Pashmina: “How was your birthday?”

Aunt Becky: “Eh.”

Pashmina: “We’re thirty now.”

Aunt Becky: “I’m changing my birthday.”

Pashmina: “Are you one of those freaks that doesn’t like getting older?”

Aunt Becky: “No, I mean I’m changing the DAY.”

Pashmina: “…”

Aunt Becky: “See, 3 ER visits in 5 years means that the day is cursed. I wasn’t supposed to be born July 15 anyway but I was in distress or some shit.”

Pashmina: “Maybe you’re just unlucky.”

Aunt Becky: “The first person to wish me a happy birthday is always either an ER doc or a pharmacist. So no more. July 15, you are dead to me. July 28, you are my new birthday.”

Pashmina: “Can you do that? Like, just change the day?”

Aunt Becky: “Why not? It’s like Your Number of People You Bone. As you get farther past it, you know, some just DROP off the list for whatever reason.”

Pashmina: “…”

Aunt Becky: “You know, Bob had a micropenis so he didn’t count, and Jim humped your leg instead of your naughty bits and what’s-his-face had a bit of a premature ejaculation problem?”

Pashmina: “…”

Aunt Becky: “So they drop of Your List!”

Pashmina: “…”

Aunt Becky: “What?!?”

Pashmina: “The way you do math is bizarre.”

Aunt Becky: “I can justify just about anything. Like why I need to buy a tapeworm. And move to LA to start a disco band!”

Pashmina: “Disco sucks.”

Aunt Becky: “You won’t be saying that when my band is on the cover of Rolling Stone. You’ll be begging for groupies.”

Pashmina: “I am pretending not to know you anymore.”

Aunt Becky: “You won’t be saying that when my tapeworm farm is famous, either.”

Pashmina: “…”

Aunt Becky: “You’re still mad at me about the butt sex check (Pranksters, go read those links in that order) aren’t you?”

Pashmina: “No. Well, maybe.”

Aunt Becky: “How about I let you into my disco band as an apology?”

Pashmina: “You shine on you crazy diamond, you.”

Aunt Becky: “That’s the spirit! Let’s get some go-go boots and blue eye shadow!”

Now, Pranksters, aren’t you glad I don’t IM you?

——————

Mushroom Printing. It’s up. It’s awesomer than ever. You can play, too.

Pranksters, I heart you so much that my cold black heart has grown nearly thirty times it’s normal size. I hope it stays that way. I woke up to like 900 Facebook thingies and a bunch of tweets and YOU GUYS, *wipes tears* I’M NOT WORTHY.

Now I have to confess that my birthday is cursed because I ended up back on Vicodin and Prednisone (it’s a very boring story, actually) which makes me TOTALLY all ‘THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING BAT COUNTRY’ so I’m pretty sure I’ll be beating people with a banana all weekend.

Good damn thing The Internet is closed over the weekend. Heh.

Thankfully I have a guest post today so you’re avoiding me being all, “I HATE MOTHERFUCKING GENERIC TOILET PAPER, PRANKSTERS! IT’S BULLSHIT!”

P.S. I will be humping email today for all of you who I owe emails to, because I am on strict, “rest your sorry ass” orders.

——–

You can find me Allison blogging about absolute nothing over at Me and Mine, WHICH, by the way, is under construction. She’ll be moving on over to a new site, with a new look, at the end of the month! Oh! And you can also follow her nonsense on twitter ~ @allisonzapata.

* * *

Greetings, Pranksters! My name is Allison and I am scared shitless.

Hi Allison!

Hey guys.

Hi Allison!

Okay, stop it. Seriously. Hi.

So, when Aunt Becky so awesomely asked me to be a guest blogger this was pretty much what went down.

A. I screamed like a little bitch.

B. I fainted

C. I puked.

After cleaning myself off, it happened.

The thoughts came flooding in.

Because the self-doubt?

I haz it, folks!

Why the hell would she ask ME to guest post?

Oh shit! She must think I am an actual writer or something.

OMG, they’re all gonna laugh at me!

I desperately tried to focus and figure out what the hell I should write.

And finally, it came to me! I would write about this mortifying little thing that happened to me in high school.  Something I have been a little hesitant to share on my own blog, since I have a few teenage nieces and nephews that follow it.

It was perfect!  I could share it with all you pranksters without looking like Aunt Ho to the fam.

I sat down at my computer, with a vat of wine, and began to type away.

And this is what came out.

