May
03

Updates and A Response To A Comment

It’s been a while. I’m sorry about that. Sort of.

I’ve just been really busy which I’m sure many of you understand. I didn’t forget about you or this blog though, rest assured.

And honestly, I haven’t really had anything to write about. I know some people think that if you have a blog you should constantly update it blah blah etc. etc. I, on the other hand, would much rather post something that is significant or meaningful. Working on a posting schedule puts me at risk for blogging about how I got my leg caught in my trashcan, and that’s it. That’s the story. I don’t want to bore anyone any more than I typically do.

So what’s going on with me? Like I said, I’ve been busy. El Tortuga is wrapping up Kindergarten and has recently started sleeping in a box.

 

Looks really fucking peaceful if you ask me.

Jim hasn’t been wearing his Crocs lately, but I have high hopes for their return what with summer being around the corner.

I’m heading to San Francisco next week for a conference. If you live in the area and want to meet up, reconsider.

You may have noticed that the blog looks different. The reason for this is that I was bored. I have a new feature I’m going to start next week. I’ve developed this odd hobby of reading all the comments posted on online news stories. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed an uptick in my posts about them. They are easily the most amusing things in the world. Some of the dumbest, most depraved idiots saddle up to their computer and spew whatever the vitriolic fuckery they can think of in regard to a particular story. I’m going to start sharing them here because they make my day.

Speaking of comments, I never bring up the comments that people leave on my blog. Many personal blogs disable the comment feature for whatever reason, but I vowed to never do that because I want to hear what you have to say. I’ve gotten loads of shitty comments in the past, and they rarely offend or upset me. The way I see it, I have a right to start a blog and post whatever the hell I want on it. By enabling the comments section, I’m acknowledging that you have a right to form an opinion about what I’ve said AND I’m encouraging you to share said opinion. My stance on this is unwavering, HOWEVER, I was caught off guard by a comment posted last month on my infamous McDonald’s post. It read:

Sparky2000: 

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH forthelulz. YOU ARE HORRIBLE; MORE HORRIBLE THAN YOU CLAIM MCDONALD’S IS. IF YOU HAD A BACKBONE, YOU WOULD TELL YOUR CHILD WHO’S BOSS AND FEED HIM/HER BETTER. MCDONALD IS A TREAT, NOT A REQUIREMENT!!!

P.S. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU, MCDONALD’S!!!”

What in the great glittery fuck are you going on about? I am fascinated by you and would love to have a discussion with you. My first question is this: are you pro or anti McDonald’s. I mean, I saw the “love you” part, but the earlier message seemed to indicate that you were gearing up for a “McDonald’s is a biohazard” rant. Next question: did you actually read the fucking post?

First off, my son is not a hermaphrodite and I think I made it pretty fucking lucid that he is a boy. Son. Male. Not a female. There is no question about his gender. It has been confirmed. Dude’s a boy.

Secondly, I have a backbone. I probably have too much of a backbone. It’s absolutely fucking mysterious how I haven’t been arrested given the excessive amount of times I’ve unnecessarily started an argument with someone in public. My son asks me for shit all day every day. You know what I say 90% of the time? No. Part of that is because the things he wants to do are both time consuming and illegal. Regardless of my motivations, rest assured that I am in complete control of my household, but I appreciate the advice.

Last question: WHY ARE YOU YELLING? WHY ARE YOU SO UPSET THAT I DON’T LIKE MCDONALD’S? DO YOU WORK FOR MCDONALD’S? CAN I GET SOME COUPONS FOR HAPPY MEALS?

Anyway, Sparky2000, my e-mail is up yonder in the contact section. I’m completely serious: you fascinate me. I’d like to hear more about you. I’m not even mad at you, I just want to hear how you came to all these mind boggling conclusions.

Onward!

My friend Amanda sent me a picture from a website called Extreme Advertising. I nearly pissed my pants. Here are a few posts from said site. If you choose to visit, please be aware that they use strong language, although you’re probably okay with that if you’re on my fucking website. Enjoy and have a whatever weekend.

 

 

Nov
06

Jenna’s State of the Union

I will wear this with a mixture of pride and apprehension.

My fellow Americans: We are fucked.

It doesn’t matter who wins the election today, solely because the change we want to see in our country will never actualize. We elect these people (mostly men, but I’ll save that for another day) to sit in a room together and make decisions on our behalf. It reminds me of my experience at fast food restaurants, because one of two things always seem to happen:

We order something and it’s never given to us, or

We get our order, take it home, open it up and realize, “This isn’t what I ordered AT ALL.”

Here’s the thing – I don’t have the solution. In fact, I don’t think anyone does, to be honest. But we all seem to agree that this situation is fucked, and we need to stop merely acknowledging it and find a solution FAST.

Americans are filled with a sense of entitlement. Every. Last. One of us. This isn’t me trying to disparage my fellow citizens – this is a wakeup call. A call for us to take a step back, look in the mirror, and really get honest with ourselves. We have to change our attitude. You know that trite little quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world?” There’s a reason it sticks around.

It’s true.

If there is anyone reading this right now thinking, “I think our government works. I think things are fine,” then you live in a blissfully ignorant state of mind, and this doesn’t apply to you.

However, if you’re reading this and nodding your head, then stand up with me and let’s find a solution. I’m tired of merely acknowledging a problem. I want to fix this problem, and you should want that too.

Tonight we’ll all huddle around our televisions and either watch the past four years repeat themselves or watch someone reverse all the changes that have been made in those past four years.

Make a promise to yourself today that this will change. It starts with you. It doesn’t start with Obama or Mitt Romney or whoever the fuck bothered to run for the Libertarian party (Gary Busey?)

I’ll put it as eloquently as I can manage: Let’s fix this shit.

Starting RIGHT NOW.

Oct
22

The Scary Side of the Internet

Scary things happen in there.

