How Debbie Does Dallas ruined porn for me is up over at Toy With Me. It’s probably toeing the line between safe and unsafe for work, but it’s fun. Check it out, yo.

And now, my friends, the post that you’ve all (not) been waiting for is up over at Toy With Me. The post about what I would do if I had a penis. It was written while I was both high on life AND cough syrup AND The Swine Flu, and was a total blast to write, so please go over and hump the shit out of it.

Also, do I need to remind you that it is TOTALLY not safe for work?

Click here, bitches. Or read on below.

(why have OR when you can have AND?)

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Every now and again, Daver and I will set up shop outside (typically nursing a couple of cold frosty ones. Like Miller High Life: The Champagne of motherfucking Beers) and discuss our children.

His work tends to be the sort that my brain is not large enough to process and my “work” is so mind-numbingly dull (“…and THEN, and THEN I emptied the DUST BUSTER! Bwahahahaha!“) that neither of us care to discuss it.

So we instead discuss the future lives of our children. Hypothetically speaking.

And since I was a bit of a rebel in my own way, and marrying me is COMPLETELY a sign of rebellion (have you MET ME?) we often wonder what my children will do to horrify us later in life. It’s inevitable, so we try to brace ourselves for whatever would bug us the most.

Maybe it’s because I’m so graceful that I nearly broke my foot walking down the stairs, or because last summer I literally fell through the front door while stone-cold sober, or because I broke a toe making a motherfucking sandwich. I don’t know. I’m willing to bet that for our eldest, it will be interpretive dancing.

It will also make my soul wither up and die.

I have no real problems with dancers in general; if I were going to do something cultured, I’d likely chose the symphony or the opera – didn’t know your Aunt Becky liked opera, didya? – and not the ballet, but the ballet is different. I can understand ballet.

Interpretive dancing, however, baffles me. I simply don’t, and probably never will, follow or appreciate what some people think of as Dancing With The Music (Creepily). I just don’t get it. And I’m kinda freaked out by it.

I made the mistake of telling my older brother and his wife about this in a completely stupid turn of events, so now every time they see Ben, they encourage him to “do a dance that reminds him of a salad” or “doesn’t the thought of a cat make you want to dance like one?”

I sit quietly there, while poor Ben tries to act this out, clenching my teeth and hissing that they had better get damn good and comfortable going to every.single.fucking.show.he.does.

They always laugh, seemingly unaware that I am deadly serious. I will drag them from their comfortable yuppie North Shore home and drive them to the abandoned warehouse my son – my interpretive dancer son – and his troupe of equally misguided youths will perform for us all.

In 100+ degree heat.

While we sit on the cement floor next to scuttling cockroaches and cokeheads.

I’ll clap when they’re done pouring paint on one and other while they act out what blue is supposed to look like, or maybe I won’t clap, I don’t know, but really, I’ll be clapping because I can get the fuck OUT of there and back into the cool comfort of my car.

Then I’ll drive through McDonald’s, relishing that no one tried to act out what my diet Coke was supposed to taste like, and I’ll shake my fists at my brother and sister-in-law, who will be stuck in the backseat of my car, and remind them that tomorrow’s performance will be featuring the color red.

The color of anger.

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What would be the worst profession you could imagine your future child doing? Let’s assume that they are happy with it, so you can’t use any bullshit “whatever he’s HAPPY with” line. Let’s also leave “soldier” out of this one, because here on my blog you mean “politician.”

It’s Tuesday, Internet, which means that my column over at Toy With Me is up. Today, I’m talking about the possibility of friendship between men and women. It’s weirdly safe for work, yo.

Click the smiling beaver to be whisked away, or stick around for a rewritten blast from the mother-humping past:

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The summer after Alex was born, I decided to sort through the Tupperware coffin of loose pictures in my parents basement and take the ones that I wanted. I was tired of not having any pictures of me as a baby around and imagined huge battles between my brother and I over who got to keep the picture of our stupid dog Silas.

So, I dug in one day, and gathered a bag up.

I had lofty goals, Internet, you see. I was going to:

a) sort the pictures chronologically

b) throw out repeats/crappy pictures and

niner) place them all neatly in a book or thirty.

I got to about age 6 in my life before I threw in the towel and shoved the whole lot into a far smaller Rubbermaid bin and shoved it into a corner. My father and grandfather took pictures the way I collect orchids: obsessively. I was, apparently, a favorite target.

Years later, it’s still sitting there, collecting dust and mocking me quietly.

