Anyone who has had to bear the burden of being married or in a long term relationship has inexplicably been stuck in the same predicament year after year. Who gets you for the holidays or any other day of the year that your family may deem IMPERATIVE that you be home.

I have been blessed with both in-laws and a family who do not become angry if I am unable to make a particular holiday. Neither of us gets outright YELLED at or threatened to be written out of a will or two. No, they’re MUCH more subtle than that. I’ve experienced the passive aggressive, sullen and disheartened, “Well, ooooookkkkkay, I GUESS it’s OKAY if you don’t make it. Your BROTHER would have made it.”

The Daver deals with the same stuff.

And I have to be honest, I ADORE the holidays.

It’s the most wonderful motherfucking time of the year, after all. There is nothing more magical than the Christmas season, aside from maybe a freshly shorn nutbag, but I digress. The lights, the smells, the sounds, the bells, I love it all. I love shopping for gifts, I love decorating for the holidays; I love that magical first snow of the year.

And I admit that I even love seeing my family and my in-laws. I adore both sides of our family; and I love seeing them for the holidays.

As usual, there is a catch: both sets of parents EXPECT that they are the most important members of the family,and are therefore entitled to certain unalienable privileges. Most of those being our time WHENEVER THEY WANT US TO for the holidays. It isn’t as though I don’t want to see them; I do.

But I can’t say that I enjoy my holidays spent in the car going from one place to another. Although traveling isn’t a problem for us; we like to get going as much as the next person. But spending 7+ hours a day in a car with a small child for a couple of hours with each set of families is going pretty far beyond what anyone else in the famil(ies) do.

It only compounds matters exponentially that my parents, living about 1 hour from us, see us far more than Dave’s do, living 3+ hours from us (although, by some untapped miracle Dave claims that it only takes an hour and a half. Aside from teleportation, I have no idea how he gets there with such speed), which makes us feel bad. This, in turn makes us try to bend over literally downward facing dog AND the tree trying to appease whatever holiday requests they ask of us.

But no matter how much we break our backs for the families, no one else will meet us halfway. We get no”Well you came out by us last time, now it’s our turn.” If we cannot attend a gathering, there will be no offer to see us or come out to our house at a rescheduled date. Which would explain why I found a couple of little gifts I had picked up for my in-laws LAST YEAR in my vanity. Just SHAMEFUL.

Let’s compound things once again: I have a child whose father is not Dave, and said father wants to see his child on the holidays, too. So Dave, Ben and I are stuck grappling with the seemingly senseless fragments of 3 timetables from 3 families.

We have to make it to cities, W, X, Y and Z in a matter of 1.5 days. These cities are 1-4 hours apart. So we could alternate the cities based on a number of factors (If we leave for W at 6pm after work, get there at 9, stay til 6am drive 4 hours, arrive at 10:30, open gifts, smile, laugh, eat, leave at 1pm if Ben has had nap, drive another hour, drive an hour back, open more presnets, better not nap b/c you’ll look like you’re not having fun, drive 1.5 hours home, utterly exhausted), but it essentially boils down to extra travelling time for us, but not for anyone else.

Here’s my resolution, dear Internet, next year this foolishness will be done, and we won’t exhaust ourselves traveling multiple hours in the car just to appease everyone for the holidays.

Next year, we’re embracing the “N” word.

Something I here don’t do a whole lot is give credit where it is due.

Sure, I tell a lot of gross girl-joke stories, and if you want information about the the current state of my pubic hair, look no further. While that is all well and good, I feel as though I must give a shout-out to the one person who has made this entire blogging experience happen to us, AND to most of you: my husband.

And to be fair last night he actually THREW a crusty greenish yellow booger at me while he was sleeping, but who can blame him? I am still the person who was, according to both of her parents, and I quote, “Born smoking a cigar and barking out orders.”

Yesterday WHILE AWAKE, he did something for me that I couldn’t do myself: he took my bestest cat in the whole wide world in to be put to sleep. He held him while he died. And no amount of crusty boogies thrown at me day or night can minimize that to me. It meant EVERYTHING.

My heart was wearing a less-sad face knowing that Finnigan died with someone who loved him (almost) as much as I do.

This isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination the only thing that Daver has ever done for me. He allowed me to pick out AND BUY the car that I wanted over the car he wanted. He’s even learning to like it! That may have something to do with the fact that I GRILL him about it over and over, but so what? Right?

