I Heart My Little A-Holes (14 page)

And speaking of dropping your pants, let’s talk about your career choice. Yeah, picking something you love is important, but here’s some shit the career counselors won’t tell you. You know how you say one day you want to get married and have babies and all that junk and give me little grandbabies I can cuddle and love and hand back to you when they take a shit? If you can, pick a job that’s going to be flexible with hours one day and let you work from home. There’s no such thing as a part time investment banker. Or a part time cardiac surgeon. They’re fabulous jobs and yeah, I’d be proud as hell to say my daughter is doing a heart transplant, but I’d also be watching your kiddo all day, and I’m not sure how cool it would be for me to walk into your OR and say, “Here, take your rug rat. He just made a doodie and I ain’t changing it.”

Notice how in that last paragraph I said
you want to get married one day
. I didn’t say you want to find a husband. Yeah, if you’re a lesbian, just tell us. Don’t beat around the bush. Wait, yes, beat around the bush but tell us you’re beating around the bush. It’ll actually make us feel better, especially your dad who has a gun ready for the first guy who asks for your hand in marriage.

Which is a great segue to dating. Whether you’re into men or women, you’re going to date a bunch of assholes along the way. They might break up with you in a text message or cheat on you with their ex who they broke up with in a text message. And they’ll probably make you cry and feel like crapola. Just know that they are not a waste of time. They are all there to teach you what you DON’T want in a partner.

Because one day your boobs will droop so low they touch your ankles, and your elbows will make you wonder whether you’re ¼ elephant, and your eyesight will be so bad you’ll fail to notice your one-haired goatee until it gets tangled in your necklace, and that’s when you’ll want a partner who’s not going to throw up in their mouth a little when they see you naked. You want to end up with someone who thinks you’re more gorgeous than the day you first met.

And one last thing. Even if you’re not talking to me right now, know that you can always tell me anything. ANYTHING. I’ve probably been there myself, even if I never told you about it. I might want to kick the shit out of you and lock you in a room forever, but I won’t actually do it. I will always be there for you (with a bottle of something hard if you’re 21 or a pint of something chocolatey if you’re not).

I love you.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Love,
Mommy (Of course I realize by now
you’re probably calling me Mom.
Or shithead.)

To my son when he turns eighteen (a lonnnnnng time from now),

Hey, little buddy. Can I still call you that even though you tower over me now? BTW, I appreciate you not saying anything about my gray roots, that is if you’re saying anything at all to me these days. The truth is I don’t know jack shit about boys since I came from a houseful of mostly vajayjays, so who the F knows whether they talk to their moms or not when they’re teenagers.

So as you pack your bags (or more likely as I pack your bags) to head off to college (dear God pleeeeease let it be a local one or you might find me curled up in one of your boxes), I hope you don’t mind but I’ve pulled together a list of shit you SHOULDN’T do while you’re there. Sure, I should totally take you fishing or some crap like that and tell you this to your face, but screw that. I’d be embarrassed, you’d be embarrassed, and this way you can pin this letter above your extra long twin-sized bed so you’ll never forget. Okay, I’m just gonna dive right in here.

Don’t ever sleep with a girl without a condom on. Not just protection. A CONDOM!!! I don’t give a rat’s ass if she says she’s on the pill or wearing a diaphragm (and if she says she’s wearing a sponge, run like the wind ’cause that girl’s not a girl, she’s a dinosaur). Because here’s what can happen when you don’t wear a condom. You can get all kinds of shit. Like AIDS or herpes or chlamidia. I have no F’ing idea how to spell that word and I’m okay with that because anyone who knows how to spell chlamidia has probably had it. In fact, I will quiz you every time I see you to make sure you can’t spell it.

Oh, and here’s another thing you can get if you don’t use a condom. A baby. That’s right, a pooping, shitting, crying, peeing, never-sleeping, attached-to-its-ho-bag-mother baby. And believe me, you don’t want one of those. I can’t tell you how annoying babies are. Uhhh, except for you of course. Nahhh, even you were a pain in the ass.

Plus, if you get a girl preggers, you’re going to be her daddy-slave FOREVAHHH. And I know some hot little chica might look awesome now in her Vic’s Secret panties that say “call me” on the crotch, but really that’s just a sneak peek into the irritating nag she’s going to be if you get her preggers. “
Call me
when you’re leaving the office.
Call me
in case I need you to pick up milk.
Call me
and tell me you love me.
Call me
when you’re out with the guys.
Call me
just because I want your ass to be at my beckon call.”

So I cannot say this enough. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers. Do not get a girl preggers.

And while we’re on the subject of getting laid (gasp! yes, your mama just said getting laid), if you don’t really like a girl, like really really like her, don’t spoon her. I know it seems like a stupid little thing, but there’s like some weird switch in women and as soon as you spoon them, they start to picture things like the L word and marriage and shit like that. I know, it’s weird. But women are weird. Duh, look at me.

Okay, so let’s move on to a different subject. While you’re in college, I probably don’t have to tell you this, but it’s okay to drink your face off once in a while. And there are lots of fun, harmless things to do while you’re shitfaced. Like swallow a goldfish (I know all the PETA people reading this are like WTF, but seriously people, it’s a goldfish). Or come up with some annoying accent with your friends and annoy the shit out of everyone around you all night while you talk like that. Or pass out and have your friends draw with Sharpies all over you. Does it suck waking up with a Hitler mustache? Sure. But it’s important to laugh at yourself once in a while.

But here’s the real reason I’m talking to you about getting shitfaced. Here are some things NOT to do while you’re tanked. Get in the car and drive somewhere. If you are drunk and need to get from point A to point B, call me. Go ahead and say you’re at your drug dealer’s and you’re going to a whorehouse. I don’t give a shit, just call me. I will come drive you there because I would rather do that than let you drive drunk.

