It was a Friday night. It had to be a Friday night.

I know it was a Friday night because there was a big hollow place in the bottom of my stomach where my son was supposed to be. When you get pregnant, you don’t think about what’s going to happen years down the road. You think about the cute rattles and which brand of car seat and do I *really* need baby bottles when I’m going to nurse the wee bay-bee? You don’t think down the road apiece, when custody is split and parenting is a weekday thing, and what does my kid do on the weekend anyway (besides play World of Fucking Warcraft) but you can’t DO anything about it because, well, it’s not your turn to raise him.

You don’t think about that stuff. No. Not at all.

But there we were, two of the gloomiest people on the planet, trying to fill a hollow void that would remain empty until Sunday.

“Let’s grab some dinner,” Daver offered. I nodded, my heart wearing a sad face.

“Thai okay?” He asked, staring at my face intently, knowing that I probably wasn’t really okay.

“Sure,” I replied. “I love Thai food. Remind me not to get anything spicy. That shit BURNS coming back up.”

He nodded, the two of us both playing a role, our hearts not really in the game.

I waddled through the crisp January air and maneuvered myself into the passenger seat of the car, carefully buckling myself in. The moment the seatbelt hit my abdomen, my second son, another boy, began to furiously kick at it for daring to interfere with his space. I smiled a bit, rubbed my son’s head, nestled firmly in my ribcage, and said in my very best (worst) Adam Sandler voice: “He’s gonna be a soccer player.”

We both smiled a bit, each of us lost in our separate galaxy as we tried to not notice that the backseat was missing one occupant, our hands stiff and cold, as we tried to warm them against the sputtering warm air vents of our Pilot. It had been a bitter winter and there was no hint of spring on the horizon. Just dark cold days spent huddled under blankets.

We pulled up to the Thai place and I slithered out of the car, bumping my burgeoning gut on both the door and the car as I tried to maneuver my way onto the sidewalk and into the restaurant. I laughed a bit as I grabbed Daver’s hand, “Wow, it’s busy tonight,” I noted as we wandered through the front doors, “Mmm-hmmm,” Daver replied. “Glad we came when we did.”

The tiny Thai waitress who delighted in my belly every time I saw her (I learned through another waitress that the woman had been trying to get pregnant for many years) greeted us with a, “Hi there! How you doing? Table for two?”

I smiled and said yes, making my way through the maze of tables and trying not to bash someone into their Pad Thai with my belly, which I knew was no easy feat.

We made our way to a tiny cozy table against the wall, a deuce, and we sat, removing our jackets and shaking off the smell of cold. I knew what I wanted to eat, so I didn’t bother opening my menu to peruse the selections I could probably recite from heart if asked. I left the menu closed as Dave opened his, pretending he wasn’t going to order the same thing he always ordered – creatures of habit like to pretend we’re not sometimes – and I began to look around the dining room. People-watching is especially fun while at a restaurant. Maybe it’s the false sense of intimacy, I don’t know, but people tend to behave as they really are while dining out.

My eyes bounced from table to table as my son tap-danced on my bladder, making damn certain that I’d pay attention to that half-an-mL of pee currently sitting in there, until my eyes rested squarely upon another two-top who was…wait. They were both staring at ME!

She was sitting facing me, and he’d swiveled around to face me and they were both staring at me…except they weren’t really STARING so much as murdering me with their eyeballs. Four eyeballs trying to murder me.

I quickly turned my eyes back to my table. That couldn’t have really happened. I mean, I wasn’t DOING anything. It’s not like I’d come in with my pet monkey, Mr. Pinchey, and starting flinging poo around the place.

Shit, maybe I was under-dressed – I was so tired these days, I wouldn’t have put it past me to have gone out wearing a Shut Your Whore Mouth shirt, except this was before I had this blog or a shirt. No, I decided as I looked down, it wasn’t the shirt. And I’d managed to put on pants, which was a plus, so it wasn’t that my wobbly ass was hanging out.

Whew, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was appropriately dressed.

And it’s not like they could’ve known me from my other blog, Mushroom Printing. I’m pretty sure the only picture of me on that blog ever was this, which my co-blogger had put up as a representation of me:

They weren’t Internet People, so what the hell? What gives?

I felt chastised, like I’d done something wrong. The couple were still swiveled around, murdering me with their eyeballs as I tried to figure out WHY.

Finally, I whispered to Daver, “I think those people are staring at me.” Dave’s accustomed to playing the devil’s advocate, so I expected him to say something like, “they’re not staring at you murderously; they’re looking at the statue over your head and trying telekinesis.”

“WOAH,” he said, upon inspection. “What did you DO to them?”

“I have no idea,” I said, pretty shaken. I cross-indexed the Rolodex in my head to see if I could make a connection. Nope.

“I’ve never seen them before in my life,” I whispered in the crowded restaurant, now so acutely uncomfortable that I realized I was on the verge of vomiting. Everything (including air, sleep and pants) made me want to vomit, so this was an unsurprising reaction.

I dashed off to the bathroom to heave as Daver ordered for us.

I stood in front of the mirror as I washed my face, making sure my nose wasn’t bleeding and that I hadn’t gone out accidentally wearing a Swastika or something. I sturdied my legs which were quivering beneath me, ready to face this couple. I was going to find out why the hell they wanted to ruin my dinner. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity that could be cleared up over some spring rolls or something.

Taking a deep breath, I marched back out into the dining room, veering sharply to the right to confront them.

They were gone.

