While I was dying of the stomach flu from hell last week, my daughter took it upon herself to throw rabbit food all over the family room. When I say, “all over” I mean motherfucking EVERYWHERE.

A week later, I’m still cleaning it out of the most random of places. Amelia has been grounded until age sixteen.

I was in the middle of frantically vacuuming it out from under my end table, mentally adding a couple more years to her grounding, possibly a moat and a fire-breathing dragon, when Daver asked me to cut his hair.

“I’m going short for summer,” he informed me.

“Sure,” I said, wiping sweat from my face. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

He grabbed his clippers and began to cut his hair. Eventually, he called me. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

With that he handed me the clippers.

He didn’t SAY anything about the clippers, so I assumed that they were on the proper setting. Or whatever. I’m no clipper expert.

So I just grabbed ’em and started clipping.

If this were a sitcom, this is where you guys would start to groan.

I neatly shaved a two-inch stripe on the left side of Daver’s head before I realized he’d set the clippers to their lowest setting so I could shave up the back. Not shave his whole head with them.

“Oh FUCK,” I said.

“What?” He replied, somehow oblivious that I’d just made him look like a second-rate Vanilla Ice.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” This was very bad. Very bad indeed. “I just shaved a vertical stripe on your head!”

“WHAT?” With that he ran to the bathroom to look.

“BECKY!” he hollered. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“I, um, I can FIX it,” I promised.

He sat back down and handed me the clippers again, proving that he’s a masochist.

“Maybe I should Bic it,” he said.

“Dave, your head is shaped like an alien. You can’t Bic that shit. You’ll scare small children.” I said as I tried to blend the hair.

I stood back to admire my handiwork.

“Um, maybe you can use some makeup or something.” I suggested.

“Makeup? What the fuck can I do with MAKEUP?”

“Well, um, you could apply brownish eyeshadow to that area some so your pasty whiteness doesn’t shine through. Like that spray paint shit they sold to bald guys.” I said it, then remembered it was an SNL skit.

“I’ll just wear a hat.”

(hours pass)(I eat a cheeseburger)

“The hat doesn’t cover that bit of my head, Becky. YOU OWE ME,” Daver said.

“Well, you could wear a ski cap. I have several…oh, wait, they have rhinestones on them. Plus, um, it’s summer.”

“Yeah,” he said, annoyed.

“From THIS angle, it looks fine,” I suggested, starting to laugh.

“You’re sitting on the OTHER SIDE OF ME.”

(I begin to laugh uproariously)

“I can try and make it look intentional. Shave a swish on either side of your head.”

“I CANNOT GO OUT IN PUBLIC LIKE THIS.”

“Bwahahahahahaha! (wipes eyes) People will just think you have some horrible condition that makes you bald on one side. You can tell them you have leprosy. Maybe people will give you free things!”

I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying.

“Oh great,” he said, playing the straight man. “People will think that I’m rotting. That’s just GREAT, Becky.”

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Especially if you flail around a little bit. You should practice flailing around. OHMYGOD WE NEED TO GO OUT IN PUBLIC NOW.”

“No.” Dave replied.

“Well,” I snorted. “It’ll grow back. Remember that time I had a mullet?”

He laughed.

“Exactly.”

I’d been casually chatting with my father about my growing orchid obsession. He looked at me a little funny – nothing out of the ordinary there – when he dropped a bomb, “You know, your grandfather grew these orchids.”

No, no I didn’t know that. I’d remembered the greenhouses from my early childhood. Every other weekend, I recall, we’d go to a certain greenhouse or another, which is why the smell of that good green growing earth makes me nostalgic and warm inside. I remember being a toddler, spending hours at the rose garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden, listening to my family plan my future wedding there. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that I did not marry there.

My grandfather grew roses – beautiful roses – always puttering around with them, lovingly spraying them with this and that, warding off all potential pests and coaxing out the most beautiful, heavenly-scented blooms.

When I grew my own rose garden, lovingly spraying them with this and that, warding off potential pests, and coaxing out the most beautiful, heavenly-scented blooms, I’d think of him. Not at first. But eventually, I felt as though he was right there beside me, helping me identify pests and apply the proper fertilizers.