* * *

When I was 16 17 years old, I snuck my boyfriend into my house while my mom was sleeping.

I drunkenly marched him right passed my mom’s room and into my own.

After explaining to him that we needed to hide on the floor on the other side of the bed in case my mom walked in, we proceeded to make awkward teen love. You know the kind? With all the weird noises (see: stirring mac n’ cheese sound. eww. sorry. barf.), the not knowing what to do with “it”, the “Oh no, I am so not ready for THAT. Well, okay, go ahead. Because if you leave me?  I. will. die.”

After we were finished 30 seconds later, Juan Doe (I grew up on the border) asked me where he should put his used condom (HOORAY FOR SAFE CHILD SEX!)  and I was all, “Just put it in that half empty coke can next to my bed.”

Because really, WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Besides everything.

* * *

So, after getting to this point in my story, I got stuck.

“I mean, really Allison, this so isn’t that funny. And so not worthy of the Prankters. Gah! You are such a loooooser”,  said one of the voices in my head.

I slammed my MacBook shut and turned on the TV, telling myself I shouldn’t force it. That it would come to me.

After apologizing profusely to my MacBook, for being so rough with it (and not the good kind of rough), I french-kissed it a bit and caressed it in all the right places. Satisfied that we were all good, I gently closed it and turned my attention back to the television and The Bachelorette.

Oh Ali Fedotowsky!

As per usual, my ADD mind began to wander.

What if I were on a reality show?

I could SO be the next Bachelorette. I mean, if I wasn’t all married and shit.

I can see it now.

Oh hey, Roberto! They have a great day planned for us. First, we are going to ride in a helicopter and then we get to be in a Broadway show. And, well, while all this sounds really cool in theory, I hate helicopters and flying in general and moving and all that stuff. And I really hate dancing and singing in front of live audiences, especially since I can’t dance nor sing and also because I hate being around humans that don’t live in my computer or in my television.  And seriously, I pretty much hate leaving my house at all. Getting dressed in normal clothes, brushing my hair, my teeth, all of it!  Just UGH! It’s all such a drag my little Robertito. So, I was thinking, how’s about you and I just stay right here in our pajamas lounge wear and eat some of these here funny brownies I paid some guy for baked and drink some wine and watch stupid shit on TV? Hold me.

Annnnnd scene.

Snapping back into reality, the panic of not letting you Pranksters down came flooding back. Like a bitch.

I sat and looked at the crap I had just written.

I. Was. Stuck.

Sigh.

Annnnnyhoo, I thought about asking Aunt Becky if I could take her up on this awesome offer another time. After my mojo returns.

After junk punching and water boarding myself for having such a stupid thought, I reached for my laptop and tried to focus.

And this is what came out.

* * *

“I kicked Juan Doe out of my house after all the teenage awkward sex-like stuff went on.  Slowly locking the door behind him, I crept back to my room and dove into bed. I laid still for some time, making sure my mom hadn’t heard us or the sound of his big ass sub-wolfer when he drove away. Confident that I was in the clear, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and passed the fuck out drifted off into sweet, sweet slumber.

I woke up around noon the next day (ahhhh, the life of a teenager) to my mom washing dishes in the kitchen. Feeling like a monkey shit in my mouth while I was sleeping, and so thirsty I could not speak, I walked to the fridge to grab a Coke.

I plopped myself down on a stool and began chatting with my mom as she washed dishes. Her back turned towards me.

She was in such a good mood, so I was confident she had no clue about the skankiness that had just gone down in my room the night before.

And then? It happened.

She explained to me there was this new thing called recycling that would totally help the planet. And I was all, “Sounds awesome mom, anything for Mother Earth, you know! Go rainforest!”

We continued to chat….

And she continued to empty out the Coke cans she had collected, from ALL OVER THE HOUSE, into the sink to prepare them for, how you say? Recycling.

The second I realized what was happening, I ran over to her. I got to her just as she grabbed the remaining Coke can and began emptying it into the sink.

IN SLOW MOTION, the condom came rushing out with the flat, syrupy coke.

SPLAT!

Right in the sink. Both of us staring at it. Slack-jawed.

My super amazing mother looked at me and said, “I’m not sure I like what Juan Doe does with his Coke cans.”

I ran to my room and locked the door. Terrified.

The next day she drove me to the vagina doctor and I was put on the pill.

* * *

Then? I was stuck. Again. I couldn’t think of a single funny one-liner to wrap it up, all nice and purdy. No witty way to end the story.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I was back to stupid square one.

