It seems that in addition to my color blindness, I have also inherited a vast fortune of guilt. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s possible to feel badly about something, I do. Hell, I’ve been known to feel badly about things that are IMpossible to feel guilt about.

Let me put it this way: if I am in a store, and I see the rent-a-cop whizzing by, certain to arrest some flagrant shoplifter or teenage smoker, my initial thought is not, “Man, sucks to be YOU,” but “OHMYGOD, DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG? Is it possible I shoplifted while maybe I blacked out in the tampon aisle?”If it appears obnoxious to you in print, I assure you in person it is much worse.

For someone who is as sensitive as a toad, this is odd behavior, but it’s MY odd behavior, dammit.

But because I am usually half-way up the cross about something-or-another-like-that-chocolate-chip-cookie-I-ate-while-I’m-supposed-to-be-dieting, when someone else attempts guilt as a motivator or as a way to make me feel worse about something, I get fucking furious.

On Sunday, I was sitting around wondering why The Internet wasn’t entertaining me like it should be and sort-of missing The Daver with all my heart and soul, the doorbell rang. My neighborhood is full of kids and I have kids of my own, so while I find the ringing of the tinny bells annoying as fcuk, it’s a necessary evil.

I was feeding Amelia a bottle so I carried her to the front door, hoping it wasn’t The Mormons whom I just didn’t have the energy to fend off. When I opened it, I saw a kid of indiscriminate teenage to twenties age. My heart sunk as I saw the pamphlet in his hand.

Kid: “Hello, ma’am, I’m conducting an experiment and my goal for the day is to talk to 150 nice people. Are you a nice person?”

Aunt Becky: (looking around for a hidden camera) “Uh, I guess?”

Kid: “Your neighbor 2 doors down is a nice person. I just talked to her. I’m just trying to meet nice people.”

Aunt Becky: “Uh. Okay.”

Kid: “It’s my assignment, to see if I can meet nice people.”

Aunt Becky (dim lightbulb lights up. Oh, so this is like those bags of flour kids in high school had to carry around to act like they had babies. Note to Child Development teachers: a bag of flour is nothing like a baby.): “Okay.”

Kid: “blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Aunt Becky: (nods head apprehensively. She is no longer listening because she is bored shitless but trying to be nice. Having an assignment of going door-to-door sucks balls.).

(she looks around for clipboard to sign to say that this kid talked to her)

Kid: “So, if you’re a nice person, and obviously you are, I’m selling magazines. The first prize to whoever sells the most is a trip to ….(ed note: somewhere boring). The second prize is $5,000.”

Aunt Becky now notices that the kid is probably closer to her age than she’d thought.

Kid: “I’m planning on going to ….(ed note: some school I’d never heard of) and I’m going to put the $5,000 towards school.”

Aunt Becky now calls bullshit. This is no college kid.

He thrusts the magazine card at her. “Would you like to buy a subscription?”

Aunt Becky thinks that her subscription to The Atlantic is due to be renewed soon, so she looks to see if it’s on there. Surprise, surprise, it’s not. There is, however, a subscription to Diabetes Monthly.

Well thank God.

Aunt Becky: “Nah, I don’t see anything I want. Thanks.”

Late 20’s Loser Selling Magazines Door-to-Door: “Well, if you don’t want anything, you should do what I think is the best idea. You should give a subscription to …(ed note: some children’s hospital I’ve not heard of). So the SICK, DYING kids can read magazines.”

Aunt Becky: “Uh yeah, NO THANKS.”

Late 20’s Loser Selling Magazines Door-to-Door: “Come on, not for the DYING SICK kids? They want magazines!”

Aunt Becky firmly shuts the door, laughing.

——————

I may be full of guilt, but I was not born yesterday.

I was born Tuesday.

