Big Girls Don't Fry: Rehoboth Beach Wrap-Up

By Fay Jacobs

Fay Jacobs is back . . . again . . . really . . . for the LAST time!

As the author of five previous humorous memoirs, activist and comedian Fay Jacobs returns with her FINAL collection of tall tales, Big Girls Don’t Fry: Rehoboth Beach Wrap Up. And, as you’d expect, It’s chock-full of Fay’s signature witty, wise, and often laugh-out-loud commentary about the craziness of contemporary life in the diverse and welcoming resort town of Rehoboth Beach on the Delaware Coast.

This time, though, everyone’s favorite “Sit-Down Comic” tangles with the after-effects of an insane election, kissing penguins, riding an opinionated camel, wearing pussy hats, and masking in the time of Covid . . .

Big Girls Don’t Fry was compiled over the last few years, beginning in January 2021 and ending with an urgent plea to get out and vote for our lives. It chronicles her chronic losing battle with nature and changing technology, revisits some of her greatest hits and misses, deals with the ups and downs of social distancing, masking, and video happy hours, and reflects on what it was like to be honored by a troop of Girl Scouts.

And through it all, Fay finds a way to make her stories provocative, political, occasionally heartwarming, and reliably hilarious.

It’s all captured in the final installment of Fay Jacobs’ award-winning Tales from Rehoboth Series.

Come along for the ride—you’ll be happy you did!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bywater Books
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781612942902

Book preview

PRAISE FOR FAY JACOBS’ BOOKS

Her columns . . . are laugh out loud funny and the best part is that Jacobs is sincere . . . Those who enjoyed Jacobs’ (other collections) will not be disappointed and those reading her for the first time will understand why she’s such a beloved columnist.

—Jane van Ingen, Lambda Book Report

It’s an intelligent, hysterically funny, and occasionally poignant look at how we live today, with hopes for tomorrow. Recommended for everyone, male or female, gay or straight. Five stars out of five.

—Echo Magazine

She makes you laugh, and she makes you think—and then you laugh again and again and again.

—Comedienne Jennie McNulty

"Fay Jacobs is not just a treasure to the peoples of Rehoboth Beach and Delaware, she’s a national treasure for all of us."

—Publisher Salem West

Every bit as sardonic, witty, sarcastic, and insightful as her other books!

—Richard LaBonte, San Francisco Bay Times

Fay Jacobs’ hilarious dispatches are funny, touching—and real. This is a true laugh riot, as Fay wittily takes on sexuality, politics, relationships, and day-to-day dilemmas.

—Insight Out Book Club

Every tale is masterfully told—these memorable memoirs . . . are both pleasure and treasure.

—Anna Furtado, Just About Write

Fay’s writing is everything we’ve come to expect—humorous, insightful, and savvy. Fay finds universal messages in everyday experiences, entertaining while reminding us of all that binds us together. Laugh, cry, and above all, rejoice with Fay Jacobs’ newest collection.

—Author and publisher, Radclyffe

Fay Jacobs’ sharp wit turns frustrating everyday events into laugh-out-loud medicine worthy of award-winning stand-up comedy. My sides hurt long after reading, but I still beg for more. Keep writing!

—Author Carsen Taite

Pure Borscht Belt gold—a funny, wisely observed & politically astute read.

—Out in Print

Fay Jacobs’ Rehoboth Beach Diaries

As I Lay Frying

Fried & True

For Frying Out Loud

Time Fries

Fried & Convicted

Dedication

To my wife Bonnie, and the preservation of democracy

FOREWORD

I was there, a quarter century ago, on a chilly evening in the Rehoboth Art League—when we started brainstorming titles for Fay Jacobs’s first book. She wanted it to be memorable, of course, If it suggested the journey of a couple of lesbians from the suburbs discovering the joys of a small, gay-friendly beach town, that would be great. But mostly, she wanted something funny. I suggested that puns are funnier when you take something deadly serious and—by changing one word—create something ridiculous. I can’t remember which one of us came up with As I Lay Frying, but as soon as we heard it, we all knew it was the one.

And from there, the hits just kept coming: For Frying Out Loud, Fried & True, Time Fries, and Fried & Convicted—each packed with Fay’s signature blend of wry observations and laugh-out-loud turns of phrase. The volume you hold in your hand represents the final book of the series (although I still hold out hope for a travel memoir called Fry Away with Me). And after reading it, what strikes me is the same thing I’ve always felt about Fay’s work—but even more so, this time: how each essay functions as a momentary delight, and how taken together (either as a book, or a series of six books) you begin to feel the weight of history. A rainbow-hued queer history, to be sure, but weighty all the same. It’s like the old riddle: How much does a ton of feathers weigh?

