Looking for Work???

I've been trolling Craigslist lately looking for work, and I have realized that finding work will be no easy task considering that my resume is utterly abysmal, my degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and we're in a jobless recovery.

However, as a woman, I've always been acutely aware that I am a commodity that can be sold. Incidentally, I have never done that, but in the interest of full disclosure I should let you know that I once did some Lolita thing to a straw and accepted free jewelry from a Palestinian shopkeeper. (I really put the sin back into Holy Land, but that's a story for another day).

Anyway, I dance like I'm having a vertical seizure so dancing/striping is not an option. Most places that buy eggs consider me too old, and I frankly do not want my superior genetic material mixed up with investment banker sperm, stuck in an old lady, and raised Republican. If I could sell an egg for research purposes though, I would do it in a hot second. The third option seems to be surrogate mother. First of all, according to the article I read about it in the NYT Sunday Magazine, they don't accept people that are as poor as me because they don't want to subjugate poor women (speaking of subjugation why can I legally rent out my uterus but not crusty ol' vag?). Second of all, the whole arrangement grosses me out (I also read an article in the NYT Sunday Magazine that if you feel the icky factor, you should listen to it). I mean I had to yield to my reproductive fate which was repopulating the world with my least favorite demographic (white males), and I lost all bladder control in the process so these people should yield to their fate of adopting a kid or kidnapping a cute baby from a shopping mall. My point (if I had one) was that regardless of my opinion on surrogacy, I balk at it being described as part-time work which it was on the Craigslist ad I ran into. Telecommute, sure. temporary, sure. Part-time, uh, not really.

Speaking of working, someday if you're really good and you get me drunk enough, I'll tell you about that time I became a door to door salesman because I thought the Man's unemployment was going to run out. And, if you're really really good and buy me another drink, I'll tell you about how I had a mini-mental-break-down and sat down on a curb and bawled my eyes out because Sarah Palin was a VP candidate and I was a door to door salesman with a 93% score on the GRE verbal.

Speaking of test taking, my only skill, other than packing light and being able to sleep anywhere which only lends itself to being homeless, maybe I can convince one of the test prep companies (Kaplan, Princeton Review) to give me a job teaching.

Johnny Stared at a Grape All Day

"Johnny stared at a grape all day" is an expression that I stole from a comedian whose name I can't remember, and it refers to the phenomena of people who talk about their kids and how awesome they are all the day, thus boring their interlocutors. Whenever I think I am talking about my kids too much, I cut myself off and say, "Johnny stared at a grape all day" and I really wish the phrase would catch on.

I was talking to my neighbor's caretaker the other day, and she said, "Well, Joshy is three next month. One to twenty in English. One to ten in Spanish and almost the whole alphabet."

I really couldn't figure out how to respond, but the comments that popped to mind in order are as follows:

A) What's the point of memorizing numbers and letters when your brain isn't ready to comprehend quantity and phonemes. Why not memorize something cool like a Johnny Cash song?

B) Oh, well maybe he'll avoid becoming dumb and fat like you.

C) Uhh, my six year old can almost do that,  my three year old definitely can't, but I'm still sure they're smarter than your kid anyway.

D) I haven't enrolled my kids in the meritocracy, but if I had, I would love to give you their stats.

A though D didn't seem polite, and the older I get the better I get at not letting my thoughts flow straight out of my mouth (I still haven't totally mastered that skill though) so I pitched my voice an octave higher and went with E,

E) Oh, that's so great. Wow.

So, the next time, you pull a "Johnny stared at a grape all day" (and we've all done it, I'm sure) and someone responds with "Oh, that's so great. wow" you can be assured that they probably really don't give a damn.

I'm so Pleased that You Couldn't Make It

My brother and his picture post card perfect family were planning to visit us tomorrow and watch the boys' soccer games. (Hi. I'm Minger's brother. You may recognize me from volunteering at the Methodist church, the frequent flyer lounge at DIA, or driving my giant truck around. I keep my McMansion immaculately clean, vote Republican and tuck my sweaters into my jeans held up by a braided belt.)

It's not that I don't enjoy them, and it's not like they aren't nice. But my house which is clean enough for friends or in-laws is certainly not clean enough to have them inside it. And I had things to do today like catch up on my measly copy writing job, till the garden, take a bike ride, cook dinner, etc, and I did not want to run around like a blue-ass fly cleaning (Saturdays are for cleaning and schedule changes are more than I can really tolerate and if I don't get to my to-do list today, it will never happen).