Did you ever see those commercials, you know, the ones with the perfectly coiffed mother beaming a beatific smile at the camera as a couple of small kids play in the spotless white background? She’ll then reach for a bottle of some supposed anti-bacterial cleaner and lovingly spray the toys or the counter or Something Germarific and then the voiceover will make some comment about how this gently removes 99% of germs without subjecting the kids to horrible toxic chemicals.

I’m paraphrasing of course.

I’m also not That Person. You’d be more likely to catch me popping a rogue binkie in my mouth to clean it before inserting it back into the baby’s mouth. Or casually wiping up a spilled something with my sock rather than busting out The Big Guns. I regularly throw my kids outside to play in the mud and dirt. I don’t buy soap that’s guaranteed to kill 99.9% of germs and I only have hand sanitizer for those diaper blow outs that occur one after the other (God bless 2 in diapers).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of a little bleach and I’m not a consummate slob. I wash my hands after I pee, but I don’t use my foot to flush the toilet, nor do I insist on using a paper towel to open bathroom doors. Hell, nowadays, if you were to come over to my house, you probably wouldn’t even think it was remotely dirty. My kids take regular baths, my floors are washed twice a week, and I even occasionally pay someone to clean my dogs for me.

But even as a nurse and someone whose immune system is one toke away from being technically “compromised”, I’m not a-scared of germs.

Unless (there’s always an “unless,” right?), of course, rotavirus comes to play.

Then, you’re more likely to catch me running for the Lysol as I run away from the sick kid, my hand over my mouth and gloves up to my elbow. I bust out the bleach, spray down every surface available with the strongest germicide I can get without a prescription, all while wearing a rebreathing mask and vinyl gloves (latex allergy). I wash everything the sick kid could possibly have infected on the scorching hottest setting my washer can go on and wash my hands until they’re raw and red.

Oh yes, I admit it, I’m an emetophobic.

But there are some things that do confound my utter fear of vomitus that can sort of make my behavior mildly more acceptable. Sort of.

See, my eldest, the one with a stomach as weak as my own, he barfs in his sleep AND THEN GOES BACK TO SLEEP IN IT. He also, thanks in no part to his autism stuff, puts his hands in his mouth constantly. And, being 7, just goes about his life touching things, his vomity fingers touching all of the toys and stuff of his siblings.

(I’ve tried to teach him not to. It’s not going well and hasn’t been for, oh, I don’t know, 6 or so years?)

Also in my Court of Craziness is the fact that when I get felled by the stomach flu, I get FELLED. I mean, I’m sick as an ever-loving dog for days on end, hugging the porcelain god like it’s my job. This does not a good parent make.

So today, oh family Reoviridae, I drink to you. To the horror that you have inflicted upon my house and my sanity just in time to host an Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt that my eldest could not participate.

The one solace I find comfort in today is this: at least you made it over to Ben’s father’s house. The one who always begs off on the weekends when the kid is sick because he’s able to actually decide when sickness is convenient for him to deal with.

Must. Be. Nice.

Cheers to you, you wily double stranded RNA bastard. You’ve earned it. Happy Easter to you, sir. Happy Easter, indeed.

—————

All right, Internet, let’s hear some of your weird phobias. I have several others that will make you go “dude, that bitch Aunt Becky is crazier than I thought!”

So Bring It ON, Internet.

Dear Aunt Becky,

Love,
Waiting Tables and Making Stereotypes

Little Miss Prejudice,

You’ll learn quickly, oh sweetest of the peas, that there are all types of stereotypes for people when you’re serving. Some of them are very, very PC–as in “try and NOT wait on a table of middle aged women if you a) want to turn the table, well, ever, b) are female and c) want a tip”–and many of them are not. Since your beloved Auntie Becky writes on a pretty PC blog, she’s not about to start waving fingers.

Just believe me when I say that stereotypes often exist for a reason.

But, fair Googler, you searched here with a question. A question I can actually answer, unlike many of the horrifying search terms that bring people here to my doorstep.