What in the hell am I gonna right about?

And guess what? I never thought of anything. I have had like three effin weeks to try and impress you lovelies and I totally blew it. Hard.

I suppose the only thing left for me to do is beg for forgiveness from all you guys and from the magnificent Aunt Becky.

You’re a kiss ass, GAH!

Anyway, I promise if you all give me another chance, one day when my mojo returns, I’ll do better.

And also? Thank you SO MUCH for not throwing tomatoes at my face.

Carry on Pranksters. Carry on.

Huge hugs and major gratitude,

Allison

On my twentieth birthday, I celebrated by going out to the diner I was working at with my boyfriend and some friends. I remember feeling terribly sad because I’d just moved in with my boyfriend at the beginning of the month, and while I didn’t expect a huge fuss for my twentieth, he’d bought me 3 CD’s–one of them, he boasted, for a penny.

I worked 5 grueling days a week slinging plates of cheap breakfast food from 8 AM to 4PM, making roughly $400 a week. It was, my boyfriend often rubbed smugly in my face as I wearily rubbed my feet at night, the same thing he made sitting on his ass working the help desk. He’d laugh cruelly at the irony of it all.

I was confused by my life.

I’d dropped out of the college I’d been planning to go to for ages, I was now living with someone who I was pretty sure wasn’t who I thought he was, and my mother had taken to leaving me horrible, mean letters rather than talk to me. My life didn’t make sense any more.

But it was a new decade, I reminded myself, and I sadly blew out the candles on my birthday sundae as my boyfriend said, “they’d BETTER pay for that.”

My early twenties were kind of like that. Moments of sweetness marred by intense, searing  sorrow.

I walked into my twenties with an abusive boyfriend on my arm, and today I walk into my thirties with my three hilarious crotch parasites bounding along by my side. They remind me that life is all about bounding and rebounding.

Alex runs into walls and bounces off them, laughs, gets up, and then does it all again just to make me laugh. I cannot grimace at one of his particularly fragrant diapers without him trying to swoop me up in his spindly arms and remind me that he loves me more than anything else. Ever.

His sweetness is breathtaking. His sense of humor reminds me that everything is worth a good solid belly laugh.

Amelia painstakingly crawls up onto the couch, her cellulite-dimpled butt struggling with exertion, then, finally gets up there triumphantly, flashes a four-toothed grin, claps her hands and yells triumphantly, “AAAAAAAAYYYYY!” It’s expected, of course, that since we are all mere mortals in Queen Amelia’s Court, that we all chime in with applause and screams of “YAAAY!”

Her triumphs over the small things in life remind me that everything should be celebrated.

And Ben, Gentle, sweet Ben. Who is trying so hard to learn the things that come naturally to other people that it breaks my heart into a million pieces. Ben who is only good inside. Ben who is made of only sweetness and light.

Ben who reminds me that we can overcome anything so long as it is what the heart desires.

And who could forget The Daver? He may not be the one who “swooped me off the streets and rescued me from a life in The Gutter” like my parents think he did, but he’s about the kindest person I could ask for. I smile as he swoops my babies up in the air and laugh as they breathlessly scream with joy.

Dave reminds me that sometimes I should TRY on the rose colored glasses for size, even if I don’t wear them.

—————–

I’m thirty today.

I’m no longer confused by my life.

A couple of weeks ago, it dawned on me that I’d been spending a hell of a lot of my time reacting to things rather than focusing on controlling the things I could. I was floundering in the water when I could have been handily doing the backstroke and Pranksters, that’s bullshit.

That’s been a hallmark of my twenties, that behavior, and frankly, I’m done, Pranksters. Certainly, life was chaos during these years, and the behavior is a learned one, but that’s done. I’m taking out my gigantic set of platinum-and-diamond-encrusted balls and I’m super-gluing them on.

It’s time to do the one thing I never managed to do in my twenties: get a career and make a name for myself (besides #1 Slore)(which, let’s be fair, is an awesome name).

Aunt Becky is back, world. Get ready.

———————

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice on Mushroom Printing, the new group blog. Been working my ass off on setting it up (also added CommentLuv and Comment RSS here, too!). Is there anything else I should add on my blog?

PLEASE, keep the advice rolling in. I don’t read any other community blogs and I want to make ours full of the awesome. Because, obviously.

——————–

And, uh, thank you for everyone who voted for me for this, uh, award I didn’t even know about but won:

Suzy and I decided it means we got our very own MBA now, so, rad. We’re business people now, Pranksters!

