It’s probably not a good idea to fly with me. If, for some reason, you want to go on vacation with me (you don’t), it’s best to meet me somewhere, because flying with me is sort of like being in National Lampoon’s Vacation. Minus, of course, the Family Truckster. And THAT’S only because planes don’t have wood paneling. Mostly.

Bright and blurry, Thursday morning I stood in the Special Line at the TSA Screening just waiting to see what the morning would bring. A strip search? A trip to the back room? Would I be able to board this flight? I simply wasn’t sure, but was anxious to find out. Big Girl was HUNGRY and ready to move on with her day.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long: my Barbie Pink bag was immediately singled out for Extra Searching, which was the least of my concerns, since, you know, I’d stopped packing my shotguns and napalm.

Turns out my BUSINESS CARDS, which I’d brought for no other reason than to explain that I was an Executive in AWESOMENESS, looked suspicious, and needed to be further investigated.

(shout out to my designer, who is amazing, reasonable and BRILLIANT: Robin, at Oppositional Design. You need her. I promise. I can also give you a recommendation for a printer if you need one, too. My cards are incredible. Mostly because I didn’t design them. Or they would suck balls.)

Anyway.

Got to NYC, and the hotel, of course, wasn’t ready. But when I finally got to my floor, it was the Suites Floor, where a shoe company was doing an expo. Which, hi, AWESOME, except that apparently a Sample Size for shoes is a size 6, which I am not. Apparently my size 8.5 makes me Bozo the freaking Clown in feet terms, so me and my boatish clown feet shuffled our canoe-like feet to our room.

Which was right across the hall from this:

Restricted Shoes.

What. The. Hell. Are. Restricted. Shoes?

I looked inside, because obviously, and I’m telling you, Pranksters, the shoes looked not like they were made of platinum and diamonds and nebulous black holes, but like…regular shoes.

I was so disappointed to realize that “Restricted Shoes” were also “Boring Shoes.”

I’d kind of hoped they were the shoes that ate your feet or gave you terrible rashes or were made out of the skin of dead saints or by extinct dodo bird feathers, but these shoes just looked…normal.

Talk about mislabeling AND misleading me. I considered suing them for misrepresentation until I realized that the shoe people were leaving that night.

My heart was sad. So were my gigantic boat feet.

I couldn’t believe I could even WALK in feet that big, now that I knew there were people out there walking around with a dainty size 6 foot. Then I wondered if they had toes. They couldn’t possibly have toes. My hugemongeous hobbit feet and I comforted ourselves knowing that the Size 6 people probably had no toes.

For the following (counts on fingers) bunch of hours, my super-sized feet and I got asked what our “plans” were.

Now, if you don’t know Your Aunt Becky, you wouldn’t know that she doesn’t really make plans. I’m more of a broad strokes person. I knew I would be GOING to NYC and going to my panel at 1:15 on Friday and an interview thing on Saturday at 11:00 and beyond that, *shrugs* I was going to see what happened.

What? The Type-A people on the other side of the screen are screaming. How could you not have any other PLANS beyond that?

And no, I didn’t. I never do. I always figure things will work out and I’ll have more fun if I wait and see what happens. There’s always SOMEONE around with the address of the party I’m supposed to attend and if not, well, I’ll do something else. I’m always content to make my own fun.

This, of course, drives my Planner Friends INSANE. Like, skull blowing off, brain matter spewing everywhere, insane. Which makes it all the more fun to be all, “uh, WHAT was I supposed to do next?”

So, when I came across this, at the Diesel Store, I was all, holy balls, Diesel took my motto:

And I laughed, because dude, Being Stupid is so much more fun. You should try it sometime.

Then, on the way back from dinner with my boss from Toy With Me (I love calling her my boss)(P.S. my column from yesterday is up about online dating), I saw what was on the SIDE of the Diesel Store and peed myself. And not just because I was drunk.

You’ll have to forgive the quality, but the iPhone 4 doesn’t take amazing night shots. It says:

Smart Has The Plans, Stupid Has The Stories.

You know what, Pranksters? I’ll take the stories any day. My ginormous feet and I will happily tread all over town like the village idiots that we are, plan-less and happy, making stories–and children cry–wherever we go.

Because if you’re stupid, you’ll never wish you were anywhere else.

Except not on a plane with me. Obviously.

In hindsight, I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t know what he was thinking, but I don’t know what I was thinking either. The gigantic pizza slice costume was one thing, but this, this was something else entirely. But nonetheless, there I was, standing in the middle of the pizza restaurant where I worked, in a Santa costume feeling stupider than I’d ever felt before.

The customers you could tell, were even a little embarrassed for me. I looked like an idiot. But the district manager had gotten the inane idea in his head that for having “Santa’s Helper” in the store for Christmas Eve would somehow bring flocks of customers in for lunch.

What he didn’t know could fill volumes. Sort of like the time he taken me aside, just as I’d gotten four new tables who were all waiting for me to get them drinks to whisper conspiratorially, “I think someone is stealing…cheese.”

