(Many moons ago, Dave and I insisted that Ben start drinking milk with dinner every night, a move that was fraught with peril. Ben was insistant that he would someday fly to Hawaii where I could not find him to make him drink his milk. He swore that he would take Alex and Dave and move away, somewhere that I could not find them and make them drink their milk.)

This is what came home with Ben yesterday,

Dear Mom and Dave,

Love,
Ben

I nearly laughed out loud when he got to the part about the milk, because that kid was FURIOUS with my insistance upon drinking his equivilant of battery acid, so much so that I had to call in for backup: Nat, to help me out.

If I had to write a letter to give to someone to give thanks, it might look like this. Well, actually, it probably wouldn’t, because I don’t like to write letters.

Dear Internet,

Thank you for not making me travel this Thanksgiving, as I cannot sleep in hotel rooms, BECAUSE I AM A FREAK.

Thank you for Fat-Free Coffee Mate (Vanilla OR Hazelnut), Healthy Life Bread, 150 Calorie Mini-Cakes, and McDonalds.

Thank you for YoBaby yogurt, which has allowed me such freedoms as occasionally letting my nipples go back into their rightful place, UNDER MY SHIRT, NOT FLAPPING IN THE BREEZE. Also, thank you to Pampers, for attempting to contain my son’s toxic ass.

Thank you for building a Target so close to my home, so that I may spend my life savings (hahaha) on frivolous stuff that I never knew that I needed but now cannot live without.

Thank you for finally breaking our nomadic moving patterns, and allowing us to live in the same zip code for over one year (although I’d imagine that U-Haul is not thankful for this, as I have not spent an insane amount of money on boxes lately).

Thank you (in advance!!) to Burberry for making the earmuffs (hahaha, MUFF!) that I will recieve for Christmas, that matches the scarf that I recieved last year.

Thank you Tiffany & Co for the lovely aniversary jewelry. Can I divorce Dave and marry you? I know that’s a bit forward, but I’ve loved you for a long time, and I know that you feel the same.

And of course, thank you for allowing me to run the Sausage Factory, each of whom makes my cold ickle heart grow larger and more complete each day. I’m looking at you, The Daver, Ben-a-bo, and Bubbly-Tubbles (yes, not only do my children have about a thousand names on their birth certificate, but they also have a plethora of nicknames).

Love,
Becky

(Happy Thanksgiving, bitches, Aunt Becky loves you!)

I’d imagine that most couples had a far more romantic situation when they realized that the person across the table from them would be the person that they spent the rest of their lives with. I’m picturing an intimate candlelit dinner, or a walk in the park when all of the flowers are fragrant and blooming beautifully, maybe lazing around on bearskin rug in front of a cozy fireplace (complete with crackling logs, of course) with strawberries and champagne.

While I picture this to be all well and good for other people, the moment that I knew with absolute certainty that Dave was the man that (like it or not) I would be spending the rest of my days with was absolutely nothing like this. In fact, it was so far removed from romantic that it might be called The Anti-Romance.

You see, I knew that Dave would be my husband for as long as we both could stand each other when he not only allowed me to put my bucket of frozen fecal matter in his freezer, but offered to help me place the sample IN the bucket.

If that ain’t true love, I’ll never know what is.

But let me back up for a moment, to illuminate PRECISELY why I was doing this (and to reassure you that I don’t have some really foul fetish).

It started over the winter, the pain and the constant crapping, but I kept writing it off as stress or something that I’d eaten (I’m telling you here and now that health care professionals are REALLY the last to seek medical care). Eventually it dawned on me that my body was rebelling against me, and that mayhap I should get it checked out.

So I made an appointment with a gastroenterologist in the area, and begrudgingly trooped in, tail between my legs (no, unfortunately I do NOT have a vestigial tail, although that would be completely rad. Imagine the pranks I could pull!). Besides being completely intimidated by me (which is amazing, considering HE was going to be the one looking at MY colon. You’d imagine it’d be reversed here), he very thoroughly ordered a number of blood tests AND some *ahem* OTHER tests.

