How NOT Drinking Alcohol Can Kill a Mofo

Much to Patsy's dismay, I recently fell off the wagon.  Well, it wasn't really to her dismay in that I never actually TOLD her I started boozing it up again.  But, if she DID know, that heifer would be dismayed for sure.  Know what I say to that?  Fuck it.  Fuck Patsy and her skinny ass self.  I did my research, bitch!  A single shot of straight vodka only contains 100 calories... and ZERO sugars.  That's right.  NO SUGAR.  And, according to Lance Armstrong's peeps, wine has even fewer calories.  At first I was like, "should I trust Lance's peeps?  Lance is a crack whore... maybe I should do some fact checking"... so I dug a little deeper and found some amazing news from the Calorie King. Only 96 calories in 80 proof vodka!  If the fucking king of calories says it, it must be so!

Also, 96 upside down is 69.  My lucky number! And... I made it six weeks without consuming alcohol. That's gotta be some kind of world record or something.  Where's my fucking prize?

During this time, I learned a very important fact: Being sober for long periods of time will give you homicidal tendencies.  No joke, people.  Why do you think sober people are so fucking loony?  It's because they are fighting hard, every second of their lives, not to kill a mother fucker.  When you consume adult beverages (in moderation, of course), you enjoy that "I don't really give a fuck" attitude.  Which is nice when you're like me, genetically prone to craziness.

My excessive sobriety almost made me kill:

1. my neighbors for being inconsiderate assholes every fucking day
2. a waiter for accidentally looking like that creepy red-headed guy on CSI Miami
3. my daughter's friend for suggesting that I was too fat for my jacket because it wasn't zipped up
4. my sister for suggesting that I am fat by asking me to go to the gym with her
5. my dog for taking a gazillion hours to find the perfect spot to take a shit
6. my nail lady for suggesting that my entire face needed waxing
7. the ice cream truck man for charging $2.25 for a fucking popsicle
8. the snow plow driver who splashed me with slush when I was scraping ice off my windshield in a fucking blizzard

...and that's just to name a few.  So the fact that I'm officially off the bandwagon pretty much means that I bought a one-way ticket to heaven.  I'm like Mother Teresa - except way hotter.

Parenting: I think I'm doing it wrong. Again.

I don't know how the hell it happens...

...but every time I punish my kids "for their own good", I end up punishing my damn self, too!  When the little spawn gets in trouble, she is punished by not being allowed play dates, not being able to watch TV, and not being able to play with her toys or "do artwork".  That only leaves books.  And when the books get old, that heifer is all up in my shit....talking my ears off and driving me up the wall.  There isn't enough medication and booze in the world to get me through those days without going insane.  If I duct tape her mouth shut and tie her to a chair, it's considered child abuse.  What about parent abuse?!  Where are the laws for that shit?!

And, don't even get me started on the teenage punishment.  Along with telephone/internet curfews and no extra-curricular outings with friends, the oldest spawn has currently been punished by actually having to read.  That's right.  Books = Punishment.  The problem is: I have to read the damn books, too, because how else will I know what the fuck she's reading in order to quiz her on it?

Spawn:  Can I pick the book this time?

Me:  It has to be a chapter book and it cannot contain illustrations.

Spawn:  So, Calvin and Hobbes is out?

Me: .....

Spawn: Mooooom!  You know I haaaaaate to read!  Why do you torture me?!

Me:  How are we even related?  I'm ashamed to call you my daughter right now.  There are 693 books in this house, how many have you even attempted to read?

Spawn:  I read the first part of Twilight, remember?

Me: One chapter of the first book hardly counts.

Spawn: I saw all the movies... it's the same thing.  Besides, I read books at school all the time.  Smart books by famous, dead authors.

Me:  Name one.

Spawn: ......

Me: Exactly.

So, here's what she picked:

Who the fuck is being punished here?!

They don't make Clif's Notes for the Pretty Little Liars books, y'all (believe me, I've looked).  My eyes are bleeding just thinking about all the teen angst and drama that I'm about to endure with this round of punishment.  Kill me now.  Put the barrel of your gun right in my face and blow my head away to smithereens. Twice.  Just to be sure I'm good and dead.

I'd swear she was switched at birth if it weren't for the fact that she was the only white baby born at the county hospital the week of September 7, 1996. There was one Vietnamese baby and the rest were black.  I bet all those kids read!