And as soon as I remember my login, I’m voting for Suzy for Best Humor Blog:

Because I’m up for Hottest Mommy Blogger (which means they DID NOT see the balls picture above)(heh):

Sadly, this is not a post announcing the return of my whore pants. I DID, however, get a mass email from Target announcing that they have “mean” pants, which means that Target is copying me. Because whore pants is ALMOST mean pants.

What can MEAN pants do, anyway? Like, taunt you for being a size 12? Change sizes drastically from one day to the next, making you feel like you’ve gained 20 pounds? Openly tell people how much you weigh?

Or perhaps, have a gigantic hole in the crotch that you don’t notice for most of the day because you’re very, very smart. Not that *ahem* I would know anything about that.

Really, the possibilities are endless.

ANYWAY.

Back in 2004, my boyfriend, The Daver got tired of hearing me flap my flapptity-flap jaw and started saying things like, “wow, you’re a GOOD writer. You should start a BLOG!” When I was done punching him in the throat for insulting me, I asked him what a blog was. It sounded like VD to me.

He’s all, “it’s an online journal!” which made me think of creepy people who lived in their parents basements and were afraid of sunlight. Then he showed me a couple, and I was like, “O.M.G. They’re written by creepy people that live in the dark!”

My friend Pashmina and I clicked around the very few blogs we knew for awhile, laughing at

the

bad poetry that

made thine hearts

oh!

our hearts!!

smell like poo.

the occasional report of what someone ate for lunch (kung pao chicken is soooooo good!!!!!!) always punctuated by multiple exclamation points, for added emphasis, of course, and the Jane Austin quotes:

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”

And we laughed. Because honestly, that just wasn’t my scene. I couldn’t believe that a) Daver thought I was a writer, and 2) he thought the world needed to read MORE regurgitated quotes from crazy cat ladies.

(I don’t like Jane Austen).

I mean, okay, Pashmina was an English major, but the most writing I’d done was for REAL research papers.

But then we came up with a most brilliant plan. We’d start a blog. An ANTI-Blog. A blog that NO ONE in their right mind would write! Oh yes, yes, we would.

And so, Mushroom Printing was born. The first entry, I think, was about shaving the vagina. I don’t remember whose, but it doesn’t matter, because that’s the sort of stuff we wrote about. 2 girls, 1 blog, being crass, making you laugh.

We kept it until 2007, when my second son was born, and then I needed another space to talk about my crotch parasites. That’s when I started Mommy Wants Vodka. I never really meant to let Mushroom Printing go, but it just happened. We outgrew it, and then shut it down. I imported (and heavily edited) my old posts, and said goodbye.

Yesterday, I got an email from the hosting company where I’d initially registered mushroomprinting.com asking me to update my records. I’d completely forgotten registering it back in 2005, but apparently I own it until November.

I sat around yesterday, imagining Mr. Pinchy, my fake monkey butler, and I stealing a Jeep and driving around, whipping donuts at kids with silly droopy hair, and then it dawned on me: I needed a new project. Something else to do.

What better to do than bring back something I always missed: Mushroom Printing. Probably the best blog name my feeble mind could come up with (it’s WAY better than Mommy Wants Vodka) but with a new concept.

Mushroom Printing as a group blog.

Finally, I’m getting my ass moving on putting together that group blog. Because what better to do than put together a place where we can all go to post about people, places, and things who need a big, fat, mushroom print?

The world is full of douchebags. Thanks to the social code, we can’t always call people out on their douchetastic behavior. Now, we can finally let it out.

To be clear: I don’t want this to be a slam site. Like, “I hate Dooce/Aunt Becky because she smells” or anything, because, Your Aunt Becky is bitchy, but she likes other bloggers and she’s not going to run a hate site. Period.

So, this site will be for OTHER things. The asshole in the parking lot that clipped the mirror off your car. Your mother-in-law. Your whore pants. Whatever.

But I don’t have the site quite up and ready yet. I’ll be working on it for the next couple of days. Now I need YOUR input as to what would make this site awesome and something you’d want to use. This is what I have so far:

1) Anyone can post, but they have to register first.

2) All posts will go into a queue before they go live to be edited and moderated. Because I don’t want anyone being a TOTAL asshole on it.

3) It doesn’t HAVE to be a smack down.

4) I have a Twitter account set up and I figure I’ll just RT stuff you tweet to it from there.

