The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach: And Other Annoying People by Lauren Allison, Lisa Perry, Lisa Perry

Synopsis

You know that overprotective PTA mom who needs to be resuscitated after she finds out you fed her son a hotdog? Or that couple who sends out the annual holiday letter about how their little Timmy came up with an alternative to fossil fuels while you're proud of simply replacing the lint catcher in your dryer once a year? You'll meet them again in Lauren Allison and Lisa Perry's laugh-out-loud compendium. Allison and Perry take on soccer moms, video dads, rabid gardeners, and grating couples in this collection of short, punchy essays.
Less-than-perfect moms and dads everywhere will be sure to relate to the authors' portraits of the most annoying people around!

Publishers Weekly

Psychologist Perry and business owner Allison teamed up in 2003 to give "non-motivational" seminars to women's groups across the country. This book, which was originally self-published in 2005, collects 50 of their sketches, mostly variations on the theme of women-who-do-too-much. There's the "Perfect Brownie Leader," who planned scores of sophisticated projects for her troop; the scrapbooking obsessive who converted her whole house into a scrapbooking factory; the woman who set up her Christmas tree in July to get good photos for her Christmas cards; and a woman tormented by Martha Stewart's "thought for the day" e-mails. Most essays follow a single format-an excessive woman going to ever-more ridiculous extremes, while the narrator dead-pans, leaving readers cheering for the slacker. This format can work, but becomes tedious on repetition. Perry and Allison are much better when they're less predictable. They do a funny story about packing a frozen turkey in the checked luggage that has nothing to do with overachieving women, a nicely nasty piece about a woman who says "golly" about everything, and an oddly perceptive rant on the subject of husbands who embark on major home repairs just when company's expected. For less-than-perfect women who've had enough of Martha's endless projects, Perry and Allison may be an entertaining antidote. (Mar.)

Biography

Lisa Perry has been a practicing clinical psychologist for the past eighteen years. She presents seminars on humor and creativity to women's groups, businesses, and corporations.
Lauren Allison is a successful businesswoman with years of experience in speaking to businesses and organizations.
They teamed up in 2003 to provide entertaining seminars to women's groups across the country.