Speaking of bugs, I found a few dead bugs in the corner of my brother's basement on Thanksgiving, and they were still there in March. I love these bugs!!! I actually spend a few moments of family get-togethers talking to these bugs, "Hello, little dead bugs, seemingly permanent testament to one square foot of imperfection in four thousand square feet of over-heated cleanliness, I really love you.Thanks for being here."

Luckily, for me, they canceled. It's not so lucky for the boys though. They love their cousins almost as much as I love those dead bugs. Boy Two woke up, put on his soccer jersey, and asked when they would be here. He was ready for a full twenty four hours of anticipation, and he actually cried when I said they weren't coming.

There's no easy way to explain to these kids who love my extended family that I will never be clean enough, strict enough or normal enough to please the extended family, and because I really like to be liked (which is definitely my problem more than anyone else's), I struggle to hang around them and their perceived constant disappoint in me.



    

Eight O'Clock

With unfaltering predictability, 8 o'clock every night is when I momentarily panic.

The house looks like I've been smoking crack all day, and I hardly ever smoke crack all day.
The kitchen is a post-dinner mess.
And I just want everything tidied, the kitchen cleaned, and the boys soundly sleeping so that when The Man arrives home after work, I can greet him with a clean quiet house, a cocktail, and a blowjob.

I think I was unduly influenced by an afternoon I spent reading my mom's home ec notebooks when I was twelve or thirteen. According to her notes (taken from a home ec class circa '64, taught by the nun who would bang your head on the chalk board if you had a boyfriend at a North Dakota Catholic academy), the woman should have these things done:
The house should be clean.
The children should be clean and quiet.
The wife should freshen up and apply a little make-up.
The wife should politely ask the husband about his day.
The wife should not make too many complaints about her day nor should she overburden the husband with questions about his.

It's not really about the gender subjugation issue for me like it seemed to be for the nuns, but I just know it's nicer to come home to a little peace than a crack house. When I earned the bacon, I loved coming home to a quiet house after The Man had put the boys to bed. (I really doubt it was clean though.)

Invariably, the panic subsides and everything (or enough) gets done, but I really struggle with figuring out how to circumnavigate that bit of daily stress. It wasn't too bad tonight though. I mistakenly thought I could turn up Iggy Pop and tornado my way through the house until it was tidy, but a bout of boy naughtiness got in my way....    Eventually, Boys One and Two went to their friend's house and Boy Three and I and our friends The Grateful Dead tidied, vacuumed, and calmed ourselves.

Now, I've got to Google whether or not calm is always a reflexive verb because I'm too tired to figure it out. My mind is full of the big grammatical questions in life.

Somethings that Warm my Heart

So the surprising thing about soccer yesterday was that I met some pretty rad soccer mom bitches. One's mother called the child protective services because her house was so messy. Hello, my new best friend, we have so much in common.

Things that have warmed my Heart Lately:

When the affluent forty plus mom with a prestigious job can hobnob with her thirty year old neighbor who clerks at the 711 without any alleged mommy wars or class issues in sight.

When the aforementioned rad bitches invite Minger over for wine.

When the King Soopers on Drake and Timberline has a grand opening that involves lots of samples and cake.

When the unhappy teen skater seeks counsel from the homeless Calvinist, Objectivist guy. (That actually happened last summer but it has been warming my heart for some time.)  

When Boy Two finds Boy One's missing Pokemon cards and cries out, "Happy Hugs!" and hugs his older brother.

Watching Boy Three emerge from babyhood and join his brothers' merry band of thieves.

The Junior Progressives and the Death of My Bumper

Yesterday was our first protest, and also the last day of the four door sedan having a front bumper.

The Protest.
The junior progressives and I went to a Tax Day protest in front of Wells Fargo in Fort Collins. The object of the protest was to bring attention to the fact that due to various off-shore tax havens and other loop holes, Wank Fargo did not pay the approx 5 billion in taxes that they should have based on their approx 19 billion in profits.

I have mixed feelings about kids and protesting and kids and issues. There's always the risk that if they are introduced to a tragedy too early that they will accept it and not see room for change. For example, I have always strove to introduce them experientially to nature, but I refuse to utter the word "endangered" to them and have kicked my husband on occasion when I thought he was going to utter the E-word.

However, they seemed to have a fairly decent grasp of this issue, and the advertising and presence of banks is so pervasive that I would rather force them to critique the BS at an early age than let them develop some idea that these institutions are above reproach.