The orchids, though, they threw me through a loop. Until I found this:

That’s an orchid bloom in my curls.

My grandfather is with me always, it seems.

He is my hero.

And not just because he grew orchids and roses like I do, but because he lived the sort of live I hope to live. It was a life less ordinary.

He graduated from Johns Hopkins medical school at nineteen and became a doctor at the same age that my life hit a crossroads. I’d always planned to go to medical school myself, and life found a way. I became a mother.

He worked as the sort of family doctor that made housecalls, his forceps and stethoscope always in his medical bag, ready to deliver a baby, diagnose rubella, or treat a broken arm. It was during these housecalls that he was exposed to tuberculosis and spent many months at a TB sanatorium in the mountains, missing out on his first son’s – my father’s – early life.

Before that, though, he was a doctor in the United States Army. He was the first on the scene when the Allies liberated the concentration camps. He was the first medical personnel to treat the concentration camp victims. He never spoke of those days, what he saw, the atrocities of the Nazi’s, and what he had to do to help the survivors, although I know they weighed on him.

By the time I rolled around, he’d given up his medical practice and became the head of pathology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The apple of his eye, his granddaughter, he spent as much time with as he could. Weekends roaming the botanical gardens. Nights at Ravinia, on the lawn, under the stars, listening to the magical strains of Saint Matthew’s Passion and The 1812 Overture, eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket. Those were the best days of my young life.

An adult with children of my own, my grandfather long-passed, I have the vain hope that one day, my life will, too, be remembered as less ordinary, if only by myself. That because of the choices I’ve made, the people I carry in my heart, the people who now (however virtually) walk by my side, the experiences I’ve put behind me, that my own life can be as far from ordinary as his.

I’d say that I miss you, Grandpa, but I know you’re always with me.

Today, tomorrow, always.

Dear Pranksters,

I’m planning to make some new shirt designs, but since I cannot eat a sandwich without first consulting The Internet, I am asking for your opinion. In nifty poll form!

Would you order any of these shirts? Check all that apply. And, of course, you can write any other suggestions in the comments.

[poll id=”6″]

Dear Aunt Becky,

I’ve been at this craptastical job for 5 years, during which they ass raped me with a spiked concrete dildo during both my maternity leave and the more recent incident with my husband’s stroke. During that, not only did they choose to string out the Medical Leave paperwork and make it more stressful than my HUSBAND BEING IN THE ICU, but also kept me on a line about whether or not they would be laying me off.

I’ve just been offered a job at Apple Retail (which I will be accepting) and be able to do my photography (holla!) and virtual assistance on the side (if you are a photographer or small business owner, check me out! http://thephotogshelper.com *cough* ) and will be starting training this weekend.

Now, my question is this! What is the most epic way to quit? I don’t care about burning bridges, as they have already screwed me here to there and I would rather whore myself out than try to come back here to work, but I want something good.

Sincerely,

Pissed in Portland

Dear Pissed in Portland,

My suggestion is something that someone I knew once did. Not, of course, myself, because I’m a VERY classy person. Or maybe it was a dream I had. I don’t remember.

He went in on the day he was going to quit and took a gigantic piss on his bosses keyboard. He then left his resignation letter floating in the piss puddle on the desk.

You would probably have to put your pee in a jar, but you know, same sentiments.

Do let us know what you decide to do. And Pranksters? Any suggestions?

Dear Aunt Becky

I have 3 kids with autism. What this means is that I am always too sleep deprived to be quick on my feet when people say stupid shit to me. Usually I can think of a snarktastic reply to stupid shit later, and use it on the next idiot.

Example:

Them: That child just needs some discipline! (i.e. Why don’t you beat him?! I would totally beat him!)

Me: OMG! Why didn’t I think of that! Of course, I’ve just been letting him do whatever he wants whenever he wants without the first thought of trying to discipline him. WOW. Thank you for curing his Autism with a single ignorant remark!

However, I have run into one I don’t know what to do with. And since you seem to be thoroughly awesome at snark…

How in hell do you reply to, “Is your kid a retard?”

