Sorry to leave you hanging, Pranksters, but I knew a 2500 word story would make half of you fall asleep and the other half of you throwing shit at your computer in horror. How! Can! A! Blog! Be! So! Long!

Part I

We arrived at our destination, which had both wrought iron bars on the windows and the door – apparently one is not suitable – and had a five minute debate over who had to knock. In the end, we insisted The Guy On The Couch was the unlucky one. We made him knock – hey, we’re small white chicks; if someone opened up the door high on Special K, I’d rather not be the one directly in his or her punching radius.

Lo and behold, it was, in fact, the right address so we were greeted by my photog, Josh Hawkins, who looked tan and fit, which made ME want to take some Special K and beat him ugly. He lives in Vegas, lucky asshole.

Inside the place was like nothing I’d expected. Where I’d expected to see a couple homeless guys camping out and sleeping off their 40’s from the night before, possibly a couple of hookers looking for blow, I found it was a nice, roomy studio. It even had a working bathroom and fresh paint on the walls. (sidebar: you know you’re on the wrong side of the tracks when you’re happy the place has a bathroom) I was thrilled. I hadn’t yet changed from my Happy Pants into my outfit, and while I’d change in front of all three of them, I’d rather, um, pretend to be modest.

(three vaginal births later, I’m just as apt to take off my pants and “assume the position” as I am to shake your hand. I can possibly do both AT THE SAME TIME, but that is neither here nor there)

I’d caught Josh as he finished up a photo shoot with an old friend of mine, Janet, who once had a blog, but like most of the sane world, disbanded it many years ago. This gave Dawn, The Guy on my Couch and I some time to sit on what turned out to be the world’s most uncomfortable sofa where we chattered on about the Band Back Together 2013 calendar, which we were actually risking life and limb for.

I was nervous as hell.

Every time I panicked a little, I talked myself down: “the stylist would be here soon. The stylist would be here soon.” I hadn’t looked as bad as I did since, oh, the last time I went to Chuck-E-Cheese (read: the day before).

A refresher course on what I happened to look like walking into the place.

Yeah. That. See? Eye Slugs (or some weird thingy you put on your eyes if your eyes are puffy and/or have circles underneath them. I got them as swag one year and they totally burned my eyes (talk about swag promotional materials backfiring)

But I sat there on the couch, pretending to “work” (which involved a lot of Tweeting) as I waited for the stylist. An hour past the time she was supposed to show, Josh finally said, “Um, I can’t get a hold of her. I am not happy.” Then he went on about some other stuff as my brain melted out of my nose.

fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

I hadn’t brought any makeup. My hair was still damp from the shower. I wasn’t even wearing real pants.

Josh pointed me at a room he called the, “You Look Fine, Honey” room. Dawn and I made a beeline for it – it had a mirror, some awful props and, BINGO! A button of makeup. I said a quick prayer to the gods of theatre that Dawn had worked on stage in college as she went to work on my face.

Ten minutes later, I slithered into what is easily the ugliest item of clothing I own, threw on some fishnets, and said, “Oh FUCK. What am I gonna do with my HAIR?”

Oh yes, Pranksters, it even comes with the beret. Talk about winning! P.S. That is not me. P.P.S. Anyone want the outfit?

My hair hates to be forced to curl. My hair is a “I don’t need no stinkin’ curling iron telling ME what to do” independent kinda hair. My hair hates the color pink, any given Sunday, life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness. THIS was why I needed the ever-loving stylist to show up and save the day.

She didn’t.

So while Dawn got to work fixing the hair on The Guy on the Couch, I was left to my own devices. I found a studded masquerade mask, a bottle of red liquid that claimed to take makeup off, and some bizarre three pronged hair curler.

After I decided that it was not, in fact, a dildo, I plugged it in and began to work on my hair.

Rather than actually making me appear both chic, stylist and ready for the camera, I looked like a bastardized version of Beyonce. Or Diana Ross.

Frankly, I preferred the Eye Slug look.

Especially since it meant that there was no way I could leave without being mistaken for a particularly bad hooker. And shit, I didn’t want other hookers assuming I was there to take their bizness away.

The only comfort in all of this is knowing that I have a graphic designer on hand to fix whatever I did wrong (read: all of it)

Thank the Good Lord of Butter.

Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right?

But this is me, and we all know I never joke about anything (hey, Juice Boxes ARE for Pussies).