And my answer to you across the board is that yes, smokers are much better tippers. They’re also kinder, more laid back, and overall the most pleasant sort of patron to wait on. I don’t know if it’s the nicotine or the fact that they have something to do with their hands to distract them from being a fucking dick, but servers will tend to vie to serve a table of smokers.

You, fair reader, will learn in time the other stereotypes.

All my best,
Auntie Becky

——————–

Deer Ant Becky,

Signed,
da DMV sux

Dear Kind Soul Who Blames The DMV For A Misspelled Name (when he, in fact, cannot spell misspell),

Perhaps, dear sir or madam, the problem is not with the DMV, it is with you.

Perhaps you, like so many of my friends in high school, were determined to get a fake ID at any cost. So perhaps you, in a fit of alcohol deprivation and against all good judgement, went down to the city to meet with a man who could get you an ID for a couple hundred dollars.

Maybe you, like them, didn’t bother to actually LOOK at the ID before forking over loads of cash to a dude standing in an abandoned warehouse in a really shitty neighborhood. So then, if you were as brilliant as my friends, you possibly want to go out and celebrate your newfound 21-ness with a dinner and a beer or perhaps a cocktail, if it suits you better.

But then, it’s conceivable that the waitress, upon closer inspection of your California Driver’s License (even though you are from Illinois), notices something. Something that, in your haste, it’s likely you overlooked.

Because your new license, the one you payed oodles of dollars for to some skeezy guy says this on it:

California Driver’s Liscence.

Did you catch that? The misspelling of the word license? Because she sure did. And that landed you a nice visit from the police, in the middle of the restaurant.

Smoove move, Ex-Lax.

Or maybe you just don’t know how to spell your own name. Could be.

With love and a dictionary,

Bequie

—————–

Aunt Becky,

Cleanliness Is Godliness

Dear Never Took Chemistry Class. Ever,

I’m sitting here thinking that it’s likely that you skipped school a lot, probably to smoke up with your stoner friends and then walk around Target laughing at stuff and things. Then, in my mind’s eye, I see you eating your weight in both Funyons and Twizzlers before nodding off into a nice, deep nap.

I’m also thinking that you should probably have gone to school instead.

Because then, you dumbass, you wouldn’t have searched for cleaning with vinegar and bleach.

Okay, so that probably went over your head.

See, here, there are these things called acids. Examples include: citric acid (lemon juice), tannic acid (wine), carbonic acid (gives your delicious Mountain Dew carbonation), uric acid (in pee). And here is the kicker: VINGER is also an acid (acetic acid).

Got it?

Then, brilliant internet searcher, there are these things called bases. Examples include: antacids (Tums), human blood, and baking soda. Also, and most relevant here: BLEACH.

Mixing acids and bases should only be done if you know what the byproduct is (also Add Acids to bases). And the byproduct here: TOXIC CHLORINE GAS.

Sure, it might make a better cleaner (the vinegar is said to lower the pH of the bleach), but it also might kill you dead. Which won’t make anything cleaner.

Smugly Yours,
Aunt Becky, Amateur Chemist

A couple of years ago, shortly after I got pregnant with Alex and was subsequently puking my balls off (making my commute dangerous), Dave and I made an executive decision: I would stay home with our kid (s). It was helped along by the fact that although I was working in the least nursing related field in nursing–insurance/hospice management–and was still miserable. It seemed that no matter how I tried to parcel it into nice and cutely wrapped packages, I was bound to hate being a nurse.

Which made me a beast to live with.

Dave, on the other hand had and still has a job that he loves. Mostly. It’s in finance, which means that the hours are insane and the stress is high, but for those who love it, they LOVE it. Like they might marry their jobs would that not be creepy. Or maybe he already has and I wasn’t invited to the wedding.

Either way, it’s the arrangement that makes the most sense to us all.

But it doesn’t always mean that we have to like it this way.

Here’s where I’m going to start pissing people off. Forewarned is forearmed after all.