I refuse to reply, “No, but I have my doubts about you” simply because that would be using that horrible slur back on someone else. It’s not okay to use the r-word, regardless of how stupid someone is. So… do you have an idea?

Jesus Christ, people can be such ignorant fuckbags, can’t they?

Honestly, I’d shoot them the death glare for a couple of loooooooonnnngggg moments before replying with, “Hey, FUCK YOU.” Baring that, “you shut your whore mouth,” always works.

Pranksters? Any thoughts?

—————

As always, your sage advice is appreciated in the comments below. What would you tell these Pranksters to do?

And submit your questions to the Go Ask Aunt Becky section at the top of the blogs, if you dare.

(no, I am not pregnant. This was something I created for Band Back Together’s Resource Pages. See, Mom! Those nursing textbooks you bought me ARE useful for things other than doorstops!)

Week One HA! Fooled you. It’s your period. The last one you (should) have for forty weeks. Enjoy it.

Week Two: Thank GOD that period bloat is gone.

Week Three: Sperm, meet egg! Hopefully it was preceded by a very nice, extremely expensive candle-lit dinner. If it wasn’t, WELCOME TO THE CLUB.

Week Four: Your baby is now a BLASTOCYST. It sounds like something you’d say when you sneeze, but I assure you this is where the magic happens (also: when you eat Twizzlers. They’re magical). That ball of rapidly dividing cells will implant itself into your warm cozy womb.

Week Five: CONGRATS, MAMA! Yer knocked up! But…your baby looks like a brine shrimp. It’s a very CUTE one, but it’s a brine shrimp. It does have wee arm and leg buds (I don’t think shrimpies have those, but I’m allergic, so you know). Even more exciting, all of it’s organ systems – including the heart and lungs – are beginning to form. You know, so it can scream it’s head off to you when you don’t buy it Justin Beaver tickets.

Week Six: You’re probably feeling like dogshit. It’s okay, have a saltine and some nice Gatorade. Y’know, stuff you can puke up more easily. If you’re like me, you probably look six months pregnant already, even though your blastocyst is the a little bigger than a poppyseed.

Week Seven: Your baby is getting it’s kidneys ready to properly whiz all over your face, your carpet, your couch, it’s bed, and anywhere else it can possibly pee. Babies are good that way. It’s approximately the size of a blueberry, which should make you a) starving or b) vomit to read. Sorry about the fruit thing.

Week Eight: Well, okay, good, your baby looks like a baby and less like a shrimp. PHEW. It’s got fingers and toes (they are webbed, but you know, think of it like a duck and NOT like a Carny.) Even better? IT’S TAIL IS ALMOST GONE. Yep. I said tail. I meant it, too. Plus, it’s brain is forming. So it can outwit you. Trust me, it will.

Week Nine: Your less shrimpy baby’s weight can now be measured in ounces. Like vodka. Even better? NO TAIL. Although, I might like a prehensile tail sometime.

Week Ten: Those creepy arm buds are limbs that can move now, which means that your baby could very well be flicking you off RIGHT NOW. You should put the naughty baby in Time Out and give Aunt Becky his toys.

Week Eleven: Did you know I had to look up how to spell “eleven?” Because I did. Your baby and his developing brain is much smarter than me, even if his muscles are gearing up to kick your ass from the inside.

Week Twelve: Okay, so your baby has a big head. Like HUGE. A melon of a head. Well, in proportion to the rest of it. Your bobble-headed baby is getting nails, too, which is fancy. If you’re lucky, you should be able to hear the galloping heartbeat via Fetal Doppler, too. Always exciting.

Week Thirteen: Did you know that fingerprints are thought to be created by fetal movement in the womb? I thought that was kinda neat. Anyway. Your baby’s three inch long body is catching up to it’s gigantor head.

Week Fourteen: Welcome to the second trimester. If you call it “the golden trimester” in my presence, I will cut you. So, your baby can now do all of these fancy things with it’s face, like grimace, suck it’s thumb, squint and frown. That’s all gearing up for the terrible two’s and the teenage years. Enjoy the expressions when you can’t see them in front of you telling you how LAME you are.