But I needed the extra money because it was my son’s first Christmas, and as a single mother who was also in school full time, I took every shift that I could lay my grubby hands on. Debasing or not, it was money in my pocket.

Shockingly, no one actually wanted to have their picture taken with “Santa’s Helper.” I’m not sure if it was the yellowed, fraying beard, or the fact that my pants fell down about every third step that I took, or that I was obviously a very young female, but no one seemed interested. In fact, everyone seemed to avoid me, which was just as well. I used the time to get caught up on my homework. No rest for the wicked.

Finally, just before I was to go home to my son, some family was badgered into having their picture taken with “Santa’s Helper.” Perhaps they hadn’t seen me. Maybe they didn’t like their kid very much. Or maybe everyone just had a fantastic sense of humor. Who knows.

All that I do know is that they thrust their tiny baby onto my threadbare lap. And all that the baby knew was that one minute, she was burbling happily on her mother’s shoulder and the next, she was shoved onto this stinky scary bearded lady in an saggy red Santa Suit. She did the only sensible thing to be done in such a situation: she opened up her wee baby mouth and she bellowed. She screamed, she cried, and she wailed.

The picture was taken and a phobia of Santa was formed. This poor kid was going to grow up terrified of Santa. Jumping at holiday displays and wondering why the thought of Christmas always made her feel nervous and nauseous, always trying to get out of festive celebrations in favor of sitting in front of the television with her twelve cats and a pint of ice cream.

It would all be my fault.

Satan’s Little Helper.

Flying, for me, is never an easy feat. Not, you know, because I need to be medicated within an inch of my life to get on a plane or anything. I actually like to fly and am not a particularly nervous flier despite the whole nearly dying on the way back from LA thing that happened back in January.

(I submit that if I am to die on a motherfucking plane, there better be some motherfucking snakes, just because, you know, well, obviously)

But when I get on a plane, it’s always something with me.

Mostly, it’s because the world thinks I’m a terrorist or a super-secret-super-spy, which is probably the most laughable thing one could think about me because I can barely hide what I’m thinking, let alone if I were holding the world’s secrets in my bag or something.

(I do not play Poker, obviously, unless it is for pocket change)

This whole “Aunt Becky is a Terrorist” thing started when I was a kid, actually. I started getting pulled aside for extra searches long before 9-11 and the shoe bomber ever made headlines around the world.

When I was a kid, they’d often tear apart my stuffed animals in front of my stricken face to make sure that I wasn’t smuggling…uh…I don’t know what in them. Unsatisfied by the mere stuffing within, they’d move onto my luggage, and rip that apart, too.

Clearly, they never found anything. Your Aunt Becky may cop to many charges: ‘obnoxious,’ ‘painfully annoying,’ highly irritating,’ and ‘devastatingly handsome,’ but ‘terrorist’ and ‘drug smuggler’ are not two of them.

For some reason, every time I go through security, no matter what city I’m in, I’m constantly singled out for pat-downs, occasional strip-searches and the rare back-room interrogation.

My past is about as glamorous as dry toast, and while I have toured Europe (twice) with a traveling orchestra, it was never to any of the countries that might even raise an eyebrow. Even my current name: “Rebecca Sherrick Harks” or my given name “Rebecca Elizabeth Sherrick” aren’t exactly inspired to make you think, ‘Wow, that’s a terrorist name!’

In fact, I am primarily Swedish, Scottish, English and Black Irish, if you must know my pedigree. My swarthiness comes from the Black Irish.

And you know, if it had happened a handful of times, I’d have written it off as a coincidence. But it’s happened far too often for that. There’s clearly something in My Permanent Record that says,

“Rebecca Sherrick Harks (a.k.a Rebecca Elizabeth Sherrick), VERY bad blogger, likes to hang out in serial killer section of hardware stores, possible person of interest and should ALWAYS be subjected to extra security.”

It took me watching the full two seasons of Life, (boo, NBC, bring that show back!) to realize what my problem was: I do kinda look a little Middle Eastern.

I guess this means that until I remarry someone with a TOTALLY vanilla name (I’m looking at YOU Mr. John Smith), dye my skin and hair, I’ll probably always get a little action with my plane ticket.

Which, I guess, is a bonus.

Remind me not to pack my teddy bear, okay?

——————–

P.S. LOOK ON MY SIDEBAR! See that big button that says, “Aunt Becky Tees?” Yes, Pranksters, you can buy a Shut Your Whore Mouth shirt now. Um, AWESOME.

For probably *counts on fingers* I don’t know, a LOT of years, I’ve been getting the same hair cut. A simple blunt cut to my shoulders that I eventually let grow out until I cut it back up again. Once in awhile I’ll put in a funky color or add some layers, but really, that’s about it. I’m not one of those people who looks good in trendy hair cuts so I leave those to people who do.