This volume kicks off in 2017, just after the inauguration of one Donald J. Trump. Fay says it was a terrible time to be a humorist, but what I believe is that at no time in my life did I need to laugh as much as I did during the reign of the Mango Mussolini—and Fay delivered on that score. Most of the essays here aren’t overtly political. There are other stories, like the one about the time she mailed her saliva to a lab to find out if she was made of anything else but Eastern European bagel bakers. There’s a tale about the time she traveled (I remember travel) to Paris for the Gay Games, and another about climbing Mount Blanc in inappropriate footwear. And there are tales of quarantining at home, learning how to FaceTime in lieu of dinner and cocktails with friends, and contracting a rare respiratory disease—which ought not to be funny, but when the disease is called Boop, well . . . I won’t spoil it, but honestly: only Fay would get a life-threatening illness with built-in jokes.

But that’s Fay. She is the personification of it’s funny because it’s true, and she’s been making us laugh (and ponder, then laugh again) for more than 25 years.

Onward!

Eric C. Peterson

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

PROLOGUE

It’s finally here. My sixth and final book in the Frying Series.

In the twenty-four years my wife Bonnie and I have lived at the beach, we’ve shared our homes with a succession of schnauzers, and been domestic partnered, civil unioned and married, twice, through a variety of paperwork and ceremonies. We’ve been together over forty years, but Bonnie says it’s only twenty because she only listens to me half the time.

I love my wife, my life in Rehoboth, and the privilege of writing about any topic that catches my fancy. I continue to have a blast as a columnist, despite having reached and well-surpassed retirement age.

As of 2015, I’ve become a performer as well, a sit-down comic touring with my one-woman show Aging Gracelessly: 50 Shades of Fay. Who knew I could break into show business at an age when I’d be more likely to break a hip?

And one single principle has guided me along this sometimes bumpy but always interesting road.

My father always said, Nothing is ever so horrible if you wind up with a good story to tell. And have I got stories. Some are fun, some are distressing, and a lot of them are absolutely infuriating. But they’ve all been fodder for the storyteller in me.

And frankly, this legacy about taking lemons and turning them into typewritten lemonade was best advice my father ever gave me —especially since the rest from that era tended toward It wouldn’t kill you to wear a dress to your sister’s wedding and You’ll never find a husband if you buy a house with another girl—although he was right on both counts.

And following my dad’s advice, I try to find something worthwhile to take from just about every stupid, annoying, or awful thing that happens.

So here comes my sixth collection of essays, these having been published in the magazines Letters from CAMP Rehoboth and Delaware Beach Life. I love the topic of passing along our culture—and I am happy to share my take on it with you.

So here come the stories. And the opinions. It’s been a rough road since my last book which brought us to the end of 2016. Duck and cover, my friends. I’m letting the ink fly.

JANUARY 20, 2017

Women (and Men) Take to the Streets

This is what democracy looks like!

It sure was. By now you’ve probably read more than enough about the Women’s March on Washington. Yes, it was a visceral and urgent reaction to the election of Donald J. Trump. Yes, it was a magnificent outpouring of bodies and emotions. Here’s what you might not know.

First, this was a solidarity march. There was spiritual solidarity on our CAMP bus, with everyone excited and motivated. There was literal solidarity on the DC Metro train, with every inch filled by squashed humans. I may have had an affair with a woman I did not know.

I have been marching since I was twenty in 1968 (Anti-Vietnam War). Then the ERA March in ’78, the Pro-Choice March in 1986, LGBT March in ’87, ’93 and 2000.

This was different. Never, absolutely NEVER have there been so many people on Metro or in the streets, no matter what the official bean counters say. This was the biggest, most crowded protest EVER. So many pink pussy hats!

You couldn’t march; you could barely shuffle. You could not cut across the marchers without internal injuries, you could not see the trees for the forest of people; it was a moving mass of clothing, applauding hands, raised fists, and waving signs. A great glob of progressives, oozing forward.

It was so overwhelming it made this old protester cry. And I outed myself as ancient when I told a man, with a child on his shoulders, about the time I sat on my father’s shoulders as President Truman rode by in 1952. I was four. Relax. Don’t do the math. The answer is 68. When the man looked confused, my co-marcher said, Truman was president a very, very long time ago. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

We came upon a jumbo TV screen where, if we leaned left (always left!) we could almost see the screen, although there was a streetlight in the middle of our sight line. But I could hear Gloria Steinem (even older than me!) and Ashley Judd (brilliant and on fire!), and all the others.

It was so packed nobody was cold, nobody could move, and there wasn’t even room to fall down.