Week Fifteen: Your baby weighs as much as a shot of vodka. Or the ones Aunt Becky pours, which are two and a half ounces. Plus, it’s starting to look like a REAL BABY and not a freaky shrimp creature.

Week Sixteen: Your baby’s head is still ginormous. Luckily, it’s getting hair on that beast, so if it should decide to comb it’s hair in the womb, it so could. Your baby is also getting big enough to dance the night away, probably on the bladder, thereby interrupting your sleep in a series of nights that, trust me, you’ll be up with the baby. (you should put your baby in Time Out for that)

Week Seventeen: I’d tell you your baby was the size of a turnip but I have no clue what a turnip looks like so it’s useless. Your baby is getting sweat glands this week which means LOTS of stinky socks in your future.

Week Eighteen: Hopefully by now you’ve gotten to feel your baby tap-tappity-tap-tap you. Because he’s dancing up a freaking storm in there. And those small movements (called quickening) are what makes pregnancy worth it. No, seriously. SHUT UP, I’M ALLOWED TO HAVE FEELINGS.

Week Nineteen: Your baby can hear you sing. So knock off the crappy Britney impersonations (that was my note to self).

Week Twenty: So your baby is learning to breathe. Talk about awesome. No seriously, those lungs are important and it should practice breathing so it can scare the shit out of you with shrieks someday soon. I told you the good stuff first. Now? I need to warn you. Your baby is also covered with cheesy vernix caeseosa. And hair. Everywhere. See? I told you it was scary.

Week Twenty-One: You’ve probably figured out if your gestating a boy or girl. So get ready to pick out paint colors for the nursery and then make someone else paint it. Milk that pregnancy for all it’s worth, girl.

Week Twenty-Two: Your baby weighs almost a pound and is getting fatter by the minute. Don’t think you need to put him on Baby Atkins yet. Baby fat = good.

Week Twenty-Three: From the outside, your baby looks like the alien in Alien, what with the squirming and twisting and trying to exit through your belly button. Stupid baby; we all know that the belly button is NOT the place a baby comes from. It’s your vagina.

Week Twenty-Four: Now your baby can hear. So you can TOTALLY put it in time-out for making you retain so much freaking WATER.

Week Twenty-Five: If you have an ultrasound now, you can probably see some of baby’s hair swirling around. Unless you have a cue-ball baby. Then, not so much.

Week Twenty-Six: If you’re having a boy crotch parasite, his testicles are descending to the scrotum. Just what you wanted to think about.

Week Twenty-Seven: You’ll know if baby gets the hiccups now because your belly will jump around all freaky-style. Luckily, baby isn’t big enough to HURT YOU yet when it does that.

Week Twenty-Eight: Your baby weighs over two pounds, but still, it’s pretty skinny. On the upside, it’s less wrinkled and red than it’s been before. Even cooler, it can open it’s lash-rimmed eyes. Bummer it can’t tell you what it sees because I bet it’s rad. Also: 96% of babies born at 28 weeks gestation survive. Win!

Week Twenty-Nine: You should probably sign up for those Lamaze classes so you can answer me a question that has haunted me for years: why do the ladies in the birthing videos deliver naked?

Week Thirty: Now, baby is getting ready to be expelled from your body. It’s assumed the “head down” position, if it’s a good baby, and it’s getting fatter! See, unlike adult fat, baby fat is full of the awesome, for their health AND adorability. Also: your baby is aware of the sounds outside of the womb. Maybe it’s time to turn down the porn.

Week Thirty-One: Your mean baby is probably keeping you up all night kicking your spleen. I’ll lie and say “it gets better once they’re born,” but it’s not true. I mean, it IS true. You’ll have the miracle baby that sleeps through the night from birth. (P.S. ground that baby now and give me his presents)

Week Thirty-Two: Your baby is less wrinkled now, which is good. Who wants to give birth to a baby that looks like a old man wearing a onsie?

Week Thirty-Three: Baby is now pretty tightly fit in your uterus, which means you’ll feel it a hell of a lot more when baby kicks the shit out of your bladder. It’s okay if you pee a little when you sneeze. We all do. Well, except for me. Because I am a miracle.