And these *ahem* OTHER tests were some of the most humiliating known to man. You think that someone looking up your pooper is shameful, wait, JUST wait until someone orders you to poop in a jar. AND THEN TAKE IT SOMEWHERE. Wait, wait, wait, I can make this MORE humiliating, I promise. Have someone inform you that you have to COLLECT all of your feces for 3! days, and THEN take it somewhere, where you are horrifyingly clear that some poor lab tech in the back is cursing you while gagging BECAUSE A COMPLETE STRANGER IS EXAMINING YOUR POO.

Hell, although the rest of my family is intent on disproving this, what with their insistance that when I sit upon the porcelain throne is the absolute perfect time to have a conversation with me and/or sneak a quick scratch behind the ears (I’m looking at YOU here, Daver), I don’t even like someone TALKING to me while I crap, let alone looking at my own personal byproducts. *I* don’t even want to look at them.

Dave insists that Rate-my-Poo dot com is the most hilarious site on the planet, but I won’t even load that into my search engine, because I do not find poo amusing. Poo jokes are golden (much like dick-n-fart jokes. Yes, I am, in fact a teenage boy, NOT a 27-year-old mother of two. Sorry about any confusion), but actually dealing with The Poo on a more intimate basis gives me the heebie-jeebies AND the Pee-Shivers.

So armed with my orders, my “hat,” my latex-free gloves, and my bucket, I decided to “do the deed” over the weekend. Which was the time of the week that I consistantly spent with my then-boyfriend, a time that both of us treasured. I am utterly unable to censor myself, so Dave was well aware of what lay before me, and although I offered to stay home and “complete my orders” he insisted that he didn’t mind. He even offered to clean out his freezer for my “sample” (I don’t think he’s cleaned out a freezer again, ever.).

It’s disgusting, when you think about it (well, all of this is pretty nasty), how one must collect the poo to put it in the (extremely large and reminded me of the buckets of cookie dough or popcorn that you get from the Girl Scouts. But filled with something far less awesome) bucket. You have to complete your “business” in a container that you put into the toliet affectionately called a “hat,” and THEN you must fish through your excriment to seperate the solid from the liquid (God, I have the heebie-jeebies just RECALLING this) and put it in the bucket that you’ve removed from the freezer.

Before you place the bucket back into the freezer, you must “burp” it, as the methane gas pressure can build up so much that the top will be blown off, spattering the insides of your freezer with what is decidedly NOT brownie batter.

I don’t know about you, but the absolute LAST thing that I want to do with my excrement is to touch it OR BURP IT, gloves on or not, so each time that I had to do this, I nearly wept out of shame and disgust. Dave, sensing my plight (well, more like having to listen to me whine and shake each time I had to do this), galantly offered to do it for me. He OFFERED to WILLINGLY handle my poop (I would never, ever offer to handle his, no matter how much he whined.). If that’s not love, I suppose that I’ll never know WHAT love is.

Monday morning came, and off I trucked back home which was about 45 minutes away, with the bucket-o-frozen poo sitting shotgun, strapped merrily in place. As I dropped it off at the lab, I’d wished that I were dead. No, scratch that, I’d wished that I was LESS THAN dead, I wished that I’d never been born at all. I wished that MY PARENTS had never been born. So great was my shame that I fell all over myself apologizing to the receptionist, the lab tech as well as the waiting room full of people who could have cared less. I’m certain that I looked insane.

I was later diagnosed with a mild case of Crohn’s disease, which has thankfully been in remission for several years. As for Daver and I, we’ve been more or less stuck with each other ever since. Every time that I become irritated by his colony of dirty socks that happily live next to our bed, I try my damndest to remind myself that, at one point in time, he selflessly offered to touch my poop.