And here’s another thing NOT to do while you’re drunk. Get into a fistfight at a bar. Because here’s what happens to a-holes who fight in bars. They die. Or they get thrown in jail and they have to call their parents to bail them out and their parents kill them and guess what. They die.

And last but not least, one last thing not to do when you get shitfaced (Side note, I LOVE that spell check totally recognizes the word shitfaced. It doesn’t recognize dreidel but it does recognize shitfaced. WTF?). Anyways, last but not least, when you’re shitfaced do not get a girl preggers!!!

Aww shit, this letter is like a novel already so let me just rattle off a few more. Don’t forget to wash your sheets sometimes, at least once a semester, especially if you’re busy NOT getting girls pregnant in them. Don’t pick a girl for her boobs because one day they will be around her ankles. And don’t forget to hug me when you come home to visit. Every single weekend.

I love you and will be drowning my sorrows in red wine until I see you again on Friday when you come home to hug me.

Love,
Yo mama

P.S. Just in case you skimmed this letter because it’s too long and just read the last line, do not get a girl preggers.

So the other day I was reading some sappy crap on Huff Post when they started talking about helicopter parenting and I was like WTF is that so I decided to look it up. Holy shit, there’s like a name for every kind of parent out there. Who the hell knew?! Well, probably half of you because you read parenting books and shit, but I all I ever read is People magazine so I had no idea.

Anyways, it’s kind of like how ten years ago everyone was trying to figure out which Sex and the City character they were. I was like Carrie but fatter and with a little Miranda and Samantha mixed in but ZERO Charlotte. But I digress. So as soon as I see this parenting styles list, I scan it to see which of these styles I am.

Not me. Not me. Not me. Not me. Not me.

Awesome, so basically I don’t fit in anywhere and I belong on the island of misfits. What else is new? So here goes. My very scientific analysis of the five different parenting styles and why I’m not any of them.

Instinctive Parenting

Definition: This is when parents pretty much just go with their gut and listen to their instincts as they raise their kids.

Uhhhh, yeah, this one is not me. Like right now as I type this, my four-year-old is purposely running as loudly as possible down the hallway either trying to imitate a herd of elephants or attempting to wake her napping brother, and you know what my gut is telling me? Go the F out there and kill her.

If parents like me went with our instincts, we would all murder our kids sometime between the ages of 2 and 4 and the human race would eventually die out. What killed the dinosaurs? An asteroid. What killed the humans? Instinctive parenting.

That’s why they literally teach you at the hospital before you leave to never shake a baby. Because at some point when your poop machine is screaming at the top of her lungs no matter how much you swaddle her, sing to her or bounce her on an exercise ball, instinct tells you to shake the F’ing baby.

Attachment parenting

Definition: These parents are all about answering to their children’s every need like ASAP. And they’re into shit like the family bed, homeschooling and that regurgitation crap Alicia Silverstone did with her kid (Remember when she fed him chewed up kale like a bird right out of her mouth? Blagggh, I won’t even eat kale
before
it’s chewed up by someone else).

So here’s what I think of this one. Unless you just randomly opened this book right now to this page to see if you want to buy it (you do) you probably know that I’m like the complete opposite of attachment parenting. I mean this is what I said when we moved to our neighborhood. “WTF do you mean it’s only half-day kindergarten?!”

And these attachment parenters choose to have their kids home ALLLLLLLL day. And not just plopped down in front of the TV. I mean just the thought of having my kids at home all day every day for the next 16 years makes me want to stab my brain with two screwdrivers, one through each ear.

After having them at home all day teaching them shit like Algebra that you can’t remember how to do so you have to relearn it, you have to let them curl up with you in your bed at night too? No thank you. I mean my husband and I have a king-sized bed so that we don’t have to touch someone else’s skin while we sleep, so the thought of being jabbed by some little rug rat’s elbow in the eyeball in the middle of the night is just not cool.

And what about sex? Can you imagine? We’re doing it in the laundry room or the basement at 3 AM because all the kids are in our bed, and one of them starts calling, “MOMMMMMYY, I want some cheese!!!!” And I have to be like, “Hold that orgasm, honey, I’ve gotta go unwrap some Velveeta for poop machine #2 right this very second because I’m an attachment parenter. I’ll be right back.”

Helicopter Parenting

Definition: Helicopter parents hover over their kids like a helicopter (duh) basically doing everything for them and constantly making sure they don’t get hurt.

Hmmm, yeahh, as if I don’t have enough shit of my own to do, I’m going to go ahead and do everything my kid is supposed to do too. WTF? You know what happens to these kids? They’re in college and Mommy’s still doing everything for them.

ME: Awwww, darn it guys, I can’t go to pilates today. Holden just texted me and I have to run by the dorm to wipe his ass. He just made poopies.

Authoritative Parenting

Definition: These are parents who expect their kids to follow the rules they make, but when the kids stray, the parents tend to be more supportive than punishing.

Bwahahahaha! Okay, I have two things to say about this. First of all, I’m not stupid enough to think my kids are going to follow my rules. I mean, my kid’s the one who outlined every corner in our house with a purple crayon. And the kid who wiped poop on her nightstand last week. And the kid who purposely spilled her yogurt down the heating vent.

And second of all, you want me to do WHAT? Be supportive and NOT punish her ass for this stuff? I’m like sit the F down in that corner young lady, and you can get up when the timer goes off, and then I go set the timer for two years. But apparently I’m supposed to speak sternly to her and then go enroll her in art class or something. I have three words to say about this. F that shit.

Permissive Parenting