To make matters worse, she has to bring her Geometry book home twice a week for studying.  GEOMETRY.  I don't know shit about Geometry except for pie-r-square.  Oh, wait... I can probably decipher all the basic shapes unless they have more than 5 sides.  And, even then, it's a crap shoot, what with all the parallellagrams and other similar bullshit that is absolutely useless in real life.

High school math makes me feel like a goddamned idiot.  Those teachers need to step it up and earn their keep so I don't have to do this shit at home!  I specifically chose NOT to be a school teacher because:

1. I hate kids
2. I hate math
3. I hate people in general
4. I refuse to wear panty hose; and
5. Cafeteria food sucks.

My point here is that parenting is a bitch.  When you do it "right", you suffer like a mofo.  When you do it "wrong", you end up in a prison for the criminally insane.  Either way, you're screwed.  Both literally and figuratively.  Neither of which would be considered a pleasant experience in my book.

What's the proper protocol for telling your neighbors they're a buncha assholes?

Until now, I had never lived in an apartment complex.  I take that back.  When Hubber and I first got hitched, we leased a swanky condo in the Medical Center.  But that place doesn't count because it was badass and the neighbors weren't assholes. Our neighbors were doctors and scientists and geniuses who went to bed at reasonable hours and minded their own fucking business on a regular basis.

Those were the days.

Back then, we were cool in our multi-family residential community.  Now, we're just a tired married couple with kids that drive us batshit crazy living in a shoebox apartment in the suburbs under the assholiest neighbors in the universe.  Not all our neighbors are assholes.  Most of these peeps are nice and quiet.  But the mofos directly above us need to be hung by their balls from the rafters.

Seeing how I'm not all that experienced at sharing my ceiling and walls with others, I'm not privy to the proper protocol for telling the three guys living above me that I'd like them to all die horrible, bloody deaths.  Do I just knock on the door and when they open up, simply punch them in the face with the pointy end of Hubber's ninja sword?  Last night I dreamed that a tornado struck all Wizard of Oz style and took out their apartment.  I looked out of my window and saw all of those assholes swirling around in the tornado on their way to back to Kansas (the land of Kansasholes, a place they are obviously from).

Wanna know why I hate them so much?  Let me lay it out for you:

1. Their fucking dog is an asshole. He whines/cries/barks non-stop when they aren't home (if Bobo the Sasquatch hunter lived here, he'd swear the dog was a squatch in disguise). These episodes usual occur during the day at my most optimal writing times. Which, NATURALLY, makes me want to kill a mother fucker.

2. They skateboard in the house above our living room and down the stairs right outside my bedroom.  Why they haven't fallen down the stairs proves that the universe is against me and I must take matters into my own hands.  An invisible wire strewn across the top flight of stairs might do the trick.

3. They sit on their patio and smoke and toss cigarettes down onto my car.  This tells me they might enjoy being blown to smithereens by an anonymous package of dynamite delivered to their door.

4. They think they're UFC fighters.  They wrestle around all night... banging into walls, slamming doors, screaming and pounding the floor. ALL. NIGHT. Or maybe they're a gay trio and they're just into kinky shit.  Either way, I'd like them to keel over and die.

5. One of those mofos is so heavy-footed our dishes rattle any time he moves.  This is the same mofo that has to get up to pee every night at 2:30 am.  You can set your clock to him. I don't want to set my fucking clock to him.  I want to sleep!

6. They don't scoop their dog's poop. You might think I'm hating on their dog, too... but I'm not.  It's not that crybaby dog's fault that his owners are inconsiderate assholes.

7. Sometimes they smoke the most potent weed in all of creation; leaving our apartment smelling like dead skunk for days.  Try explaining that shit to a 6-year-old.

So, those are my grievances, in no particular order.  All our other neighbors are fine.  I don't wish explosive diarrhea on any of them.  But the assholes upstairs have got to go!

I should get my mom to start a petition.

The One-Eyed African Tigers Can Kiss My Ass!

My mom has a lot of time on her hands... she has time for things like cleaning bird cages, pampering plants, collecting dead insects, clipping coupons and reading.  And by reading, I don't mean how-to books or novels or great American literature.  She's filling her brain up with all the injustices of the world.  She has become the know-it-all of every political/social/economic problem of every country in the world.  Let's not leave out animal rights.  She knows all about that shit, too.  The knowledge she has gained from her internet browsing is overflowing her brain's capacity and is literally oozing out of every orifice.  Ok, maybe not literally.  But, she is definitely burdened with finding ways to save the world from itself.  And, I think that shit is contagious because now the littlest spawn feels like she needs to start doing shit to make the world a better place.