I know it’s been a while, and I usually keep it light here, but I thought it was time to share my story of cyber-bullying in an attempt to bring light to a serious problem that I refuse to tolerate. I’ve always witnessed it from the sidelines and found it disgusting, but it didn’t affect me much – I mean, nobody was calling me names, so why get emotionally invested?

Things changed in August of this year. I met and subsequently started dating a wonderful guy who happens to be an actor with quite a bit of recognition in his country. He warned me from the get-go that many of his fans are female and could get aggressive. I laughed it off, but mentally prepared myself for the possibility that I’d gain some enemies simply for existing. I can’t say it hasn’t happened before.

What I was unprepared for, however, was how sneaky and cunning people can be. I befriended a woman who I mistakenly assumed to be a friend of my boyfriend’s. She seemed very nice, kind even. I really enjoyed talking to her, but then I got it – you know, the funny feeling in your stomach that things aren’t adding up. That’s when I started asking questions.

My first question was directed at my boyfriend, something to the effect of “how well do you actually know your friend?” Come to find out, that “friend” was a bit of a stretch. He thought she was a nice enough girl, but felt that, if anything, their relationship was of a professional nature as she just so happened to run fan accounts on Tumblr and Twitter that focused on his work. He had never met her and his only interactions with her had been on Twitter in the form of a few tweets here and there.

Around this time, the woman started dropping hints. They were very subtle at first…suggestions that perhaps she had romantic inclinations toward him…suggestions that maybe he felt the same way about her…but she felt like it hadn’t really taken off because he’s a shy, private person. He was afraid to give her his number because of this shyness and a fear that the number would somehow be hacked or leaked.

None of this matched up with the energetic, outgoing man I knew who had made a really bold move in order to gain my attention. I maintained a friendship with the woman regardless, because I didn’t think it was fair to completely cut off someone because you had a funny feeling about them.

I felt like I was fairly upfront about my relationship with my boyfriend. She asked a lot of questions about our status. I told her the truth. We liked each other very much, but we live in separate countries. She took this honesty as an opportunity to then ask my advice on how to get his attention. At first, I assumed she wanted a friendship with him. Surely you don’t ask a girl who is dating a guy who has also admitted to you that he’s interested in the girl in question advice on how to form a romantic relationship, right?

Wrong.

I’ve spent a lot of time going through those conversations in my mind. Had I not been clear? Beside that, it seems pretty shitty to me to talk to someone who had admitted to having a relationship with someone and then you yourself continually press on about how deep your feelings are about said man. I didn’t steal him from anyone. I didn’t even get to know the girl until AFTER he had started talking to me. I spent weeks and weeks in a state of confusion. Was this girl my friend? When I said that we were together, had I typoed and maybe said we were NOT together? Had my iPhone autocorrected “Yes, we’re in a relationship,” to “I was thinking he’s better off with you. Can I be a flower girl?”

Things really took a nosedive when one night I tweeted to a friend that I’d be going to London to see my boyfriend. Then the onslaught of texts. She seemed very confused. “Is he your boyfriend?” she asked accusingly. Yes, he was. I hadn’t hidden that from her, nor had he hidden his feelings about me from her. It was all so bizarre, like talking to someone with amnesia. That feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were not well at all. I was absolutely baffled and this woman was making me out like I had done something wrong. And then, just like that, she was back to her normal self. She was happy for us, all that fun stuff. It was then that I realized that there had only been one reason that she’d talked to me, and it was to get closer to him. I could see her struggle…she was trying to decide if it was better to hate me or better to keep in my confidence. It was a struggle that would continue until she finally exploded.

She built up to her explosion, quietly, methodically. It started by her making a fake account to tweet me about my boyfriend.

you are (name redacted)’s new gf? he’ll cheat on u just like he did with your look a like (ex-girlfriend’s name redacted) <link to ex-girlfriend’s website> …and others.

the press will be reporting about it all and you very soon. good luck. ta.

Those were some of the messages I woke up to one morning. They startled  me. They didn’t hurt my feelings or offend me, they just shocked me and, to be honest, scared me a bit. Why did anyone care that much? WHO would care that much?

I immediately texted a screen cap to my boyfriend who left rehearsal to call and check on me. Was I okay? Yeah, I suppose. He had warned me that this might happen. He was very apologetic, which was unnecessary. Thankfully he calmed me down and that gave me the opportunity to think. There was something extra odd about the tweets. Seriously, who cares that much to harass me?

And the thing about the press…what was that all about? I stewed on it for an hour or so, and then these red flags popped up. I had told very few people about my relationship, mostly just close friends. And her. The “friend.” I told her about my relationship, and I had also told her something I had only also admitted to my best friend.

I was absolutely terrified about my personal information or my son’s personal information getting into the press. It was way too invasive, and despite my persona on Twitter, I’m a pretty private person. I understood that there was a possibility that would happen some day, but I wasn’t prepared for it at that moment. The relationship was young. I just wanted to enjoy it.

On a hunch, I texted the screencap to her and said, “Do you know anything about this?” What I meant by the question was that she had been following my boyfriend for years. Had she heard about it happening to other girlfriends? What was her take on it?

Instead of replying with, “I’ve never heard about that happening,” or, “That’s horrible!” she responded as though I’d accused her of 9/11. Her behavior was really suspicious. She was very cagey. I decided once and for all I was going to figure out what was going on. I messaged two friends who are very good at tracking internet related things, and they both came back with information that pointed very heavily in her direction. Throughout the day she continued to ask me if I had gotten the information back from my friends, as I’d told her I was going to find out who it was. These weren’t casual inquiries. They seemed frenzied.  Slightly manic. Finally she flipped and went off on me about how she felt that I was accusing her of being this person and she had never been anything but nice to me. It depends on what your definition of friend is. She had never actually admitted to me that she ran fan accounts for my boyfriend. She had always maintained that they had some form of relationship, one which, confused, my boyfriend had denied.

