Saturday, January 30, 2010
Are you fucking kidding me?
For your next party might I suggest the "Titanic Adventure Slide"?
The website claims this slide: "...captures all the excitement of the famed ocean liner on its maiden voyage"
I don't know about you, but nothing says "excitement" to me like re-enacting one of history's biggest disasters. I'm personally hoping to find a "World Trade Center Collapsing Bounce House" for my kid's next birthday party. Or perhaps some happy little "Rent-a-Holocaust" or maybe some performers from the John Wayne Gacy Clown Agency.
Labels: adventures in shitty parenting
Monday, January 25, 2010
In defense of bullies.
(okay, I don't necessarily mean the literal bullies who trade in the currency of wedgies and stolen lunch money, but who can pass up an opportunity for a Nelson "Ha ha"?)
Since about the mid 90s or so, in an effort to not offend the delicate sensibilities of anyone, we've become this kitten-soft society that tiptoes around on eggshells. We tell people that their quirks and eccentricities are neither quirks nor eccentricities, but what makes them special and unique.
On the one hand, it's true - your dysfunctions are what make you different from everyone else, they are what set you apart and what make you who you are, but that's a check you need to cash on your own.
You need to go through school and get picked on for being the fat kid or the smelly kid or the kid with thick glasses or the kid who wears thrift store clothes or the kid whose parents cut his hair or the kid who runs around singing Madonna songs or the kid who's allergic to grass.
You need to get your ass kicked, you need to get your heart broken and you need to be mercilessly mocked for making stupid decisions - that's how your jagged edges get worn down and you turn into a moderately worthwhile human being. That's how you get a personality, how you acquire character, how you learn not to make stupid-ass mistakes.
But as we become a more "accepting" society, teaching children that there are no losers, teaching children that everyone gets a trophy, teaching children that their dysfunctions are totally cool, encouraging everyone to fly that freak flag as high as they can, we're really doing them a disservice.
In "real life", there are winners and losers, that's why you practice and try to get good at something, that's how you earn a sense of pride, by lording your dominance over people who aren't as good.
In "real life" sometimes you win and it's great, but sometimes you lose and, guess what, life doesn't scoop you up in a warm hug and hand you a consolation prize and some hot cocoa.
Anyone who's watched more than two minutes of American Idol auditions knows exactly what I'm talking about - that parade of delusional freaks who have been coddled their entire lives, wrapped in a safety cocoon of "it's okay, have another cupcake" are suddenly thrust in front of television cameras and subjected to a very public humiliation that they could have otherwise been spared had ANYONE in their life cared enough to say "oh, honey, no" just once or twice. Yes, it will hurt for a minute when your mom tells you that "maybe singing isn't your forte", but I would take that over having the general public being able to watch my indignity over and over and over on YouTube.
The cold, hard, truth of the universe is that not everyone gets to be the prom queen and not everyone grows up to see every single dream fulfilled - some people don't even go to the prom and some people end up cleaning toilets for a living.
As a parent, I want my kid to lose once in a while, I want him to be humbled and find out that sometimes... life sucks. Not because I'm a sadist, but because without being exposed to the suck, you don't get to fully appreciate the non-suck.
So you know what? You're kind of a freak, okay? Maybe you should try to rein it in a little, for the rest of us.
You're Welcome.
Labels: adventures in shitty parenting
PMS?
No, these jeans have always fit like this.And "Bridget Jones Diary" always makes me cry.
And I'm often irrationally irritated by absolutely everything done by absolutely anyone.
And I always have a new mood every 32.4 seconds.
And chips and onion dip followed by a pile of candy is a perfectly valid lunch.
Why do you ask? Are you calling me fat?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Oh Mah Gawd, Y'all
I'm so excited!I'm the #3 Google result for homemade wonton lesbian porn!*
Big ups to the person in Hawaii who ended up here by searching for that and brought it to my attention.
*just so we're clear, I'm familiar with homemade wontons and (slightly less) familiar with lesbian porn**, but never the two together. Interesting combo.
** I mean, I have the internet, I know what it is, I'm just saying it's not my first viewing choice. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Reason #97 billion why you should always carry your camera
Because sometimes the person who does the merchandising at the registers at the $0.99 store has a sense of humor.
(from left to right, in case you can't see it in all its glory - hand sanitizer, lip balm, pregnancy tests, condoms, eye drops and antacid. Also known as "Look Out Weekend, 'Cause, Here We Come")
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Making up for lost crappy-parenting time
Two shining examples:1) The Kid and I went to Pismo Beach during
"Dude," I said to The Kid. "I will totally give you five bucks if you ask her if you can touch her ass."