Week Thirty-Four: You’re probably wearing underwear that could double as the mast from a sailboat. But damn, that shit is COMFORTABLE.

Week Thirty-Five: Even if your hospital bag is packed, color coded, and organized alphabetically, I promise you that you’ll forget the one thing you really need and make someone else go buy it for you. Or, you’ll never use the suitcase of stuff you brought because you’re bleeding everywhere and just want more of those damn ice packs for your crotch. Perhaps it’s just me.

Week Thirty-Six: All that hair that I talked about before that made your baby look like Sasquatch? Well, thankfully, it’s disappearing now. Because a baby with a hairy back is creepy. Your baby’s body is getting nice and fat, which is good, because it helps it regulate body temperature once it’s outside of the womb. Speaking of that, hope you have your nursery ready, because D-Day is almost here.

Week Thirty-Seven: Welcome to full-term. Your baby is cooked. NOW you can start obsessing over the signs of labor and assume you’re in labor every time you have heartburn (right, like you haven’t been doing that since Week Eight.) Trust me when I say this: labor feels like labor, not heartburn.

Week Thirty-Eight: Baby’s getting fatter, but every minute seems like an hour and every hour seems like an eternity as you wait to pop out your baby. Disconnect yourself from social media lest you go on a mad Twitter rampage about how unhappy you are. There ARE people without legs, after all.

Week Thirty-Nine: Sorry you’re still pregnant. I’m sure you’re miserable, especially since people stare at you with mouths agape when you go out in public. Apparently, the general public has never seen a pregnant woman before. You should kick them if they stare. I’ll get your bail money.

Week Forty: That cheesy vernix caeseosa is almost gone now, which is good, because it makes your baby look like a statue. Your baby is also fat, pink and happy. Well, okay, I lied. Most babies are decidedly UN-happy. But hey, you didn’t hear it from me. It’s time to push a baby out of your vagina (or have it removed from above) and wear those awesomely gigantic mesh panties they give you at the hospital. Screw Victoria’s Secret; THOSE is where the party is.

Week Forty-One: Are you STILL fucking pregnant? That’s bullshit. Get some really obnoxious music (think C and C Music Factory) and play it to your belly, all Branch Davidians-Style. You should probably take your phone off the hook so you don’t get a zillion “are you STILL pregnant?” questions. Because trust me. If you’re still pregnant, you don’t need to make nifty smalltalk.

Week Forty-Two: Okay, I feel sorry enough for you by now to actually help this along myself. Threaten baby with A Visit From Crazy Aunt Becky.

Land’s End sent me a bathing suit. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “WHY would anyone send Aunt Becky ANYTHING besides a yacht?” and I’m wondering the same thing. In fact, I’m still WAITING for my yacht.

*taps foot impatiently*

Land’s End sent me a bathing suit so that I would post a picture of myself wearing it on my blog. You can see the error in their thinking, right?

I can.

This was probably NOT what they wanted:

Better yet, this:

Sorry, Land’s End.

I couldn’t resist.

In the eleventy-billion years I’ve been blogging, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a couple of days off. See, I’m too compulsive to do that. By noon, if I haven’t gotten something completely mediocre pecked out and posted here, I’m practically banging my head into the wall, yelling, “NOT WITHOUT MY BLOG.”

I took Monday and Tuesday off, not because I was frolicking around, doing awesome things with my Cabana Boy, Raphael, but because *flings hand against head dramatically* I was very close to death.

Well, no, I was probably not near death, but I wanted to be.

See, Pranksters, I had *cue Imperial Death March* The Stomach Flu.

I hate the stomach flu more than I hate cream-based condiments, smoove jazz and decaffeinated coffee (what’s the fucking point?).

I was the last one standing against it, too. Everyone else in my house had been felled by it and I was all LOOKIT ME, ALL EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER ON YOU, GASTROENTERITIS. IMMA MAKE YOU MY BITCH.

Three hours later, I was laying on the hideous tile in our upstairs bathroom, praying to the porcelain gods that they would spare me this agony and just let me die.

My cats, very helpfully, I should add in my most sarcastic tone, circled around me, trying to lick me back to health. Or, perhaps, decide where would be best to start gnawing on my corpse. I love my cats, but I don’t trust them not to chomp their way into my dead body to make a nice cozy home.