She eventually apologized to me after I told her I wasn’t accusing her of anything. I never told her what the results were. She dropped the subject and wound up sending a number of manic direct messages to my boyfriend. Uncomfortable with her emotional badgering, he unfollowed her, effectively cutting off her ability to privately talk to him. She’d text me in a panic. Had he mistakenly unfollowed her? What was going on? Could I ask him? I avoided the topic, hoping it’d die off. It eventually did, but not for weeks. There was a period of quiet.

And then I went to London.

It took me a few days to realize what she was doing. She and I followed each other on Twitter, so I could see her tweets, but frankly I was just happy to be in London, so I didn’t pay much attention. Then one night, as we were on our way to his play, I took a moment to scan my feed, and there it was. A tweet that, after a moment, I realized was directed toward me. And there were others. So many more. Here’s a sampling:

“Watching someone live my dream they stole makes me want to vomit. Such bullshit. I can’t wait for the crash and burn.”

“Ladies, some advice, never tell another female about a guy you like. Unless you’ve got good health insurance for back and heart stab wounds.”

“Just because you constantly share and brag about your wonderful life and experiences doesn’t mean you still aren’t a huge cunt.”

And my personal favorite…

“Being a shitty person and a shitty parent go hand in hand. In your case you’re also an opportunist whore. Congrats on the accomplishment.”

I would like to remind you that this woman never met my boyfriend. She only knows him as a character on television. To say that I stole anything is a bit of a reach.

Regardless, baffled as to what to do, we chose to ignore it. It continued relentlessly with it eventually tapering off when I left London.

The weekend after I got back, on my dad’s 71st birthday, I got a series of tweets about how I should “go kill myself,” and about how I was “such a huge slut.” I can’t confirm that these were from her as the account was deleted before I could even access the tweets, but it seemed to match up.

A while back, when things had started getting hairy, she had created a fake account to tweet my boyfriend. It was very innocent stuff, but she was trying to get him to talk about her, and he and I decided to ignore it. Still though, I knew it something was up and had it traced. Sure enough, it was coming from the same place as the ones directed to me about the press had been. As it was all fairly silly, we forgot about it.

Flash forward to last Thursday. One of my friends had been passively monitoring the situation for me, and he messaged me to alert me to the fact that an account had tweeted to both my boyfriend and a charity he’s heavily involved with that “your gf is vile. terrible taste. She makes fun of mental illness & disabilities classy. & you’re an ambassador for (charity name redacted.)

Let me just step in here and make something very clear. I have never, nor would I ever make fun of someone with a mental illness or a disability. When I was 16 I was a lifeguard at a cub scout camp where I also taught swim lessons. As I guarded the smallest pool, very often my students would have disabilities. Down’s Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, you name it. Those kids were the most amazing, loving, brilliant children I’ve ever had the honor to meet. As for mental illness, I’ve suffered from depression on multiple occasions throughout my life. I use humor to get through those times. I would never make fun of or mock someone who feels alone, dark, miserable. I’ve been there. Nobody deserves that.

This was the final straw, to be cliché. There were more subtweets from her. A local reporter posted a video of me doing an interview about my mother who I walked a charity runway for in her memory. She clearly watched it and vehemently declared that I’m both a “shitty person” and “sound like a bimbo.” Shortly after posting about going to a concert to raise awareness for cancer she made a cryptic comment that “Fingers crossed your misfortune is genetic and passed on to the next generation. I’m starting a prayer group.”

Out of context, it makes no sense, but let me interpret this for you. What she’s saying is that she hopes my misfortune (my mother dying of cancer) is passed on to the next generation. That’ll be me. That’ll also be my son. She wants us all to die of cancer.

You know what else is like cancer? Hate. Hate is a powerful feeling, and it’ll eat away at you. I’ve hated people before. It didn’t make me any happier. In fact, I think it made me worse. I don’t feel as though I hate people anymore. I woke up one day and decided I didn’t like the negativity of it. I dislike people, absolutely, but hate is something I can’t subscribe to. I can’t even hate this woman who has lied to me, harassed me, maligned me, and gone out of her way to make me miserable.

This post isn’t going to stop people from attacking other people online. This post doesn’t change the fact that a tiny part of me wonders if she’s ever going to act out on her blatant hatred of me. Am I scared? Yes, quite frankly I am. She lives just a couple hours from me. There’s a high likelihood that she knows where I live. Do I actually think she’s going to show up at my door step and do something to me? Not really. But there will always be that fear in the back of my mind, and I’ve lost sleep over it.

What this post does, I hope, is shed some light on the scary side of the internet. I hope this says to anyone who’s been attacked or bullied online that you’re not alone. Don’t back down! Protect yourself as best as you can. Follow your instinct. And know that while the words can hurt, while the fear can keep you up at night, the person or people attacking you are not a representation of the world we live in.

Nobody deserves to be treated this way, yet they are every day. It probably won’t end, but we’re under no obligation to tolerate it.

When you feel like you can’t take it anymore, the harassment, the vitriol, take a good look around you. I’d be willing to bet there’s something or someone amazing in your life that reminds you that there is still some humanity lingering.

And if you need a friend, I’ll be your friend. As long as you don’t lie to me. Or make a fake account to harass me. Or publicly mention how you hope I die.

Just don’t do those things and we’ll get along just fine.

Jul
19

Learning From Your Mistakes

Stick a knife in the blender? Brilliant.

If there’s one thing I love about my life’s experiences, it’s that there’s always a lesson to be learned. Simple things like, “If you have sex, it will make a baby,” and “If you stick a knife in a running blender, you will spend the rest of the evening crying and thanking God that you still have your eyes,” are not lost on me.

Even growing up I was never the child who could simply be told a universal fact which I would immediately accept. I was much more of a “find out for myself,” kind of beast. My mother would recount with disgust the time she first told me not to touch the iron because it was hot. I locked eyes with her and slowly reached out to touch the iron. Touche, Mom. The iron really was hot.