Signs. Boy Two wanted his to say, "Pay taxes so the guv'ment can buy a roller coaster." He's clearly  missed some nuances on the issue so I took over the slogan drafting. Their signs said, "I pay taxes on candy, and I'm only 3. What's your excuse?", "Balance the Budget with Corp Taxes. Not on the backs of the Poor", and "Pay Your Fair Share".

We went with my friend so I was pretending that we had the whole lesbian mom thing going on. She, I think, was clutching a little tighter to her IUD and hoping that nobody mistook any of the young progressives for hers.
It was totally awesome.
For about five minutes. Then, the young progressives got whiny. Boy Two wanted to lean his sign against the wall because he was too tired to hold it. What a union worker! (HAHA...  get it that's irony cause we're at a left wing event and I made an anti-union joke.)

Them: "We want to go home. We're tired. Protesting is boring."
Me: "This country is in a lot of debt that you will have to pay back, and considering you can't even clear the table without whining, I really doubt that you'll be able to work this debt off. Hold your signs. Stop whining. This is important."
And so on and so on until I bribed them with licorice which they quietly ate next to their signs.

We may have to try protesting again on another date when they're not being such union workers.

The death of my bumper

I dropped Boy One and his bicycle off at soccer, and I was going to drive home and then ride my bike to pick him up so we could ride home together. That way I get a thirteen mile ride in and he only has to do six or so.    

Long story short. I trusted a blinker. I pulled out, and the guy didn't turn so he ripped off my bumper. My father is, no doubt, rolling in his grave or churning in his urn because he always said, "Never Trust a Blinker. Never Trust a Blinker"

The Man was surprisingly calm about the entire thing. The same man who took four years to forgive me for losing the second key fob was utterly gracious about the fact that I crashed our car, got a ticket, and will have depleted our savings account by the time the deductible is paid. That was a pleasant surprise from The Man.

That was enough for one day.

My Ayn Rand/Nathaniel Branden Moment and Other Indiscreet Topics

I promised a few people that I would start a blog and write about my kids, their antics, and my responses to it all. However, I have had myself on my mind lately so that is what you get. This week, in particular, was a mentally long and bizarre week.

On Friday, for the first time in eight years, I ended up at a post-closing-time house party til five in the morning. The children were safe in the care of a Wisconsinite virgin that I found on Craigslist.

The house party was full of the motley crew of revelers that refuse to end the night when the bars close (AKA the hardcore alcoholics). Party Goer One was the late thirties party girl who in ten years will be Pasty Stone, but for now, she still oozes sexuality and funny jokes. Her sidekick, the owner of the house, danced out of tune to ELO and was definitely as Edina as we can find in real life. Party Goer One's sister, the Iowan housewife was there. Technically, she was an Iowan science professor, but she looked like a housewife. Number Four was the housewife's gay boyfriend, the Costa Rican with the lisp, the perfect jeans, and the beautiful scarf. Who knew Iowa allowed gay Costa Ricans? Number Five was the toothless, Wyoming rancher that no one seemed to have met prior to that night. Number Six was my brother-in-law, the charming English stranger, and although I am sure that Patsy or Edina would have loved him, I got to monopolize this beautiful, off-limits, impossibility in a corner for much of the evening. Number Seven was The Man, and I'm sure you'll hear enough about him if you keep reading this blog. Number Eight was Minger, and I'll let the Costa Rican describe me:

"Look at you. You are not fashion or style, but you are amazing. Everyone can see it. You are bursting with the sex." Well, it was news to me that my twelve dollar outfit, so new that it still smelled of thrift store was not fashionable, but it's the second part of the statement that is the most accurate.  

I am. I am completely bursting with the sex. My libido, dead for eight long years, has recently staged a massive rebirth. I had really worried that it was gone forever. At worst, I would go three or four months without feeling a flicker. At best, I could muster up the energy for staid, single position, marital encounters, once or twice a week. Now, hello! I am full of hormones, raging hormones that have resulted in the best, most genuine, desperate kissing, multi-positional, sustained marital encounters in the bed, on the floor, and over the couch.

However, now that the libido is back, it's about as discretionary as an eight teen year old boy's. It may look like I'm standing there talking to you like a normal person, but in my head, I am silently admonishing myself not to start rubbing against your leg like a dog in heat.