He doesn’t even talk TOO much about annulments when I use my crappy way of evoking the cheerful daemons when he’s in a nasty, foul, disgusting, flatulent mood. I mean maybe you don’t know this but I SING HIM ROD STEWART! AT TOP VOLUME! Now I of course, ADORE Rod “The Hot-Bod At 708 Years Old” Stewart, but I recognize this as another of my dirty and gross qualities.

Take whatever dislike you likely have for my choice in music and couple that with the fact that my singing physically shears wallpaper from the walls. Really, it does. This is why we have none in our house.

In this vein, I leave you with my favorite quote from my favorite Rod “I Can’ Believe I’m Still Makin’ Baby Batter’ Stewart, and I dedicate it to you, my sweet Daver:

You’re a rhapsody, a comedy,
You’re a symphony, and a play;
You’re every love song ever written,
But honey, what do you see in me?

Rest in peace, Finnigan.

I’ll be missing you.

My heart cracked as loud as a coffee mill.

Today, I learned that my second favorite cat in the world, the first being his deceased brother, has been diagnosed with liver failure. He remains alive, very frail but alive, due to the miracles of modern medicine. My mother shared the news with me over lunch today, but the details of it remain blurred. The only thing that I can recall is the sinking feeling in my gut and my heart breaking audibly over the sounds of the busy restaurant.

After lunch, in which I shoveled in the obligatory two bites tasting nothing but sand and saltwater tears, I saw him. His bones were prominent over his back and legs, and his eyes lethargic but alert and bright. I was filled with a deep sorrow and wept softly into his back, and as I shook he feebly licked my hand as he had so many times before.

The unfairness of this broke my shattered heart into even tinier pieces. How could HE try to comfort ME, especially NOW? I guess the real question now is how can I really mourn someone that isn’t yet dead? Logically, it makes no sense.

I’ve never been much of one for goodbyes, as anyone close to me will know well. I prefer to keep them at a ‘See you when I see you’ kind of level whenever possible to spare myself the very real thought that I will never again see said person/place/thing.

I dislike the permanence of death and goodbyes, the feeling that one ought to say or do anything necessary prior to the visit from the Grim Reaper, because WHAT IF I FORGET SOMETHING IMPORTANT?

I *ALWAYS* forget important stuff.

So now we play the Waiting Game, which happens to be my least favorite of all games. There’s always a possibility that he will pull through, but the likelihood of that happening is very slim. Miracles don’t happen to cats.

At least not to the great ones.

Today I severed all ties with my maiden name. No longer am I Aunt Becky Sherrick, now I am officially Aunt Becky Sherrick Harks on all of my proper identification, even the one I had been holding out on because I totally didn’t wanna deal with it.

Oh yes, that’s right, I’m referring to the DMV.

My own circle of hell.

When I die, and I’m brought down to hell and I’m stuck listening to the Sandford and Son theme song over and fucking over again, my hell will look like the DMV. I will be stuck sandwiched in between the dirges of humanity in lines that go nowhere.

A gigantically fat woman in front of me, smelling her hands over and over after scratching her ass admiringly for a good ten minutes. A yokel with a dent in his forehead so large I could probably serve soup from it behind me, mouth breathing and occasionally coughing, his moist breath hitting the back of my neck and making me wish that I had been a better person.

This will be my hell.

Every line I reach the end of, I will just have to get into another line, where I’m yelled at and belittled by someone whose IQ is that of my cat’s and then I will take endless pictures, all of which I will look horrible and awful and nothing like myself. And when asked about my weight, they will scoff at me, rolling their beady rat-like eyes. I cannot POSSIBLY weigh 135 pounds, they will laugh.

Then I will shuffle off to a hard plastic chair where small children will throw things at my head. For eternity.

This. Is. Hell.

So it was with great trepidation that I approached the hallowed halls of the DMV to take the written test again AND to beg them for another horrible, awful picture. The last one that I have of me not only is my hair a different color, but I look like a man. No, really, I do. The picture was so bad that whenever anyone was having a bad day, they’d whip out the ID just for a laugh.

Har-dee-har-freaking-HAR.

The good news was, I managed to pass the written test and I got a new picture and I even changed my name all without anyone punching me in the neck, insulting my mother, kicking me, threatening me, or suing me.

It was a personal best.

I now am very, very, very afraid for what karma has in store for me.

