If you haven’t heard, The Apocalypse is coming. I know this because I saw it on a billboard and billboards never lie. Just like The Internet. It never lies.

Here, see?

This is not NEARLY as Fear Mongering as it should be.

Here, try this one, Pranksters. See if you feel MORE afraid now:

*shudders* It’s the fucking daisies. They get me EVERY time.

Anyway, so this guy said it was SUPPOSED to be the apocalypse back in 1994, but apparently the guy was wrong then. It happens. I mean who WOULDN’T make mistakes while calculating The End of Days?

So this time, he’s sure he’s right. And you know what Pranksters? I’m GLAD. Here’s why.

1) I won’t have to pay off my credit cards! When I’m rotting away in the afterlife, my creditors will too! This is a win.

3) I won’t have to plant any of the shrubbery I bought for my front yard. Let’s be honest here: I’m tired of digging holes and then filling them with plants. Now, I won’t have to!

6) I’ll never have to pen the children’s book: “Shhhh, Baby, Mama’s Hungover.”

10) Hell, I’ll never have to pen ANY book, because I’ll be roasting away in the fiery pits of Hades. This will make looking for a new literary agent or self-publishing a total moot point.

15) I will never have to listen to that stupid fucking duck on the Wonderpets say, “This. Is. SEWIOUS” again, because he’ll be all BLAM! BLAM! DEAD.

21) I’ll never have to worry about getting past those stupid pigs in Angry Birds.

28) No one cares if you’re a size four in hell.

36) I’ll never have to clean another litterbox. Less poo = win for all of us.

45) I won’t have to watch Extreme Couponing and feel guilty that I can’t seem to save three hundred dollars every time I go to the store. Because there will be no stores!

55) I’ll get to hang out with most of LA down in hell.

66) I can stop plotting the demise of Mark Zuckerberg, John C. Mayer OR Jimmy Wales.

78) I’ll never have to hear the words, “social media,” “viral video,” “let’s connect!” or “bloggy” again.

91) I won’t have to worry that someone will send filler flowers (carnations, baby’s breath) to my funeral because there will BE no funeral.

105) I won’t have to hear about the Real Housewives again.

120) I can finally forget about that girl who reminds me of a Chicken McNugget, Snookie.

136) Maybe I can finally get a nap.

————-

Why are YOU excited for the Apocalypse, Pranksters?

I love sleep.

I love sleep so much that I would wear an “I Heart Sleep” shirt around WITHOUT losing a bet. I could compose a sonnet (if I knew how) to sleeping. If I ever hit it big as a Grammy-Winning artist, it would be for my song, “Sleep, You Are My Hero.”

(if I ever hit it big as a fancy director, it will be because of this video:)

On Thursday, Amelia was all, “sleep is bullshit.” And I was all, “um, are we related?” Because sleep is many things, but it’s not bullshit.

Now, part of the allure of sleep is that it eludes me. I can’t sleep like a normal person to save myself. No, I lay up, night after night with stupid commercial jingles and the annoying songs from kids shows running through my head. If I ever meet the person who wrote the “do-do-do Do A Dollop of Daisy,” commercial in person, I will punch them in the taco.

It doesn’t help that my bedroom is haunted.

Well, it’s haunted or the wind whistling through the attic sounds just like a baby screaming. I prefer to go with “it’s haunted” for street cred.

Either way, I’ll wake up because I hear a fake baby crying and run to check on my babies, who are all safely asleep and therefore not screaming.

That doesn’t help my insomnia.

So anyway, back on Thursday, I couldn’t get Amelia to sleep. She was all, “woah, this is pretty awesome to NOT SLEEP,” and I was all, “I love you, shut the fuck up and go to sleep, baby,” because I wanted to go back to the dream I was having where I was eating a castle made of cake. I did not want to get up.

Friday rolled around, and blearily, I went about my day, writing her sleeplessness off to Dave’s faulty genetics.

Friday night, we went through our normal routine: “Can Daddy take you up?”

Amelia, “NOOOOOO! Mommy rock me.”

The girl wouldn’t let Santa Claus, Jesus, or even Hello Kitty (her favorite) rock her. Nope. It’s gotta be Your Aunt Becky.

So I did. And when I put her in bed after rocking her for a couple minutes, instead of rolling over and saying “goodnight,” she screamed the sort of scream that makes me wonder if DCFS is going to bust down my door for child abuse.

I picked her up, rocked her until her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and when I tried to put her down, it was like I tried to submerge her in a vat of bumble bees. (she’s terribly afraid of bumble bees).

