioned at one point that you went back to work in part to get health insurance because of
[15:22]your husband's MS. What is the update on that? He's doing okay. We've had a couple relapses. But,
[15:30]you know, they're, they're making some really great strides. I feel like I have to leave this on a
[15:34]good note. You know, they're making some really good strides at Harvard. They finally found out
[15:39]what kind of causes MS and it's not hepatitis. It's mono, mononucleosis. So if you've had mono
[15:46]when you were a teenager, your chances of getting MS go through the roof. Oh, no. I had one of
[15:53]a teenager. So, well, just, you know, he's become, here's the funny side is that he's become a
[16:00]vegan for in this immuno kind of diet. So we have to further propel me into old age. He makes his
[16:11]own little thing like a stir fry or something like that. But I'm just like, I'm an old Italian lady.
[16:17]Why am I going to cook for one person? So there I am literally on a TV tray, which was the best
[16:22]purchase I ever made eating my lean cuisine by myself for dinner. Swedish meatballs are awful.
[16:30]But you know what I'm not going to do? I'm going to make chicken parm for myself, right?
[16:34]I'm not going to do that. So I've become like this. Yeah, I become the lady who
[16:39]comes in seven frozen TV dinners. If it's a good week, I go to Trader Joe's. But if it's a
[16:44]rushed week, yeah, I'm eating linguine and stofers. It's, it's not a part of my life I'm enjoying.
[16:50]I'll say that. So and it's all this fault. Oh my gosh, there are so many people I bet who
[16:54]would want your chicken parm. There should be like a swap situation. Like you can pick up their like
[17:01]healthy vegan meals and you could do a trade, you know, like exactly. Okay. How have you always
[17:08]been this funny? Probably yes. And to tell me about you write it just as funny as you think it,
[17:13]like they're, how do you do, how do you like tell me about that? Well, I, you know, I,
[17:19]I grew up in, I like to say that I grew up in Italy, but I didn't. I grew up in Brooklyn. My parents
[17:26]were not from Italy. They were from Brooklyn, but it was still very, very Italian in our house
[17:32]and very people shouting over one another. So you got three conversations going on at one time,
[17:37]just during a family meal and everyone's insulting each other, right? And it's, but you have to
[17:42]grow up with that tough skin. Otherwise, you just can't be Italian. You're not going to make it.
[17:47]You're going to like failure to thrive. It's just not going to happen. So my father is extraordinarily
[17:54]funny. My mother is the funniest person in the world, but has no idea that she's funny.
[17:59]So I just grew up kind of with that banter and with that really fast, you just really had to,
[18:04]you know, come back with a come back really, really fast. My sisters are both very funny.
[18:09]So how, you know, Christmas time and my nephews are funny. We've raised them to be funny,
[18:14]funny young men, but I was a reporter for a long time. And so I learned how to write really fast.
[18:21]There's no time for me to go in and make it nice and pretty. It's just stream of thought, just
[18:28]pure thought vomit on my keyboard. And so that's just the way that it happens. And, and I edit
[18:34]as I go along and then my poor editors, I just always give them a first draft. They're just like,
[18:39]okay. So that's just the way it happens. That's just the way I just don't. I don't have time to
[18:45]mess around and make things pretty. And, you know, if things are things are not pretty in life.
[18:50]And I'm one of those people who need people to be accountable to be show life how it is.
[18:57]Like I hate Instagram. Instagram is so funny. And I just laugh at it at all these,
[19:02]you know, my friend, Angela, who I love. She's been up to the Caribbean like eight times
[19:08]this year. And so she just posted a picture of like, off to the kapata. And I'm like,
[19:13]you know what? I think that's a stock photo. I think you're putting that. They just put the same
[19:17]kapata on Instagram eight times this year and expect that we're not going to notice. But I think
[19:22]I remember that kapata Angela. I think that that's true. I think you're not on vacation. I think you're
[19:27]working. So my life is not. I think most lives are not pretty. They're not Instagram worthy. But I
[19:36]think that being honest about things makes you feel better about your own deplorable situation
[19:43]and makes people feel like, okay, I'm not the only one. So I'm just, I'm brutally honest,
[19:49]I don't have a good poker face. Zoom is like the worst thing in the world for me.
[19:54]I really like telephone and views better. I'm sorry. We could turn off our, we could turn off our.
[20:00]I, this is great. This is, I really love looking at your library.
[20:04]Amazing.
[20:05]I'll just get out of the way.
[20:06]And I'll do library.
[20:07]I don't know if you love and seen it.
[20:09]I'm sure you've got this on your website.
[20:10]It's a fantasy library.
[20:12]It's like, if I don't die with a library like that,
[20:16]then I have not achieved my full humanity.
[20:19]I mean, you can borrow it.
[20:19]You can just come in and pretend to be me.
[20:23]Something that I want, I must possess all of those colors.
[20:27]These are just my books.
[20:28]You know, you can do it with your own books.
[20:30]Yeah. Yeah.