A couple of weeks ago I convinced Dave to go to see Buckethead with me and my metal-heads. Because he is a good sport, although he’d never heard of Buckethead he totally came along. So last night, among the young kids covered head to toe in black, we ventured out to the Metro. Although I was a bit overdressed in Calvin Klein and Polo Ralph Lauren, I enjoyed myself tremendously.

As I watched a true guitar master play in his Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket with mask and wig, I found myself strangely getting turned on. I thought back to the Sex in the City episode with Miranda digging on the guy dressed as a sandwich, and I realized that I, too, am so curious about someone who has rarely been seen without a mask, that I am sexually attracted to them. Do I REALLY want to have anonymous sex with a total stranger whom I cannot see? No. Well, maybe if he played guitar.

Because I quickly reminded myself that I’ve always had a thing for guitar/bass players. Why, you ask? You like rock stars? NO. I don’t. But I DO like what men with strong hands can do for my vagina.

Doesn’t everyone?

Sometime after my eighteenth birthday, a couple of my friends and I were driving around looking for something– anything–to do. We had the staples: smokes, weed, gas; we’d had dinner and coffee and were now aimlessly driving around. As we passed a Mom and Pop type video store where I had recently gotten a membership, I had a brilliant idea.

“Hey guys,” I suggested foolishly, “I know! How about we pop in the video store to pick up a gross porno to watch?”

Renting nasty porno is practically a right-of-passage when you turn 18. It’s up there with buying a lotto ticket, a pack of smokes and a cigar. So off we went.

Back in the Restricted Section, where I was finally able to go, we went to town. Scrupulously, we scoured the shelves for something really rank like “Fatties Hump Old Men” or “Midgets Do Manhattan.” Porno after porno was rejected as none was quite up to snuff for comedic value. Finally, after what seemed like hours of searching, we found our diamond in the rough. Our shimmering needle in a haystack of bullshit.

The movie was called “Anal Clinic” and it was to be our entertainment for the evening.

We headed back to my ex-boyfriends house to watch our little gem along with a bottle of (stolen) red wine, giggling like schoolchildren. Someone would frequently say “Anal Clinic” at random intervals which would be met with peals of laughter throughout the car.

We schlepped downstairs, after rounding up some of the usual suspects and settled in to watch Anal Clinic. The movie was nothing like we’d thought it would be (as an aside, as this is many years ago, I don’t quite remember WHAT we thought it would be). It was a European porn, full of men having butt sex with various people (again, not sure what we’d expected from a movie with such a title)

AND IT WAS SUBTITLED. WHO WATCHES SUBTITLED PORN?

What are you going to miss, exciting plot twists? It’s PORN. It HAS NO PLOT.

After about 15 minutes, we decided that the porno was too lame to even be watched, so we formulated a new plan. We decided to go naked hot-tubbing, throwing ourselves down in the snow and running back to plop into the hot-tub to warm up.

Oh, like you weren’t an idiot at 18.

(weren’t you?)

As I was getting ready to leave for the evening, I popped back downstairs to the basement to collect my disappointing porno so that I could drop it off on my way home.

I checked the VCR, but it was totally empty. Figuring that someone else had decided to watch something less boring, I checked the area immediately around the entertainment center.

No go. Thinking that it may have been shoved into the couch, I checked between the cushions. Nothing, save for a gold brick (seriously. My ex-boyfriend was very, VERY rich) and a couple of dollars in change. Pocketing the change, but leaving the brick, I summoned the rest of the kids to help me look for the porno.

Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

I waited furiously for the next couple of days to see if anything would turn up. Nothing did.

Figuring that the movie was already late, I wanted to circumvent any phone calls to my house, as I could just IMAGINE my parents reaction, “Uh, Rebecca? The video store called and they need you to return Anal Clinic,” I slunk back to the video store so that I could pay for my lost porno.

Walking the ultimate walk of shame, I headed into the store. I approached the pimply-faced 16 year old kid working behind the counter and said in the most clear and least shamed voice I could muster given the circumstances: “I need to buy Anal Clinic.”

I resisted the urge to explain what had happened when I realized just how much dumber it would sound if I tried to justify it. Better for the teenager to imagine why I needed it then for me to spew excuses.

Turning such a deep red that he looked iridescent purple, the pimples a stark white contrast to his face, he sputtered that I would have to come back when his manager was there. Trying not look ashamed, like I’d been turned down many times before when trying to buy a lost European gay porno, I walked out, head as high as I could make it go.