World, I am ready for my Ayn Rand/Nathaniel Branden Moment. Sadly, luckily, incidentally (I can't saddle this moment with adjectival judgement), there is no one to play Nathaniel to my Ayn. Even if there were, I'm sure there is no Nathaniel's wife to consent to such ill-mannered, anti-social consorting.

I use Ayn and Nathaniel because an Ayn Rand biography was the first place I had ever heard of permissible extra-marital affairs. I was completely disturbed by the idea then, but by the time I read the World According to Garp six months later, I had pretty much embraced the idea. I don't have to read the fact that Garp and Jenny's affairs ended by her lover's knob getting bitten off and their youngest child dying as a cautionary tale, do I? or do I?

However, as the old saying goes, "You can't pick up a date at Applebees. You need to go to the Polyamorous Supper Club." In case, you're thick, I will extrapolate on the meaning of this rule: We live in a culture dominated by monogamy. Therefore, you cannot simply think that it will work to pick up a stranger who will understand the strange rules of the non-monogamous game. You need to head to a place where everybody is playing a different game with different rules.  

The problem with that, however, is that although all the polyamorous people I have ever met have been lovely, they have also all been genre readers. Minger may have realized that she has capillaries in places she thought she had lost them and she may be having inappropriate thoughts all day long, but she still has some morals intact. One of those being that she has never, nor will she ever "love" a genre reader.

Who has the time anyway? To my great chagrin, we are not Bonobos so I cannot hook-up with a stranger in a tree while the kids play below, and I simultaneously nurse my toddler. I'm not comfortable with the other alternative either, "Here, kids, watch this Sponge Bob video while I indulge myself." And, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure that I want to play with fire.

So, I guess, I'll be here, folding laundry, trying to cool my ardor by throwing rocks in the river with the kids, bemoaning the fact that I'm too poor for a pool boy, and praying to the eight pound baby Jesus that the kids go to bed early and The Man comes home with some energy.

A quick prayer: Dear, Zeus, sluttiest of all the gods, and Aphrodite, born out of sea foam from Cronus's castrated balls, please don't ever let my libido be lost again. I may feel like an emotional and tragic mess with it here, but I felt like a sad mess without it.

The Muted Orchestra and My Not So Dreaded In-Laws

About a decade ago, I was in Sydney with my then boyfriend, that one with the Canadian flag tattoo, the inverted nipples, and the really funny jokes. We sat on the beach at day and did telemarketing at night. For some reason or another, we decided to move back to London. We arrived on a Monday, and on Friday, I fell head over hells in love with the largest tallest, back-hairiest English man on that little island. Farewell, jolly Canadian.

I never actually saw them, but I am sure there was a massive orchestra following us around for at least a year.

I don't hear that orchestra as much now because their sounds have been largely muted by piles of bills and shouts of children. However, they always play a little louder when my in-laws are around. One of the things I love most about The Man is his family.

His father is a garrulous, old retired gamekeeper (ala the antagonist in Danny Champion of the World) who gave my kids the giant ear genes of which I'm so fond. His mother, unfortunately, passed away years before I came along. His step mother is an absolutely amazing retired palliative care nurse, and if I had to choose a personality to have other than my own sparkling personality, I'd choose hers.  And, oh, the cadre of brothers and steps brothers... I've long entertained the idea that it would be swell to live in a country torn by civil war where I get to sequentially be widowed and marry my merry loins through the lot of them.

Luckily, these too deep affections for the brothers have never been a problem because I have always followed the advice that my then best friend, the best thing to come out of France since stinky cheese, gave me before I spent my first Christmas with their family: "Minger," she said, (imagine this statement in a darling French accent coming out of a beautiful Audrey Hepburn face) "Minger, do not get drunk and hit on his brothers." I have managed to follow that great advice for a decade.

Now, I can hear the orchestra a little more clearly because one of The Man's brothers is in town. Whenever his family is around, his accent gets a little stronger, and he seems comfortable and engaged in a way that he never is around Americans. I too often forget that I ripped The Man from his island, and that everything that seems weird to me here must seem doubly weird to him. I wish that I could see them all more often, but mostly, I wish that I could see him see them more often because it's really heart warming to see him so animated.            

Yesterday All My Troubles Seemed so Right Damn Here: Another Tale from the Underbelly of Motherhood

Yesterday was a fairly crappy day.