(Complete side note: why is it that when a blogger dares to express a personal sentiment, they get shit on? It seems like every time I post something wherein I whine like a bitch, people jump down my throat. It happens to all of us, but I still don’t get it. Anyone care to explain why it needs to be rubbed in my face that I appear to not always be grateful for everything?)

I’m a reluctant parent. No, no, I don’t mean that I didn’t want to be a parent, that’s not true in the slightest. Parenthood is just something that sort of fell into my lap, a choice made when I impossibly got pregnant at age 20, and it’s not one I regret. But it is one that came with many personal sacrifices.

I gave up my dreams to pursue a career in medicine, whether it would have happened or not is irrelevant, the point is that I had to make a conscious choice to choose something more practical. Unfortunately, the more practical option: nursing, made me miserable. It’s not a field one can just grin and bear it in, not at potential litigious expense, and not at the expense of my health (I have permanent knee damage from lifting a morbidly obese bed-ridden patient), physical or mental.

I stuck it out because that’s what responsible people do, and I did it so that I could sufficiently support my son on my own. I wasn’t going to (much to my disappointment) become a trophy wife, and I always wanted to know that no matter what, I’d be able to support myself and my family. Alone.

The plan, as Daver and I hatched it, was that I would go back to school after my kids were in school, to pursue my true passion: basket weaving virology. I’d done the Parenting While In School gig and it was really more than I could handle, so I opted not to do that again. Instead, I’d have a couple more crotch parasites, spend some time with them as a mother, not just as a figure rushing in and out of their lives on her way to class.

Which is precisely what I’ve done. And I’ve done it by choice. Complete choice and absolutely by my own design. And I’m perfectly aware that I’m all kinds of fortunate for being able to make this decision as a choice, not out of necessity.

But just because it is a) the most logical choice, b) my OWN choice and c) working out the best for all of us doesn’t mean that I have to always like it.

Or does it?

I’ve been knocked down now and again for daring to be anything less than 100% thrilled by the fact that my sole job, my only real responsibility, is to keep my children healthy, happy, and safe. Well, that and care for all the animals we’ve amassed, make sure the house runs smoothly, cook (stop laughing, you in the peanut gallery), clean, and otherwise sit around on my ass blogging.

Unfortunately, and what the people who have been angry with me for complaining about do not know, is that it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for personal satisfaction anywhere in there. Sure, I can (and often do) manage to blog during the day most days, and that is something I take some pride in, but I don’t have much else in the way of Other Interests.

Daver and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me if I really had any other hobbies I’d wanted to pursue. Once I stopped laughing (because, hello, stamp collecting? SO not my thing), I looked at him seriously and reminded him that no, of course I do not, because what would be the point? I’d get interrupted so frequently that I’d be more annoyed than anything else if I even tried doing something I couldn’t just put down when someone else demanded to be picked up.

It sounds more pathetic than it is, I swear.

But the question remains and it bothers me to no end: am I really supposed to love my “job” every single day of my life?

I know that my working friends–be they parents or not–don’t love their jobs every day. They have crappy bosses, crappy benefits, shitty hours, annoying coworkers, and work that they don’t always want to do. And I’d never feel the need to criticize when they complain about that.

But if I have a bad day, even without it being a truly BAD day (read: emergency room visit), I feel as though I had best keep it to myself. So what I’m sick with whatever the kid has? At least you’re home and not in the office. So what if you just want to take a poo by yourself? At least you’re at home and not in the office. So what if you’re biggest accomplishment is getting through the whole day without wanting to murder someone? At least you’re home.

I’m not picking on my working friends, especially those with kids. I’ve been in the situation where I was a working mother, too, and I know that you’re merely trading one set of problems for another. I know just how much it hurts to leave your child day in and day out in the care of someone else. I know how much you cry when you miss out on some important milestone.

I guess that I just don’t know how to rectify the feelings within myself (and truth be told, others too) that I can’t possibly have anything to complain about now that I stay at home with my kids. It’s not like I want a bronzed statue of myself put into the downtown area as World’s Greatest Martyr, but I could stand to feel as though I have a right to not have not-so-rosy feelings.

