Welcome to the Alice’s Big Book of Mistakes page!

Here is where you’ll find illustrations I’ve done, inspired by mistakes told to me by my friends and readers. I will also be posting here about Alice’s Big Book of Mistakes, because after all, this is MY website. Also, it is such a long title that from now on I will refer to my book baby as ABBOM.

Here are early reader reviews from incredible graphic memoir and comic LEGENDS:

Pretty swell, huh? Of course now you want to order your copy (or three) of ABBOM, right? You can do so HERE.

More on all things ABBOM soon, but in the meantime scroll below and enjoy the faux pas, blunders, fuck ups of your fellow humans. Perhaps you’ll find comfort in seeing how you’re not the only one who makes mistakes.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #1

Starting my series with a summer-centric faus pas courtesy of my dearest Candy Adriance.

“Don’t assume that your casual friends will tell you if your one piece bathing suit is on inside-out at a beach party just because the foam cups and crotch are on the outside.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #2:

Here we’re entertained by the always eloquent and elegant Genia Blum, who relates an early dance-related mishap. Power to the purple!!!

“In the mid-1970s, my ex and I were invited to perform at a Swiss beauty pageant in the Lucerne Casino. It was very last-minute, but we needed the money and it was easy enough to choreograph a sexy pas de deux to a Donna Summer song. Since this was not tutu territory, we went for a costume option that involved dyeing some slinky bodysuits an intense shade of purple. On the day of the event, I placed two leotards and emptied a package of powdered dye into the washing machine, pushed the appropriate buttons, and left the building’s communal laundry room for our apartment. When I returned, a trickle of violet was already seeping into the entrance hall, and upon opening the door I saw the entire floor awash in purple, a river of it pouring from an opening on the side of the machine—instead of saturating its contents. The cylindrical filter, which I had forgotten to screw in, was jiggling merrily on the front loader’s top. My ex and I managed to clean up the monumental mess before any neighbors or the nitpicking super showed up, and no one would ever notice the sheer veil of color that forthwith tinged the concrete floor and the washer’s non-metal parts. After a good hand-rinse, I’d thrown the costumes into the dryer but had to remove them, still damp, as we were running late. At the casino’s “Le Chalet,” wedged between yodeling, flag-throwing and alpenhorn-playing, after the local belles had paraded onstage in their high-cut bathing suits, we performed our feverish disco dance clad in delicate, pale lilac. A sound mishap threw us off in the very beginning, almost ruining the spectacle, but that was entirely the disc jockey’s mistake.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #3:

I took a “load” of artistic license drawing this illustration of Dan Sander’s home improvement disaster:

“My wife and I bought a new house and decided to do all the moving ourselves, including our refrigerator.
There are only two stairs to get into our new house, so I rented one of those moving dollies, where you tilt the load back onto yourself and wheel a big heavy thing while walking backwards.
I made it up and over the first step with no problem. Then, I just could not get clear of the second step. I squatted down a bit, loaded my legs, and lifted as much as I could. The fridge didn’t move at all, but there was a little crack in my back and one over my head. I didn’t realize that the top of the fridge was lodged under the eave of our house. I was trying to pick up the fridge and also the rest of my new house.
Later I’d find out that I’d sustained a compression fracture in my L5 vertebrae, leading to my limping around our new house for the better part of a year. I still haven’t fixed the eave.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #4: Featuring Susan Bruce and her mischievous pup Willy, and in which I get to draw a dog, which is always a pleasure for me:

“Here’s a recent mistake. The moment I caught my dog peeing on the WALL and thereby the CARPET in the communal hallway of my mother’s Assisted Living facility. I thought OH NO OH FK OH SHT is anybody looking?!?? And as the carpet absorbed the pee I guiltily dragged my dog away from the scene of the crime!”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #5: From the lovely, even when fully clothed, Laura Delano :

“Circa 1980-81: After a long and hard day of ballet class and rehearsals, I went to my health club, New York Health & Racquet, (which went belly up during the Pandemic) to take a long shower and get some hot tub time to ease my aching muscles.
I take a shower in the women’s area and head for the Jacuzzi pool and pool area, which was co-ed. This being the 80’s, there were mirrors everywhere…for vanity’s sake and also to make this tiny club look bigger…
As I am about to step into the Jacuzzi pool I hear a woman say “Oh my God!”. I come out of my exhausted haze and see all the faces of those already in the Jacuzzi pool looking up at me with mouths open. I look across to the mirrored wall, see my reflection and realize I am stark naked!
I say, “Oops.”, turn around and make a less than dignified dash back to the Women’s section. I am so embarrassed, how can I go back out there? But I really want some Jacuzzi time. So I put on my bathing suit, steel myself, and walk back out, ready to laugh and joke about it with the other folks in the pool area.
No one looks at me, at ALL, they assiduously avoid eye contact with me, and everyone maintains silence…which is unusual for the chatty folks of this particular club.
But I get my Jacuzzi time and my muscles thank me.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #6: Hasn’t everyone said a truly dumb thing to a kid at some point? Your own kid or someone else’s? Well, here’s a doozy from a person who has the good sense to remain anonymous out of respect for her step-son:

“When I was new to step-mothering 30 years ago I told my 5-year-old step-son his mother was a Big Air Sandwich when he’d come back from visits with her that left him bereft. Way to fuck up your step-son for life!”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #7: Please enjoy this gem of a mistake made by a weirdo friend of mine, a master of the elegant and somewhat creepy faux pas:

“At an Elite Southern University, Fall 1986: During fraternity rush week, I decided it would help my chances at Delta Kappa Epsilon to sneak into the handsome DKE President’s bedroom and leave a signed thank-you note for the evening, tucked inside his underwear drawer. I did not receive a bid. Still a big believer in thank-you notes, though.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #8: Back in the day, an artist friend got herself in a rather ‘sticky’ situation:

“So this mistake happened ages ago in the days of using aerosol spray deodorant. I was an art student and we used aerosol spray fixative to prevent charcoal drawings from smudging – the deodorant can and and fixative spray can were the same size and sitting next to each other on my bureau (first mistake), and well I think you can probably figure out the rest.”

OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES #9: Alison Hart‘s novels are beautifully plotted, finely conceived works. So, to hear of her early attraction to daytime schlock, well… it cracks me up!

“When I was in college, I missed a flight because I was so engrossed in my copy of Soap Opera Digest that I didn’t hear the boarding announcement.

In my defense, I was one of only a couple passengers (and possibly the only passenger) on this flight—a hopper from Monterey to SFO—and I was sitting right in front of the counter. The announcement played out on the concourse, but was faint at the gate. I have no idea why she didn’t just blurt my name; I would’ve surely heard that.

I was flying standby on one of my mom’s employee passes, and it was weirdly cheaper to fly in those circumstances than to rent a car. I had gone down to Monterey to see my academic advisor, based at the school’s marine station, who I never saw again. (Is that why I chose him? Was it an act of self-sabotage upon my scientist self or preservation for the writer in me? Yes to all.) Anyway, the plane doors closed before I realized what had happened. She rolled me over to the next flight, and I got back home eventually.

The fact remains, if I hadn’t been reading that magazine, I would’ve caught the flight.”