I am one of the most impatient people that I have ever met. I remember when I was pregnant with either (or both, really) of my children, I had the WORST time waiting to meet them (and worrying, of course, always the worry). Someone told me that you NEED 9 months to prepare yourself for the birth of a child, but I don’t buy that. I need about a week and a half. Weight should come off at a rate of AT LEAST 10 pounds per week, bank accounts should miraculously replenish themselves, and Thai food should take about 2 seconds to prepare and be delivered.

Today is the day I’ve been anxiously awaiting for over a month (which is a terribly long time when you’re feeling like dog poo); I’m finally going to the Endocrinologist. And I’m scared shitless for absolutely no real reasons whatsoever. I’m afraid that my thyroid will be completely WNL and all of the symptoms I’ve been having can neatly be explained away by having finally caught The Crazy. I’m terrified that the doctor won’t take me and my issues seriously enough. And I fear that because this is a holiday week, my lab results will take forever, thereby delaying the treatment that could help me feel more human again.

It’s dumb, because it’s not like worrying and stressing about any of these things will change the outcome in any way. I will get treatment or I will not.

On the up side of down, at the very least, I will not have to collect my poop in a jar again. There is nothing in the world as having to not only collect your own feces BUT THEN having to drop them off at a lab, knowing full well that some poor tech is going to have to go fishing in there. And that, my friends, is a story for another day.

So tell me, what do YOU do when you’re worrying yourself in circles?

(while discussing the possibility of having any of our children returning home for Christmas once they are married)

Me: “I don’t know, I just worry that the boys will get married go to their in-laws for the holidays. The way I figure it, the more kids that we have, the greater likelihood that SOMEONE will come home and spend Christmas with us.”

Dave: “Well…”

Me (fully expecting to be rebuffed): “I mean, except for Ben. It will never dawn on him that he should move out of our house. He’ll be living in our basement playing Everquest for the rest of our lives.”

Dave: “It won’t be Everquest…”

——————-

(While standing in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I suddenly begin to feel sappily in love with my husband)

Me: (Now back in our bedroom, spooning) “Have I told you lately how happy I am to be married to you?”

Dave (sleepily): “No, not lately.”

Me: “Well, I am…I love you very, very much.” (sniffs air) “DID YOU JUST FART WHILE I WAS SPOONING YOU?”

Dave: “Not just now, no.”

Me: “OHMYGOD, my EYES are burning, you ass!”

Dave: “I’m SORRY, dude!”

Me: “Sorry isn’t going to BEGIN covering it right now! What you need is a DUTCH OVEN!” (pulls comforter over Dave’s head so that he is forced breathe the toxic air) “You like that, do you?”

Dave (gasping for air while laughing): “I surrender, I surrender!”

Me: “Do you think ‘Toxic Ass’ would be covered under ‘fraud’ for an annullment?”

Dave: “Dude, you KNEW about my ass before we got married.”

Me: “Good point.”

Having spent most of the weekend preparing for hosting Thanksgiving, I’ve spent more than a little time wondering why on Earth I agreed to do this. I love entertaining, for sure, but all of the prep involved in this is making me want to rip my hairs out of my head (and with losing most of them already, I am currently considering Rogaine for Women).

I’m fortunate, really, that my family is pretty drama-free overall and I am aware that this is a rarity. Even my in-laws, who may or may not have any idea what on Earth to do with someone like me, keep their opinions about this to themselves.

Now if you’ll excuse this sad excuse for a post (two excuses in one sentence. Score!), I’m off to clean the light socket covers and weep into my bleach wipes.

I’m phoning it in today. It’s grey and gloomy and nasty outside, and apparently, according to this list, someone peed in my Cheerios this morning. Without further adieu, I present to you, darling Internet, my current shit list (but because I am fickle, it’s an ever-changing one).

1. Angelina Jolie. I know, I know, I know, she has done some amazing things for third world countries, but truth be told, I’m still not over the Brad/Jen thing. Mainly, because she made this big stink about never, ever sleeping with a married man because her father had done that to her mother, but then Oopsies, she’s pregnant, and it’s with Brad’s baby. How did that happen? Either she’s clueless about where babies come from, or she didn’t understand what “married” meant. Asshole.