I shudder when I think about having to sort through the amount of things that my in-laws have saved. To call my mother-in-law a pack rat would be a grave disservice to pack rats everywhere. She is a pack rat times approximately 6,879. I don’t pretend to understand, so I just smile and nod, which seems easier to all parties involved and wins me more Daughter-In-Law Of The Year* trophies.

So I go through our house about every 3-4 months and purge the fuck out of everything, while, of course, Dave and Ben are away so that they cannot protest when I get rid of their collection of ancient reciepts and old moldering socks. It’s great for my soul.

When Alex was born, I badgered my mother-in-law in the patented Becky-Drip-Drip Method, which I liken to being pecked to death by an overly large chicken, for baby pictures of The Daver. I love baby pictures of people that I know, and I was dying to see them.

Each and every time I was met with an excuse. Turns out that in the vast multitude of boxes, she has lost them somewhere. But during a visit, she’d brought up a handful that she’d had lying around and whipped them out to show me. Turns out that Alex looked very little like The Daver. Who knew?

Having recently given up on the task of placing my pictures in an album I pulled out a stack from my own babyhood to show her.

So we flipped on and on through the pictures of Baby Becky, while I commented on my fathers’ Iranian Taxi Driver glasses and his David Crosby mustache. She’d laugh uncomfortably, obviously trying to get away from me, but having nowhere to really go, she was stuck.

Eventually, it dawned on me that I was showing my EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE mother-in-law naked pictures of daughter-in-law. As a dimpled baby. Occasionally being nursed. But nearly always naked.

Including the bear skin rug set.

“Heh, heh, heh,” I sputtered, trying to recover from the situation and perhaps mend the ever-widening chasm between us.

“What’s up with kids in the eighties? Heh-heh-heh.”

I couldn’t stop myself.

“It’s like they were never wearing clothes. Heh-heh-heh.” Trying to salvage the situation.

“WELL,” she replied, her irritation seeping though her tightly clipped words, “Maybe not in YOUR house.”

Great, I thought to myself, just fucking GREAT, barely suppressing the laughter. Now she thinks you come from a NAKED Family. I snickered into my cupped hand.

Oh well, I thought to myself as she got up in a huff and walked away, leaving me stranded on a couch, in a pool of naked baby pictures. That’s better than thinking you came from The Jello Mold Family.

*I am the only daughter-in-law. Therefore, I have to be the best.

While normally, my sex column is fairly PG, with the occasional unable-to-be-scrubbed-away-no-matter-how-hard-you-try-image thrown in for laughs and spits (porn-n-eggs?), this week, I’m talking about the time I got busted. By my boyfriend’s mother.

And I’m warning you, it’s probably not, well, for the faint of heart, those who may be pregnant, those wanting to become pregnant, those with heart conditions, and please call your doctor for erections lasting longer than four hours.

Do not stare directly into the sun.

(it’s really not very graphic at all)(or is it?)

(click to go)(scroll down to stay)

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After I had Ben at age 20, I was left looking around and figuring out what the hell to do with my life. Professionally, I mean. I won’t bother getting into how PERSONALLY having a baby really crimps your style, especially when your kid is the one that screams like a banshee whenever he’s, well, awake.

I’d finished half a degree with a dual major in Bio/Chem, and had some pretty lofty Follow In The Males Of My Family’s Trek To Med School ideas of what I would do. Lofty, perhaps, but also the only damn thing I could think to do with my life. Whomever decided that 17/18 year olds should be in charge of choosing a profession is a wicked genius of a person (and also the reason majors like Media Studies are invented).

There’s a stupid commercial out there and the tagline is something like “Having a baby changes EVERYTHING.” I call it stupid, because I’m pretty sure that’s the most annoyingly obvious statement I’ve heard in my life, for a seasoned parent or not. But in the case of my schooling, it was irritatingly spot on.

Even if I’d been able to get into med school, which is either highly or only slightly laughable, as a single mother, I was aware that something was going to have to give. And if I’d chosen school, my son would be without a real mother at home (although I could have gotten a life-sized cut out of my picture and insisted that it follow him around creepily watching him as he went about his day), until he was approximately 26 years old.

Figuring I’d take my chances on extra-massive therapy bills for him later on (mental note: deposit money into Future Therapy Account every time I tell The Internet about my kid), I buckled down and made my choice: Ben.