The landlord showed up (for no discernible reason) in his top hat, twirling his handle bar mustache, Little Nell (played by Boy 2) immediately got stressed at the sight of him, and I can't say that the rest of us took his presence any better. Apparently, he can circumnavigate the peaceable living laws and show up whenever he wants because it's a shared yard duplex. Unfortunately, we had people over both nights of last weekend (Sunday-Monday is our weekend and he showed up on Tuesday which is our Monday morning and he arrived just before I was going to clean the yard) so the yard looked like a cross between the aftermath of a frat party and the basement of a daycare.

He wasn't pleased to say the least. It literally took me ten minutes to have the entire thing in ship-shape order, but tidy people do not realize how quickly a deluge of debris can be contained. He decided that the rocking chair on the front porch and the three newspapers in the drive way looked too messy so they were loaded into his truck and taken to a land-fill, I assume. The Man didn't ask me if I cared whether or not the rocking chair that I rocked my first born in was assigned to the rubbish heap for its one broken spindle. Luckily, I don't really care, but I would have liked to have been consulted on the matter.

The trickle down stress meant that The Man yelled at me, and Little Nell got angry and kicked a hole in the wall. Cue more stress. The Man fixed the wall and went to work, leaving us swimming in a swamp of swearin', stressin', and screamin'.

Eventually, I abandoned the island and popped to the neighbors for a minute to pick up half the contents of her crock pot. As we had fed her family the night before, she was going to feed my family that night. While I was basking in the wanna-be-hippie-faux-compound-casserole-sharing-love of it all, douche-bags one and two took about fifteen unsupervised minutes to let things denigrate into a Lord of the Flies type scenario, and they beat up their friend. When I returned and found him crying and on his way home, I completely lost any faith that I had in our ability to ever be nice or normal.

Apparently their friend has a big heart because all was forgiven by the end of the day.  

After a seemingly interminable crappy day, bedtime finally rolled around and we cuddled up until they fell asleep. I realize certain people still subscribe to the notion that if you lie with your children at bedtime, they will never learn how to go to sleep by themselves. A) Let's keep in mind that axiom was derived from a society that is sleep deprived and addicted to sleep aids. For thousands of years prior to the arrival of that crazy notion, babies were soothed to sleep. B) Maybe those people are nicer than me because after a day of being a total bitch, I love to know that we can share one moment of peace, and it gave me a chance to apologize and Little Nell a chance to say, "I love you, Mommy. Tomorrow will be a better"

The only redeeming thing about yesterday is that it was another testament to the children's and my ability to transgress upon and forgive each other a limitless number of times in a day.

White Trash and Schrodinger's Cat

Once upon a time, someone told me that I was too white trash to ever have any friends. I totally shrugged off their egregious comment because I'm tough like that, and by "shrugged it off", I mean that I woke up in the middle of the night every night for about a month with the words ringing in my ears.

I silently protested, "I may be dirty, my kids may swear a lot and not wear shoes but no food every touches my table without a serving dish, I never eat canned foods, I read two newspapers every Sunday, and I don't allow the children to use adjectives when adverbs are required." However, I think today, this giant pile of empty shell casings on my food stained carpet may have tipped the scales. Yep, you heard it here, Mama Minger is officially claiming the moniker "white trash".

Now, I'm off to smoke Winstons and burn library books and cook the kids Cambell's soup and listen to country music and dream a little dream before I scratch off my lottery tickets.

Incidentally, whenever I'm super poor I like to embrace the role by buying scratch tickets and listening to country music. During one of my latest brushes with poverty, I realized that the central appeal of scratch tickets is that they offer the player one blissful Schrodinger's Cat moment before they scratch it. In that moment, they are both rich and poor. They can pay their rent, pay their pile of old utility bills, buy new shoes, etc, etc. Then, they scratch the card. The cat is dead, and they're still a loser. After that epiphany, I stopped playing.       

Lamb Curry---The Silver Lining

If there is an upside to drinking too much fortified wine and having my first semblance of a Martha moment, it is the hope that the man will convert the left over lamb roast into a lamb curry to fill my belly.

I'd like to say that it was a Martha and George moment (just because it makes the sentence sound better), but George wasn't playing my parlor games.  

This is all an allusion to the world's best play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf by Edward Albee.

My favorite Little Cynic

This post is dedicated to my Uncle G (as in Gee, You're Awesome) who blew my mind without even realizing it.