(aside to the reader: cheating is a cardinal sin in my book. I’ve been cheated on before and dished out some black eyes. There’s nothing that makes me feel better than beating the hell out of cheating bastards. Maybe I should hire myself out!)

2. The E! Channel. I used to love, love, love watching E!. It was home to one of my favorite shows The Girls Next Door, and now it has both Kimora and Keeping Up With The Kardashians, both of which make me fear for the world.

3. My uterus, who has not gotten with the program and resumed normal menstruation, despite having a normal period a month and a half ago. While I was perfectly happy being amenorheic r/t breastfeeding, but I would harken a guess that I am now hypothalamic amenorrheic r/t my wonky thyroid. I suppose that I should just take it as a gift from God, but I’m too OCD for that.

a. Pregnancy tests. There’s something that I completely abhor about peeing on a stick and then having to sit and wait and see what the Universe has in store for me. Let me clarify something: I’ve been 100% positive that I was pregnant twice in my life, neither time was I really with child. So my intuition sucks. And sweet LORD are those tests expensive or what?

b. Rh factor. Ah, the reason for my OCD-disorder. I’m Rh-negative, Dave is Rh-positive, therefore any child we have together could be Rh-positive. If I were to become pregnant with another Rh-positive fetus without knowing it, and then miscarry and assume that it was a period, I could develop antibodies towards ANY Rh-positve fetus’s (fetii?) in the future and therefore spontaneously abort them. Rendering me infertile. Unless I get some RhIG in my butt within 72 hours. Sweet, right?

4. People who are late. I’m a freak about time (man, this post is turning into a “”Becky is a Freak because…” list.), I make no bones about it. If you tell me that you will be somewhere at a certain time, I will spend my day waiting/planning/rearranging myself to accommodate said time. So if you do not bother to at least let me know that the aforementioned time has changed, it feels like a smack in the face. Dave used to do this frequently to me, but has learned that in order to tame the beast he doesn’t bother promising me a time. So therefore I cannot obsess.

After rereading this all I can say is, dude, I think I may need therapy.

Who/what peed in YOUR Cheerios today?

Recognize these, Ashley and Kristin? Sound like someone that I might have dated (and has, at sometime, insulted you, too?)

According to the revised third edition (DSM-III-R, 1987), someone had PAPD if he displayed five or more of the following behaviors: (1) procrastinates, (2) sulks or argues when asked to do something he doesn’t want to do, (3) works inefficiently on unwanted tasks, (4) complains without justification of unreasonable demands, (5) “forgets” obligations, (6) believes he is doing a much better job than others think, (7) resents useful suggestions, (8) fails to do his share, or (9) unreasonably criticizes authority figures.
-Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope

It all began innocently enough by being dropped literally on my head in a parking lot. Had I known then what was in store for me, I might have run away screaming, but then again maybe not, I have no idea. It’s just a good damn thing that Sliding Doors was just a movie.

All that I do know is that I love my first son with all of my heart and soul, but I cannot stand his father. I could try and wax poetic about all of the good times that his father and I shared, but it would all be a lie: when I dated him, I had very, very few good times, mainly just more tolerable bad ones.

I like to think of him as that one relationship that we’ve all had (albeit not with the same person, that would just be weird.) that forced us to compromise who we are at the core of it all in order not to drive ourselves insane. When it’s all over and done with and we’ve moved on with our lives, we look back and cannot believe how foolishly we behaved. Most of us, with this firmly in our rearview mirror are able to hate The Ghost Of Things Past without having to revisit it week after week.

Because week after week, no matter how angry I am, I have to not only deal with this person, I am frequently forced to bite my tongue and swallow my pride in order to maintain peace for our son. AND I SWEAR, I AM NOT SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS HAVING TO BITE HER TONGUE (I know, you’re suprised).