Bright and blurry Saturday morning, well before any civilized person should get up (8:30AM is, like juice boxes, for pussies), my friend Dawn showed up bearing coffee and donuts, looking as The Guy on my Couch and I both did – like we’d been run over several times by a gigantic truck. Or beaten with the ugly stick. [insert some other euphemism that hilariously explains why, in fact, we all looked like we needed a good scrub in the back yard with one of those steel brushes and some bleach]

It was unfortunate, really, the way we looked, since we were going to go get our pictures done. Unfortunate but unsurprising – everyone looks weird on Picture Day. My freshman year in high school, I got appendicitis on the day of picture retakes, and agonizingly, I sat through that photo shoot. In those photos, I look as though a gigantic rubber fist had been inserted into my rectum right before the guy said, “CHEESE.”

But this was for charity, so we tried not to complain too much. I thanked my lucky stars that we have a graphic designer who can (hopefully) make me not look like death in print.

Once happily ensconced in the car, directions in hand, bag full of ridiculous clothes and some (jazz hands) mysterious Christmas lights at my feet, coffee in my gut, I began to relax.

Until, that is, we got off the highway. At that point, I locked the doors and tried desperately not to make eye contact with anyone. It’s better that way.

I *knew* we were going into a rough neighborhood, but it was daytime on a Saturday morning, so I didn’t bother packing my semi-automatic or a shiv. I figured we’d fit right in – three white kids in a nice suburban-looking SUV. Just your average day in the ghetto, right? We could’ve had legitimate bizness there. LIKE GETTING OUR PICTURES DID.

Oh, wait. We DID have legitimate bizness there.

We parked next to an abortion clinic, flanked on both sides by buildings that had clearly been burned out. Windows missing, char-patterns making neat patterns on the brick outside, the occasional boarded up door. Everywhere we turned, there was broken glass. Dawn, who has apparently never been anywhere but the Loop and the suburbs, bothered to ask what was up with all the glass.

“DRINKIN’ 40’S” I hollered, in my obnoxious, ‘I’m-a-drunk-frat-boy’ voice, hoping the people who lived there found it to be as hilarious as I did.

On our way to the studio, we passed by BUT DID NOT PICK UP a random (EMPTY, DAMMIT!) box of burn cream. I’m not sure the two are related…but I’m not sure they aren’t.

We got to the studio, where my friend Josh Hawkins, who happens to be an awesome photographer AND my friend, greeted us. Immediately we realized our mistake: we’d forgotten to bring anything to drink. I turned to Dawn and whispered, “I need a diet Coke.”

She replied, “I think there’s a guy on the corner selling shit inside his trench coat.”

Me: “Think I can get a faux-Lex*?”

Her: “I’m sure.”

I hadn’t actually seen the guy, so I’m pretty sure Dawn was full of the lies. The only place that looked like it might have, at one time, sold items other than crack was a boarded-up (we’re assuming) restaurant (although it could’ve been a massage parlor) with a handmade sign that read, “Munchers.” Had it looked any more inviting, I’d have risked it for a diet Coke. As it was, I wasn’t about to try it. Besides, I had a stylist I was waiting on to make me look, well, better than I had walking in.

Which was going to take some work.

To. Be. Continued.

*Fake Rolex. Get it? FAUXLex?

It’s also AUCTION TIME. Go and check out the Band Back Together auction – I even donated some of my old kids clothes. There’s a lot of cool shit there and it’s all going to a good cause (not my shoe collection.).

So go! Bid! ENJOY!

(also, as always we welcome your submissions – some guidelines are here – about anything you want!)

Last night, I dragged The Daver and The Guy on my Couch outside to play with the two smaller kids – the big one, Ben, was off doing his chores. While Daver hid out in the tree-house with Amelia, Alex and The Guy on my Couch began to play a rousing game Alex called “Goomba,” which was, to the best of my knowledge, Dodge Ball with a Mario theme.

I sat nearby, weeding my rose garden, cursing myself for spraying anti-fungal shit on it too soon in the season, listening to them play.

After a half an hour, my eldest, Ben, burst out of the back door of the house like he was being chased by a particularly vicious washcloth.

“Oh. Em. Gee.” he sputtered, punctuation clearly evident in his speech, “THERE you are.”

I laughed at his vehemence, “Where’d you think we were?”

“I. DON’T. KNOW.” He staccato-ed out.

“Did you think we’d been abducted by alien ghosts or something?” I asked playfully.

“Mom,” he looked at me, hand on his hip, dead serious. “I’m SO over ghosts.”

I giggled.