El Tortuga, on the other hand, has failed to recognize the common indecency in man that inspires lying. He’s not gullible, but he’s not going to argue with you. Tell him the sky is green, and he’ll nod passively. “Sure,” he’ll murmur. “Sure it is.” He’ll usually do some quiet research, make his own determination. I don’t know how or why he’s my child, but I’ve stopped questioning it.

I learned early on to pay attention to my experiences and gain knowledge from them, but that swiftly became both physically and emotionally painful, so I moved on to observing other people. This is so much safer. And, God, it’s so much more relaxing. Don’t stick my arm in a moving fan? Got it. I see what you did there. I shan’t be trying it.

Now, I’m not saying I’m a prodigy here. I’m sure a lot of people have adopted this method of education, but I am saying that far more people fail to absorb the free lessons they’re handed every day, and this has become highly amusing to me.

The inspiration for this story comes from a really unfortunate situation where a woman took a picture of another woman, made a negative comment on the woman’s attire, and then posted it to Twitter for everyone to see. Seems pretty commonplace, right? Well, this person runs in the same social circles that the “fashion offender” runs in, which, luckily for me, bleeds into my social circle. I watched all this shit go down yesterday, and since I’m far enough removed from it, I was able to laugh and learn.

My initial thought was, “isn’t this an urban legend already?” Girl talks shit about girl. Other girl finds out. Shit storm commences. We’ve all seen this before, right? So where was the disconnect? Where was the thought, “hey that could be me some day?” Did that never occur?

Obviously the first lesson here is, “don’t live in a city the size of Indianapolis and post pictures of people, because everybody knows each other here.” That’s not to say you aren’t entitled to your opinion, but don’t assume people actually want to hear it. There’s something exotic about keeping things to yourself. Far too often we fall into the curse of narcissism where we think everybody wants to know our feelings or our opinions. Guess what? Not a whole lot of people give a shit. Your mom probably doesn’t even care. Actually, she flat out does not. I’m a mom – I know these things.

Even better, the bigger lesson to be learned here is that women are bitches. We all are. We need to get the fuck over ourselves and calm the fuck down at some point. There’s only so much menstrual rage we can inflict on one another before the men rise up and kill us all, or worse, they build half-assed fallout shelters lined with maxi pads and reinforced with Tampax Pearl applicators.

We have got to give each other a break at some point. I feel like each and every one of us with a vagina regard the other vagina-prone creatures with either immense joy or immediate hostility. Have you ever noticed that? Women either love each other or they hate each other. There’s no middle ground. There’s no acknowledgement of existence yet lack of feeling.

I’m sure this is nothing new or common. Often times when someone identifies a societal problem, they’re quick to assume that this is new. It’s this generation’s fault! It’s not. In this case, it’s probably biology and the pill. Regardless, as grudgingly as I admit that this will probably never ever change, I have to at least try.

Can we pick one day where we all quit being such atrocious shrews and we just get the fuck along? Hell, we don’t even have to get along – let’s just not fight. Let’s not pick on each other outwardly. Criticize my hair all you want in your mind, but put a goddamn smile on your face and say something polite instead.

Is this too much to ask? Probably. It’s worth suggesting, though. Pick a date – I’ll be there. I hope we’re all there some day.

Except for you, BETH. You can kick rocks for all I care.

May
17

When The Noises Won’t Stop

Laugh now, you pompous son of a bitch.

Guys…I’m tired.

El Tortuga has been fighting some wicked illness that causes him to wake up screaming in pain. We suspect it’s an ear infection, but who the hell knows at this point? He probably has a tumor, but I’m too tired to investigate further.

It’s been nearly a week since this started. He woke up last Friday with a raging fever and the simple declaration that, “Things are not well within my body, mother.” I called us in sick, and we spent the morning in bed watching shitty cartoons.

When El Tortuga is sick, he wants to be with his mommy. I get that. He wants to snuggle, he wants to be held, he wants me to whisper reassurance in his little ear that things will one day get better. When he was younger and growing out of his baby stage and into his autonomous, get the hell away from me, mom, stage, I used to regard his sickness with a mixture of sadness and maternal glee. It was the only time he’d let me hold him. The only time he’d let on that maybe I was still necessary and relevant.

This neediness when ill hasn’t stopped. Unfortunately, instead of holding a smallish two year old, I’ve got a feverish, 45 lb four year old draped across me. Holding him when he has a high fever feels like being wrapped in an electric blanket and shoved into a sauna. I usually wait for him to go to sleep and then I gently roll him off of me, but this usually wakes him up and he stares at me all confused and hurt like I’ve set fire to all his toys and doused the flames with my own urine.

Anyway, we’ve been dealing with this for about a week now. Luckily it’s just the ear infection now. Earlier it was the ear infection and random vomiting. My favorite was when I got to hold him in the planking position while he vomited into the badass sink Sookie insisted I get. It has 90 degree corners which are hard to clean. He’d just finished an Oreo McFlurry (yes, MCFLURRY, fuck you again McDonald’s.) I’ll leave you with that image.

Flash forward to last night. Wednesday evening. It’s the one night during the week that El Tortuga stays with his dad, and for the first time I was REALLY excited. It’s not that I didn’t miss him, but my God, I needed sleep. I spent the evening out with friends and came home to relax, do a little work, and then turn in.

And then I heard it.

At first I thought I was hallucinating. Surely that did not just happen. But there it was again – the distinct hooting of an owl. And he was fucking loud.

I thought I could ignore it, but the stupid thing was so inconsistent. Perhaps if he’d had a rhythm, I could have pretended he was part of one of those nature sounds tracks. Of course not, though. He was sporadic and unpredictable. He also appeared to be hooting from different locations in my back yard which leads me to believe he was searching for the most acoustic tree from which to torment me.

I understand it’s a bit theatrical to suggest that a woodland creature is so preoccupied with me that he would plot the most effective way to drive me fucking nuts, but keep in mind I haven’t slept for a while.