He is the guy that snuck off and had The Sex with another female while I was pregnant. It was his car that left many a patch of rubber in front of my parents house, angry that I had comitted such sins as feeding the baby solids before 6 months of age, and daring to laugh at his hilariously angry reaction. He was and is always so angry. When I dared wear too much makeup to a Christmas party, he spent a good 20 minutes telling me how stupid I looked.
For the past four years, he has attended not one solitary event at his son’s school, because “that’s more my realm.”

Did he abuse me? Well, no, not really. I mean, we got into several physical altercations over the years, but trust me when I tell you that he was the one that was I wiped the rug with. Not for nothing did I have an older brother: he taught me how to kick asses and take names. I guess he was emotionally and verbally abusive, sort of, but you’re only hearing MY side of it, which means that you aren’t hearing the horrible things that I said to him.

I suppose that you could say that we really brought out the worst in each other, because that would be the 100% honest truth of the matter.

He’s honestly a wonderful father, who loves his son very, very much, so I am unable to find fault in their relationship (plus, I’ve been assured over and over that having no contact with his biological father would mess the kid right up). I respect him for that, really I do. He leaves me to do nearly all of the parenting, which is a good or a bad thing, depending entirely upon the situation (good when I sign the kid up for music lessons and choose his school BECAUSE I AM IN CONTROL, bad when it means that no matter what I’m doing, he is free to change plans at his whim THEN I AM NOT IN CONTROL AND I HATE THAT.).

The most irritating part of our relationship now, as it stands, is that he is text-book passive-aggressive, with at least six of the above mentioned characteristics. I’ve long since given up on fighting about it because it’s just not worth it for me, so I’ve decided that two can play at that game.

I don’t do it frequently at all, but now and again, I do something completely passive-aggressive (or is it just me being an asshole? Don’t know and don’t care) and am able to gain an insane amount of satisfaction by it.

For example: last weekend, after stating a time that he would pick Ben up by, he called 10 minutes BEFORE that time and extended the time by an hour and a half. Which would be no big deal, save for the plans we had postponed PRECISELY for the pickup time. So we headed out to do our errands after this, and instead of heading home so that we would be home in time for the later pick up time, instead we went to Lowe’s.

And then stopped for a leisurely cup of coffee.

We finally rolled home about an hour after the pickup time, only to be met by an irrate Nat, WHO WAS FLAMING THAT HE HAD HAD TO WAIT 30 MINUTES (he was late, too). Oh, did I laugh, OH did I laugh.

Of course, he paid me back the following day by not answering his phone when I called, but you know what? IT WAS SOOOO WORTH IT.

So, Internet Lovies, dish to Poor Aunt Becky, who was up all night with a teething baby who has a cold (the baby, not me. Well, me too, but the baby is more insufferable about it than I am.) (Poor, Poor Aunt Becky!). Tell me all about your worst relationship, or if that’s too hard to talk about, tell me something hilarious about someone you were in a relationship with (they had a foot fetish, they could only wear the color blue, whatever).

I can’t handle visiting the zoo.

This may shock anyone whose been to my house and visited my own personal menagerie first hand, because it is completely obvious that my affection for animals often times rivals the affections I feel for people. Don’t believe me? I currently have living under my roof three cats, a dog, a leopard gecko, a rex rabbit, and a hedgehog. The number is only so low because we have recently taken a hiatus from fostering other animals for a local shelter in order to lessen the burden momentarily. Well, and Joey the Mean Hamster died shortly before Alex was born (no one was sad).

Before your mental picture of me turns into a person who happily has a revolving collection of fluffy kitten sweatshirts and drives a car with bumper stickers that read: The More People I Meet, The More I Love My Cat/Dog/Hedgehog/Rabbit, let me swear on all that is holy that aside from the ridiculous sweatshirt that my mother bought me several years ago that had a cat laying atop a pile of books and had the caption: “Books, Cats, Life is Good” (which was promptly donated to the Salvation Army, where I’m sure that it got a nice home with an old dotty woman who has doilies and knicknacks and a scrapbook devoted to her cats.), I haven’t worn a puffy kitten sweatshirt since the third grade (shut up. I also wore a banana clip AND french rolled my jeans. SO DID YOU!)