He went over and got on the swing-set as Daver took Amelia up to bed. (Big) Ben and Alex continued to play their bizarre game, giving each other 1-Up’s whenever they’d get hit with the ball. Dave soon joined me on the patio, my roses long weeded.

“I can’t believe you’re going to spoil my kids,” Ben semi-hollered from the swings.

Without missing a beat, I replied, “It’s called payback, my son.”

(He’s referring to a conversation I had with him threeish years ago wherein I told him how excited I was to spoil his kids when he got older. I listed out, in no particular order, all of the various ways I’d planned on spoiling his kids rotten. He finds it hilarious.)

(I’ve learned, for those of you playing along at home, that certain kids on the autistic spectrum will vividly remember conversations and events that occurred many years ago and bring them up in conversations as though they happened yesterday. I only wish he were so dedicated to remembering to wash his hands after cleaning up the cat boxes)

He hollered happily, “Oh MOM! You can’t give my kids candy all the time!”

“We won’t,” Daver teased. “We’ll do pizza too. Lots of pizza.”

“Oh DAD,” Ben giggled before he yelled, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”

“Uncle Ben will buy them tons of video games, too,” The Guy on my Couch chimed in. “Especially the kinds you don’t want them to play.”

“BIG BEN,” my son hollered, laughing so hard he nearly toppled off the swing, “NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”

“Before you drop your kids off, I’ll buy them each a five pound bag of sugar and dump a can of Mountain Dew in it,” I contained. “I’ll give ’em that to drink before you pick them up!”

“What if my wife doesn’t like that?” Ben giggled, still swinging.

“I will be the one choosing your wife for you, Ben,” I said, as sternly as I could. Dave and Big Ben burst out laughing, “THAT’S gonna go over well,” Daver said.

“Sorry I can’t date you,” Big Ben chimed in, “My Mom says your name is stupid – and I can’t date girls with stupid names.”

The laughter woke up the birds trying to sleep in the big pine tree in my backyard.

“Okay,” my son said, still laughing, “What if my wife doesn’t want kids?”

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “You can BUY kids off eBay. Or the gypsies.”

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

“When I grow up, I’m going to work at Band Back Together dot Com with you guys. And then I’ll tell the REAL story,” my son countered.

“We got editors for that sorta thing, Boy,” The Guy On My Couch (Big Ben) bantered.

Back and forth we lobbed it until it grew dark and the wind began howling, indicating that it was, at long last, bedtime for kids.

“Alex,” my son said conspiratorially to his brother as they walked into the house together, “be careful. Mom might make you buy kids.”

“I want a Yoshi – not babies,” Alex replied.

Touche, my (second) son.

Touche.

In an odd twist, I am taking the day off. You’d think, “Aunt Becky, didn’t you just have two days off?” And the answer would be, “Bwahahahahahahahaha! I got three crotch parasites who, unlike OUR parents before us who’s answer to ‘I’m booooored,” was to boot us outside and lock the door, I can’t stand the way they stare at me through the windows until I let them back in. So I played with them instead.”

That meant that I was introduced to those stupid Crayola colored bubbles which are like kid crack and yet, such a bad, bad idea. Just trust me on this one. Colored bubbles = no bueno.

Today, I’m going to go and venture out into the real world, where people don’t speak in hashtags and LOL Speak. Which, also = no bueno.

So I leave you with this, a copy of my newest edition of MS word:

It writes letterz n shit, yo.

Also? The Band Back Together Auction is live. And here is a link to read the site. It’s pretty rad.

Many, many moons ago, before I was Your Aunt Becky, I was Nurse Becky. However, Nurse Becky had a problem – namely, she didn’t want to be Nurse Becky.

(okay, that’s me being done talking about myself in the third person)

No, I’d given up my medical school dreams for a young lad I’d indelicately booted out of my crotchal regions at the tender age of 21. Me, not him. That would be pretty weird – pushing a 21-year old outta my vagina. Mental picture of a full-grown frat boy (including crappy shamrock tattoo from one drunken night in Cancun) climbing out of my vagina is full of the awesome, though.

The biggest problem I had was that I had no desire whatsoever to actually BE a nurse. Which came to light day one of nursing school. I held on, worked my ass off, and graduated at the top of my class, hoping something – anything – would change my mind.

Of course, it didn’t. The same way I’d make a terrible teacher because, hello, it’s not as though I should personally be ministering to small, impressionable minds. Parents would take one look at me and run for the hills quicker than you can say, “bong water.”