Jim has this theory that there are two owls and they’re talking to each other. Cool fucking story, Jim, but how does that get me any sleep? It doesn’t. Quit flapping your face, grab your bow and arrow, and go all Katniss Everdeen on this thing before I lose my damn mind.

El Tortuga is back tonight, so I can only imagine how enchanting my evening will be with screeching owl and a child whose deafening snores are interrupted only by the occasional cry of pain.

With that being said, I’d like to formally declare my intention to sleep in my fucking car tonight.

 

Edited to add this hilarious picture my friend sent me.

Apr
25

Dear Hardee’s

Dear Hardee’s,

I visited one of your establishments this afternoon, and there are some things I’d like to say. First, sit back. Let me explain a little something to you.

People who drink diet Coke typically do so religiously. It’s something we learn to rely on – through thick and thin, diet Coke is there for us. We never just “want” a diet Coke, we ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE one. That is why when a diet Coke fan anxiously fumbles to insert her straw and then ravenously sucks on said straw only to find her mouth filled with FUCKING COKE, you have just delivered the second most painful disappointment to her other than, say, if she was eagerly awaiting the birth of a bouncing baby boy only to discover that she’d actually been carrying a ferret the whole time.

This incident was the first sign of disappointments to come.

After I was done heaving, I peered into my bag. Everything seemed normal. Fries. Box with my burger in it….with a sticker that said “melt?”

I didn’t order a fucking melt.

But a melt was what I got. It was a slab of meat nestled between two slices of grease soaked bread. Underneath the meat (WHY?) was a semen-esque substance that smelled faintly of pepper jack cheese but lacked the resemblance, and half a dozen slices of jalapeno.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a fairly angry person, and angry people tend to get ulcers. Had I tried to eat your fire melt, it most certainly would have done things to my stomach that should be reserved for medieval torture chambers.

Was the melt your backup plan, Hardee’s? If the Coke didn’t kill me, were you hoping I’d eat the burger and promptly peace the fuck out? You have a dedication unparalleled by any of my enemies, and trust me – there are legions of them.

So I drive myself back to the store…restaurant?…place of business, I guess. I walk in with my crumpled bag, Coke in hand, my face impassive. I was willing to let you right an egregious wrong. You declined.

“YEAH?” growled your lovely employee as I stood there waiting for attention. This woman was heinous. I doubt she could have accepted a marriage proposal without a deep scowl.

“My order is wro—“

“I know. I gave you the wrong order. You wanted a plain cheeseburger.”

“No, I ordered a cheeseburger with mustard, onions, & lettuce.”

“That’s what I said. A plain cheeseburger.”

This, Hardee’s, is where things begin to decline.

“Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth? I said mustard, onions & lettuce.”

This is the part where she rolled her eyes at me and put her hand on her hip.

“THAT’S WHAT I SAID. PLAIN.”

At this point, I’m questioning everything – what I actually said, what language I speak, the existence of a higher being. T minus two seconds before I exploded, a manager who had been watching our exchange intervened.

“You want a cheeseburger with mustard, onions, and lettuce plain.”

“Yes, I – what?”

“That’s just what we say around here. We call it plain.”

The fuck, Hardee’s? The fuck.

I throw my hands up, grab my new cup, and stumble off in a rage to at least gain some comfort from Diet Coke.

Ten minutes later (yes, ten,) my order was ready.  The manager was kind enough to apologize to me, but that little troll you have working for you glared at me from behind a stack of buns.

I understand that assholes need jobs too, but maybe don’t put them in a position where they might have to interact with other humans. She would be well suited for organizing your frozen meat patties in the walk-in freezer, or, better yet, being in charge of guarding the castle where Princess Toadstool is being held captive.

Simply put, the bitch was cray. She made me look like a ray of sunshine.

I drove back to my office seething at how rude she had been and how someone can’t get an order right ever. And then it began. That cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. At first I thought it was the ounce or so of Coke that I had swallowed, but this was too emotional. There was a feeling attached to this.

Fear. Self-doubt. A sense that not all was well.

I sat down at my desk and opened the cheeseburger box slowly, like an animal might burst forth. Everything looked normal. I could see the onions and the lettuce. That’s a start right? Now to just lift the bun and…

Ah, there’s the mustard. Right next to the fucking ketchup.

Hardee’s, BOO.

I give up.

Mar
19

Comcast Is Why I Drink

I'll call them right after I get done making this noose for myself.

I never intended to make this a blog about me bitching about various companies, but I guess when you make a blog about bitching, naturally you’re going to include such things as McDonald’s, or the BMV.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to a fun little company called “Comcast.” Interestingly enough, Comcast is an anagram for “Scam Cost.” Just thought I’d let you know.

I’m moving later this week. My preference would be to keep the AT&T U-Verse that I currently have (and love,) but that’s not in the cards, apparently. They don’t have lines run to my neighborhood. I get that. What I don’t get is why every house surrounding my neighborhood can get U-Verse. Seriously, Sookie moved into the neighborhood down the road from mine, and she has U-Verse. Who’s a girl gotta fuck to get some U-Verse? I’m not saying I’d do it, but I have friends with questionable morals who probably owe me a favor.

After I kindly told AT&T to eat my ass, I started to do my research. There appeared to be only two options: DirecTV and Comcast.

I should be honest up front…I hate Comcast. Always have. They have, by far, the shittiest customer service I have ever encountered. I used them as my internet provider a few years ago and got into some drama with them. What will always amaze me is how complicated they make shit. The way I see it, I have money. I want to give you money in exchange for the internet. Then I don’t want to hear from you ever again. WHY IS THAT SO HARD? Because it’s Comcast, that’s why.

So I signed up for DirecTV, which isn’t ideal, but whatever. They were going to give me free HD boxes as opposed to making me pay for each one in addition to giving them money for service. I like free. Free I can handle.