In the late 80's, a twelve year old Mama Minger had an epiphany in the Shopko parking lot. She turned to her mother, and said, "Uncle G (the one who gives the best presents every year) is gay and an atheist isn't he?" Her mother sighed and, even though it probably damaged her right wing Republican neck muscles,  inclined her head. POWSH (That's the sound it makes when Mama Minger's head metaphorically explodes. No, just kidding, it actually literally exploded...  "clean up in the parking lot, we've got 12 year old brain goo on the pavement.") Then, Mama Minger began the seven year journey that culminated in her becoming an agnostic by the mid 90's and an atheist by the middle of the first decade of the second millennia of our lord Jesus Christ.

Here's a look at the theological journey of my favorite little cynic Boy One (AKA the crazy one).

Boy One Age 3: I know, I know. There was a big bang. Monkeys started talking, and then, they became human. Can you please tell me another story, now, mama?

Boy One Age 5: I believe in Santa, The Baby Jesus, the Three Wise Men, Zeus and all those guys, Superman, and Spiderman.

Boy One Age 6: If Santa isn't real, who steers those flying reindeer around?

Boy One Age 7: If we went to church, would we go to that church?
Mama Minger: No, we wouldn't go to that one. It's an Evangelical church. We'd go to a nice Catholic church. Ya'know with the pope and stained glass windows and stuff.
Boy One: When you were little did you believe in gods?
Mama Minger: Oh, sure I did. I believed in god, just the one. You can believe in god too if you want too.
Boy One: Mom, I am waaaaaay too busy for that.

Reading Genesis to Boy One as a Bedtime story and We Arrive at the part where God makes a covenant with Noah.
Boy One Age 7.5: What are they talking about? There's floods all the time. This book is full of lies. Doesn't aaaaanybody watch the BBC news?

My favorite little cynic leaves me playing devil's advocate for god/gods all the time.

Soccer, Second Wave Feminists, and 24 Hour News Cycles

Lest any of you think that my disdain toward soccer is solely because it interferes with my right to be an alcoholic, I feel that I should elaborate on the matter. Yes, the well runs deeper than a Liter of cheap vodka.

It's not that I dislike soccer or competition or grass (I definitely don't hate grass). Rather, it's an ideological problem that I have with the whole endeavour. Here's an abridged view of history as I see it. If you wanna be a total loser, we can call this her-story since its mostly about women.

The great war ends.

Manufacturers of cleaning products stage large scale advertising campaigns that encourage women to get out of the factory and buy copious amounts of household cleaners. Good bye, Rosie. Farewell, vinegar, ammonia, and the scrubbing brush. 

1950: Daddy works. Mommy stays at home happily getting high on bathroom cleaners and making casseroles. Daddy starts to beat mommy because he's feeling isolated and power hungry. Mommy is sad because she cannot leave him as she has no education or skills. The kids are driving mommy crazy. Mommy becomes addicted to diet pills and happy drugs. 

1963: Betty Friedan publishes the Feminine Mystique. Mommy reads this book. Mommy joins a group where they look at their vagina's in hand mirrors. Mommy goes to college and gets a job. "Look at me," Mommy says, "I can do everything that men do." Mommy forgets about her children and outsources her childcare because everyone knows that any trained monkey can raise children. 

(My problem with the second wave feminists-The bitches failed to disrupt the paradigm. They simply invalidated their role of nurturer and copied what men were doing.) 

Things continue in this fashion for a while. Enter, those idiots the Republicans. The unions die. The manufacturing sector dies. Now, it is impossible to have a one income family. Mommy can no longer choose to stay home. She is forced to work. 

1980: Ted Turner launches CNN. OMG, Iran Contra only happens once and OJ Simpson only kills his wife once, what can CNN show the rest of the time? Well, nothing captivates Americans like a blond kid gone missing. Americans become panicked that a lecherous stranger is lurking behind every bush waiting to grab their children. Now, children are forced to spend the whole day in daycare and the whole afternoon and evening locked inside away from danger. (NEWSFLASH: No one wants your children. They are 40 times more likely to die in a mini van crash than to get abducted by a stranger.) 

Mama Minger starts to breed. She chooses to be po' so she can raise her own children. She sends the children outside to play. The shout into the empty abyss, and no other children answer. The po' ones are inside staring at idiot box and joining the obesity epidemic. The rich ones are busy being shuttled from event to event in their parent's giant carbon footprints. The middle class has died. 