So there I was – freshly graduated, diploma in hand, mind not magically changed to, “Imma let you finish – then Imma administering you some morphine – can I have a drag?”

Not the image of someone who should be giving you drugs. Legally, I mean.

Blithely, I applied – and got – a job working on a cardiac floor at a hospital in Elmhurst. That lasted six weeks before I quit. I’d been told that the floor I was on was one that “made a lot of people ditch nursing a career.” Apparently, I chose even more poorly than I’d thought.

When we moved to our current house, faced with the prospect of dueling mortgages (this was almost immediately before the housing market bubble burst), it was decided that I’d go back to work. After spending a few months sitting alone in our condo with a small autistic boy all day, I was more than happy to get back on the (work) horse and ride that fucker all the fuck over the place.

This time, I knew better – I wasn’t going back to a hospital – oh no. That shit was for the GOOD nurses out there. Instead, I chose a desk job working for a major insurance company. I’d be approving certain claims as well as finding ways to extend the benefits for people who were using in-home hospice.

Now hospice, if you don’t know, is for people who are no longer pursing active treatment of their terminal illness. Hospice is designed to let you die with some dignity at home (or in the hospital) as comfortably – and pain free – as possible. Hospice is also one of the last options for people who are terminally ill, which means that most people don’t stay in hospice for very long before they pass.

However, some people had certain hospice benefits provided through my company – but the terms and conditions were, as many people forget, set by the employer – and some of their hospice benefits were way weird. So it was my job to look for loopholes, draft care plans, and show the insurance company as well as the employer that being in at-home hospice was far cheaper than being hospitalized.

It wasn’t as glamorous a job as, say, BLOGGING, but I liked it – I was actually helping people in a way I knew how – by finding and exploiting the system.

But elevator conversations always turned sour:

Someone Else: “What do you do for a living?”

Nurse Becky (prays they’ll stop questioning there): “I’m a nurse.”

Someone Else (warmly): “My [insert relation here] is a nurse! That’s so wonderful! You’re a very special person for doing all that you do. Where do you work?”

Nurse Becky (mumbles): “[Company that shares a name with an airline]”

Someone Else: “Oh, FUCK YOU! That’s a fucking BULLSHIT company. I fucking HATE them – you know they denied my claim for a routine appendectomy? HOW THE HELL COULD YOU WORK FOR SUCH EVIL CORPORATE BASTARDS? You’re one sick puppy, you know that?”

Nurse Becky (mumbles): “Well, I’m one of the good guys – I look for ways to….”

Someone Else: “Fuck you and fuck your mother for birthing you, you soulless bitch.”

(storms off)

Nurse Becky (crestfallen, to herself): “I gotta remember to say I’m an astronaut or something.”

Eventually, the soulless heart-slurping company switched my job to that would primarily involve cold-calling people and giving them health examinations over the phone – not my cup of tea. This, at the same time I’d found out I was pregnant with Alex and couldn’t stop yarfing everywhere meant that it was time for me to mosey on down to greener – nicer – pastures. Like blogging. And wearing ass grooves into my couch.

At least then, only my couch could really bitch at me.

I was born jaundice – some kind of issue with blood incompatibility and got to hang out under those wicked baby sun-tan lights for awhile (I hope my mother was sensible enough to give me some wee baby Ray Bans) before I got to go home and annoy the shit out of my family with my lilting wails.

At my six-week well-baby checkup, I had an ear infection.

It’s been like that ever since. Excepting the Ray Bans – never owned a pair. And I stopped crying and started yelling – it’s more effective.

Wailing non-withstanding, I’m the Sick One around these here parts. I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t something wrong with me*. I was plagued by ear infections as a tot. When I grew out of those, it became strep throat – which I had at least once every three weeks until I turned 14 and got my tonsils out (this was back in the day when they didn’t put in ear tubes or lop out tonsils very often). By the time those puppies came out, they were necrotic – er….dead. Like for reals.

You’d think that by lopping off my dead tonsils, I’d somehow get an immune system – I mean, why else would you go through that particular type of agony?

(answer: Vicodin)

I try not to talk about my shitballs immune system very often, because the conversation invariably goes like this:

Anyone Else: “How are you?”

Aunt Becky: “UGH. I’m sick.”

Anyone Else: “AGAIN?”

Aunt Becky: “No, I mean I’m STILL sick from the last time I told you I was sick.”

Anyone Else: “Wait – that was like 6 months ago.”

Aunt Becky: “Yup.”

OR THIS:

Anyone Else: “How are you?”

Aunt Becky: “Sick.”

