I’m kinda feeling low today. I’m hoping to snap the fuck out of it and come back and actually string words together, instead of posting one of the creepiest videos ever.

Also: Other, Better Shit I’ve Written (a.k.a. I Get Around):

10 Ways To (Not) Entertain Your Kid On An Airplane. I have a feeling the comments will be troll-worthy.

7 of the Most Baffling Products Aimed At Parents

Holly Daze

And a repost of an old favorite: When “He’s My Dad” Makes Everyone Feel Awkward

I wrote this on Band Back Together.

Please read it.

I love you all, my Pranksters.

I get a handful of those address labels throughout the year. Not ones that I order or anything, but the ones that various charities send to me to elicit me to send them cash. (if I ordered them, they’d probably have anatomical parts or the three wolf moon on them or something)

They’re usually corny things, ladybugs and smiling faces and shit. So normally, I toss them into the recycling bin, knowing I don’t exactly want to say that my name is “Mrs. David Harks” or anything. Because believe it or not, when I got married, I KEPT A NAME OF MY OWN.

Anyway. Not a huge fan of those charitable stickers.

Don’t get me wrong – I donate to a couple of charities religiously: Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and March of Dimes (soon enough Band Back Together!), but I don’t have the fundage to donate to every stinking thing that wants my cash.

Yeah, I’m looking at you, Jimmy Motherfucking Wales.

That’s why, when the Sarah McLaughlin “Angel” song pipes up on one of those ASPCA commercials, I have to turn the channel before I start throwing wads of cash at the television screen. I mean, could they GET any more tear-jerking? I think not.

(dramatic foreshadowing) Rather, I THOUGHT not.

So quickly, I change the channel and pretend that I’m not weeping into my Diet Coke. Because Lord knows, I cannot afford to pay off yet ANOTHER person to prevent them from telling the world that I do, in fact, have feelings.

But last night, I saw that I got yet ANOTHER set of address labels. Addressed to me: Ms. Becky S. Harks. Finally, my ACTUAL name. I could USE those for the Christmas Cards I’ll forget to send!

“No,” Ben and Daver both chimed as I opened it. “YOU DON’T NEED TO SEND THEM MONIES.”

My resolve strong, I was all, “I’m too GOOD for charitable tactics. I can TOTALLY use these stickers WITHOUT forking over wads of cash. I CAN FUCKING DO IT. EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER!”

And then I saw it. The letter.

Yeah.

You got my formerly sick kid’s NAME on top of your letterhead. Nice job. Now I HAVE to give you money.

Jesus, could you stick the knife in any deeper?

“Guys,” I said, tears pouring, “I have to send them mah monies.”

“NO,” they said, almost in unison. “Becky, c’mon!”

“LOOK.” I thrust the paper into Ben’s hand. Immediately, his face crumpled, his eyes just a little moist (he clearly never paid me off to tell the world he doesn’t have feelers).

Then I handed it to Daver, whose face did a similar crumple.

“Okay,” they agreed. “You do.”

It looks like you’ve won this round, St. Judes.

Jimmy Motherfucking Wales? You can blow me. Hard. In fact, I sorta wanna to pull a John C. Mayer on you now. WATCH OUT JIMMY FUCKING WALES. I’M ON TO YOU.

When you stop laughing, let me know.

P.S. Confused? Go here.

Jimmy Fucking Wales.

There is nothing not absolutely awe-inspiring about this. Especially since it MAGICALLY appeared in my iPhoto library. I think it’s a sign.

Is the best part that she’s named Cornfed? Or that he’s a white dude named Bill Cosby (WHO IS VERY CLEARLY NOT THE REAL BILL COSBY)?

No.

It’s her response.

P.S. The current front-runner for most inappropriately named porno is “Hairy Pooter.”

P.P.S. Outdo me. I dare you.

Daily flash mobs would be mandatory. Preferably in front of my house. Why? Because who can be gloomy when THIS is happening?

Instead of being powered by gasoline or electricity or flux capacitors, cars will be run entirely on music by Prince.