Or maybe it IS just me.

Next Saturday–not this one, I don’t think or I better get cracking on my bridesmaid dress alterations–my best friend is getting married. I’m not a closet romantic, shit, I’m not romantic at all, but I’m pretty pumped about the whole union thing. It’s doubtful I’ll cry, unless someone passes too close with a Cosmo and I realize that Diet Coke does NOT taste like Cosmo even if you close your eyes.

(I’m all for a sip or three of wine or beer or something less, well, alcohol-y, while pregnant, but somehow a Cosmo, while in public especially, is not really my deal. It seems somehow tacky.)

But I’ve known Ashley for ages, known her since well before she met Mike (especially since I met her through one of her ex-boyfriends, who is a friend of mine), and I’ve been along for much of the ride with the wedding planning.

Like the dress shopping:

Or, perhaps, the pre-wedding T-bagging:

Because who doesn’t want to have some dude’s balls on you? NO ONE, that’s who.

But let’s back up a couple of years here, shall we? I’m going to tell you a story through pictures (my apologies to those who will now experience a slower page load. And although they look NSFW, they’re actually all harmless).

(Here I’m going to apologize again for my photos, which are pictures OF pictures. Because someone *ahem* THE DAVER *ahem* hasn’t bought a scanner for me to show The Internet how debaucherous I once was)

This is Paul:

He’s the dark-haired guy on the left, and he’s at my bridal shower with Evan–my man-of-honor. Paul is also the reason that I met Ashley. See, he’s an old, old friend of mine, and when I announced my pregnancy to him (before really meeting Ashley, who was sitting with him), he said, “I’m sorry.” To which Ashley took such offense that she began to yell at him for apologizing for my pregnancy. Because she’s right: no matter how inappropriate it is, you should always congratulate someone on their pregnancy. Right?

Any chick who does that sort of thing is my kind of chick.

Ashley and Steph threw my baby shower for Ben, and we had a blast. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the occasion as Nat (who dat? He just my baby daddy) refused to give them to me. Douche.

In fact, because a whole lot of my pictures are lost somewhere or another (I lost a huge photo book when I moved. And no, I’m still not over it), a lot of our friendship has been undocumented. So let’s pretend that it was documented and move on, okay?

Fast forward to my bachelorette party. Ashley is my maid of honor, and she and KC have bestowed upon me the greatest gift known to me: that penis mug you see me sipping from. I may still have it somewhere, although I probably should pass the torch on to her, huh?

We were merrily sitting outside on my patio, waiting for the rest of my bachelorette party compatriots to arrive, lazily smoking some cigarettes, when the toilet overflowed. No one had dropped a dookie in it, or anything, the toilet just sucked. You could flush a single square of TP, and it would promptly overflow.

So imagine me, in heels and a dress, plunging the shit out of the toilet while 25 ladies with micro-bladders descended upon my house.

Then the doorbell rings.

At it?

Tommy.

My friend Dana (not pictured) had gotten me a stripper. Now, despite slurping on my penis cup, I was stone-cold sober. Dana, who had been caught in traffic, was not even present at the time he showed up. I was mortified. And sober.

And when I’m mortified, I laugh. Loudly, and with my mouth hanging open.

And apparently, my bright pink bra, too.

I couldn’t find a shot where I’d been t-bagged, like I wanted to, for comparison’s sake, but I did find this. I am taking a shot out of his thong, because I am classy. And I’m not sure a choice was given to me at this point.

I’m sorry, Ashley, I couldn’t find any shots of myself with balls resting comfortably on my forehead, but I tried. And I know they’re out there somewhere. Waiting for me to rediscover the only other man in 5 years to put his balls on my face.

But from now on, my dear sweet friend, Tommy will be showing up to all parties that I have a hand in throwing for you. Including baby showers. Oh yes, you’re not escaping the Happy Baby! Stripper experience.