Needless to say (aside from my awesomely-awesome run-on sentence), I adore animals, and always have. The only reason that we don’t currently own a donkey or a goat is because we live in the city (well, and my husband might have me committed, even AFTER I assured him that the goat would function as a lawnmower), and it’s illegal here.

Maybe it’s the bleeding-heart part of me that cannot stand to see the animals confined to such small cages being pelted by rocks and hard candies by ignorant children, and knowing that this is the best it’s going to get for these poor creatures. It could be because it looks so damn boring sitting around their pens day in and day out no breaks except for eating and sleeping and crapping.

But I imagine that it’s something else entirely.

When I was about four or five, my family took a trip down to St. Louis to visit my aunt who teaches at the university down in that area. As part of the touristy stuff that we did (which did NOT include a trip to East St. Louis, I’m sad to say), we took an outing to the St. Louis Zoo. They have an amazing monkey house (no, literally here), and it was there where the adults began to jabber-jaw with each other, leaving me to sit down and drink a juice box in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and wonder why on earth adults were so damn boring.

After a minute or two, I realized that although most of the primates were ignoring the slack-jawed pointing tourists, a small one, likely a child, had discovered me. She made her way over to me and sat down on the other side of the glass and began to gesture to me. I tried to give her a tug off the old juice box, but the glass blocked my way.

It was then when she (I am arbitrarily using “she” as my pronoun. I have no idea what the gender of my newfound friend was, and I was too young to do a penis check) and I began to play together. She’d stand up and jump up and down and when I did the same through the glass, she would clap her hands in delight. Because I was a child, I have no way of knowing how long she and I played together as it felt like forever, pantomiming each others’ movements, running back and forth along the glass. I already had it all planned out in my head, her name was Smurfette JUST LIKE MINE and she would come home and live with me, and sleep in my bed.

The adults watched in amazement, finally remembering that there was a child in their presence until they eventually had to pull me away from my new friend (as I was a late in life baby in our already teeny (even extended) family, there were never any other children for me to play with. Ever.). My dreams of having an ape for a sister were abruptly halted as the adults informed me that no matter what, I would not be able to take her with me. We tried to hug goodbye from either side of the glass, and she looked just as sad as I felt.

To say that I was devestated would be a grave disservice to my feelings, as I can never recall being quite so heartbroken again in my life. I wept on and off for the next couple of weeks, missing my new friend and saddened that she and I would never get to play together again, because she was in there and I was out here.

The zoo hasn’t been the same since, no matter what light I try to spin it in: the animals are happy and fed. They have no predators here, so they’re safe. The zoo is propigating the furthering of their species, who might have died out otherwise. I just can’t fool myself about it.

I admit freely that I love the holidays. It’s been well documented over the years, especially with the hugemongous collection of Christmas decorations that I acquire year after year (it’s threatening to take over my basement). It’s entirely likely that I will decorate the interior of my home prior to Thanksgiving, partially because I love the festive look but mainly because I have nothing else to decorate with.

Christmas shopping is one of the ultimate highlights of the holiday season, because nearly as much as I adore my (literally) 60’s white aluminium tree (admit it, you’re jealous of my awesome tree) and it’s festive blue ornaments, I love buying other people gifts. And then painstakingly wrapping them, and carefully arranging them under the tree. It’s like my own slice of cornball (mmmm, CORNBALLS) heaven.

I say bring on the blaring music from all of the speakers in each store, shit, I listen to Christmas music year round, if I’m alone (I’m slightly too ashamed to do this in front of my husband, who prefers whiny emo music BECAUSE HE LIKES TO FEEL SUICIDAL). I’m thrilled that Christmas preparations begin in the store sometime prior to Halloween, partially so that I can remember what season it is, and partially because Alex is entranced by all of the lights and colors, while Ben is thrilled to pieces about the upcoming holidays (whew, can we say RUN ON SENTENCE, KIDS? I know *I* can!). It’s instant Christmas-porn for my family, save, of course, from my darling husband who “didn’t like Christmas” before he met me. Now, I’m pretty sure, he’s mainly tolerating it for my sake (entirely similar to the manner in which I “tolerate” the piles of clean clothes that make their home on the floor, rather than snugly put away in their dressers. Oh, SNAP!).