5) I’m going to get someone to design a masthead and button for it so you can be all, “I GOT MUSHROOM PRINTED.”

6) Imma to make a sister site to it for all the awesome stuff you find. Because obviously.

Okay, Pranksters, what else? Please, let me know. What would you want in a site like this. Besides, of course, my whore pants.

—————

Because I am not smart, I TOTALLY forgot to announce my Girls I’d Hump post yesterday at Toy With Me. DUH.

I came from, among MANY other things, a car family. Before I could talk, I was whisked to the Chicago Auto Show (a yearly tradition in Casa de la Sausage), and one of my earliest memories is of stealing a Sharpee Marker and decorating the inside of my uncle’s painstakingly restored 1969 Stingray with my finest doodles. It’s a wonder I made it past my first birthday.

Let’s pretend that I’m in a car, okay?

To me, there’s nothing more intoxicating than getting out on the open road, shifting seamlessly from fourth to fifth gear and just going. Seeing where the road takes me. Letting my mind crawl alongside the wheels while I roam the roads, my skull cavity blissfully empty and my heart filled with the happiness that only wandering can bring me.

I don’t often get the chance to do that anymore, because my minivan, although practical, doesn’t evoke the same sort of wanderlust that my cherry red sports car does. The gears don’t scream as I red line right before I shift from first to second, the engine doesn’t lurch comfortingly with every shift, and when it comes to gripping the road like a glove, well, the minivan always feels like it’s one toke over the line (sweet Jesus).

Yeah, I’m a wanderer.

———–

I’ve always meant to take a class on car maintenance. I know they offer one at the community college nearby and I’ve always thought that I should know how my car works. Especially since I got ripped off. What, ME bitter?

It’s happened a couple of times, where I’ve been taken for a ride (heh) because I simply didn’t know any better and each time it’s made me Furious George later on.

The first time, I nearly bought a rear-wheel drive sports car to be driven in the Midwest all year round. The car weighed all of 4 pounds, and when I asked the salesman about it, he’s all, “Oh, you’ll be FINE in the winter!! It’s FRONT WHEEL DRIVE.” When I asked my friend’s father about it, he’s all, “I NEVER drive that car in the winter! It’s totally rear-wheel drive.”

When I called to chew out the salesperson to his manager for being a lying douchebag, the manager said, “Well, that’s YOUR fault for not knowing.” That’s a safety issue. And I was lied to. Way to be an upstanding citizen!

The next several times, it was all done at a major oil changing place. I’m sure it’s happened to most of us.

Oil Change Person: “There’s something wrong with xxhasfigbfsdKfg.”

Aunt Becky: “Huh?”

Oil Change Monkey: “I SAID there’s something wrong with wntuifdhsvfdosG.”

Aunt Becky: “..uh, okay.”

Oil Change Guy: “You need this fixed NOW.”

Aunt Becky: “Why?”

Oil Change Dickhead: “If you don’t, your car will EXPLODE and you will DIE!!!!!!!!!”

Aunt Becky: “Holy crap.”

Oil Change Jerk: “Pretty much if you don’t get this done, you’re an idiot and you’re killing yourself and hundreds of innocent children.”

Aunt Becky: “Wow. When you put it that way…”

Oil Change Manipulator: “Give me your credit card now.”

Aunt Becky: “..fine.”

Oil Change Guy: “That will be $4,000.”

Aunt Becky: “WHAT!?!!”

Oil Change Shyster: “Saving the world isn’t cheap, sucker.”

—————

Because I do not want this to happen to any of my Pranksters, I have teamed up with Ford to do a Q and A with Cristina Rodriguez where I can ask her all about Car Maintenance. It’s going to be on Blog Talk Radio, which is pretty much going to win me an Oscar or something.

Ford wanted me to ask YOU (which is the part where YOU become celebrities) what you want to know about car maintenance or repair so that I can ask their expert. Or, if you have no specific questions, just, you know, talk about cars and stuff in the comments. I can totally pull an interview out of stuff you talk about. The more stuff you say, the better.

So pull up a seat next to Your Aunt Becky, I’ll pour you a nice glass of vodka (only if you’re not driving), and tell me what’s on your mind.

The last straw was when Angie’s whole family called me a Mennonite. I think those are the people who don’t use zippers, but I don’t know because I’m not smart and I’m too lazy to Google it, but basically, her family was shocked that I didn’t have a DVR.