It had been an hour and I needed dinner, so I figured, “Okay, AB, time to be all EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER and let her scream for a couple minutes. It won’t kill her.”

No, it didn’t kill her. It nearly killed me, though. I went back up and rocked her. Eventually, she did go to sleep…for a couple of hours. Then she was up.

Rinse, repeat, Saturday AND Sunday.

That makes four fucking nights of not sleeping, which makes hearing Shut Your Whore Mouth on Happy Endings so much less awesome.

I don’t know what’s wrong with her. It could be teething, it could be sleep regression, it could be a cold, it could be nothing.

Or…maybe she’s possessed.

Anyone know an exorcist?

A Manifesto:

by Anti-Social Media Ignoramus, Your Aunt Becky:

1) I wonder what My Toothpaste Brand is doing today on The Twitter.

8 ) It’d be awesome to “connect on The Facebook” with a brand who sent out an automatically-generated Direct Message via The Twitter.

27) I should raise my numbers by following people on The Twitter, then unfollowing them so that I look extra-special*.

64) Why yes, I would like to run a contest so that one of my Pranksters can possibly win a five dollar box of chocolates!

125) Woah, I really should spend actual money on my fake Farmville Farm.

216) I bet if I retweet this, I WILL win a free iPad!

343) I am a “social media maven.”

512) I cannot WAIT to read more about my toilet paper on their Facebook page!

729) You mean I can win a product worth twelve bucks if I spam the hell out of my friends? SCORE! This RULES!

1000) What would Jesus tweet?

1331) I should tweet @Justin Beaver because I just know he’s going to reply one of these days. He’s probably writing a song about me as we speak.

1728) I bet everyone is going to love hearing what I had for lunch today.

2197) I can’t believe I got ousted as Mayor of My Ass on Four-Square.

2744) Man, this blog music is really swell.

3375) I should tweet my blog post every hour on the hour just in case someone missed it.

4096) It’s impossible for two people to have the same idea for a tweet, therefore someone is stealing my tweets.

4913) There are not nearly enough blogs pontificating about the under-representation of kumquats in today’s social media.

5832) I should take myself MORE seriously.

*I don’t actually know why people do this.

For a very brief moment in time, I considered becoming a vet. That was before I realized how unglamorous “expressing anal glands” was and vowed to be Aunt Becky, MD, the diamond-encrusted tiara-wearing, flawlessly brilliant doctor, which makes what I do now even more laughable.

Reach for the stars, kid. Just don’t be surprised if they don’t reach back.

Anyway.

I woke up on Saturday to the whining of two very small, very bored short people. I hadn’t been up for twenty minutes before Amelia was asking to go to the store to buy some Hello Kitty shirts and Alex was grumbling about the solar system he’d constructed out of tennis balls.

Blearily, I suggested we go to the green house – Alex’s favorite hotspot – a prospect that was met with hoots, hollers and elated screams as the two small people struggled to dress themselves.

We spent an hour there before I had to drag them away from the koi ponds and those gazing balls (which they call “planets.”). They were both fairly indignant and I wasn’t quite ready to take them home, so I suggested that we go to the animal shelter to look at cats.

I’m big into shelter animals. Especially the type that aren’t normally adopted. I try to go for the one animal in the whole joint that looks as though no one will ever adopt it (see also: my one-eyed cat named Ophelia; may she rest in peace).

My (NON-SPONSORED) PSA for the day: did you know black cats are less likely to be adopted? Anderson Animal Shelter, where we adopted our cats, was teeming with them. Apparently people still think they’re bad luck. I say, shut your whore mouth and adopt some black cats.

Two hours later, we left with two new cats.

Now I’m stuck naming them.

(I nearly named Alex “Cash,” if that tells you anything.)

We used to foster cats, well before The World’s Crankiest Baby was born, and it turns out that naming cats isn’t all that easy. Our last foster cat, I named “Little Cat” because she was both “little” and a “cat.” I wanted her adopted just so she could be saved from the hell of living as “Little Cat” for the rest of her long life.

The first cat was easy to name. Her shelter name was “Cassie” which is a fine name for a cat, although I immediately called her “Chloe” because I can’t remember names to save my own ass. So Chloe it is.

The second cat, a portly black domestic medium hair, has proved to be trickier. In fact, it’s been so tricky for me to replace his given name, “Kendell,” that I’ve been calling him “Basement Kitty.” Because he hangs in the basement, natch.