The DirecTV website is confusing. In the end, I failed to determine whether or not they could provide internet, so I gave up. I knew AT&T could run DSL to my house, but I was still pissed at them and knew that they probably have a poster hanging in their call center that says, “This girl is a histrionic bitch.”

So I did it. I signed up for Comcast internet. They were supposed to come on a Saturday between 10 am and noon. Since I’m trying to pack up my soon-to-be old house, I sent my father over to wait for the installer. This wasn’t a huge issue, because there was still some painting to be done, and he likely would have been there regardless. But still. He waited.

At 11:55 am, I received a phone call on my cell phone. Because I am inconsiderate and a douche bag, evidently, I didn’t answer my phone right away. Yes, I heard it ring (three times at best) but I was selfishly using the restroom, and figured they’d appreciate that I’d spared them the discomfort of hearing me tinkle.

I called back immediately. It rang a couple times and went to voicemail. I waited two minutes and called again – same thing.

I shrugged it off and figured that if they really wanted to talk to me, they’d call.

Blissful in my ignorance, I finished up packing and headed over to the new house. I called my dad around 1:30 and learned Sir Comcast-a-lot had failed to appear.

The phone call experience I had after that can be best described as a clusterfuck of prodigious proportions.

I called 1-800-COMCAST. The robot spent five minutes explaining to me that I’d get quicker service if I let them call me back in 1-2 minutes. Um, okay, whatever. I spent another 5 minutes arranging the callback. I hung up and within a nanosecond, received my call back.

Me: “Hello?”

Robot: “This is your scheduled call back. Please hold for a customer service representative!.”

Me: “Uh….”

Five minutes later, I finally got a legit human on the phone. She started off friendly enough, but our conversation really took a nosedive when she informed me that because I had been taking a piss when the tech called, he had decided that I was either not at home or I was dead, so he decided not to come.

Fucking, pardon?

I’ll spare you all the details, but add Comcast to the list of places I’ve told to “eat my ass.”

I canceled my service (which had never even started) right there on the spot. Now here’s how you know a company gets shit on all the time: the girl just said, “okay, done.”

There was no fight. No offer to make it up to me. Just “okay.”

There was also no sense of defeat in this woman’s voice. It was as if I had said, “I’m going to go breathe oxygen today.”

“Okay.”

I really fucking hate Comcast. They’re a shitty company to begin with, providing spotty-at-best service, but then they go to the seventh circle of hell and recruit technicians/customer service reps. They shouldn’t call themselves customer service representatives, because that carries the implication that they’re actually going to aid you.

Instead, let’s rename them “Day-Ruiners.” Perhaps, then, we would all be less likely to douse ourselves in gasoline and light a match every time we have to talk to them. Maybe not.

My advice to you is to avoid Comcast like the plague. It’s the McDonald’s of the cable world.

I don’t have any scientific evidence to back this up, but I’d be willing to bet that Comcast has been the cause of a number of tragedies, including but not limited to: paper cuts, cancer, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and the invention of the Croc.

Comcast is run by Satan’s less efficient brother, Chet.

I really hate Comcast.

Feb
16

Girl, BOO

"Disciple, BOO."

Editor’s note: I don’t know how much you creep around on my site, but I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m really bad about tagging and categorizing my blog posts. Sorry about that. Sort of.

One of the categories I created is called “Someone Else’s Story Time,” and it’s been my intention from day one to occasionally share funny stories that happen to my friends. This is one such story. It’s called: Girl, Boo

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I could spend hours describing my friend Kashi, but we don’t have that kind of time. For the purpose of this story, I’ll explain that she’s a beautiful, well-rounded individual who is a health fanatic and the mother of a lovely little girl who, despite their 7 week age difference, is engaged to be married to my son, El Tortuga.

Given these facts, it’s only natural that while Kashi was stopping by the grocery store to pick up her bio-degradable Styrofoam lasagna or whatever vegans eat, she was surprised to see two children in the back seat of a car parked in the parking lot. The older child, a girl, was about 3 years old, while the youngest appeared to be an infant. The 3 year old didn’t have a car seat, and no parent was in sight.

Kashi was a little dumbfounded. I mean, we live in the mid-west, and while we’re not exactly in the midst of an ice storm, it was pretty cold out. Regardless of temperature, you don’t leave your young children in the car while you go fucking grocery shopping. One would imagine that this is common sense, but the problem with being a dreamer is that you usually wind up 45 years old with carpal tunnel and you live in a relative’s unfinished basement.

Naturally, Kashi tweeted this observation, asking her friends to give her advice on what to do. Everyone was outraged, myself included. Typical suggestions ranged from, “Call the police,” to “Go get the manager.” My natural reaction was to tell her to beat the shit out of the woman with a bat, but they evidently frown upon that kind of behavior at Kroger.

She listened to her maternal instinct and stayed by the car, ostensibly to fend off any would-be child snatchers. A woman joined her at one point. They agreed to take a picture of the car and license plate and call the police. Kashi estimates that they stood by this car for 5-10 minutes before a young woman came ambling out of the store, multiple bags in hand, and talking loudly on the phone.

The girl (we’ll just call her Mom) notices Kashi and the other woman, but attempts to ignore them. Although Kashi is a typically peaceful and non-confrontational person, she wasn’t having any of this chick’s bullshit. She maneuvered herself in front of Mom who told whoever she was on the phone with (parole officer?) that she, ugh, had to, like, go.

“Do you know it’s illegal to leave your children in a car unattended?” Kashi began. Mom stared back at her with seething contempt. “So many things could have happened to them! What you did is completely irresponsible.”

Just as Kashi was gearing up to discuss the harmful nitrates contained in the hot dogs in the girl’s bag, Mom held her hand up in Kashi’s face and said, verbatim,

“Girl, BOO!”

Never in my entire life have I ever been so entertained by a piece of shit like this woman. I mean, “Girl, BOO!” Come on! That’s pure magic right there. I have no idea what “Girl, BOO,” means, but it’s absolutely fucking a-ma-zing!