Anyone Else: “You should try standing on your head 18 hours a day – my friend’s friend’s barber’s wife did that and she’s feeling better than ever.”

————

I get a couple of days a month that I’m in decent shape, but most of the time, my walking, talking, breathing, pissing, moaning petri dishes of children bring me home whatever lovely virus is currently circulating around. I invariably catch it and am laid up for longer than anyone should be.

And you know what, Pranksters? It’s damn depressing. I *loathe* being sick. I’d gnaw off my ear if it meant that I’d grow an immune system.

Rather than sitting around moaning about it – it sucks, we all know it – I’m trying something new.

I took my happy crappy ass to the local health food store and picked up some motherfucking herbs and homeopathic shit. I figure, modern medicine isn’t doing a whole lot for me, I may as well try something else.

I’ve been drinking gallons of tea that tastes remarkably like garden clippings, downing all sorts of vitamins and supplements that make my pee electric yelor low, and trying to spend some time away from the computer. I’m one small toke away from bathing in Patchouli Oil while listening to my Grateful Dead LP’s.

So far? I’ve gotten a chest cold. And my pee is hilariously colored.

But I’m willing to try anything**.

So, Pranksters, give me your tips and tricks. Tell me all about the weird shit you do to keep healthy.

Should I bathe in the blood of vestal virgins (assuming I know what “vestal” means, because I don’t)? Should I sacrifice some goats? Find a voodoo priestess to take this curse from me? Sleep with a raw egg under my bed? Perform some weird black magic to get this evil eye off my fucking back?

*BESIDES my sanity, naturally. That’s been gone for years.

**I will not renege on my New Years Resolution to “not become Lil Wayne” even if it means I’ll be healthier. Probably.

I’ve been waiting nearly eleven years for this moment. Eleven long, painful, humiliating years.

Ever since the doctor said, “you have a fourth degree tear,” in the delivery room as my firstborn son screamed and howled indignantly in the bassinet while I screamed and howled in the bed as the doctor began the slow and painful process of patching up my poor battered vagina.

(hear that? It’s the sound of my male readership quickly clicking away)

(it’s safe to come back now, guys, no more vagina talk)

My vagina healed* and my child, well, he continued to howl indignantly. Days and nights I spent bouncing, rocking, driving, singing, crying, all to no avail. Born with his days and nights mixed up, I spent a good 2 months up all night AND all day, so bleary and sleep-deprived that I walked into MORE walls than normal. I began to believe that my bed was a shimmering mirage, a figment of my addled imagination.

During those long days and nights, I fantasized about the ways I’d pay the kid back. Naked baby pictures festively on display in our hallway so I could show his one-day girlfriends (or boyfriends). Wedding speeches about how he used to poo in the tub and throw it out. Ways I could torture him when he decided – as all kids do – that I was the most annoying person in the world because OMG MOM, DO YOU HAVE TO BREATHE LIKE THAT?

We’ve finally hit the point in which everything from the way I chew to the way I walk is cause for embarrassment. HOW DARE YOU WALK LIKE THAT, MOM? YOU BRING SHAME UPON OUR HOUSE.

It’s pretty awesome – the kid has NO idea who he’s messing with. I’m not hurt or angry, no, I’m just ready to enact my revenge upon him. I mean, who takes issue with the way someone swallows?*

Yesterday, as I was scouring the Internet for the best (worst) picture of Lil Wayne, I got a phone call from his school. My heart sunk. We’ve got Plague House going on right now and the very last thing I feel like doing is managing ANOTHER sick person.

It was the secretary:

“Hi Miss Harks, I just spoke to the lunch lady.”

My heart thudded in my chest – what had the kid done? I LOVE the lunch ladies more than I love Equal, Orange Hostess Cuppy Cakes and my roses put together.

“And he’s got a balance on his school meals card that needs to be paid before we can feed him.”

Oh really? Way to tell me, kiddo.

“So if you want to drop off a check in the next 45 minutes, that would be great.”

I agreed to swing by, knowing that my kid would have a meltdown of the nuclear variety if he had to eat a cheese sandwich rather than whatever delicious hot-lunch items were offered. (I’ve tried to inform him that there are starving people in Africa who’d LOVE his cheese sandwich, but he just rolls his eyes at me. I think I may use the Sarah McLauchlan commercial to really drive the point home that his life? Not really so bad.)

I’m weeping just THINKING about it.