I’ve been rolling names around in my mind. Frank? Ed? Bunny? Puppy? Joe? Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre?

You know how you just KNOW when something is right? Well, none of those are.

In the meantime, I’ll keep calling poor Basement Kitty, “Basement Kitty,” until something better comes along. For his sake, I hope it does soon.

What should I name my blurry cat, Pranksters? HALP ME.

Computers and I don’t get along very well. We have a long standing history of disagreeing upon things like, “connection failed” because I can clearly see that the connection has NOT fucking failed. That sort of thing makes me flop onto the sofa and wail, “WHY ME, GOD? WHHHYYYY ME?”

Luckily, I have Big Mac. He and I have an understanding: I put up amazing pictures as a screen saver, irregularly update my software and he does as I ask. We’re like Ebony and Ivory, together in perfect motherfucking harmony.

However.

It wasn’t always a yellow-hued music video love affair.

Back in nursing school, I lived at home (just like any hot coed wants to do) with my young son, espousing my brilliant papers onto one of the computers my father owns. I did not own my own computer and my father, God Bless Him, begrudgingly allowed me to use his.

When I say “begrudgingly,” I mean it. Times eleventy-thousand-million.

And by “his” I mean my two-year old son’s computer; the one my brother had fashioned out of old parts to give to my son. My kid had a computer and I did not.

Enrolled in school again, I begged him to install MS Word onto Ben’s computer so that I could properly format the glitteringly stunning papers I had to write. He patently refused, firmly informing me that “Word Pad was good enough*.”

And forget any printing capabilities, Pranksters. He locked those up tight, like I was going to use them to print off pictures of cats playing the piano.

(I was)

I was the only assbag on the planet with access to a printer that had to save papers in Word Pad, email them to myself, then get to school early so that I could print them out. Half of the time, I had to rewrite them.

See, my father is an amateur computer tinkerer. He reads those PC Magazines that sound like Fox News. The headlines are splashy tidbits like, “THIS SPYWARE WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR DOG if you don’t install XYZ.” And “HIDDEN WAYS YOUR COMPUTER IS PLOTTING WITH TERRORISTS.”

The articles are more subdued, as you’d expect, but the headlines, well, how can you forget them?

He likes to dick around with the computers he owns – always has – and the ones I used to write my papers were no exception. In fact, I think that was the computer he liked to dick around with most of all.

Otherwise, I cannot possibly explain why he’d actually want to reformat the hard drive so many times. He seemed especially keen to reformat the hard drive once I had something saved onto it. Something, oh I don’t know, like A MAJOR RESEARCH PAPER that I’d been working diligently on for weeks.

It was then and there that I learned to put off today what I can do tomorrow.

It’s also when I learned to never trust a man who trusts that Spyware was going to eat him for breakfast.

*What the hell is Word Pad “good enough” for anyway? I still haven’t a clue.

Wednesday evening found me on a train headed downtown. In a bizarre bit of strange luck, I found myself about to go speak to a writing class about blogging, which had filled me with all kinds of ennui. Especially since I didn’t have any black turtlenecks OR Woody Allen Glasses.

I figure that’s what a Liberal Arts Degree teaches: how to properly dress as a “writer.”

(well, that and how to excel at Ultimate Frisbee)

I spent minutes agonizing over how to properly dress before I threw on something I’d found under my bed and called it “good enough.” I figure I write in cat-hair coated Happy Pants and a t-shirt, so really, anything was a step up from that. We all know looking the part is half the battle.

I used to take the train to and from school and I’d completely forgotten how much I love to people-watch at the train station.

I stood near someone I deemed a “Real Housewife of Chicago,” based upon her spray tan and knee high boots coupled with a gigantic fur coat.

It was while talking to her that I saw him: he was The God of Luscious Mustaches everywhere and I was betwixt. Dressed head to toe in Spandex, listening to an iPod, and wearing the thick-rimmed glasses I so desperately required for that class. Certainly, I could have crushed his twiggy body for the glasses, but once I saw the mustache, I knew I could never harm him.

It was too perfect.

Perhaps I could get a PICTURE of his ‘stache. I contemplated how to do that (The Twitter had the best idea: pretend to be Canadian and ask for a picture with him) and couldn’t figure it out before he was lost in the breeze; on a different train car. The chance of a lifetime, and I’d wasted it.

I spent the rest of the train ride mourning all of the things that might have been; me and his mustache.

Somehow, I’ve managed to get on with my life. But the image of his mustache, carefully playing on the top of his lips, will haunt me forever.