Spawn:  Please go to [so-and-so] website immediately and send them $50.

Me: Huh?

Spawn: Don't you care about tigers?  Some only have one eye! They're becoming extinct in Africa!   We can't let that happen.  They only need $50. What is wrong with you?  Go online now!

Me: Where'd you hear about that?

Spawn: There was a commercial about it during Jessie.

Me:  Go read a book or something!  I ain't sending $50 nowhere!

Spawn:  Momo probably cares.  Momo cares about everything... animals... babies... and even the President.  You don't even care about the President!  I'm gonna tell Momo.

Me:  <going to website and ignoring that comment> Let me see here... Ah-Ha!  Looks like if you donate at least $50 they'll send you a stuffed animal.

Spawn: Well, that's what you get for saving a tiger. It's the tiger's way of saying "thank you, I'm alive"

So, naturally, I did what any good parent would do in this situation, I avoided an argument and instead pretended to send them money to get the kid off my damn back.  When I mentioned it to my mother later, she pointed at a tiny stuffed tiger sitting near a stack of mail.  It was the one from the damn commercial.

Me: Seriously?

Mom:  It was for a good cause.

Me:  You're getting kinda loony with this stuff, Momma.

Mom:  I'm just doing my part because I can.  There is so much injustice in the world.  Did you sign all those petitions I sent you over email?

Me: Uhm.  Yeah.

Mom:  You didn't, did you?  You need to.....

.....that was when I tuned out.  I saw her mouth moving and the passion in her expressions as she tried to convince me that I should be more of an activist.  But, I honestly didn't hear a word.  Crickets.  That's what I heard.

I ain't got time for that shit, Momma!  I'm too busy trying to keep my own damn self alive. Forget the one-eyed tigers in Africa! It's all I can do to make it through each day without dying or killing someone.  I ain't got time for petitions and letters to my congressmen and whatnot.  And those starving kids in China?  Sorry!  I got two starving kids at home to worry about!  Oil drilling in Alaska?  Huh?  I don't give a rat's ass!

The world is a fucked-up and unfair place.  I find bliss in ignorance.

Suck it up tiger! If a bear can wear a
patch over his missing eye, you can too!

On a side note: On my way out of my mom's house that day, I snagged that stuffed tiger up quick and shoved it into my purse.  The tiny spawn was thrilled to learn that she had indeed saved a tiger.  And, I saved my sanity along with $50. Win-win in my book. 

Shit Just Ain't Right Without My Muse

Hubber has been out of town for what seems like years and I can't seem to find the inspiration I need to write.  The realization that Hubber's new, long and tangled beard might somehow be my muse is a little unnerving.  For starters, I don't want the head on Hubber's shoulders to get any more inflated than it already is... also, I didn't think I was one of THOSE writers who needed inspiration from a real, live, breathing PERSON (or the fantastic beard attached to said person).  I thought I was inspired by aquatic turtles that hate water or trash cans full of stinky pull-ups and empty beer cans or Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.  Or, maybe even this guy:

Meet Hugh Jack-a-man, the newest member of the Hancock household.  In life, he was a fierce, strikingly handsome, big-balled jackalope whose mystical powers were second only to rainbows pooped from unicorn asses.  In death, his head hangs proudly on the wall above my desk where he can look down on me while I write and shower me with inspiration.  But, as much as I love him, Hugh hasn't done shit for my ju-ju yet.

So, now that Hubber and his long beard are gone and Hugh continues to stare dumbly into nothingness, and I can't booze it up every night like I'd like to, my writing has really suffered.

...Which leads me to a very important question.  Why don't bottles of vodka include nutrition information?  I need calorie counts and sugar content information, mother fuckers!  Fat girls on diets need booze, too!  I could be putting some of that shit in my diet 7-up if I knew it was low on sugars.  But NOOOOO!  It's like the entire alcohol industry is out to get me.  It's a conspiracy.  I bet Al Gore is behind this shit.

But, I digress.

Either Hubber needs to mail me some beard hairs or Hugh needs to quit being a little bitch and start
beaming with smart and witty inspiration.  Maybe I need to buy him a bow tie.  THAT might make his smarter. It works for Sheldon Cooper.