After I agreed to drop some cash off for the kid, I got ready to go. Before I walked out the door, I looked down at what I was wearing – black stretchy gauchos, ugly sweater slippers, and my pink Shut Your Whore Mouth (that’s a link to the shirts if you want one because obviously you do) shirt.

Did I dare?

Was it time?

Was THIS the moment I’d been waiting for?

Was I ready to enact my revenge upon the kid by showing up at school dressed like a schizophrenic off her meds?

Oh, it was tempting all right. I very nearly did.

But I remembered what it was like to be a kid and how annoying your parents are and how much worse I could make things if I showed up like that and made a grand show of kissing my kid on the cheek. So I changed into a boring blue shirt and jeans – the sweater boots stayed.

Besides, I’m waiting for the day that I actually own bunny slippers and can manage to put rollers in my hair. These teen years are going to be AWESOME.

*except that. Oops.

*my kid

————

Also: you should go comment here on my Savings.com post. Why? Because obviously.

Also also: you can read me here. The comments are breathtakingly horrible. Just – FYI.

I was standing there in line at The Target (also known as: my social life), daydreaming about rolling around in a pile of Equal when the cashier asked, “Ma’am, can I see your ID?”

I preened, flattered by this request.

“SURE, you can,” I smiled coyly at the kid behind the counter, not stopping to think for a second about it. Still in my fantasy world where Equal rained from the heavens, I hadn’t even begun to process WHY he’d be asking me for identification – I wasn’t writing a check. I didn’t have any booze. I didn’t even have a carton of smokes or anything. Still I smiled as I handed him my driver’s license.

He looked at me, a little aghast as he scanned my driver’s license, “It’s for the Nyquil,” he informed me.

My jaw dropped open as I did my best trout impression.

Robotripping (drinking the shit out of Dextromethorphan) had become popular just as I delivered my first son. I felt psychedelically wasted from lack of sleep – the last thing I wanted to try was to drink a couple bottles of cough syrup. I’d be more likely to vomit before I got high – that shit tastes like Satan’s Bunghole (unlike Equal, which tastes like the nectar of the Gods).

But I had friends who did it. And I was old enough to be all, *eye roll* “that’s lame.” Because it is. If you want to get wasted, you don’t drink 6 bottles of cough syrup – you drink a Bourbon + Vicodin Tonic. EVERYONE knows that.

A few kids later, I heard about sizzurp, thanks to my favorite rapper*, Lil Wayne.

I petitioned the Stop Medication Abuse board to use Lil Wayne’s picture in place of a warning: “possible side effects may include becoming Lil Wayne.” But so far, no luck.

And I will neatly sidebar into this: I have been doing amazingly well on my New Year’s resolution: do not become Lil Wayne. I wake up each morning and am STILL not Lil Wayne. I make the best resolutions ever.

But last night, as I was making out with my bottle of Nyquil because I couldn’t stand being up another night of having “Afternoon Delight” playing on repeat in my head and I saw it: another warning about medication abuse.

So rather than spend the night trying to gouge out my eyeballs with my fingernails to the soothing sounds of Starland Vocal Band, I instead laid awake for three and a half minutes (until the Nyqyil kicked in), trying to figure out how the shit kids could drink Nyquil and not go the fuck to sleep.

Like “HEY GUYS, LET’S GET WASTED ON SOME GREEN DEATH FLAVORED NYQUIL – THIS SHIT IS INTENSE.”

*ten minutes later*

“Zzzzzzzzzzzz.”

*eight hours later*

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

*twelve hours later*

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

*sixteen hours later*

“Fuck, my mouth tastes like a squirrel shit in it. That was one hell of a party. What the fuck day is it?”

Although, now that I think on it, throw in some adult diapers and that DOES sound like my kinda party.

*total lie

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in the past few days sending out information about the Band Back Together Project to various media outlets. Sounds fancy, right? Not so much. Basically I have to talk about myself in the third person, which never makes anyone happy:

“Today, Aunt Becky, of Mommy Wants Vodka, poured vanilla extract into both her coffee AND her diet Coke, just to be on the safe side of drunk.”

Wicked, right?

Not so much.

But when I click the “email” button, it goes back to the mail program I once used on my very first computer, back in 2004. It’s a blast from the motherfucking past, Pranksters. I see love letters Daver once sent me. I have emails from people I haven’t spoken to in years. I have emails from my first blog. I can see where I spoke to people who no longer blog.

It’s like stepping back in time.

Especially when I see this:

And then this:

It’s not this child:

No.

It’s this one:

Time, it seems, waits for no one.

Not even little boys.