I blame my inability to venture out into the land of sassy haircuts on two things:

1) My mother gave me bangs in the third grade. These bangs started at approximately the nape of my neck and went to the bottom of my eyebrows. She’d cut them in a straight line across every couple of weeks. I STILL shudder when I think of bangs.

2) In a stunning fit of “I WILL LOOK LIKE AN ADORABLE PIXIEEEEE!” I allowed my friend Rory, who is neither a hairdresser, nor a great judge of anything to give me a haircut when I was in high school. The result?

I looked like a boy. I’m not a girl who can pull of that adorable pixie do no matter how hard I try.

So I stick with what looks mostly okay.

May, 2010

College Graduation, 2005.

Alex’s first birthday, 2008.

But this week, desperate for a little change, I figured I’d do something different. Which is probably not the brightest thing to do when you’re about to meet 2,000 people you’re trying to convince you’re not a Crazy Internet Middle Earth Person.

Luckily, I never claimed that my elevator ran to the top floor, so that’s precisely what I did when I went into get my hairs did. I said, “I need to do something different with my hair.”

I came out nearly sobbing. I called one of my Internet Friends, Jen, and said, “I LOOK LIKE FUCKING JOAN JETT. COME OVER NOW.”

And she did. Because I did.

Words cannot describe how upset I was until I broke out Mommy’s Little Helper:

And had a brilliant idea. Because the best ideas are always formed when you are half-drunk.

With a hair clip, lifted handily from my daughter’s unused collection, all was fixed.

Except, maybe, for my killer hangover the following morning.

——————

So pull up a chair and pour yourself a tall glass of vodka, Pranksters, and tell your Aunt Becky about your worst hair cut. Misery loves company, and all that.

—————

I’m over at Toy With Me today talking about how when you look good (heh), you feel better about yourself. Turns out that maybe Cosmo was right about something after all.

Back when my first son was a baby, I had a real cat in addition to my fake cat, Mr. Sprinkles, and his name was Pete. Pete was probably clinically retarded, but I loved him anyway, and we had adventures like, ‘LET’S RUN INTO WALLS HEADFIRST’ and ‘LEGS, LET’S USE THEM!’

Oddly, now that I see that typed out, it was the same sort of adventures I had with Ben, but I digress. Badly.

One weekend, my brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, and his wife, Sister Uncle Aunt Becky were at my parents house, were Pete, Ben and Your Aunt Becky lived. While Your Aunt Becky went to work, slinging crappy pizzas and beers as a waitress, Uncle Aunt Becky and Sister Uncle Aunt Becky kidnapped Pete to take him for “just one week” to kill a mouse.

Why they thought a retarded cat could kill a mouse is beyond me. I’m pretty sure any mouse that would die on his watch would have to have committed suicide.

But then, of course, they fell in love with Pete. Stupid old Pete, my companion. But, Sister Aunt Becky has more maternal sweetness in one of her cells than Your Aunt Becky does in her entire body, so when it came time to bring Pete back home, Pete already had amassed a collection of soft kitty blankies, toys and treats. In a week.

Suddenly, I felt sort of…guilty taking him back, where he’d be forced to sleep on my BED without treats, toys or the soft caress of cashmere cat blankies.

So Pete became Uncle Aunt Becky’s cat.

Many years later, I adopted a similar orange cat from the shelter because I am a creature of habit and also because I have no imagination. When I got him, I brought him home and loudly proclaimed that his name was….(wait for it)

PETE.

And Pete II was possibly more simple-minded that Pete I.

Firstly, he used his head as a battering ram. Doors, windows, heads, walls, people, no matter what was in his way, he just bashed it with his head until it gave in or until he forgot what he was doing and decided to do something else.

Then, the moment he got happy, which was often, he’d start to salivate. Which was kind of funny, because you think, “hey, Aunt Becky, I drool when I see bacon!” but you know, the cat would drool when he saw ME. And since I LIVED WITH HIM, I was pretty much always cleaning up piles of cat drool.

Well, then I popped out two back to back crotch parasites and Pete II’s four measly neurons couldn’t handle the stress of having to deal with the peeing and pooing of two additional small humans.

So he did what any mentally challenged cat would do: he started peeing on stuff. Anything.

I called up my sister-in-law and started pleading with her. Shockingly, she listened to my pathetic bribes and ended up coming to take Pete home with her because she is a better human being than I am.

Which meant that she had not one, but two of my fat, orange, stupid cats named Pete.

Pete and RE-Pete.

I really shouldn’t be allowed to do anything. Ever.

———–

Further proof that I should probably be chained to a wall somewhere.

I made you a present. See, now The Internet is trying to get a role in this, uh (I think I have this right now) blogging reality show about, uh, bloggers? Well, this is why I SHOULDN’T be allowed on a reality show:

I made that! It’s new! It’s why I should NEVER be allowed near a video, uh, maker. Or YouTube, where I made a channel, so I can make NEW videos. (hide, Pranksters).

———————

Mushroom Printing! It’s live!

——————–

P.S. Now I feel like I should probably make more bad videos. This cannot possibly end well for anyone.