So we listened, then inched forward in a slog-like mass, laughing, clutching our co-walkers to keep together. Only my pal’s rainbow hat saved us several times from separation.

My favorites: a twenty-year-old guy with a sweatshirt embroidered with I’m marching for my grandchildren, and the sign with a Trump photo, saying You’re so vain you probably think this march is about you.

Hundreds of people on a trestle bridge above us chanted, This is what democracy looks like, and we answered with the same chant as we flowed below.

We’d been told to head back to New Carrollton Metro at three, so our bus could leave for Rehoboth at four. With the still growing crowd I was sure we’d need way more than an hour, so I lobbied to leave at two.

Now, anyone who knows me understands that I am NEVER, ever late. It generally annoys people. If I’m even on time, somebody is already getting ready to call the hospitals.

So I badgered my team, We should head back now, I mean right now. They sort of agreed, as they saw the insane look in my eyes.

We headed toward the Smithsonian Metro, pushing our way upstream, through the mass of marchers surging our way. After a half hour of fighting the throngs we finally got to the Smithsonian Station, and it was closed due to overcrowding.

So, we turned and battered our way toward the L’Enfant Plaza Metro. On our way we spied another jumbo TV screen. Omigod! Madonna had shown up! Omigod!

We started jumping up and down to her music like twelve-year-olds at a Jonas Brothers concert. This was the biggest moshiest mosh pit ever.

Continuing to ram against the tide, we finally got to the end of a barely moving line and spent the next forty-five minutes inching toward the metro. We got to the train platform, with less than ten minutes to make it back to our bus on time. Holy crap, I was positively going to be late. I hyperventilated.

Does this go to New Carrollton? we screamed, and the consensus was Yes! as we were literally sucked onto the train by the moving herd.

Again, the train was so packed I wound up with my head under some gentleman’s armpit as he hung on to the bar above and my back lodged against a polite, pierced, and tattooed Millennial who kept me upright. We had paid rapt attention when our bus leader told us New Carrollton was the final train stop so not to worry.

By the time I saw a station named Benning Road I screamed. Oh crap, we’re on the wrong train!!! And we’re going to be even LATER!!!

Turns out, we were supposed to change to the Orange Line a few stops back. So, we fought our way off the train at the next stop, ran to the other side of the track, got on going the other way, got off and transferred to get to New Carrollton.

I was having a full-blown meltdown by that time, knowing how late we were and not enjoying my outward-bound aversion therapy tour. All those people on the bus would be waiting for our quartet. I was mortified!

We made it back, a total of one hour late. The gang on the bus applauded our arrival and did not throw things. I did a mea culpa down the aisle to my seat and for anybody that missed it, I am sooo, sooo sorry for being LATE!

So that’s my tale. I survived being tardy. I was energized by the march as I had never been before. And I look at things this way: If I can take five minutes a day, every day, to enter the DIY Network Dream Home contest, I can spend five minutes every day calling legislators and working to protect all of our civil rights.

I still cannot believe I had to march again for this same s*it, different year. But I’ll be back if I have to. We WILL survive!

FEBRUARY 2017

It’s a Windfall Inheritance!

Well, it looks like I’m going to be wealthy. Good thing, because with our new leader in the White House I might want to leave the country. Now I’ll be able to run away to a private island, buy a big yacht, and age in place in decadent luxury.

I mean why not. Especially since my good friend Barr Rotimi, Esq, (that’s how he addressed me, Dear Good Friend) just wrote and offered to transfer $11.3 million left to me by his client, a nationality of my country (that’s verbatim), if I only private message him with my bank routing and account number.

But really, I have a conundrum, because I also got an email from Barrister Richard Alapke, Esq., Attorney at Law. I guess they added the two legal suffixes because they thought I wouldn’t know the definition of barrister. Fooled them.

In fact, I’m so smart, I’m not going to pass up this opportunity. I mean it must have taken some incredible effort for them to find me in little Delaware, all the way from their home office in Coutou, Benin Republic in Africa.

And they’re so nice. They apologized for intruding on my privacy with their note, even as they were mourning the death of their largest client, a former director of an African Oil and Gas Company who died tragically in a car accident along with his wife and two children. That’s horrible!

It’s amazing they took time from the funeral arrangements to let me know I’m their sole beneficiary of $11.5 million, because, get this, I have the same surname! Yes, a catastrophe for my dear Jacobs relatives is a bonanza for me and the barrister who will split the bequest. That’s some legal fee.

But here’s my ethical dilemma. Should I tell the barrister that Jacobs isn’t really my surname at all, but that of a long-ago ex-spouse? What’s an heir do?

I was pondering these ethical considerations when I got an email from Dr. Ahmed Kabore, who suspects that this note might meet you with utmost surprise. Well darn right. That’s because he says he got my contact from searching for a foreign partner from the professional data base found in the internet Yahoo tourist search.