A generation of children cling to paranoia like a security blanket. They forget how to introduce themselves to each other. They do not know how to self organize. Soccer practice twice a week, hockey practice twice a week, two games every Saturday, and all day Kindergarten rape their right to play. Their brains are utterly useless. They are boring. They lack creativity. 

Mama Minger's barefoot little wanna-be hippies are outside and lonely so she enrolls them in soccer. She throws up a little bit in her mouth. It subsides because (don't tell anyone this) she loves how cute they look in their little uniforms.

And there ya' go, a little tale about how the nefarious forces of second wave feminism and twenty four hour news cycles worked together to kill the sandlot, force my children into soccer, and ruin my leisurely Saturday morning hangover regime.

  

My Super-Smelly-Fart-Dog and how I Love Him

I was all geared up (that sounds like a Sarah Palin verb) to write something super cynical about the super-smelly-fart-dog  (I changed his name) who loves my boobs. I was going to say that I was no longer milk drunk, and that if he wanted an oral fixation, he should just take up cigarettes like a normal toddler and leave my boobs out of it.

I was going to tell you how he changed my name to boobies last night. Him: Hello, Boobies. Me: That's not my name. Him: I changed it. (Then I changed his name to the aforementioned super-smelly-fart-dog...  maybe I should spell it dawg). I was going to tell you how I tried to get my shirt back on this morning, and he screamed, "I miss my best friend. I miss my best friend [the boob]" over and over until I was forced to wake up at the crack of 8:30 AM (who gets up that early....  not me). I was going to tell you how after three years of being the nicest sweetest boy in the world, he ruined it all this morning when he spilled sugar on the floor, painted the patio door with the juice of a summer sausage, and peed on my bedroom floor.

But, alas, I cannot tell you any of that because he helped me make chili, and taking lots of deep inhales, he told me how delicious it would be. Then, he crawled into my arms and fell asleep before it was even ready. And maybe when Super-Smelly-Fart-Dog fell asleep it seemed all the sweeter because when I went to check on my other little tow heads who were listening to Harry Potter on CD, I found that one of them had drifted to sleep too.

Sleeping babies kill my inner cynic (as well as did a boy who asked his girlfriend to prom with a little limerick at the poetry slam on Friday night, and my face leaked one totally embarrassed, non-cynical tear, it was so damn sweet). However, if they wake up which they will eventually do, it will be back. Don't you worry.

 

Dear Laundry, You're an Asshole, I hate You. Regards, Minger.

Recently, I admitted defeat on laundry experiment number 6. I was sad to see it go, but it seemed time to move on.

I AM the Sisyphus of laundry. Wear, wash, fold, repeat, wear, wash, fold, repeat, and somewhere in there my soul dies. To be honest, I am a bit of a petulent asshole, and I hate the fact that when I fold the laundry, everyone else has a towering stack of clothes and I have one teensy, tiny little pile of two or three items. Unlike the other assholes in this family, I am environmentally conscious, and I wear the same thing everyday (to save water). Sometimes, I will wear the same shirt for four or five days including to bed. It's not gross at all because I always smell great. Even when I don't smell great, I smell meaty and sexy. That is a fact.

I don't only hate laundry because I'm lazy. It also stresses me out. It's too self indulgent to run all that water down the drain for the sake of a clean shirt. Then, I feel guilty if I don't use the clothes line in the summer so I have to time the laundry with the daylight. It saves energy to not let the dryer cool between loads so I've lost sleep over that issue as well.

My sisters rock at laundry. I used to live with my sister when her kids were about the ages of my kids, and I never saw any laundry heaped on her dining room table. I never saw a pile of clean laundry grow to epic proportions and then breed with the dirty laundry like mine does. She just skips into a room and folds the laundry like a dainty little fairy. Then, she gives her husband a blow job and a beer. Meanwhile, the dinner is simmering. She really has all the skills I lack. I'm pretty sure my sisters and mother have secret laundry meetings that they don't invite me to. Topic One: Crisp sheets. Topic Two: Good smells. Topic Three: The Benefits of Softener.

I accidentally told my mother that her dirty laundry smells better than my clean laundry. Note to self: Do not say that shit aloud or you will lose your remaining parent to a stress induced heart attack. I thought she was going to hyperventilate.

In a vain attempt to control the huge piles and the mitigate some of the associated stresses, I have attempted a few laundry experiments. Feel free to try any of these for yourself.

Laundry Experiment # 1 in which I used a laundry/housekeeping schedule. That was successful while I had only one kid, the man had his chef whites laundered through work, and we had a diaper service for the cloth diapers. More kids, a different job, and canceling the diaper service relegated LE 1 to failure status.