When the recyclables gather in a large enough pile, they will simply band together like a Transformer and walk their way to the recycling plant.

Childbearing will make the female body MORE youthful and beautiful, rather than causing breasts to look like two oranges in tube socks.

Coffee will be the national beverage and mandatory for anyone over the age of seven.

Life on the Internet will no longer be measured in numbers (see also: Klout) but upon hilarity of cat videos.

Split pea soup will be banned because, well, obviously no one should eat something that appears to have been shot out of my baby’s pooper.

Babies will be born sleeping through the night, doing complex geometric equations, and ready to go to work to buy their parents diamonds.

Pants will remain entirely optional, even in polite company.

There will be no “polite company.”

People who use the words “organic,” “sustainable,” and/or “nosh” in the same paragraph will be banned to the ALOT Island along with anyone who substitutes ellipses for periods.

Moon Pies will ACTUALLY be made of bits of the moon.

Detergents that don’t include OxyClean will be banned. The legacy of Billy Motherfucking Mays must live!

Steve Irwin coined the “stupid people antagonizing wild animals” television shows. Which got him dead. Which means that no one should repeat the formula.

For the love of all that is holy, no more reality singing competitions. American Idol was the clear winner and it’s gone the way of the condor. Or whatever we’re calling Paula Abdul these days.

——————-

Dish, Pranksters. What else should we add? Because when I rule the Universe, you’re all co-rulers.

(Scene: 6PM in hotel conference room. Five people sit around a table introducing themselves to an audience)

Girl 1: “I’m from Think Geek. I’m responsible for all of the social media from Think Geek. I also brought awesome swag.”

Girl 2: “I’m from NASA. I work with the NASA blog and Twitter account.”

Guy 1: “I’m from Wired.com.”

Girl 3 (uncomfortably looks at hands): “I’m um…Aunt Becky. From Mommy Wants Vodka. I write a thoroughly mediocre blog.”

(audience stares at her)

Girl 3: “It’s um, a MOMMY blog.”

(audience stares)

Girl 3 (laughs uncomfortably): “Sometimes I write about my vagina.”

(audience stares)

Girl 3: “I have an amazing Band of Merry Pranksters. On my blog. They’re the best people on the Internet.”

(audience glares)

Girl 3: “Except, um, you.”

(audience is beginning to leave)

Girl: “I’m in a bathing suit holding a chainsaw in my Twitter avatar.”

(audience smiles and nods happily)

Works every time.

By the time I arrived in Maryland, I’d already been in the airport for what seemed like eleventy-billion years. Before I arrived – just as I arrived at the airport – my 9AM flight had been bumped to 11AM and I was set to miss my connecting flight. By a long mile.

It appeared, though, that fortune was about to favor the really stupid as I charmed the lady from US Airways into moving me to a straight-through flight from Chicago to Maryland. This was no small victory.

My day seemed as though nothing, save for sitting at the airport terminal for three hours, could touch it. I was invincible. I was brilliant. I was about to take the ride of my life.

(total lie)

And then, my friend Nic picked me up from the Maryland airport, new copy of SkyMall happily in hand, and we went out to lunch. Then? My day just got a hell of a lot awesomer. Because I found THIS:

For 5 bucks, I too, could have a kit for all of life’s unexpected moments. Eagerly, I wondered what could be in this quixotic pink case. A light saber? A NEW copy of SkyMall? A billion dollars? A unicorn on roller skates? I simply couldn’t guess.

I was understandably depressed to learn that all this brilliantly pink case contained was some tampons. Like one. Not even a CONDOM or a copy of “Your STD and You.”

Sad.

After leaving the sad pink case behind, Nic prepared to drop me off at my hotel when we saw this:

And then I spent the rest of the weekend confused.

I drove a shitballs Ford something or another that was probably manufactured well before I was born to learn to drive. And in Maryland they allow – nay ENCOURAGE – students to learn to drive on a Corvette?

I considered jacking the student driver, but I was suitably underwhelmed by Maryland and figured I probably didn’t need to spend the next 8-10 years there in jail. Better to be busted for something in Chicago, where my “mob” connections might land me a really spiffy cell.