[20:31]And I've got some of that upstairs with like my old antique books,
[20:34]but this is just a magnificence that is unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
[20:42]Okay. So for people who are in midlife and you have so many sections that are just,
[20:48]I mean, I feel like a broken record.
[20:50]Keep when I keep telling you that it's just so hilarious.
[20:52]But if there's something that you want people to know to not feel bad about the most,
[20:58]like what would that be?
[20:59]Or what are the most, the things that you're like, okay, no, no, no,
[21:02]this is totally normal.
[21:04]But when you get to be a certain age, you do become invisible.
[21:10]And that to some people initially is really shocking and very demoralizing.
[21:19]But then I realized, oh my God, it's not that at all.
[21:23]It's a superpower. No one is paying attention to me.
[21:27]I am.
[21:28]I really don't even exist in most places, which means that I can do whatever I want.
[21:33]And I, I don't really, I don't really want to advocate shoplifting.
[21:42]What I will say is that in safe way sells you 10 pounds of rotten peaches.
[21:51]It's okay if you forget to pay for something.
[21:53]don't go back and pay for it.
[21:55]If you're out of the store and you have something in your cart and you normally would
[21:58]go back and pay for that and that happened to me.
[22:01]It was a five pound bag of russet potatoes.
[22:04]I got all the way out to my car and thought, oh my God, I got these potatoes.
[22:08]And then I realized, oh, no, no, no, no, you rip me off on, on a pound of
[22:13]$10 of rotten peaches.
[22:15]You still, oh, me, we're still not equal, right?
[22:19]So that's what I would say because you people are not paying attention.
[22:22]So if you kind of roll out with something, a little bit, keep it.
[22:26]That's God's gift to you in all these years.
[22:28]And I, and I, that's in the book.
[22:30]And I fully believe in the future would I have done it to test it up.
[22:34]My husband says, I will not fill you out of jail and you will lose your job.
[22:37]But I do believe that I could walk out with a deep freeze at Costco, just waving
[22:42]a battered old safe way receipt.
[22:44]I swear I could.
[22:45]I swear I could.
[22:47]And one day, if I'm diagnosed with like a terminal illness, I will try it.
[22:51]Wow, who knew that stealing and frozen turkey would be on your bucket list?
[22:56]It's delightful.
[22:57]And I finally feel like I am, I finally feel like I, I can act the way that I really am
[23:03]because people don't expect it.
[23:06]And when they don't expect it, you have all this freedom.
[23:09]Like, you know, young guys in traffic, revving their four by fours, whatever
[23:14]behind me, because I'm going to slow in my filthy dirty Prius.
[23:17]And then they pull up next to me and they start yelling at me.
[23:20]And then I just scream and obscenity at them.
[23:24]They're like, nothing to say.
[23:27]They have nothing to say.
[23:27]Their grandma is yelling at them.
[23:29]And in a bad way, right, in a filthy disgusting degenerate way.
[23:34]And that is so glorious.
[23:35]I don't want you to do that my entire life.
[23:38]And no one's going to beat me up because I'm old.
[23:40]And it would be a lawsuit because they probably kill me.
[23:43]Right?
[23:44]It's awesome.
[23:45]It's totally awesome.
[23:47]And it just pops are great.
[23:48]Like, if I want to order a child's mail, I just order it.
[23:51]And even though I'm not really the age of getting free, not free movies,
[23:55]but senior discounts, just I didn't realize this.
[23:59]They're 15 year old kids behind the ticket machine.
[24:02]Or now, if you go up to a chaos, just get the senior discount.
[24:07]Everyone deserves a senior discount.
[24:09]So I'm going to, I'm just going to stop right there.
[24:11]I might be going into the weeds.
[24:12]So I love that.
[24:16]So what is the superpower of us all together?
[24:20]Like, because I feel like people don't market enough to older people.
[24:23]I feel like, you know, especially with books, not to give away all my secrets.
[24:27]But, you know, I started this publishing company.
[24:29]And I'm like, why is nobody, these people read like, what the heck?
[24:34]Like, why are we trying to capture the intention only of really young busy people
[24:38]who don't have time to read hence my podcast title, right?
[24:40]People have time to read.
[24:41]We don't have time to read.
[24:42]In fact, when I was, I had been out of the business for about five years.
[24:46]When I thought I'd been having these experiences, I went back to work as a middle-aged
[24:51]person.
[24:52]I mean, I've been out of the workforce for 20 years.
[24:55]And so I had gathered up enough material in those five years to say,
[24:59]this is what the transition is like.
[25:02]And I pitched it to several agents that I knew.
[25:05]And you know what they told me?
[25:07]No one wants to read about middle-aged women.
[25:09]Oh, nobody.
[25:10]And I thought, really?
[25:12]Because guess what?
[25:13]We're the only ones reading.
[25:15]We're the only ones reading.
[25:17]So, of course, if you want me to do something, tell me no, right?
[25:22]Just tell me no that it's not going to fly.