I want to spend an hour with this girl. She would probably talk on her phone the whole time, but that’s all I want – to hear how she interacts with other humans. Does she have a job? Let’s pretend she does. Let’s pretend she’s an attorney, just because that’s probably the only time this woman and the word “attorney” have been used in the same sentence but with a positive tone.

She’s there, pacing the courtroom floor. All eyes are on her. It’s time for the closing arguments, and so far she’s kept her calm. But now it’s time for the climax. For the impassioned conclusion. This is her time to shine.

“Members of the jury. You’ve heard the testimony. You know that my client is innocent of murdering his business partner – a man who we have since learned was involved in a number of dubious business ventures with seedy criminals. You know that the man who sits before you has been wrongfully accused in the most heinous way imaginable. He’s already bearing the burden of his uncertain place in our society. Do NOT send this man to prison for the rest of his life. THE. REST. OF. HIS. LIFE. He is INNOCENT. And if you do not acquit him of these erroneous charges, I have just one thing to say to you….”

“Girl, BOO.”

Can you imagine? I can.

Anyway, Mom proceeded to hop into her little car and ride off into the sunset, nearly running Kashi over in the process.  We don’t know what happened to Mom. I’d like to hope that the police followed up on the incident and gave her a stern warning. She probably told them to fuck right off, but that’s irrelevant.

In the midst of hoping the children are okay, I’m warmed by the knowledge that my friends are good people. Kashi did the right thing. I hope that we can all be as brave and logical as she was in the event we find ourselves in a similar situation.

You better believe I’ll be on the lookout for any of you motherfuckers leaving your poor children in a cold car. I won’t be nice-ish like Kashi. I’ll hunt your ass down in Target or wherever you are, and when I find you, I’m going to bring the thunder.

The last thing you’ll remember is me running at you with a baseball bat, because…

“Girl, BOO!”

Feb
02

The Con

This made me laugh so hard that I nearly pissed myself. Again.

I never questioned whether or not God had a sense of humor, because I had proof from the day I was born. No higher being without a sense of humor would have intertwined the lives of two incredibly incompatible women such as my mother and I. I spent a lot of my adolescence wondering what the hell I had done to deserve such a bitchy mother. Meanwhile, two rooms over, my mother (Connie) was watching Fox News and wondering what the hell she had done to deserve such a bitchy daughter.

My mother and I hated each other with a passion unrivaled by anything, save a nuclear bomb or a swift kick in the nuts. By the time I was 16, the two of us had perfected the art of hatred, a skill we had learned solely from one another.

My father, who was self-employed, had made an office in the basement where he surely rocked back in forth and lamented his misfortune. While the battle between my mother and I raged, my father constructed a fallout shelter. As we crafted weapons from common kitchen utensils, he was stock-piling cans of food and was preparing to seal himself up indefinitely in his new home.

The only break in our war came when we were either shopping or wondering where my dad was.

And then, one sunny day, the white flag was waved. My parents dropped me off for my first day of college. My father moved somewhat slowly as he helped me move myself into my dorm room. In fact, that was the first time in my entire life that I ever saw him cry.

Connie, on the other hand, had a renewed sense of energy. She hauled boxes up the stairs with unparalleled enthusiasm. In fact, that was the first time in a long time that I saw her really, truly happy.

While my dad sniffled and brushed tears from his eyes, my mom honked the car from outside of my dorm room.

“Get in the fucking car, Jim! Let’s go!”

I didn’t talk to my mother for two weeks, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a peaceful fortnight. Near the end of it, as the excitement of finally being in college started to ebb, I realized something was missing. Sure, I was having a great time. Yes, I was positively wasted the majority of it, but there was a void in my life. Things were…too calm.

So I went home one day, unexpectedly. The natural inclination to immediately crouch into fight-stance was there, but I held back. We sat in silence, both considering our strange feelings, and somewhere around Final Jeopardy it hit me – I had missed the old bitch.

Everything I hated in my mother was something I saw in myself. Being apart from her had really driven that home. While at college, I had morphed into her, yelling things like, “Were you raised in a goddamn barn?” at people who left the doors open, and openly expressing my disdain for women who wore slutty clothing.

In the interim, my mother had turned into a histrionic 18 year old female, loudly proclaiming to my father that he simply “didn’t understand her” or some shit. My dad reconsidered the fallout shelter, a plan he had abandoned out of hope for the future, but knew he’d have to revisit in the event I ever returned home.

My freshman year of college was a period of regrowth for Connie and me. We no longer had to see each other, therefore the constant hostility and tension ebbed. We went on a cruise together that year, and spent hours on the phone. We finally started seeing the things we loved about ourselves in each other, because we weren’t too busy trying to choke each other to death. It was one of the happiest times in my life.

At the end of my first year, mere weeks before I was going to move back home for the summer, my mom told me she had breast cancer. She had found a lump somewhere around the time I went away to college, but didn’t do anything about it because she assumed it was a death sentence and she wanted to have one last vacation with my father and me.

The sad irony is that had she gone to a doctor back when she first discovered her tumor, her chances of survival would have possibly been guaranteed. Since she waited nearly nine months, her cancer progressed to stage IV which is the most clinical way of saying, “You’re gonna fuckin’ die.”

The doctors gave her two months to live. She said, “you can kiss my ass, cancer,” and she lived for three more years with a wonderful quality of life. Those were the best three years for us. She could have easily have turned into a bitter, resentful woman, constantly lamenting her fate, but cancer apparently made the sun shine brighter for her and made her fart rainbows. She was happy. She was at peace. And in some odd way, I was too.

My mom and I had a thousand great adventures over those three years and created memories that I still hold sacred. She passed away in 2007, one week to the day after El Tortuga was born.

My dad was a mess after she died, but I felt, once again, at peace…just as I knew she felt. I felt a renewed sense of purpose. It was almost as if she had passed along the torch of motherhood or something.