Monday morning found me in the ER for a couple of bags of fluids. I had dehydrated myself so thoroughly over the previous twelve hours that I couldn’t even produce tears. I hate going to the ER, but I was all, “I’M *wheeze* ALL *horks* EYE OF THE *splat* TIGER,” and then I passed out.

(I’m always pissed about going to the ER for things because, hell, I could give MYSELF a bag of Normal Saline or Ringers Lactate if I had the proper equipment.)

The following thirty-six hours were spent in a feverish haze, where I alternated between moaning on the couch and moaning in bed. The highlight? Drinking the most delicious blue-flavored slurpee in the world. Nothing, Pranksters, has ever tasted so good.

I also fulfilling one of my OCD dreams: I bought a carpet steamer. The excitement I feel over this is pathetic. I mean, who knows how to party, Pranksters? (answer: I do)

So this is Your Aunt Becky, telling you that I’m back. In black.

What did I miss while I was gone?

Dear Aunt Becky,

My grandpa died a few years ago. About a year after he died my grandma met Sam. He was a widower and they seemed to hit it off. No one else in the family was impressed. He isn’t very friendly, and did’t seem happy when Grandma insisted on coming to family events. I’ve only met him a few times, actually, because he doesn’t like to come around. That means I don’t see Grandma often because she doesn’t come without him. He had grandma sell her house and move away from the rest of the family about 4 hours away. We just wanted Grandma to be happy, and she seemed to be so we didn’t make a big deal about it.

A few weeks ago my cousin was staying with them, and they must have thought she was asleep, because she heard them arguing. She went to see what the noise was about and saw Sam hitting my grandma. Grandma admitted it happened but said it was the only time. Now we find out that Sam convinced my Grandma to put the proceeds of the sale of her house into a joint checking account. They have a pre-nup, but we’ve also discovered it only protects his money and not hers. Her money is now their money! Grandma is having significant health problems and we also found out that she is still expected to cook and clean and basically wait on Sam hand and foot even though he is in good health and she isn’t.

I am sick about this. We don’t know what to do. Grandma is from the generation that you don’t get divorced. Aside from killing HIM or kicking his ass, what can we do to get through to her?

I really want to go Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger on this asshole. Anyhow. My anger is not particularly valuable or helpful.

Elder Abuse is defined as a intentional or negligent act that causes harm or risk of harm to a vulnerable adult.

It’s clear that Sam is abusing your grandmother. Since she’s a vulnerable population, there are special agencies that you can contact about this.

If you (or anyone else) believe someone to be in danger, obvs call 911.

Please call Eldercare this week at 1-800-677-1116. They can give you specific information about how to get your grandmother the help she needs. It’s a directory of services in your area that you can utilize for help and additional resources.

I also have a list of State-By-State resources for the elder abuse reporting and assorted programs for the elderly in your state. It’s an excellent resource.

National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233)
Staff provide callers with crisis intervention, information about domestic violence, and referrals to local programs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Telephone assistance is available in many languages, including Spanish.

The Directory of Crime Victim Services is a Web-enabled, online resource sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). The directory is designed to help service providers and individuals locate victim services in the United States and other countries. Search by location, type of victimization, service needed, or agency type.

(Shit, now you’re going to see that I may have exaggerated my cat video consumption. I’m showing you what a NERD I am. Damns. See I do a lot of researching and writing pages for Band Back Together, like THIS one, on Elder Abuse).

I wish you luck, Prankster. I’m so sorry your grandmother is being abused. If you need help “taking care of Sam” I’m in.

I’m not super-familiar with elder abuse, beyond this, so please, Pranksters, help me out here.

—————

As always, Pranksters, feel free to submit your most pressing questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky.

I’m getting a new central air conditioner today. It’s been dying a slow and painful death since Alex was a wee babe and we’ve put it off because, well, it hadn’t entirely bit the bucket. The guy came to install it and was all, “Holy shit, I can’t believe they hooked it up like this. It could have blown up.”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe XXX” is about what I think when I think back to our old first floor bathroom, so I think he and I are going to get along fabulously.