Several days later, I headed back to see the manager. By this time I was an old pro at this. I marched right up to him and said the exact same thing, “I need to buy Anal Clinic.” Once again I didn’t bother to explain WHY I needed the movie, or what had happened, as I was pretty sure he’d heard it all before. I paid the $36-ish dollars and upon waiting for my receipt, the manager mysteriously disappeared to the back room.

He returned several minutes later with a movie box in hand, the title obscured by his hands. He handed me the box along with my receipt, and I was on my way. After hopping back into my car, I allowed myself to look down at the box in my hands. The manager had given me the original box for Anal Clinic, complete with cover art and bold blaring title.

What the hell was I going to do with that box?

I settled upon placing it in my ex-boyfriend’s pantry, hoping some unsuspecting victim–perhaps the same shit head who had stolen the tape in the first place–would stumble upon it while looking for crackers.

Little fuckers.

When I was 16 years old, because I was a moron, I decided that I wanted a job. I didn’t really NEED a job or anything, but I figured that I should have one because I was 16 and stuff and that’s what people do at 16, right?

So I got myself a job at a fairly upscale restaurant as a hostess, where my brother had once been the head chef, proving, once again, that I am a mutant because I couldn’t cook my way out of a paper bag. I worked as a hostess until I turned 18, when I strapped on an apron and became a waitress.

While working in the outdoor restaurant, The Gazebo, I met some interesting fuckheads: the biker who pulled out one of my hairs from my head because “It was bugging him;” the yuppie lady who screamed “can’t you DO something about these bugs?” (we were outside); and various drunk ass-wads who would try and dine-and-dash until I chased their sorry asses down.

But my all time, most favoritist customer had to be Old Balls.

He came in and sat in my section one evening and was about as unremarkable as they come. He wasn’t overly kind or rude and he didn’t chat me up or anything. If he had been a color, he’d have been beige.

Until they left. On a $12 check, I had been left a whopping $2, no big deal. A big fat “eh” of a tip. Along with the credit card slip, however, I had a nasty shock.

HE HAD LEFT ME A NOTE.

Now, it happens now and again, especially with young waitstaff. Some overzealous customer mistakes your attention as a server for sexual attention, and thus I have gotten my fair share of phone numbers. Nothing too striking there. Anyone who has ever served knows to just ignore it, unless, of course you’re in the mood for a booty call. Other than the booty calls, people who leave you their phone numbers are not good for much.

I turned over the 3 X 5 card to read what he had written. Imagine my shock and horror when I realized that it was a pre-printed note, ala Penthouse stats, you know the kind on the centerfold. Now I don’t have the exact card anymore (but I wish like hell that I did; I’d have framed it and put it over our bed), but I’m going to try to reconstruct it from memory:

Hi, you’re an attractive woman who has caught my attention. My name is Richard, and I’m 56 years old. I’m 6 feet, 220 pounds, with grey hair and hazel eyes. I like to take long romantic walks on the beach, I love to play chess, and I like to read the Classics. I also like Mom’s Five Alarm Chili and spending quality time with the person I care about. If any of this appeals to you, call me anytime at (630)232-6578.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Wow. How special am I! I’ve gotten a generic pick-up note! From a dude with a dangly ball bag! AWESOME.

Well Richard, that poor dick, he never knew what hit him. Or maybe he did and he was used to it because no one ever reached anything but his voice mail all of the 237,128,373 times that we’d call him. Over and over, day and night we’d call the guy. Some days we’d pretend to be his scorned lover, others we’d croon into the phone and beg for a call back.

I’m sure that Richard and his old balls were glad when I finally lost his number.

We need to be clear on a point, Internet, I am not particularly squeamish. Unless we’re talking vomitous. Because that will make me very, very squeamish indeed. So much so that I will have to go running into the other room)

Being a nurse, and a mother, and someone with Crohn’s disease, I am no stranger to The Dookie. I have very little issue with cleaning it off of puckered poopers, be it my own, my son’s or even a stranger’s. No huge deal to me.

(no, I will not look at the rash on your penis)

Lately my Crohn’s has been particularly awful, rendering me bathroom-bound for many hours a day. It’s part of the disease process, so I have a hard time being too upset about it. It’s just life for me.

Since I moved from living with one male to living with TWO males, I have learned that having a penis = something besides the obvious and lingering smell of urine in the bathroom. It ALSO = Skidmarks. Since I have the misfortune of doing laundry, I am constantly coming across poo-stains on the seat of 2 sets of tighty-whiteys. Once large and one small.