Tourist Search? Is that like Star Search? Seriously? I didn’t know I was a professional tourist. Florida Snowbird, yes, but a certified tourist? Though at times I have been called certifiable.

I was, however, comforted by the news that the transaction Dr. Kabore offered up from the Audits and Account manager at the African Development Bank (A.D.B.) in a sum of Ten Million, Five Hundred Thousand American dollars comes to me risk-free and it will never harm your good reputation in your society because no one can trace the Account. Not a real plus, as my good ship Reputation sailed long ago."

But not to minimize this bequest. After all, Dr. K’s client Rudi Harmanto died, along with his entire family, in the Indonesian Tsunami in 2004 and since then the money has been sitting in a suspense account.

I can see that. It’s very suspenseful to figure out how to dispose of the money that for thirteen years has been burning a hole in Africa’s pocket.

Hold everything! My good fortune is escalating! I just received a private message on Facebook from Mr. Ly Tay Seng, a personal Accountant/Executive with Foreign Trade Bank of Cambodia (FTB). He told me that it’s with good spirit of heart he has notified me that a deceased American client that shares almost the same name as yours died as a result of heart-related condition on March 2005.

And here’s a shocking coincidence: His heart condition was due to the death of the members of his family in the tsunami disaster on the 26 December 2004 in Sumatra, Indonesia, where they all lost all their lives. Might they have lost part of their lives?

Now this is complicated. Poor Mr. Fay or Dr. Jacobs, or Jacobi or Jacobson or whatever is almost the same as my stage name, was quite an accomplished guy. He was a CEO/ textile company owner, businessman, a miner at Kruger mining company in Cambodia, a geologist and consultant to several other mining conglomerate in Cambodia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam and all in Asia. Yes, even I know those places are in Asia.

The biggest news is that The amount in this account is currently Nineteen Million Three Hundred and Forty Thousand United States Dollars. I want to present you as a beneficiary. I will use my position and influence in our bank to make they release this money to you for us to share. If i wait for days and i do not hear from you, I shall look for another person.

Good grief. How many days? And is this the best offer? And is there a list of Jacobs’s online somewhere? Maybe I could track down my ex and let him know about this bequest so he can finally pay me for those bounced checks from 1976.

Or should I get back to Dr. Ahmed Kabore? It’s less money but I’d like to help the good doctor (who by the way is also a lawyer and candlestick-maker) by accepting 40 percent of the money, sending him 50 percent with the final 10 percent being shared to respectable organizations such as charity and the destitute homes around us in the world.

Wow, I’ve seen a lot of destitute homes. Mine included. Which reminds me. I haven’t made my online entry today in the DIY Network’s Dream Home Drawing. I know the odds are very slim that I’ll win it, but if I get back to Mr. Ly Tay Seng in time, it will all be a moot point.

I’ll be filing my stories from some glorious island in the South Pacific. And sitting on a gold toilet like Mr. Trump. Or is the South Pacific a tsunami zone?

JANUARY 2017

Hoofstock, or Gone Wild in the Green Swamp

As Meryl Streep said in her epic film Out of Africa, I had a ranch in Aff-rica, But who’d think we’d find an African ranch in Florida? No less one where I could ride a camel and feed a giraffe?

This forty-seven-acre working farm and wildlife preserve near Tampa was deep in an area called The Green Swamp. Well, the name gave me the yips, but you know how I love an adventure.

So, we drove to the swamp, crossing Withlacoochie Creek, wondering what the creek would have looked like without lachoochie. And were there other kinds of choochies in the water? Did I hear banjo music from a front porch straight out of Hoarder TV?

Watch where you’re driving! I yelled, as tree moss hung so far over the road, we could be driving through a car wash.

It turned out that the Giraffe Ranch sign was so unobtrusive we drove right past it and had to turn around at George & Gladys’s BBQ stand. They advertised Alligator Bites. Lunch or warning? We’ll never know.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Oh, how I’ve longed to use that phrase literally!) we joined a small group of visitors listening to naturalists talk about the farm, wetlands, roosting sandhill cranes, and endangered species breeding programs.

The ranch owners had been zoo CEOs, studied endangered species breeding, and been on more than thirty African safaris. They invited us onto a twenty-passenger touring jeep where we roamed the range for close encounters with ostrich, zebra, warthogs (ugly but sweet), two pygmy hippopotamus (hippopotamuses? Hippopotami?) and a prehistoric-looking rhino.

Pointing out their house, it was clear they actually had a home on the range where the deer and the antelope play. To be specific, bongo antelope. This species called an even-toed