(yes, yes that’s right, Pranksters. That IS three types of wallpaper in that tiny room. And, why yes! How astute of you to notice that it’s GLUED TO THE FUCKING DRYWALL. GOD, that was a bitch to get off.)

Anyway. I couldn’t be happier to have this installed, even though it’s costing me a couple of G’s.

As I told The Daver this morning, “Hey, it beats the condo.” He laughed knowingly.

Back when I didn’t know better, The Daver and I bought a three bedroom condo in Oak Park. It was a beautiful red brick building, right on the edge of an “up-and-coming neighborhood.” (in this case, “up-and-coming” means “on the edge of the ghetto”)

Our condo was a charming thing, all tall ceilings and dark wood floors. Very beautiful.

Until we moved in.

It was only then when I realized what “vintage” really meant. It meant, “you’re a fucking sucker.”

We had a radiator in the basement, one that heated all of the units, and, well, it was on when it was on and when it wasn’t on, it was still on. Our condo was right below it, so during the winter, it wasn’t uncommon to see me walking around in a tank top and shorts.

We’d gone to a Condo Board Meeting to learn that our poor radiator was on it’s last legs…and there were no funds from our condo dues to pay for it. It cost something like ten billion dollars.

We’d just shelled out five grand for a new back porch.

Great.

And the lead-paint covered windows that may as well have been screens for all the air they kept out? Well, if we wanted to replace those, they were a thousand dollars.

Each.

A thousand dollars.

Each.

We had something like ten windows. Ten grand (plus installation!) for windows. Windows NOT made of solid gold.

See, we needed to get specialty windows – replicas of the original – to match building code.

(fuck you, vintage)

When we added fans (and learned about the faulty wiring that may have killed us in a fiery blaze, had we not gone up and fixed it) in our condo in the summer because it was 8000000 degrees and window AC units don’t work so well when the windows allow hot air to pour in? Well, we were in trouble with the condo board for not using their electrician.

I have never been happier to move back to the land of the pre-fab.

At least now, when our AC unit craps out on us, I can buy a FLOOR MODEL and have it installed. It’s not specially carved by small children in Zimbabwe to match my house. It’s just an AC unit.

And when I decide to recarpet my house, it will be regular carpet, not carpet hand-crafted on the backs of seventeen vestal virgins.

Which is fortunate. I don’t even know what a vestal virgin is.

Through the grandparental grapevine, I heard that my son had a girlfriend.

Ben, not Alex. Because if Alex had a girlfriend, he’d try and fart on her to woo her. Which, let’s face it, is how Daver wooed me.

When I asked Ben about his “girlfriend,” rather than chattering on for an hour and a half like he normally does, instead he turned red and ran out of the room laughing, yelling, “I DON’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND.” Which is precisely how Daver wooed me.

Must run in the family.

Yesterday, he brought up his “girlfriend,” again. By again, I mean that he yelled I DON’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND, then running around the house for a couple of minutes, before coming back to challenge me, “you can’t guess what my girlfriend’s name is.”

Daver warned him, “don’t challenge your mother unless you want her to know, Ben. If she wants to do something, she WILL.” My heart burst with pride.

Curious now, I asked Ben what “girlfriend” meant to him.

“Well,” he informed me, “it’s someone I like.”

“Does…” I asked hesitantly, worried that I hadn’t properly explained dating to him, “does she know you like her?”

“Well,” he looked at his hands. “No.”

I smiled and informed him that this was someone he had a crush on, not a “girlfriend.” He seemed taken aback.

I asked him if he was going to have her come over to play this summer, and again, he blushed furiously and ran around the house like a maniac. Running around like maniacs is what my children do best and why my single friends use visiting Aunt Becky as “free birth control.”

When he finally came back, he said he was too nervous to ask her to hang out this summer.

I knew I had to act. And now.

“Okay, Ben, when you’re all nervous, you think to yourself, EYE OF THE TIGER,” I pulled out the BIG guns.

He looked confused, so I hollered, “EYE OF THE TIGER.”