Off the top of my head, there is only ONE thing, one LITTLE thing that drives me insane around the holidays: hokey jewelry commercials. Watching them is like listening to nails on a chalkboard WHILE stepping on a mad cat. They set my teeth on edge and make me break out into a cold sweat.

I promise it’s not that I’m jealous of the jewelry and am therefore upset and embittered that I am not about to recieve anything from their stores for Christmas, no way. The jewelry that I do wear (save from a few junky costume pieces) and recieve is from places that do not feel the need to advertise in places other than The New Yorker. Besides, from the looks of these commercials the vacant eyed looks on their faces of the people coupled with a collective IQ of about 94, I would never WANT to be like them.

I’m not sure WHY these commercials drive me straight to my bottle of vodka, truth be told. It’s not as though all of the other extremely contrived and corny commercials elicit the same visceral response from me, and they are no more or less hokey.

Maybe it’s because my marriage is not particularly artificial or wholesome, I’m more likely to be called “dude” or “ass” by my husband than “honey” or “sweetheart,” and I prefer it that way. Our way of showing affection is less “here honey, a piece of jewelry from that commercial” while we sit by a roaring fire discussing our feelings (while we both have great hair), and more an ass-smack while we allow the other one to eat the piece of pizza we’ve been coveting, while arguing about who was going to comfort the baby THIS time.

We’re absolutely the boring Part II of the romance that once was (one really MIGHT argue that we bypassed Part I entirely. It’s probably the case here), the part where we both get all boring and comfortable and pluck stray hairs from each other’s faces while complimenting each other on our burping prowess, but that doesn’t diminish our relationship one teeny bit. I mean hell, if someone can watch you expell a nearly eight pound child from your va-jay-jay and about a half an hour later confess that he’s dying to Have The Sex with you again, I’d call that love. Or stupidity. But I’ll go with love here.

Conversely, if he showed up on Christmas morning with a gift bag from the commercials and a vacant, wide-eyed look on his face, and said something schmaltzy, I’d wonder 1) if aliens had abducted him or 2) if he was having an affair. In the case of 1) I’d have him clean up his office as a test and if he did it without turning into the girl from The Exorcist, I’d keep him as a bonus CLEANING alien! We’d ALL win! If the cause for the jewelry was 2), I’d be inflammed that he hadn’t at least gone to Tiffany’s and instead, had cheaped out on me.

Hey, a girl’s gotta have her priorities.

So what annoys YOU about the holidays, Darling Internet?

To this day, I’m not quite sure what I did. I’m certain it must have been something completely unforgivable, but I would hope that if this were the case, I’d at least be aware of whatever sin I’d committed. Hell, maybe it’s so incredibly stupid that I’m better off not knowing, because knowing would inflame my already heightened sense of rage (Hi! I’m Becky, and I’m a Rage-A-Holic!)

(Hi, Becky!).

Let me back up for a moment.

I met Jenna when I transferred colleges in 2002. We were both on track for the nursing program, which meant that we were working for one year to fill the gaps in our credits before we began our clinical training. As fate would have it, we were in a couple of classes together, and fueled by a mutual love of nicotine and Diet Coke, we became fast friends.

She was exactly the sort to become one of my friends: she was both stunningly beautiful and cracked my ass up, like all of my female friends (You’re all welcome for the compliment. I know, I know I’m too kind. I’ll be checking my mail for extravagent Christmas gifts starting later this week, guys. In case you’re planning ahead, which I suggest that you do.). We had loads of fun together.

She wasn’t accepted into The Program with me, so she transferred to another college farther away, right around the same time that I started dating The Daver. We kept in touch, but between my insane rotations, my quickly growing son, and my new relationship, we grew increasingly distant.