I do have zippers, however, although, my whore pants are nowhere to be found. I’m pretty sure I should make a MISSING PANTS poster for them if I ever want to see them again. They’re probably on their way to Vegas now. Whore pants.

Oddly, after I got back from my cruise, The Daver had gotten us a DVR, BEFORE I railed on him about being a Mennonite (whatever that is), and immediately, I asked him to record every episode of Law and Order: Your Life Doesn’t Suck As Bad As You Think It Does that was ever made.

Since you can find that show on TV just about any hour of the day, thanks to Dick Wolf’s tireless dedication to taking over the airwaves (TV waves?), that means that my very own DVR is always filled with Law and Order: This Is Depressing Shit.

And because I am a compulsive personality (see also: my blog, my orchids, my roses), this is what I watch every night.

Sure, back when my beloved television husband Dr. House was on air, I would watch his show, eyes glued to him for the entire hour. Likewise with Dexter, my serial killer husband.

(I had an Arby’s-type epiphany–Arby’s=RB’s=Roast Beef–I like men who are like me inside)

But summer programming pretty much sucks the fat one and so I am stuck with Law and Order: How Dare You Feel Bad About Your Life? But I like the shows and the puzzles and the characters, especially Ice-T (did you know he’s on Twitter? He’s one of two celebrities I follow and I adore him).

I’m starting to wonder if watching shows about rape, murder and suicide are the best thing for me to watch before bed.

See, I have insomnia. Now, I’m not talking about the once-in-awhile “I can’t sleep!! LOL!!” insomnia, I’m talking about the real shit. It’s not anxiety, but it is the absolute inability to sleep like a normal fucking person and it sucks.

Some nights, I’ll lay in bed, polishing my imaginary glock while I imagine killing the person who wrote the “Do-do-do a dollop of Daisy” commercial. Or the “Turn the Tub Around” one. Others, I write blog posts. Still others, I just lay there, half asleep and half awake, drifting in and out.

Not all nights are like this, but for the past 20 or so, I’ve gotten one good night of sleep.

Normally, I take Unisom and sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve tried Lunesta and actually got addicted to that stuff. When I went off of it, I actually went through withdrawals, which sounds insane, but I swear, it happened. And everything you read on The Internet is true, obviously.

The worst part about the past 20ish nights is the NIGHTMARES.

Pranksters, they’re AWFUL. Every night, all night, nothing but nightmares. I won’t launch into what they were about because reading about dream sequences is about as interesting as toast or beige paint, but suffice to say, it’s been almost unbearable to go to sleep because I don’t know what my subconscious will dredge up to torture me with.

I don’t know if this is part of recovery or a side effect of trying to cut down on my Topamax (which was an abysmal failure, I should add, even though my neurologist, the one with GERD, suggested I try it) or just part of bringing up all of my past again, but maybe I could just, you know, go through the rest of this UNCONSCIOUS or something. You guys probably know better than I do.

Then again, maybe I just need to stop watching gruesome shit before bed.

I should probably just look at pictures of adorable, fluffy kittens and big-eyed puppies, right?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

And if you want to vote for my blog (funniest blog)(which, huh?), you may vote once per day here.

The Internet is always closed on major holidays, so I didn’t bother posting for the three spambots that would be trolling to send me links to supposed pictures of “Harry Potter nude” and “David Cook nude.” But not doing so totally kicked my OCD into hyperdrive, and I felt sort of like I was missing my right arm for most of the weekend.

Therefore, I am presenting to you, my beloved Pranksters, a new set of cards (if these images are yours and you want me to remove them, please holler). Because really, how better to say the things that you’d never want to say, that through a card you would never send?

(don’t answer that)

I’ll be back tomorrow with a post with words. I’m far too self-absorbed to stay quiet for very long.

(blah, blah, blah, if you want to vote for me for funniest blog which, btw, I am TOTALLY not rocking right now, you can vote right here, once per day)

Happy Fourth of July, my Pranksters.

It may surprise you to know that I have a brother. For brevity’s sake, we’ll call him Uncle Aunt Becky, but I’ll warn you that it’s not REALLY his name because he’s older than me, and how could my parents POSSIBLY have known they would have named their infinitely superior younger child Rebecca?

I am so superior, in fact, that my father recently informed me that when they saw my face, they knew they could do no better, so my mother was immediately neutered in the hospital after my birth. This was all delivered with a completely straight face, the sort that my father always uses when he delivers his jokes, which is precisely the same way I tell my horrible jokes, so it’s safe to say that these things DO run in families.