(an artist’s representation of the mustache)(the part of the host will be played by Moby).

Did I mention he was a ginger with a Hitler Mustache?

It was truly a work of art.

Or something.

I got a call from Amelia’s preschool teacher yesterday. Breezily, she told me that she’d “found a tick” on my daughter.

A Tick.

TICK.

(Needless to say, if my house hadn’t been properly bathed in bleach before the Barf-o-rama last week, it is now.)

Now, I have no problems with bugs. In general, that is. Sure, mosquitoes are annoying, but they feed the bats that live in the gigantor pine tree where I plan to construct my panic room. Ants are kinda…cool. I mean, you learn a little bit about those assholes and their social structure and suddenly, it’s not as annoying that they’re crawling on your hands as you carefully prune your roses.

(fire ants are, for the record, blazing assjackets)

Earwigs are another story. Creepy fuckers.

And wasps, well, I’m allergic to them. I had an incredible colony of them growing in my birdfeeders last year – something I didn’t realize until late in the summer – and when I tell you those fuckers were everywhere, it was like they were stalking me or something. I must’ve had Wasp Sonar attached to my head or something.

It’s not the pain of the sting or the use of the Epi-Pen I’d need to stay alive, it’s knowing that I’d have to call 911 AFTER the first dose for an ambulance to properly treat me. My doctor warned me that most people with wasp allergies need a second dose.

I’ve taken epinephrine after a particularly bad reaction to some IM painkillers and let me tell you, that shit makes you feel like you’re dying. It’s temporary and it’s a hell of a lot better than actual death, but still, I’m not exactly ready to be all, HEY KIDS, WANNA WATCH MAMA SCREAM ABOUT HER HEART? I figure I’ll do enough damage to them in the long-term; they don’t need to watch a team of paramedics work on their mother.

But ticks, I don’t know much about them, besides the whole “Lyme Disease” thing.

Immediately, I thought about all of places ticks could be hiding.

LIKE ON THE BIG ITCHY BUMP ON MY LEG.

I’d assumed the bite on the back of my leg was a spider bite and left it at that. I mean, I live in Chicago; we get spiders. Sometimes, we get bitten.

Besides, I used to work at an outdoor restaurant that had spiders in the rafters. The morning chores included removing all spiders from the rafters, lest they poo on someone’s cheeseburger. By the river, man, those spiders got to be huge.

But this bump, man, it was huge. It was probably teeming with Tick-Babies. In fact, what if *I* was turning into a Tick? Like the Great Tick Mother or something. What if I was infested with Ticks? WOULD MY HAIR FALL OUT WHEN I BECAME A GIGANTIC TICK?

I didn’t know. So I did the only rational thing I could do: I made my mother look at it.

Now, for all of the problems she and I have had, she’s about the most level-headed and non-hysteric person I know. Her answer (and mine) for most problems is, “eh, it’s probably nothing. Go drink some water and lay in the sun awhile.”

Dave’s mother, on the other hand, called to tell him that she was flying somewhere for Easter and had taken out Death Insurance for the trip; payable to Dave and Dave’s brother. (My response: “what the fuck is Death Insurance? And how much is it worth?”)

Complete 180 from my mother who would have called the policy bullshit and pointed out that “you’re more likely to die in a car-crash on the way TO the airport than to die on a plane.”

She’s just like that.

So I made my mother look at the bump that was most certainly riddled with Tick Babies to tell me if I was dying or not.

Me: “OHMYGOD, IS THIS A TICK BITE?”

My Mother: “No.”

Me: “AM I DYING OF TICKNESS?”

My Mother (rolls eyes) : “No.”

Me: “AM I GOING TO TURN INTO A HUGE BALD TICK?”

My Mother (rolls eyes): “No.”

Me: “WHAT THE FUCK IS IT, THEN?”

My Mother: “Looks like a spider bite.”

Me: “Oh. Well, then. I’m starving.”

Sorry Pranksters, it appears as though I will live another day. (Hopefully, not as a tick.)

————-

Now that we’ve ascertained that, what are YOUR weird-ass fears?

I’m not a big fan of brands. I know that’s the big push in social media right now: branding yourself, but I think it’s kinda missing the point. What happened to writing because you love to write?

Anyway, I digress.

I was recently gifted a necklace from Tiffany & Co, a place that I’m fortunate enough to own many pieces of jewelry from, although not the type of jewelry that screams, “I bought this at Tiffany & Co,” because I’m not a fan of advertising for brands. Even brands I love.