The rest of the weekend was spent moaning in a dark bedroom. Migraine. It appeared that Maryland didn’t agree with me.

On the flight home, I got stuck in some southern backwoods airport for an extra hour. An hour I blissfully listened to a couple near me fight about The Bears and a drunken guy loudly complain about people from Chicago. I’d have knifed him with a homemade shiv, but I left my toothbrush at the hotel.

When I finally stopped laughing, I opened my eyes and saw this: something so magical I so as to evoke tears in my hardened heart. Something so magnificent as to require photographic evidence, if only to document that such a time was really, really, really real:

If you, Pranksters, are not weeping at the sight of a man, vigorously playing with his testicles while loudly on the phone with someone, well, your heart is more hardened than even mine.

And so, with a quick tug on his penis, this guy made certain that my trip to Maryland, was, for a moment, perfect.

I walked into InterventionCon this weekend all puff-chested and proud, like, ‘WHO’S A BAD-ASS-MOTHERFUCKING GEEK? ME!” I was practically humming “Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger,” as I waltzed into the hotel, all ready to get my freak binary on. I was all ready to be all, “WHO’S ALL OPEN SOURCE NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS?!”

Imagine the look on my face when I finally opened up my eyes to the strains of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin,'” and realized that half of the attendees were in costumes. It was a COSTUME PARTY. And guess who had no costume?

That’s right, Your Aunt Becky.

I was, for the first time ever, somewhere without a spare costume!

Color me Furious George.

They weren’t costumes I wanted or even recognized, and somehow, I was flaming that I did not, in fact, own one. I could’ve been a wicked Britney Spears (post K-Fed) or even an Oompa Loompa. And still, nothing.

Somewhat dejectedly, I moped to my room – on the 7th floor – and threw myself down on the bed, trying desperately to coax some tears out of my eyes. First, I thought of the saddest basket of kitties with no one to love them. Then I thought about how cruel a world it would be if Uncrustables were discontinued. When that made me simply stabbity rather than tearful, I decided a new tactic  was in order. I decided that my next best bet would be to rub them, then poking them until finally, I was able to convince two actual tears to come out of my eyes.

It felt strangely vindicating and utterly unsatisfying.

Next order of business was to get onto the elevator and go downstairs to mope in public. I like to share my misery. I’m a giver like that.

Only an odd thing happened. Even weirder than the full-blown adults in costumes I couldn’t quite place.

Proper elevator etiquette, as explained by my mother is this: you back that ass up while waiting for an elevator to allow exiting passengers to, um, exit. Then, only after everyone who is getting off is off do you board the elevator.

Likewise, once on the elevator, you allow passengers to get off on various floors by moving graciously out of the way WITHOUT BITCHING ABOUT IT, while you wait for your stop.

It’s a simple enough concept that even my pea-brain can comprehend it.

And yet, for the first time in my life, even AFTER living in Chicago and riding 50 floor elevators crammed full of people, I was shocked and horrified by the elevators in MD.

Because, it appeared that the new way of things was this:

Elevator door opens -> stand in a line in FRONT of the elevator doors, ignoring all the empty space behind you -> groan loudly whenever someone dares try to enter the elevator with three goddamed people in it.

On the other side,

Elevator door opens and person behind you wants to get off -> rather than wait for the first in place to disembark -> push your way past the other passengers ALSO attempting to get off.

Because we all know it’s a motherfucking RACE to the fucking FINISH, motherfuckers.

First time it happened, I ignored it. Okay. Fine. Someone was having a grumbly day. Happens.

The second time? Maybe coincidence.

The third? I decided that the non-convention goers were some of the rudest people on the planet and should probably be relegated to the ALOT Island with John C. Mayer.

The moral of this story? ALWAYS PACK AN EXTRA COSTUME. Also? Wear body armor for elevators in Maryland.

P.S. I missed you, Pranksters.

Also, Also: We have an auction up at Band Back Together. You should go visit it.