My mother claims that when SHE saw me that she said, “Well, that’s a face only a mother will love.”

My family is very, very nice.

Anyway, my brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, he’s pretty much my opposite, and not only in that he’s male and I’m female because as far as I’m concerned, he’s a Ken Doll down there. BLECH.

See, he’s a beautiful writer and photographer, who actually got a degree in that stuff, and I pollute the Internet by saying things like, “meat curtains.” He’s a yuppie and my personal fashion sense is *sniff, sniff* Yup, clean enough for government work. I’m a science-type and he gets pasty when I say things like “NEEDLES!”

Mostly, our differences lie in that he’s kind of a gym rat who likes nothing more than sticking his muscled arms in my face and directing me to certain areas of his house. I like working out, Pranksters, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have hours of the day to devote specifically to the deltoid muscle. I’m lucky if I can manage a workout at all, let alone an entire day devoted to my lower legs.

Uncle Aunt Becky’s new thing is triathlons.

The gear for them seems to hold particular interest for Uncle Aunt Becky, which is a topic Your Aunt Becky finds as interesting as toast. Apparently it is quite a topic for people who DO these things, but for those who don’t, it’s about as interesting as listening to me discuss the merits of the Twitter client for iPhone versus Tweetdeck (doooooowwwn with Tweetdeck!).

Beige paint, Pranksters.

So this weekend, Uncle Aunt Becky was supposed to do an Iron Man Triathlon that he’d been preparing for for as long as I can remember (which is approximately 6 seconds). I got a call from my father on Friday informing me that my brother was NOT going to be competing in the Triathlon as he’d broken his toe walking into some lockers at work.

You may assume that someone so closely related to me would be clumsy as I am (who the fuck breaks her toe making a sandwich?), but you’d be wrong. Uncle Aunt Becky got all of the graceful genes in the family where I inherited all of the clumsy, hair-brained, “it just seemed like a good idea!” ones.

In short, Uncle Aunt Becky is LOADS smarter and more graceful than his sister.

Like, if The Daver were to get a phone call that went like this:

“Um, so Dave, I’m at the hospital because I broke my foot chasing after a lemonade truck. See, I REALLY wanted some lemonade and the truck didn’t stop…well, okay, I don’t REALLY know if it was a lemonade truck because I’m not sure if there are such things as lemonade trucks, but it was yellow and it made me THINK of lemonade and then I got thirsty and decided to run after it and then when I got close it’s bumper fell off onto my foot. And now my foot is broken and the truck was ACTUALLY a DHL or DSL or whatever truck. So anyway, I need some lemonade. Can you pick some up on the way to the hospital please?”

He would just say,

“AGAIN, Becky?”

But my brother, that’s completely a different story.

So upon hearing this, both The Daver and I stared at each other, jaws flappity-flapping in the breeze for a solid two minutes before we wondered aloud what the fuck had REALLY happened.

He never did tell us, but I have a feeling the story involves aliens or zombies or zombie aliens.

It’s really the only thing that makes any sense.

—————

Incongruently, the story of the birthday blowjob is up at Toy With Me. It’s a great one.

When I say that I’m a “big fan” of music, it conjures up the most delicious image of a gigantic fan, perhaps with a whimsical image of Your Aunt Becky in full geisha gear, doing something graceful and womanly painted on there. Then I giggle and forget what I’m saying because I’m on TOPAMAX, man, and that shit is BAD NEWS and I can barely remember your name, let alone what I was laughing at.

Anyway, for as long as my kid, Benner, has been alive, I’ve made him listen to music.

When he was a screamy baby, it was the only thing that kept me from driving off a cliff while he wailed on in the backseat (let’s just PRETEND I live somewhere besides the Midwest, where there actually MIGHT be cliffs). Later, it was one of the things that comforted him and soothed the savage beast within him when nothing else–save for his beloved Jupiter–could.

Never mattered what it was, could have been a commercial jingle, the kid would stop what he was doing, and start dancin’. Out of nowhere, I’d warble, “you could be dannnnccciiiinnnng” and he’d immediately stop, and start bouncing up and down. Which if you’re related to me, is dancing.

Don’t believe me? Go to BlogHer, or another place where I’ll be in front of a DJ and watch Your Aunt Becky dance. I call it The White Girl Shuffle, but really, white girls everywhere should be pretty mad at me for calling it that because it disgraces their name.