LE #2  in which I decided to trade in whining for excellence. I spent an entire afternoon reading laundry labels and subdividing and alphabetizing the clothes accordingly. When I heard Sean Penn say that "entertainment is two hookers and an eight ball" I knew that he had clearly never spent a day reading laundry labels. Needless to say, LE2 didn't even make it through the first day. The toddlers ran through my alphabetized piles, and everything got scrunched, trampled, and ruined. Fail.

LE #3-#4 must have been horrible because I have no memory of them.

LE #5 in which I stopped folding all the clothes of everyone who weighs less than 200 pounds. The only reason that I had to fold the big man's clothing is that it was too large to fit in the drawers without folding it. Skipping folding was definitely a time saver.

LE #6 in which the clouds parted, a sunbeam shone down, and an angel handed me this brilliant idea. In LE #6, I restricted everybody to three outfits. I removed forty two bloody shirts from boy one and two's dresser. Trust me, I did not buy those shirts....  Since I usually wear three shirts at any one time, I allowed myself nine shirts/tank tops. Years of Catholic school mean that I can divide any number by three and feel confident that it is the same. (IE. If three gods are actually one god, then nine tank tops are actually only three shirts). The man said something along the lines of, "We didn't have central heating and I had to chop wood everyday when I was a kid. I'm not playing your hippie games." Thus, the man kept his extensive, pretty wardrobe.

LE #6 was, without a doubt, the best LE ever. Of all the LE's I have ever or will ever try, it was the BEST. After a year, I folded to the consumerist BS that wants me to have more than three outfits, and I dug all our old clothes out of storage.

I don't really have a plan now. I'm trying this crazy thing where I just fold the clothes as soon as the dryer stops, but don't tell that to the three loads on the floor next to my bed or the load that is sitting in the dryer.

Question: Gender Roles? Couldn't you just let the man do the laundry?
Once the man did the laundry, and he folded all the clothes into one pile without respect to their destination. It was a total (well folded) mess; his boxers were on top of baby shirts, kid shorts were sandwiched between my underpants. It was a nightmare, but I learned something. I learned that screaming and yelling and calling him a hopeless idiot moron d-bag was not the correct way to respond. Thus, in a lame attempt at apology, I have sentenced myself to a life of doing the laundry alone without his help.

A Reluctant Soccer Mom

Today is game day and I am a new SOCCER MOM.

Are you fucking kidding me? Today. Today, the morning after my first night out in six months, is game day. I am so hungover that my brain doesn't work. I'm looking for my driver's license. Where the heck, did I leave it when I got in last night? Wait, what am I doing again? Oh, yeah, looking for my driver's license. This task would be so much easier if I didn't have to stop every three minutes and remember what the heck I am doing.

Okay, everything is in hand. The child is in his gear which I washed and laid out last night because I am an awesome SOCCER MOM, and SOCCER MOMS always have the laundry done. They don't just wash it and let it sit in a giant pile on the bedroom floor where it will eventually mingle with the dirty laundry. They wash it and put it all away in drawers. Well, that's a lot of pressure. No wonder these bitches steal their kids' insert-your-favorite-kid-prescription-drug-so-I-don't-have-to-Google-one.

We're here. Game day. I am, apparently, the only parent who is not compelled to stand through the entire game. You all brought lawn chairs, why don't you sit down and relax. Wow, I have never seen so many preppy hair cuts and dimples. I am surrounded by swing voters who drive Range Rovers. Jesus. I think I'm the only one here who views getting her kids out the door wearing underwear AND pants as a minor success.

There's some sort of play happening. The coach tells my kid to turn around. The kid follows the instruction so literally that he stays firmly in that position. He doesn't move an inch as all the other kids play around him. One of the other parents yells at him. OMG, will he be scarred for life by looking like such a dumb ass? Will it be like the only time I hit the ball during softball and I ran triumphantly to second base before the coach let me know that I was actually out because the pitcher had caught the ball. Will he be mortified like I was? Will he need therapy? Will he do drugs? OMG, this is so stressful.

Now the three year old wants to breast feed. I tell him, "Soccer moms don't breastfeed toddlers. Try my coffee" He is undeterred. Great, now my boobs are out. I have officially failed SOCCER MOM as a category. Next week, we're riding bikes, and I'm bringing a cocktail.