Which left me with another choice: what the shit was I supposed to do now? I had to finish A degree in SOMETHING, and preferably something I could, oh, I don’t know, get a salary upon graduation WITHOUT asking if they wanted fries with that.

And as I saw it, my future was a toss-up between teaching and nursing. Neither of which were anything I’d ever considered as actual career options before then, so I chose what I considered to be the lesser of two evils. For approximately 12 minutes.

Yes, my friends, it’s true: I considered becoming a teacher for about 12 minutes. I even went as far as to try and say “I’m going to be a TEACHER” out loud. It was when I couldn’t contain my laughter AFTER that statement that I reconsidered my initial thought. The thought of me as a teacher was as laughable as the thought of me as a nurse.

I have the highest regard for teachers, really, I do. They’re tasked with wrangling OUR CHILDREN (or at least the children we know) all day long, and trying to teach them as they bounce off the walls like monkeys.

I pictured myself standing there in front of The Youth Of America, trying in vain to get the kids to stop eating each others’ boogers, my cardigan (I’d have to wear a cardigan if I became a teacher, this I knew) stained and buttoned incorrectly, my eyes puffy from a long night of drinking to make the voices go away, and I knew I just couldn’t do it.

This weekend, the care of 7 of The Youth Of America in my incapable hands, was like a vision into The Future That Could Have Been, and I hated every moment of it. As soon as we got there, the incessant questioning began. It’s like the kids could sense who was least equipped to handle their weird questions and glommed onto it.

“Why aren’t you serving pizza?” (the party was at 2:30 PM)
“Why are the cupcakes green?”
“I thought there would be more kids here” (me too, sweetheart, me too)
“Can we go to Pizza Hut?”
“Is Ben’s baby (points at Alex) a girl?”
“Why isn’t he a girl?”
“What’s his name?”
“Why’d you choose that name?”
“Are you having another baby?”
“Is it going to look like Ben?”
“Can I have some more money?”
“Can I have some more money NOW?”
“Why is that called air hockey?”

This was pretty much all I heard for the last 30 minutes of the party (thank you moon bounce for making them be quiet for an hour and a half), and while 30 minutes sounds like no time whatsoever, I found myself wishing that I had thought to bring a telephone number list to call their parents to pick them up EARLY. See, I’m not so patient. Or teacherly.

So, to all of the teachers out there, Aunt Becky salutes you. I consider you to be among America’s Finest; standing in the trenches and educating Our Youth while I hide at home. Away from the questions I can’t answer.

What job would YOU be unable to do, my Internet peeps?

It’s BOOBS week over at Toy With Me, and I’m talking about the one awesome legacy my children left me. And no, I’m not talking about my accordion-like stomach folds, which, I admit are dead sexy.

(want to make out?)

As always, you have an idea for a future topic for a column over there, please, drop me an email to aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com or leave me a comment.

Click the smiling beaver to be whisked away:

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Aunt Becky: “Just so you know, I found one of your pubes on the baby’s high chair today. It was disturbing. I know you didn’t put it there or anything, but still. EW.”

The Daver (totally not listening): “AWESOME.”

Aunt Becky: “So NOT full of The Awesome. That’s full of The Awful.

The Daver: “Whatever, that’s full of The Awesome. I’m marking my territory.”

Aunt Becky: “You leave a trail of those around the house and it’s gross. You’re shedding pubes. It’s like The Trail of Tears.”

The Daver: “Dude, no way. That’s a Treasure Trail.”

Aunt Becky: *shudders*

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And YAY for contests that are annoying and make me annoy you a lot and so I petition you loudly to vote for me because that is what blogs are for, unless you count being full of self-important bluster, which, of course, obviously.

I’m up for this award you should vote for me. And while you’re there, you should vote for me for this one too.

And then you should vote for me here, too.

Because if you do that? I will show you a picture of the best Halloween costume I ever dressed up in. And this requires me doing actual work to go and find the picture at my parents house.

(obviously, you should cue the violins and cry tears for me at all of the pain and suffering you’re putting me through by making me work. o! the humanity!)

I’ll give you a hint: there were several people who didn’t know me and had no idea I was dressed up. It was FANTASTIC. Man, you’re NEVER gonna guess what it was. I feel like I should tell you or something because seriously, it was THAT good.

*bites knuckles impatiently*

I suck at secrets and I can hardly wait to tell you. I imagine tomorrow you’ll see what this is, so vote.

Please?

Won’t SOMEONE think of the children?!?

