Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea Read online

  I arrived at LAX, and while I was pulling up to Continental Airlines, an officer told me to keep moving.

  “I don’t think so, buddy,” I said, putting my car in park and stepping out. “You wanna piece of me?” I was pissed now, and no one was gonna fuck with me again.

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  “You heard me, hotshot! You wanna rumble? You know what? I’m here to pick up my friend from the airport and I think it’s ridiculous that we are not allowed to stop for one second to let her get in the car. Is my friend supposed to dive through the window while the car’s moving?”

  Lydia found me just as the officer was issuing me a ticket for parking my car, along with a second one for lewd behavior.

  We didn’t speak for most of the car trip home, until finally she turned and asked me, “What is wrong with you?”

  “Um. Is that code for ‘thanks for picking me up at the airport’?” I asked her.

  “You have a huge knot in the middle of your forehead and your thirtieth birthday party is tomorrow night. How does that make you feel?”

  “You know how it makes me feel, Lydia? It makes me feel like I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

  Lydia sighed loudly. I awaited her response with bated breath. I had finally taken a stand, and knew for sure my friends would have to see it my way. Someone, perhaps a higher power, was clearly out to get me.

  Finally, without looking at me, she opened her mouth.

  “Please take surface streets.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mini-Me

  I got an upsetting letter from the mother of a midget, who wrote that she had watched an interview of mine on television and, “as the mother of a little person, was deeply offended” by my comments regarding little people; above all, the fact that I referred to them as “nuggets.”

  What this woman doesn’t understand is that I am not the enemy. Next to fat babies, midgets are my favorite things to hold. I love them so much, and I want to help them to do adult things like drive cars, Jet-Ski, and lip-synch. I’m in awe of their little limbs, their large craniums, and their medicine-ball asses. I love the little baby steps they take while shifting their weight from side to side, and the fact that when you knock one over accidentally, he flails like a turtle on its back that can’t get up right away.

  Let me make one thing clear: I do not have a midget fetish—I like to think of it as more of a healthy obsession. And because I adore them so much, I want to raise midget awareness and prevent their further exploitation by others. I am deeply offended by midget pornography and by people who hire midget strippers for bachelor parties. That type of behavior really crosses the line in my book. What I’m truly interested in is dressing them in evening wear, more along the lines of the attire Miss Piggy used to wear on the The Muppet Show, or the little man from Monopoly. I’m talking about tuxedos, sequined ball gowns, and fedoras.

  More important, I’m interested in helping midgets realize that their height should never be a limitation. I want to challenge them with outdoor sports such as skydiving, bungee jumping, and water polo. To help them, I would also videotape these activities and review the footage with them afterward with some chalk and a pointer, much in the same vein as a football commentator. If a bunch of Elvis impersonators can get together and skydive out of a plane in groups, there is no reason midgets shouldn’t be allowed that same opportunity. I can’t explain where these feelings come from, and they are rivaled only by my deep affection for penguins. (The only difference being, once you catch a midget, they are much easier to hold on to.)

  My midget fantasies were finally realized when I was on a hidden-camera television show called Girls Behaving Badly. In its fourth season the producers called me into their office and explained that a very cute midget had written in, begging to be on the show. “She’s really cute and lives in Pittsburgh. We thought since your birthday is coming up, as your present, we’d fly her out to do a bit with you.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Let me see her,” I demanded as I leaped over the chair that stood between me and my producer’s computer screen. He opened the file and I nearly passed out. Her name was Kimmy and she looked just like me, but with smaller features. She had blond hair that was pulled back in a ponytail, was three-feet-eleven, and weighed fifty-two pounds. I know this because as soon as I got her on set, I immediately weighed and measured her.

  The picture she sent showed her standing with one hand on her hip and one leg splayed out like a Rockette’s. The other hand was holding a lit cigarette. She was wearing a pink leotard with light pink tights, through which I could make out five miniature toes on each foot that were eerily reminiscent of my favorite appetizer, popcorn shrimp.

  “Two questions,” I said, barely able to contain myself. “Can she stay at my house, and do I get to take her to a water park?”

  A few weeks later the producers flew Kimmy to Los Angeles to be on the show. We decided we would incorporate her into a bit I did called “Officer Handy.” This was a recurring character I played, a security officer who takes herself way too seriously and gives out citations to people for ridiculous reasons, such as not staying within the lines when crossing in a crosswalk, or speaking too loudly while shopping in a mall.

  They flew Kimmy in the night before we started shooting, so the first time I saw her was on set. I made sure to get there bright and early that day, as I wanted to make a good impression. She walked in with our talent coordinator and squealed, “Hey, everyone!”

  Kimmy was even more than I expected. She had on a pink T-shirt with a pair of pink jean shorts and pink high-top Nikes. I wondered whether she actually needed them for ankle support or if she was on a midget basketball team. It took everything in my power to hold myself back from launching out of my seat like a rocket and tackling her.

  She was heading toward me, smiling and waving, and I stood up from my seat and kneeled down on one knee, bracing myself for a hug. My body’s reaction was far stronger than I could have anticipated; I was magnetically drawn to Kimmy, mostly because of her little sausage fingers and Chicken McNugget toes. With arms spread wide open, I couldn’t wait to squeeze her. My eyes were popping out of my head and I had the slow, steady look of a rattlesnake just about to strike a mouse.

  “Hi, you crazy bitch!” she said as she ran into my embrace. “I fucking love you!”

  This was music to my ears, as I already knew I felt love for her. I knew this was what a mother bear must feel after giving birth to a cub. I loved her even before I met her, and I would do everything in my power to see her in a tracksuit.

  “I’m so happy you are here,” I said as tears began to well up in my eyes. “Look at you!” I picked her up and spun her around to get a closer look at her ass. I stared at the back of her ponytail, trying to determine whether or not her hair was real or a clip-on.

  “Don’t you think we look identical?” I asked her as I kept spinning her around. Once I put her down, she took a couple of unsteady steps before she was able to gather her footing, and then she sat down. “Sorry, I’m a little dizzy.”

  Kimmy’s best features were her head and triceps. She wasn’t as fat as I would have liked, but she was extremely muscular, which made her shape very aerodynamic. I immediately started fantasizing about pinning a cape to her back and tossing her off the roof of my apartment building.

  I didn’t want to seem desperate by throwing myself at Kimmy. I had to play it cool. “Why don’t you go get into wardrobe and I’ll get you a script,” I said. I had to approach this in the same way I would deal with a guy I was interested in: give her a little taste of me and then take off while she still wanted more.

  The producers decided to have her play my deputy sheriff at a winery in downtown Los Angeles. How they grow grapes in a part of town that is mostly populated by gangs and high-rises is beyond me, but when alcohol is involved, I rarely ask questions.

  The prank would take place during a routine wine tasting, with me