“Go forth,” I could hear her saying. “It’s now your turn to fuck up your child’s life.”

That was nearly five years ago, and while the memories still remain, her voice has begun to fade. Honest to God, the only time I can hear it in my mind is when I imagine her yelling at me. I’d like to think she has the same problem.

I’d give nearly anything for one more fight with her, and I know that time will come someday, when I’m old and I’ve finally kicked the bucket. In the meantime, I like to imagine that she’ll be there to greet Dick Van Dyke. See, I’ve nominated her as a sort of “Ambassador to Heaven,” which, when I really think about it, was probably a bad idea.

DVD: Who are you?

Connie: It doesn’t matter. My daughter sent me to greet you. She was your biggest fan.

DVD: Well, that’s awfully nice!

Connie: No it’s not. Her obsession with you was incredibly frightening. You are safer up here.

And you know what? The bitch is right – he is safer up there.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Breast cancer doesn’t have to happen to you or your mom. Regular screening, and reasonable preventative measures save thousands of lives every year.

Help do your part by seeing what you can do to help the breast cancer research efforts.

Click here to learn about Indy’s Super Cure, a cause near and dear to my heart.

Or you can text CURE to 27722 to donate to the Komen Tissue Bank, the only known healthy breast tissue bank in the world.

Jan
11

Dear McDonald’s…

Over 60 billion sent into a homicidal rage!

Dear McDonald’s,

Let me start off this angry letter by saying, first of all, fuck you. I hate your company. I hate your employees. I hate your food. I hate everything about you, and here’s why.

I’m forced to patronize your establishment at least once a month because I have a four year old who has been sucked into your hellish crack and chicken McNugget ring. I don’t know what the hell it is about your chicken nuggets, but my son foams at the mouth and his eyes glaze over at the prospect of eating your over processed “chicken” that comes conveniently in the shape of turds and the fine state of Indiana. He has to have it. So I take him, grudgingly, because it’s usually his choice as a treat. Essentially, I’m rewarding my son’s good behavior with a known carcinogen and the promise of a toy that may not work, but that’s not the point.

The whole way to McDonald’s, I try to talk him out of it. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have ice cream for dinner?” I ask. His answer is always a resounding, “No. I want McDonald’s.”

Fuck.

Pulling in to your parking lot happens in slow motion for me for two reasons: I am so consumed with regret that time has now become a concept, and there’s usually some dickbag lurching lethargically from the door toward his Ford Shitbucket RS. It’s not that he doesn’t care that I need to get to the drive-thru window before the 4 year old has a meltdown. No, he understands very well, but he can’t move his goddamn limbs anymore. He has just consumed roughly 9 million calories of toxic sludge. He turns slowly toward me, drooling on himself, his eyes pleading.

“Please hit me,” he mouths. “Please.”

An eternity later, I make it to the twenty car long line, and wait my turn. Things go surprisingly fast. A less wise person would attribute this to expedited customer service. A learned professional knows that this is because you’re filling my bag with whatever the fuck touches your hand first. Don’t get me wrong; I will get food. It’s just that the likelihood of that food being what I actually ordered is so low, that your company is the reason why the decimal system was even established.

Now it’s time for me to order. This should be simple, right? Because you’ve placed a capable, English-speaking human being at the other end of the microphone, right?

Wrong. That is not what happens.

I give my order to someone who doesn’t have a fucking clue what I’m saying until I get to the vital part: mustard and onions only. That’s all I want on my cheeseburger.

“Mustard and onions?” he or she usually squawks back to me, incredulous. Yes, mustard and onions. Why is that so bizarre to you? It’s not like I’ve asked to be served a live fucking goat. I haven’t asked for human blood to dip my McNuggets in. Stop treating me like I’m a criminal! See what you’ve done? Now I’m all defensive, you assholes!

I calm down and pay, which, for the record, is the only efficient process in the history of your company. Of course it is.

Then, I get to drive up and take possession of someone else’s food. If I’m lucky, I’ll get what I ordered, but you guys never seem to be capable of the mustard and onions thing. I imagine all seven of your employees standing around my burger scratching their heads.

“Are you sure she said mustard and onions, Juanita?” asks the manager.

“Si,” she confirms. “Mustard and onions!”

They don’t believe her, so they top it with ketchup and excess condoms that they’ve soaked in vinegar, dyed green, and marketed as pickles.

My favorite part of receiving my meal (heretofore known as “The Last Supper” because I’m really taking a chance here, ya know?) is the person at the window who forcefully shoves the bags into my car. I always say thank you. They’re either blind, deaf or both, because they don’t say a word or make eye contact. Sometimes they grunt. I politely ask for ketchup. They slam their little jail cell door and stare at me from behind the bars. I drive off in fear.

This, McDonald’s, is a very common and very typical experience at your…place where you make things that you call food. I refuse to call you a restaurant by virtue of the fact that there is nothing restful or idyllic about going to your place. Those commercials with people smiling? Bullshit. They must have been at Wendy’s (before they changed the fries.)

There’s a light at the end of this shitty McDonald’s riddled existence though: I’m moving soon, and my son has no clue where there’s a McDonald’s near us. I’m going to tell him that all of your stores burned down. I will feed him an entire sack of granulated sugar if it means I never ever have to go back to a McDonald’s again. Thanks to you, I spend $165 a week with a therapist who thinks my name is Jane and who spends our sessions drawing frowney faces on his notepad. Thanks to you, my son’s blood has chunks of saturated fat floating in it. Thanks to you, I am drunk as hell right now, because we had McDonald’s for dinner tonight and the wine was the only thing that made me stop crying.

I hate you, McDonald’s. You are like the government. You sound like a good idea at first, but then you really examine all the parts that make a whole and you realize that you’re just watching a really fucked up circus. I hate circuses.

I hate you, McDonald’s. I fucking hate you.

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