So the kid, he’s always been around music. And because I’m sort of Rainman WITH music, I’m always muttering the name of the song and who it is by to him. Like, he’ll be in the backseat listening serenely and I’m driving and out of nowhere I’ll scream, “SUPERTRAMP, GOODBYE STRANGER!!! MEMORIZE IT, BEN!”

If nothing else, the kid is going to be wicked good at bar trivia some day and probably scared of loud noises. He’ll thank me, I’m certain.

Music is the one thing we could agree on. Actually, it’s the only thing we agree on.

For years, the kids has been rejecting me. He preferred his crib to his mother, then his planets. Once he got his autistic spectrum diagnosis, I will admit that I was relieved because you know what Pranksters? It proved that the issue wasn’t with me. I wasn’t a bad mother (okay, maybe I was, but not for the reasons you’d think) and I cannot tell you the weight that was lifted off of me.

So music, I loved music too. Anyone who loved music as voraciously as I did is someone that I could love very, very much. Furthermore, it was someone who I could get along with quite well.

And so we do. He took up the violin when he was 6, took a year off when he changed schools, and is now back in the orchestra playing the violin. Yesterday, we went to his second concert.

I sat back in the hushed auditorium where I used to play my own concerts (I was a cellist), my seat-back assailed by a thousand tiny kicks from the turdlick behind me and I watched as my son took his seat. First chair, first violin.

That’s like watching your kid become quarterback.

My heart swelled with pride and I beamed ear to ear. I almost got up and announced to the packed auditorium, “Hey fuckers, that’s MY kid in first chair,” but I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. Especially Ben.

I sat there, glowing, and while I nearly passed out as the person in front of me farted and the turd behind me kicked my chair repeatedly, the orchestra of 300 third graders played Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I’ve heard it countless times before, and while never quite so…discordant, it was beautiful.

Mostly because it was MY son, MY kid up there in the first chair, doing me proud.

There we were, on the same page at last. My son and I.

When he wins his Bar Trivia Trophy, I’m betting he’ll want to dedicate it to me, too. Because, really, what barfly doesn’t want to destroy all chances of getting laid by commemorating their crowning achievement to their mother? I guess I’ll have to start clearing out room for his future trophies now.

Maybe The Daver can start sleeping in the garden.

When I was a kid, I was convinced that the worst song on the planet was the theme song from Facts of Life. There was just something genuinely awful about the uplifting lilt of those words “You take the good, you take the bad, and there you have the facts of life.” Like some sadistic serial killer would sing that as he mutilated corpses.

Just THINK about it.

As I got older, I changed my tune. Literally.

I then became sure that the worst song written was ACTUALLY Starlight Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight. While I’ve previously detailed that I love nothing more than a good hump session–even knocking boots between the hours of 1 and 4 PM!–I simply couldn’t understand how anyone could listen to this song without vomiting. And then killing someone. And then vomiting again.

If you DO think this is the greatest song ever, I will fight you.

Then, a couple of months ago, I was watching my beloved show Glee, and the tall Frankenteen one launched into a song about Having a Baby and I kept waiting for it to get good. But it never did. It was bad. It was so, so BAD.

I couldn’t believe that the show that I lived and breathed for could showcase a song that proved that the Devil did live and breathe and walk among us. It was proof that God hated us. The song proved that the world was a cold, dark, awful, evil place.

The person who wrote that song was a bad, horrible, hateful man who did dark, wicked things, like cut the heads off of kittens while he wrote it. I had never heard such a vile, disgusting song in my life, and I am telling you that it changed me.

Paul Anka’s “(You’re) Having My Baby” is proof that there is PURE EVIL in the world.

(why yes, this IS a video I MADE for you)

[flashvideo file=”wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Having-My-Baby.flv” /]

You cannot tell me that this song was written by someone who did not have the fingers of tiny children in glass jars hidden in some apothecary in his house. Clearly no one sane or good could write a song like that. (but the person who put together the video montage to this song is clearly gifted AND achingly beautiful, AND adept at pointing at babies)

That, my friends, is the worst song on the planet. When I go to hell, THIS will be the song that is playing in my own special room for all of eternity on endless loop. I can think of no song worse that it.

And yes, Pranksters, that is a challenge. Hit me with your best (worst) song.

P.S. If you’re going to BlogHer, we can TOTALLY be BFF! because I am speaking at the panel on giving advice. I don’t exactly know WHEN it is, but you know, I expect that someone will pour vodka down my gullet and point me in the direction of the room that I am supposed to be talking to.