Vomit, Nudity and Tequila

Patsy:  How are you doing without the booze?

Me:  Do you think I'm an alcoholic?  Because I most certainly am not.  If anyone MIGHT be an alchy it's Hubber.  That mofo drinks beer every day!  I only have a swig or two of vodka a few times a week.

Hubber: Hey, now.  I only drink beer daily because you make me!

Patsy:  She MAKES you?

Hubber: Yeah. She's collecting beer bottle caps. She told me I needed to drink at least a six-pack a day in order for her to have enough bottle caps to finish some stupid table thing she's crafting.  She did calculations and mapped it all out!

Me: Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that. I'm not really going to make a crafted, mosaic bottle-capped table.  I just like him when he gets tipsy and dances around the house in him skibbies while the dog howls.  It's quite entertaining.  And, seeing how we're broke all the time, I have to get my entertainment any way I can!

Patsy: No alcohol.

Me/Hubber:  Yes ma'am.

Which reminds me of the very first time I had to swear off of the booze.  That time, though, Pasty wasn't there to force me. I did it on my own.

I was 17-years-old and had just broken up with my boyfriend.  And by "broken up with", I mean "dumped by".  Back then I got dumped a lot.  I'm sure they did it because they were intimidated by my intelligence and beauty.  They figured I'd be famous some day and I'd end up breaking their hearts when I ran away with Johnny Depp... so they beat me to the punch and dumped my ass early on.  Back in those days I was a real drama queen (boy, how times have changed).  Usually, REVENGE was my cure for the blues.  What better way to avenge my broken heart than by crashing a house party with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a hot dude (who drove a Camero) in the other?

Turned out, the joke was on me that night.  The last thing I remember clearly is seeing my ex with some big-boobied floozie and deciding I'd spend the rest of the night taking tequila shots and swapping spit with the Camero Boy. After that, the night is a complete blur.  At one point, my legs gave out on me and I fell on my knees and I blanked out.  When I came to, I was in a strange bed, wearing a Depeche Mode concert shirt that was too tight and Camero Boy was cleaning someone's vomit up off the floor.  I picked up the phone near the bed and called one of my girlfriends to tell her that someone at the party had stolen my shirt.  Then, I blanked out again.  I woke up the next morning in my own bed with bloody knees wearing nothing but my panties.

That was when I swore off tequila.  I was married with children the next time I ever drank nearly that much alcohol in one sitting....but I'll save that story for another time.  Suffice it to say that it also involved vomit and nudity.   And not in a good way (unless you're Hubber).

My point here (if there really is one) is the fact that I can't have booze right now isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I'm probably performing a public service.

But, y'all better watch out!  When I get to hit the bottle again, I'm gonna hog wild!

I wonder what ever became of Camero boy..

I don't wanna be an anorexic fat girl!

I've spent three days detoxing from all the crap that is [quite literally] sitting inside me.  Patsy (our dietitian, who you will grow to know and love as much as I do) broke it to us without any sugarcoating, "There are probably 20 pounds of undigested fecal matter just sitting inside you waiting to fulfill their true destiny: to be flushed down the dang toilet!"  And, yes, she used the word "dang" instead of "fucking".  Patsy is just proper that way.

Her graphic bluntness, however, makes me want to puke.

That shit won't leave my brain.  It follows me around all day making everything I eat resemble a steaming pile of shit.  Now I can finally understand why anorexics can go without eating. All they have to do is think of all the gross, undigested red meat rotting away in their stomachs.  It's enough for me to want to overdose on laxatives and spend a few days reading trashy fiction and playing SongPop on the toilet.

Instead, I'll just go with the flow and follow the advice of professionals.  I like to eat.  Crapping all day is a waste of time.  Besides, all the science behind this shit is way over my head. Like: how in the hell does what you drink come out of your pee-hole and what you eat come out of your poop-hole? how does sugar seep into your blood stream?  why does drinking a shit load of water make your blood pressure go down? why the fuck do you have to get up and pee 3 times a night even after you peed like a race horse right before bed time? why the fuck does pork have to contain so much sodium? what's wrong with sodium?!

I could read a Dr. Oz book or wrack my brain for hours wondering how it all happens. Or, I could just say "fuck it" and let the next six months go by in a self-induced ignorance coma while I hold Hubber's hand and let Patsy lead the way.

Note to self: ask Patsy not to ever use the term "fecal matter" around me again.