I’m not sure the correlation, between penis and poo-crusties, but I do know this. I shit more regularly than anyone else in the house (aside from Joey The Mean Hamster) and I fail to import that poo onto the seat of my drawers. Guess it’ll be the subject of an upcoming History’s Mysteries.

And as a parent, I have been particularly lucky in one regard. Ben has been (literally, NOT figuratively) constipated since he was born. Once the meconium passed in the hospital, he didn’t have a bowel movement for DAYS. As such, although I had to venture into the realm of suppositories, I was spared the “my baby shit in his pants and wiped it all over the wall and crib.”

Until yesterday.

Ben came out of his room after taking a nap covered in something suspiciously brown and crusty. I had fleetingly thought that maybe it was actually dirt. Now, I wouldn’t be happy that there was enough dirt in my house to make that sort of mess, but it was better than the truth. Upon closer inspection, it was worse than I had feared.

Ben had SHIT IN HIS UNDERWEAR AND PLAYED WITH IT. It was shoved under his fingernails, on his face, and in his hair. It was crushed and smashed in his underwear.

I went through the roof. I was so angry that I made Ben sit in the bathroom, after de-shitting him (I wished like mad that I’d had a radioactive suit) until he could remember where poop goes. About 30 minutes while I stewed in the other room.

Several hours later, my Crohn’s came a-knockin’ and I rushed to the bathroom to evacuate my bowels . Noting that the toilet hadn’t been flushed since Ben’s stint in the bathroom, I casually reached over to flush. My toilet, let’s be clear, Internet, isn’t always so good on the whole “flushing” thing, but this, of course, did not cross my panicked mind.

I flushed, and the water didn’t even THINK about going down. It rose into the bowl, stopping JUST before the rim. I pulled out the trusty old plunger and set myself to work. 30 minutes, and gallons of poo soup later, the water STILL wouldn’t go down. Now it was simply all over the bathroom. My white tile was now a brownish-yellow color.

It was then that I called Dave and screeched into the phone “GET HOME NOW, MOTHERFUCKER.”

I stood in the bathroom clutching my guts in agony trying to figure out why the toilet had been stopped up. Lo and behold, while Ben was being punished and I fumed in the other room, he had graciously emptied the ENTIRE roll of toilet paper into the toilet. Maybe in houses with normal plumbing, this would be no problem, but in MY house, my toilet quivers and shakes at the THOUGHT of anything larger than a pea being flushed.

I heard the weather this morning, and it didn’t say ANYTHING about a motherfucking shitstorm.

Did you know that I didn’t want a wedding? And that I have a vagina? TRUE MOTHERFUCKING STORY, INTERNET.

I was in favor of the Vegas-way. Elvis, gambling, boozing? All up my alley. A 440-lb white dress? Not my scene. Nonetheless, *someone* stupid told me that relationships were about Compromise so I gave in. We had a wedding on 9/10/05.

And I give my thanks EVERYDAY that it is over. Seriously, every day I wake up and am grateful that it is NOT my wedding day.

Over the course of the wedding, I had several epiphanies of things I will be sure to do the next time I get married. Because I am not just stupid but annoying too:

1. Don’t do it. Romantic as the whole shebang can seem from afar, it isn’tt. Don’t let any rosy-cheeked newlyweds tell you differently. It’s not a rite of passage, it’s a highway to hell.

2. If you’ve ignored my advice, do yourself a favor and elect someone from the wedding party to be the Annoying Questions Lazy People Ask Fielder. Make someone else be your bitch or people will walk all over you.

3. Do NOT get an upper respiratory infection before the wedding. Because then you will turn into Typhoid Becky and infect the entire Chicagoland Area with a Superbug worse than MRSA. Unless, you know, you’re into that stuff.

4. Make sure the DJ plays Nazareth’s “Love Hurts” as your first song. Because really, it does.

5. September 10th is a fucking hot day. Also, your knees have sweat glands.

6. Everything is better with bacon.

7. Elope to Vegas. Because, obviously.

8. Do not allow yourself to be suckered into doing all of the work for a wedding that you didn’t want to have in the first place because then you will be bitter and annoying to everyone around you.

9. Do not make your friends wear strapless dresses. They will bitch and moan and make YOU wear 608 lbs of yellow taffeta at their weddings. And ride on a llama.

10. RSVP’s are optional. Get over it.

And lastly, just don’t do it. Really, no. Don’t do it.