(yes, I know I have an FCUK sweatshirt, but come on. That’s Comedy Gold)

The necklace was a gift from Dave’s previous employer for 5 years of dedicated service. That necklace is not enough.

I didn’t talk much about the problems I had with Dave’s job; not when so many of my Pranksters were facing far bigger economic issues than my own. I didn’t want to hurt anyone who reads my blog by complaining about my piddly problems.

Besides, I know better than to discuss money on blogs. It’s not classy. (we ALL know I put the “ass” in “classy”)

But I did have problems. Big ones. Bigger than I could have explained.

Like anything big, it started small. Dinners left cold as he had to take care of some work issue or another. Movies half-watched, leaving me on the couch alone, wondering if he’d be back to finish. Eventually, I learned that he wasn’t coming back.

I stopped waiting.

Work was what mattered to him and by proxy, it should matter to me, too. I mean, I told myself, it put the roof over my head and food in my mouth, and really, so what if my partner is emotionally checked out even when he’s sitting next to me? So many people had it so much worse. How could I be upset?

But I was upset. I was hurt. I felt abandoned…because I had been.

Rather than things getting better over time, they got worse. The kids and I became horrible distractions, things that got between Dave and work, and he’d snap at us for asking simple questions like, “when will you be done?” or “what do you want for dinner?”

I was known as a “(insert company name) Widow” at age twenty-five.

He started a new job last week, right after gifting me the Tiffany & Co necklace.

I’ve wondered on and off what I should do with it; something that was given by the very company who kept me in house and home but without a real partner. I considered selling it. I considered donating it. I considered marching it into the (insert company name) offices and giving it back; telling them that it wasn’t worth nearly enough.

In the end, I’ve decided exactly what I’m going to do with it. I’m going to get it engraved.

What’s it going to say?

“SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH.”

It seems only fitting.

I heard through The Twitter that there was some stupid mess over a commercial involving a mother painting her young son’s toenails. Apparently, there was some outrage over it. Who the fuck is outraged by such a thing?

Also: I’ve never seen it because I prefer to be smug without proof that the commercial sucks.

A loyal prankster (thank you Charlene) sent the offending ad into me.

It’s this:

Um. How inoffensive is that? It’s fucking CUTE.

I used to paint my son’s toenails because, well, he asked me to, and why not? He was a little boy and if he liked pretty toenails (like Mom’s), who was I to deny him? It was charming, really.

When my eldest was five, I got pregnant with his brother. So, I bought him a doll of his very own to play with. He loved that doll, “Seth,” and somewhere, Seth, a little gnawed upon, perhaps, still lives in my house. It took me ages to find him a doll that wasn’t swaddled in all things pink. Apparently, toy manufacturers aren’t keen on dolls dressed in blue.

Happily, I took no end of grief for Seth. My son will probably grow up to be a father and when he does, he’ll know how to properly care for a baby.

When I was pregnant with Amelia, Seth got a friend, “Amelia.” Another doll for both of the boys to care for. And they did, properly carrying their dolls around, feeding them with play bottles and pushing them around in their respective strollers.

(okay, Alex frequently tried to poke out the doll’s eyes. So?)

Again, I took no end of grief for it. I just rolled my eyes. Like dolls are going to “make” my boys gay or something.

(and if they are gay, well, so? I’d be fine with a gay son OR daughter)

For Christmas one year, I bought my son a doctor kit (by the aforementioned logic, my kid should grow up to be a doctor now, right?) to go with his dolls.

I didn’t notice until I was getting ready to wrap it up for Christmas:

Dear Fisher-Price,

Boys play with dolls, too.

Love,

AB

I got pretty Furious George about it. But it was Christmas, so I just ripped the tag off and wrapped it up. My sons? They loved the shit out of it.

I got a marginal amount of shit when I dressed Alex as a butterfly for Halloween this year. Much less than I’d anticipated, actually. I mean, he was three; he loves butterflies AND beating the shit out of things. If he wanted to go as a ballerina, I’d let him do that, too.

For his fourth birthday, Alex got some furniture for their dollhouse. He’s got a wild imagination and the stories he comes up with while playing with their dollhouse are incredible.

More furniture = full of the win.

Until I looked at the back.

Dear Target:

Being a hostess is bullshit.

Fondly,

AB

I do have a vagina and I’m not a “hostess.” In fact, my imagination sucks ass. You’d be shocked by how shitty my imagination is and what little desire I have to become a “hostess.”

No amount of doll furniture will change THAT.

Being a hostess may be bullshit.

Painted nails, however, are not.