You can thank me later. If you’re still taking my calls.

Now dish: I want some good bachelor/bachelorette party stories.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself shopping for the last thing in the world I’d ever expected to be shopping for. Shockingly, it wasn’t the mini-van we test drove. No. It was something even more shame-provoking and cool-reducing than that (if that even sounds remotely possible!).

That’s right, my sweet and sexy Internet, I looked into buying a BLACKBERRY.

Big deal, right? I’m sure some of you are saying. I have mine, I’ve had it since dinosaurs roamed the planet and I couldn’t live without it. It’s my right arm AND my left arm.

And to all of you, I stick my tongue out and blow a large raspberry in your general direction.

Kool-Aid drinkers.

I’ve mocked Blackberries since I saw the first Business Professional Douche-Bag talking into what appeared to me to be a wallet. Having recently come from my Mental Health Rotation, I was actually wondering if the guy was psychotic until I looked at his uber-shiny leather shoes. Nope, not crazy.

I was incensed well before The Daver drank the (work) Kool-Aid and brought one home from work himself. Here is a device that has made it socially acceptable to–while out to dinner and engrossed in conversation with a Real! Live! Person!–whip out a wallet sized menace and CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

I don’t know about you, and maybe it’s just jealousy on my part, but the emails that I do tend to get on a day-to-day basis fall into one of two categories:

1) Chatting with friends. Simple emails, usually, a couple of lines, asking something specific or just saying howdy. Obviously not urgent.

2) Emails that remind me a) that I have a tiny, tiny penis and I should pleasure my woman more (aside here: how did they KNOW?) b) I’m incredibly overweight and should buy this non-FDA diet drug from an Internet Pharmacy or c) Nigerian pyramid scams. Obviously incredibly urgent.

I cannot see how either of these riveting emails must be responded to post haste.

In the past couple of years, I’ve come up with some elaborate schemes to rid myself of The Daver’s irritating Work Umbilical Cord (up to and including flushing down a toilet, throwing from a train, and my personal favorite: smashing to bloody bits). I gave up shortly after I realized that no matter what I did to it, work would be damn sure to give him a nice new untainted one. In a word (or two), my ideas of destruction were utterly pointless.

I guess that having that stupid device around is a constant reminder of how much MORE important The Daver is than I am because he DOES need to check it. It also reminds me of how much I hate living in such a highly reachable age some days.

But for me, someone who gets either chatty emails or spam, someone who rarely even remembers to bring her cell phone around with her when she goes out in public, a Blackberry is the most useless waste of $200 I can think of.

Hell, I’m not even enough of a gadget person to claim that the reason I’d wanted it was to dick around with it. If I were somehow to get one, I’d probably demand beg Daver to set the whole thing up for me so that I didn’t do what I normally do with small, expensive gadgets: break them into tiny unrecognizable pieces without even trying.

I stood there in the T-Mobile store admiring all the shiny colors and teeny buttons, picking up one, then the other and for a moment, I nearly bought one. Even now, I don’t know why I really thought this was a Necessary Evil.

I put them both away, thanked the patient yet befuddled clerk and walked out of there. I figured that if I was going to spend some dough on something that I really didn’t need, I’d buy an unnecessary new iPod.

And I got back up onto my high horse and resumed my Campaign of Terror Against Blackberries once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I make no bones about the fact that I am married to someone addicted to workahol. Maybe I don’t always love this about my spouse, but overall, I tend to be self sufficient enough to be a-okay with it. I do my own thing most of the time, and should I see Dave, I consider it a bonus.

In this light I have been able to watch the entire season of The Simple Life, which I adore. I’ve managed to respond to emails and phone calls. I have a perfectly functional garden. I have also gone through about 564 double A batteries (read: Big Pink Meets Becky: An E! True Hollywood Story).