(I admit to The Internet at large, when I began to date The Daver, I became more neglectful of each of my friends. While I am aware that just about everyone does this with a New Relationship, I am still sorry for succumbing to it. It’s not cool and it’s not fair.)

Whew. With that white elephant stuffed rightfully back into the closet, I shall try to get back to the point.

When I got engaged, I asked my best friend Ashley to be my Maid of Honor for several very good reasons: she’s as OCD as I am, she knew/knows more about weddings than I do, and she was around more often than Jenna was. She pretty much ran my wedding for me because I asked her to (damn you Dave, for not letting me get married by Elvis in Vegas, dance down the aisle to “That’s The Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It,” and insisting that our first dance NOT be “YMCA!” You’re NEVER going to live this down.) and she did a damn fine job, just as I knew that she would. If I can’t have good taste, I’m smart enough to know people that do.

Before I’d met The Daver, before I had a serious boyfriend OR the prospect of one on the horizon, Jenna and I had agreed to be each other’s maid of honor, something that I vaguely remembered when I asked her to be my bridesmaid. Honestly, between her clinical schedule AND living really far away from me, I was sure that she’d have been thrilled to have dodged that bullet. *I* would have been.

She was decidedly Not Happy, and the prospect of being a bridesmaid NOT a maid of honor miffed her until I offered that she AND Ashley share the burden together. Duel maid of honor to match the two best men on Dave’s side. Sweetness, I thought, this is going just swimmingly.

We all went as a big fucking happy family to get measured for our dresses together, as we were having them custom made, and drama was avoided. Everyone got along, which is saying something because there were eight of us that day. Dress designs were hashed out, swatches chosen, and pick up dates were established. Plans were afoot for a bridal shower, and life just kept on trucking.

A couple of weeks passed when I realized that Jenna was not returning my phone calls. Being as irritating as I can be when I cannot get ahold of someone (very, very annoying. Trust me), I continued calling. When I got no response, I started emailing. To all of her email addresses. I had Ashley email her.

Nada.

Becoming increasingly concerned for her well-being, as she was not the sort to drop off the face of the planet, I increased my efforts ten-fold. Twenty-fold. Finally, as a last resort, I had a mutual friend email her. She received an immediate response.

Fuck.

It was then when I realized that she was infuriated with something that I’d done and I was getting The Silent Treatment. Which is potentially the most horrid thing that you can do to me. Yell at me, berate me, pee in my mail box (please don’t pee in my mail box): fine, I can handle that. WHATEVER you do, don’t ignore me. I cannot take it.

Giving it one last shot, I sent one more email, and called one more time, explaining that I wasn’t going to be calling her anymore and apologizing for whatever it was that I’d done.

I’ve not heard from her since.

Now, I’m fairly certain that she had her panties in a wad (oh, the search terms. OH, the search terms!) over being asked to be a bridesmaid NOT a maid of honor, although this decision was months away from the dress fitting, and I’d heard nothing more about it since then. But I can never be sure, and maybe that’s why this bothers me to this day, nearly three years later.

I have a terrible time saying goodbye to just about anything, really. For being a fairly unemotional person, I’m incredibly sentimental. It’s one thing when a friendship grows apart due to the natural progression of things, but it’s something completely different when you are simply dropped without so much as a whisper.

Moreover, I just miss having her in my life. So few people really get me, and she happened to be one of those people who did. I frequently consider reaching out to her again, sending her a letter saying, shit I don’t know, whatever it is that you say to someone who goes from being one of your best friends to dropping out of your wedding. I’m sorry? I miss you? I am sorry and I do miss her, that’s for sure.

But has too much time passed? If this friendship could be salvaged, should it be? My anger has absolutely fizzled out, so it’s not as though I still have an axe to grind with her: she had her reasons for doing what she did, and mayhap they are good ones and mayhap they are not, but it’s ancient history now (aside from me still whining to Dave about not taking me to Vegas. That may never end.).

So Dear Internet, what would YOU do if you were in my shoes?