2) The Kid and I were driving around town sometime during
"What talk?"
"The talk talk. About the birds and the bees? The one that they give you in fifth grade. You're in fifth grade."
"Birds... and... bees?"
I groaned. "The sex talk. Have they given you the sex talk yet?"
The look on his face was one of pure horror. "Oh, God, no!"
"I know, but you need to have the talk."
"No, Mom, they do that in sixth grade. At the end of sixth grade. The very end. Like, the last two weeks or something."
"Dude, I don't want to give the talk any more than you want to get the talk, but trust me, it's going to be less mortifying coming from me than coming from your father."
"Mom... just... no."
"Okay, well, the lines of communication are open, okay? You know, if you have any questions or whatever."
"Gross."
Later in the afternoon, I squeee to The Kid about how a same-sex couple we know who just had a baby.
He stops in his tracks and looks supremely confused. "But... how did they... I mean, how...?"
"Hey, I tried to give you the talk earlier, but you turned it down. You missed your chance."
Labels: adventures in shitty parenting
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
So I had an interview today for a J-O-B. It's just for a position as an office-type-person at the local Humane Society and even if I don't get it, I'll consider the interview a success because I got to play with the cutest litter of beagle-bulldog puppies.Still, for my first interview in... over a year, I think it went okay. Plus, it's always fun to dress up in binding grown-up clothes and worry about getting wrinkles... oh, wait, that part sucks.
The interview process brings me to the last interview I went on and OMG HOW THE HELL DID I NEVER BLOG ABOUT THIS??????
Anyway - back in Texas, I was perusing the local Craigslist (in the employment section, thankyouverymuch, perverts) and found an ad for some guy looking for someone to help him cook and clean and run errands.
Shit, I thought. I do that at home for free!
So I email the guy and he emails me back the next day and says he wants to set up an interview. I call him to set up the interview and find out that he's a cop and he's recently divorced and not handling it so well because he counted on his wife to do all the household stuff for him. He just wants some help getting back on his feet. I'm always a sucker for a sad story, so I agree to meet him at some Mexican restaurant that afternoon.
We meet and I get this immediate vibe that he's kind of squirrelly, not that he had a bushy tail or that he looked super cute standing on his back legs eating a cracker, but that he was sort of... anxious.
Whatever, I thought. Maybe he's just uncomfortable around people.
So we grab a table, get some iced teas and he spills this whole sad story about his divorce and how he had to move out of his house and how he really can't function without someone to cook for him, clean for him, do his laundry, drop off the prescriptions for his OCD medication, and put up curtains in the condo he's renting.
I start to think he's kind of got that pathetic underdog thing going that brings out the mother hen in me. I can just imagine that this guy (who is about my age) has been married to his high school sweetheart for as long as he can remember and just doesn't know how to cope without her. So I ask how long he was married.
"We were together for almost two years and married for a little over a year."
D00d, you're in your mid-thirties, were you in assisted living prior to being married?
The more we talk, the more it seems like he's trying to hire a girlfriend, not an assistant. He talks about me cooking him dinner and us watching tv together. I start to get this feeling that this story is going to end with "and she was never seen again".
I shrug off the feeling, thinking I've just had too much caffeine, or that I'm just nervous at being on my first interview in forever.
The interview ends with the dude telling me he's meeting another woman later that evening, but unless she tells him that she likes to clean the house "topless in four inch heels", I've pretty much got the job.
Wow, no red flags there, right?
Predictably, he texts me that night and asks me if I want the job.
By now, that icky feeling in the pit of my stomach is pretty much overwhelming. It's one of those gut feelings that, if I ignore it, is guaranteed to come back and bite me in the ass. Or be quoted in one of those real-life CSI style shows after they find my skin stretched out on his living room wall.
So I tell him that I don't think I'm going to be able to take the job. He replies that it's cool and says that he still wants to hang out and be friends because "we have so much in common". LIKE WHAT? Other than the yin-yang of you being a serial killer and me being a living breathing person.
I know I need to tread lightly because he's a cop and has already Google-mapped my house and he seems a bit unhinged.
Then the next day, the husband mentions that when he was leaving for work at 6AM (or some other ungodly hour), there was a big tan truck parked outside of our house that peeled away when he pulled his car out.
Three guesses what kind of vehicle the prospective employer drove.
So I did what any reasonable person would do - emailed him that the husband got transferred and that we were moving out of state (fortunately - on about thirty seven levels - the next month the husband got the job offer that brought us here).
But, seriously, how the hell did I not blog that before? Oh, right, because the guy was/is a cop and had already googled me and I didn't want him finding the blog where I make light of him being a homicidal maniac.