Life, as it has this weird tendency to do, has crept up on me, knocking the rug out beneath my feet, and *whoops* there goes gravity; Dave became a manager-type thing. Which is great for him because that’s what he wanted to do.

After the 6th straight night of being deserted shortly after dinner, I informed him that if Work was his first wife, and I was his second, then I needed a Boyfriend. Which was where he came in. I carefully laid out my game plan, highlighting such Good Points as:

1.) Think of how much LESS I’ll whine to you!

and

2.) I’ll stop bugging you to come hang out with me because I’m bored! Just get me a new boyfriend!

My short attention span took charge, and I quickly forgot all about my proposition.

The next morning, I roll into work, preparing for another day of death and people threatening to sue me (I am SO not a nurse!) and about mid-morning, I check my personal email (let’s be honest here. I never get emails. Ever. Like seriously, Ever) to read such interesting subject matters as ‘Sexy Baby Bad Erection’ and ‘Cheeep V1AgrA!’ with ‘Thank you for registering at Match.com.’

Certain that it was a hilarious joke, and frankly quite impressed with Dave. I investigated further, assuming that the email was actually spam. The email was from match.com not jahoirwgbruoqwrqh3io2i838yh@match.net, so another dead end.

So I called Dave at work to tell him that he’d really gotten me good this time. I raved and raved about it. What a great joke! My jubilant greeting was met with dead silence. He told me that he had no idea what I was talking about (as per usual). I explained that I had been registered with Match.com by him. He denied it.

In typical Becky-fashion, I didn’t believe him, and began to press harder which was ALSO met by silence and denials. Maybe he *hadn’t* done it!?!

Then who did?

I had no memory of doing so. Dave denied it. Plus, I don’t live in Evanston or even close to Evanston. My brother does, did he do it? Unlikely. He doesn’t have my email address.

Several days passed and while IMing with Pashmina, she mentioned Match.com and certain people that we might know that use the site. I suddenly remember the online profile we’d set up years before and a lightbulb popped up over my dim head.

Thank you Pashmina, for unintentionally bringing badfish8789 back to the world of online dating.

You ready world? Because I’m BACK IN fake dating ACTION.

My first nickname was given to me by my much older and very cruel creative older brother Aaron.

Stumpy.

Apparently, because I was short* and and stubbly like a small, uh, stump, he decided that this would be my nickname. And it was for the first 23 years of my life, until his wife chewed him out for it.

My parents called me Rebecca because they seem to think Becky is a terrible name which seems awfully stupid to me, because Becky is the logical shortening of that name, but whatever. They’re hippies and hippies wear Patchouli Oil and THAT doesn’t REALLY doesn’t make sense. (also, spell check hates Rebecca but loves Becky. THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE, PEOPLE).

Throughout the years I’ve had other nicknames because really, who doesn’t?

Ben calls me “Mom,” my friends call me “Becks,” “Sherrick” or some variation of the two, and The Daver calls me “Baby” or “Motherfucker.” Both said with equal amounts of love, if you can believe it.

For my first blog, my nickname was Ren, although I usually used my real name because I never could believe that I was important enough that anyone would stalk me and here I absolutely use my real name.

With one addition.

One very IMPORTANT addition.

I am now Your Aunt Becky.

Okay, so I’m obviously not your aunt, because if I were, don’t you think you would have seen me around at some christening or maybe a birthday party somewhere? You’d have certainly gotten some sort of holiday card from me because I’m good like that, and you’d know that I am known for being such a bad cook that no one wants me near the kitchen.

So we’re not related.

But we are.

On the Internet, I am Your Aunt Becky because I am no one’s Aunt Becky in real life.

Admittedly, being The Internet’s Aunt is easier on my Amex because I don’t have to buy you guys frilly hats and booties and spoil you rotten because I don’t know what size you are anyway.

So there we have it.

Nice to meet you, Internet. I am Your Aunt Becky.

*for the record, I am 5 foot 5 inches. I’m hardly a stump.