He looked even MORE confused. Daver queued up Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” as an A/V tool and I began my wicked Air Guitar Routine. Let me tell you, Pranksters, I would TOTALLY win at any air guitar contest EVER.

Well, the music helped. Soon all three of my children were running around the house, air-playing different instruments (we could form an amazing air rock band) yelling, “EYE OF THE TIGER.”

When the song was over, Ben came back and said, “It worked Mom. I feel like I can do ANYTHING now. I’m all EYE OF THE TIGER.”

Exactly, my child.

Exactly.

————-

Am over at Cafe Mom today. Got two columns for you.

(barely) Surviving Sleep Training

(barely) Surviving Extreme Parenting

When my mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it was a big secret. Not to me, of course, but to the insurance companies. I remember how she had to hide her treatments, her hospitalizations and her actual diagnosis from going “on record” so as to avoid being labeled as “A Crazy.”

I’m not sure anyone outside of our immediate family knew about her illness.

By the time I was in high school, depression wasn’t something that people expected you to be locked in a padded room for. Hats of to Prozac!

I’ve dealt with generic, boring-ass depression on and off for years; sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, and I’ve spoken out repeatedly about how I suffered terrible antenatal depression (depression while pregnant).

Antenatal depression is not quite as well-known as postpartum depression – probably because it’s even less glamorous. I mean, who can be depressed while creating a new life INSIDE you? A new life that’s using your liver as a punching bag, giving you insomnia and causing you to pee your pants when you waddle? Not a GOOD mother.

(that was sarcasm)

When my last child, Amelia, was born in a decidedly non-picturesque freakshow carnival that ended with someone drilling into her brain, removing part of it, and then implanting a prosthetic piece of skull into her delicious wee newborn head, that things went from manageable to so beyond anything I could handle.

But she was fine! I berated myself, night after night, as I relived those horrible awful first days in a series of flashbacks.

I was forever delivering that sick baby, having her ripped from my arms and sent off for neurosurgery. I was forever offering her up like Abraham sacrificing Issac, stuck between two horrifying alternatives. In what few dreams I had, I roamed the halls of the hospital, everything stuck in freeze-frame.

Why, I chastised myself, if she had survived, was I in such a state? I couldn’t answer that.

For months following her birth and surgery, I couldn’t leave the house. My beloved roses wilted from lack of care that summer because I simply couldn’t handle even that – a task which had brought me so much joy. I couldn’t do anything. I was mired in one place. Numb. Alone.

Those were the worst days of my life.

It wasn’t for many months that it smacked me upside the head: I had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I wrestled with the realization.

Well, I said to myself, Aunt Becky, that sounds dumb. Fucking man-up here. Get your bitch ass off the couch and fucking do something about it. You’re not a soldier. And sweet baby Jesus, your kid survived! How dare you be so fucking whiny-pants about it?

It took a long time for me to accept that I was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Acceptance, they say, is always the hardest part. But I finally did.

And here’s what I have to say to you, in honor of National Mental Health Month:

Having PTSD is not my fault. It’s not something I need to be ashamed of. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not a plea for sympathy. It’s not something I’m all, “would you like any cheese with that whine?” about. It’s something that is.

I am NOT ashamed to have a mental illness.

My name is Becky Sherrick Harks and I am the face of PTSD.

On Band Back Together, we spend countless hours working to reduce stigmas by bringing the world stories – real stories written by real people – about mental illness, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse and all of the other dark places in our lives.

That is what we proudly do.

We’re celebrating National Mental Health Month by doing a stigma-busting blog carnival. We’re telling the world exactly who we are. We’re breaking down stigmas and kicking ass. Mental illness isn’t a death sentence.

Mental illness is a part of who we are. There’s no shame in being who we are. We should celebrate our flaws, embrace our differences and accept them.

It’s time to put a face to as many mental illnesses as we can.

Because stigmas? Stigmas are bullshit.

Please, I beg you Pranksters, help me kick stigmas squarely in the balls (or taco).

You can join us by posting on your own blog and linking up to Band Back Together (that’s the master link-up post) or you can write about it on Band Back Together. (Or both) Time to break down stigmas.

I am proud to be the face of PTSD.

Fuck stigmas.