Today over at Toy With Me, I’m talking about sex after baby. It’s surprisingly neither dirty nor particularly funny. It’s probably more honest and true than you’re used to, but I think that it’s something that warrants a frank discussion.

And, if you have an idea for a future topic for a column over there, please, drop me an email to aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com or leave me a comment here or there.

Click the smiling beaver to be whisked away:

Or stick around and read a blast from the past:

(oh, and if you want to vote for me in either of the contests I’m up for, I’d be most tickled in a delicious way. They’re in my side bar and require registration. Grr.)

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Back in my senior year in college, I was broke as a joke, but since I had a three year old, it meant a lot more than I couldn’t buy Ramen or another 30-case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, it meant that I could barely afford Christmas gifts for him.

I should have known better than to accept a second hand hamster, but there I was, nodding my head stupidly “YES” to my classmate when she offered me her rejected hamster, citing that she didn’t have time to play with him anymore.

How could I pass this up?

I’d owned various hamsters and assorted small rodents when I was a child, only to watch them meet their untimely demise at the jaws of my cats.It’s a fucking wonder I’m not more twisted than I am.

Where’s Sid? AAAAH! There he is! DEAD! NO! And NOT NANCY TOOOO! NOOOO!!

Sometimes, the hamsters would even eat their babies before I could stop them, only adding to the macabre situation of Rodent Gloom and Doom in my house.

Anyway, I’d remembered loving them before, well, they died and figured that Ben would too. He’d play with them, help clean their cages, and feed them little bits of his dinner just like I used to do!

Problem was, though, that Ben couldn’t have given less of a shit about the hamster, who he’d named Joey. This wasn’t one of my brighter ideas, considering Ben preferred planets to people, but we managed.

Joey lived a peaceful hamster life until one day he chewed free from the plastic house he lived in. I assumed that he would get lost in my parents house, possibly finding all of the skeletons of his contemporaries and didn’t give it much thought beyond feeling sort of sad for a moment.

I’d been down this road before, I knew that looking for him was useless, I mean it wasn’t like I could call him by name and he’d come running for me. And since he was approximately the size of a cotton ball, he could literally be anywhere.

One day a couple of weeks later, I was hastily plugging out a blog post on my father’s laptop when I heard some squeaking. Assuming the radio was tuned to some weird NPR program about ancient Siberian squeaking, I continued blogging. Eventually my bladder tapped me on the shoulder and I got up and headed for the bathroom.

It was there where I saw my two kittens, Finnegan and Atticus playing with something in the corner. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was a puff-ball that looked remarkably like…Joey.

Shit! I thought as I grabbed his little body up. Fuck! They got the hamster!

Now, just because I didn’t go on a Hamster Finding Mission didn’t mean I wanted him to die like that, so I carefully put him back in his cage on a heating pad offering a prayer up to the heavens that I hadn’t just killed another hamster.

I hadn’t.

What I had done is turned this sweet puff-ball of a hamster into a raging asshole. Walk by his cage and he would throw himself at the bars, punching at you. If you stood near his cage for too long, he’d start to fling his poo at you.

Oh yes, the new Joey flung poo.

He’d also bite the shit out of your fingers if you were stupid enough to try and touch him, leaving large puncture wounds where your skin had been mere seconds before. He liked the taste of blood.

Joey the Adorable Puff Ball had turned into Joey the Mean Hamster.

His brain had been re-hardwired to hate.

I dutifully changed his litter, gave him food and water, and frantically googled “dwarf hamster life span.” The relief I felt was palpable when I learned that he was nearing death. But no. Not Joey.

Joey not only got outlived the top end of his expected lifespan, but he doubled it. He graduated college with me, got married with me, followed me through 3 different moves, and he even managed to somehow place a voodoo hex on the two cats that mauled him. Because those kittens? Died before he did.

Joey The Mean Hamster lasted until right after Alex was born, torturing guests at my baby shower by pelting food and poo at anyone who stopped to say “What a cute hamster!” His fur became sort of grayish white, his nails approached Howard Hughes lengh, and he got pretty dilapidated looking.

But he was alive and you weren’t going to forget it for a second.

He died one night shortly after, and you know what? For all of the pounds of my flesh he ate and liked, I was kinda sad. It was like losing your own personal Archenemy. Maybe I wasn’t his friend, but it was really hilarious to have someone hate me so much.

Something that hated me that I had to take care of.

*sighs*

Rest In Peace, Joey The Mean Hamster. Gone, but never forgotten.

No matter how hard I try.