[25:24]And I was like, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to write this book.
[25:26]I was just testing it out.
[25:27]And once those three agents told me no, I was like, OK, God, now I gotta do it.
[25:34]Now I have to do it.
[25:36]And so I went and without an agent, I pitched the book.
[25:41]We got a deal and they were totally into it.
[25:44]And it has been, I've been hearing from so many women who have say,
[25:48]finally, I feel seen.
[25:50]Finally, after all this time, I know that I'm not the only one.
[25:54]I'm not going bonkers.
[25:56]This is the way society looks at it.
[25:58]So now that we've realized that we're all in this together, I think we have
[26:04]such power to demand.
[26:06]And I have written letters to Jay Crew saying, I want to see all people to
[26:10]go in the really hip new clothing company.
[26:13]And I bought their clothes.
[26:14]I want to see all people in anthropology.
[26:17]I want to see all the middle-aged women in dough and ads.
[26:20]That is what I want to see.
[26:21]Not only that, you're OK.
[26:23]So you're getting, you're finally getting to the chubs, which is great.
[26:27]Cause I've been a chub for a really long time or finally getting into the 16
[26:30]pluses on all these clothing companies.
[26:33]Now do your due diligence.
[26:34]We've been buying your crap all along.
[26:37]Represent us.
[26:38]We're still buying Jay Crew.
[26:39]People my age are still buying Jay Crew.
[26:41]So represent me.
[26:43]Let people know that it's OK that they don't have to go to dress barn, you know,
[26:48]or shop at Target for something with elastic.
[26:51]They're, we can still fit into your clothes.
[26:54]And we still want to wear your clothes.
[26:56]And that goes for everything for, you know, from anything from
[27:01]the thing is I'm tired of being the only kind of commercial that's geared toward me
[27:08]is medication.
[27:11]I just are something better.
[27:13]But a Pepsi commercial.
[27:14]I'll drink that still if you show an old lady drinking it.
[27:17]I'll still drink that.
[27:19]I'll probably die and I'll drink half this much because my blood sugar is going to
[27:21]shoot up.
[27:22]But I will still do that.
[27:24]Just show me that I'm still a human being.
[27:26]I'm still alive.
[27:27]And I still purchase your products.
[27:29]So I think together we have that power and it is a great and awesome power.
[27:35]I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you our books when we actually have copies printed.
[27:40]And I want to use you like a model, right?
[27:42]You can like, you'll be like a model.
[27:44]We'll put it on our website.
[27:46]Like you'll go on Instagram and you could just feel be like Target audience.
[27:50]What do you think?
[27:51]No, I think that's awesome.
[27:52]I think that's fantastic because people are, yeah, they just get such a bad rap.
[27:59]And the thing is, so I just printed out some swag for merchandise for touring and stuff
[28:05]like that.
[28:06]And I had to get a little rubber bracelet because they were cheap.
[28:08]And I thought, oh, that's funny.
[28:09]And so I'm just like, what should I say on that?
[28:12]What should I say?
[28:13]I thought of a couple of different things like, I know more than you do.
[28:16]You know, because we do.
[28:17]I've been around for so much longer.
[28:18]Of course, every day I learned something new.
[28:21]So of course, I know more than my nephew who accuses me of, well, I'm not going to go there.
[28:27]And then he sees 20.
[28:28]He doesn't know it.
[28:30]You know nothing when you're 20.
[28:32]You know nothing.
[28:32]And now at 57, I realize that.
[28:35]But where I decided on the brace, it was, excuse me while I disappear and then kick your baby ass.
[28:42]So that is my, I think that sums it up right, like right there.
[28:45]Like you see me being old, but I have more knowledge than you.
[28:50]And I am way smarter than you.
[28:52]And I've been around for way longer.
[28:55]And I can figure stuff out way faster.
[28:57]Even though I can't remember your name.
[29:03]And I don't know how to turn on my TV.
[29:06]I know a lot more stuff that's way more worthwhile than a 20 year old when I was 20.
[29:12]I was so stupid.
[29:14]I just love you.
[29:16]I love this book.
[29:17]I love everything about you.
[29:18]I am so excited that I met you.
[29:20]And yeah, I'm just sort of like over the boot happy about it.
[29:23]So anyway, thank you for coming on mom's time to read books.
[29:25]Thank you for, excuse me, while I disappear.
[29:27]And yeah, I'm just super excited.
[29:30]You're awesome, Zibi.
[29:31]And I think I might change my middle name to Zibi now.
[29:34]Go ahead.
[29:34]You take it.
[29:34]You are the dog, either way.
[29:36]Thank you so much for having me on your, your delight.
[29:39]Okay, me too.
[29:40]Okay.
[29:40]Bye bye.
[29:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books.
[29:46]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[29:52]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club
[29:56]and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[29:59]Thanks so much to Steve.
[30:00]I'm Ryan Beck, Textures Sound for the Sound Editing,
[30:02]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:04]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.