And they took with them the answers to a puzzle I’ve been replaying in my head for years. I cannot, for the life of me, understand what had happened that night.

Six years later, I’m still confused. I still wonder what had happened to that couple; what made them so full of hate.

I’ll probably never know.

—————–

Has anything like this happened to you, Pranksters?

Depending upon who you talk to, I’m either the most organized or the least organized person this side of the Mississippi. If I’ve got the time, space, and energy, you’ll happily find me (on my days off) organizing shit, making it more efficient and reducing clutter. If I don’t? Well, I’m sure The Guy on My Couch or The Daver will cheerfully explain all the ways in which I am *not* organized.

It’s a good damn thing I know how to lock them out of the back end (snort) of my blog.

Anyway, by comparison, I look like (insert name of professional organizer here) compared to Daver. Looking for something on his desk is like going on an archeology expedition. Oh! Wow! There’s that stapler that’s needed staples for 4 years. And holy shit! I think this coffee cup holds a cure for the flu! And that thing I’d asked him to return – guess that’s not going back!

If you think I’m ragging on The Daver, let me tell you a little story. Gather ’round, Pranksters, because this is a good’n.

I was packing up our condo in order to move Dave for the third time in two years. He’s magically gotten a “headache” every time anyone has to put shit in boxes, leaving me and whomever else I can con into helping lug my crap around.

I’d gotten to his “office” which was really just a room with a computer that the cats peed in. The room, not the computer. The floor was, as usual, covered in paper. Daver has this thing about paper – he never knows what to recycle or get rid of so he just…keeps it. It’s not like he’s a hoarder. Not once did I see him yell, “BUT THEMS BE MAH PRECIOUS THAAAAANNNNGS,” as I removed his precious box of VHS tapes (we had no VCR) or his books of bad poetry, when I’d get down and dirty with the cleaning.

While I’d prefer to give you the mental picture of me strong-arming Daver away from a box of miscellaneous cords, yelling, “THIS IS AN INTERVENTION. LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE BECOME – TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR.”

Dave happened to be out at work when I made this particularly awesome discovery in the cat pee room/office floor, which was probably for the best, considering I spent the next twenty (two hundred) minutes sitting on our couch, staring at it, while a much younger Ben sat on the couch watching the same Sesame Street DVD over and over again (thanks to autism, I can’t even SEE an Elmo without breaking out into a cold sweat).

It was….mesmerizing – like one of those weird picture within a picture things I can never see because I’m colorblind and possibly brain-damaged.

Pranksters, I wish I had a snap to show you, but I did end up throwing it away well before I began blogging here at Mommy Wants Vodka.

What had been so sacred, so important, so revered, was a simple slip of paper. A simple slip of paper from Target. A simple slip of paper from Target detailing items Dave had, himself, purchased before we began dating, some three years prior. What, I can almost hear you ask, the hell was on this slip of paper that Dave deemed it so important as to not only keep, but MOVE three times?

In November of (counts on Fingers) 2001, Dave had bought himself a bin of kitty litter.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – why bother with kitty litter when the cats just piss all over the place anyway? The answer is, I don’t know Perhaps, Dave used it himself. Maybe he had an oil spill or really liked to hunker down and squat over a kitty shitter to evacuate his bowels. I don’t know. I didn’t ask.

And I’m damn sorry I didn’t keep the thing. I’d have framed it, like I framed the check I got from BlogHer for .01.

Sometimes, we must celebrate how ludicrous life can be.

Anyway, biology be damned, Little Ben seems to take after The Daver in more than just personality. My father, to give you an idea of the genetic soup I rose from, is the most organized person on the planet. His books are arranged on the bookshelves using the Dewey Decimal System (is that still around? I CAN’T BE SURE).

So I assumed some of this would rub off on my kid. I mean, if you tell me, “Hey, AB, go rearrange your blogroll to meet these arbitrary criteria,” I’d be halfway done before I asked myself WHY I was doing such a task. I may not be the most organized person on the planet, but I can follow directions like BOOM.

My firstborn, on the other hand, would be asked to go and clean his room, figuring that this was enough direction for a child who had my father’s genetics somewhere in his body.

I’d go and check on him a half an hour later and find that he’d carefully, painstakingly pulled out each of his Lego kits and had rearranged them to match whatever the instructional booklet showed.

Sorta like that, but less Star Wars-y.

His floor would be covered in miniature stacks of carefully laid out Legos while the rest of his bedroom appeared to have been subject to a very tiny tornado.

It was then that I realized my son would need some help with organizational skills. But how? When the kid is such a perfectionist that he has to fold and refold a shirt 26 times OR shove all of his clothes into one drawer, what do you do? I mean, he’s too young for a professional organizer…right?

Anyway.

Organization in school has been an issue with him for oh, I don’t know (counts on fingers) six years? I’ve tried differing systems with him – he gets too bogged down with making sure things like, “wipe ass” are on there. I’ve tried buying him a calendar-type planner so he can see what’s coming up in the future. I’ve bought him dozens of watches in the hope that if he had them, he’d be able to tell time and get his ass home in time for dinner.

The watches were gone within a few days. The planner was gone too.

Which is why, when he was invited into a program in Middle School called “AVID,” I was thrilled. It was a whole college-prep class about organization, note taking skills, and shit, I half-way wanted to sign up for it. Happily, Ben signed up for it, knowing as well as I that organization will always be a struggle for him. It made me feel a HELL of a lot better about sending the kid to middle school.

And then. And how. And why.

*sighs*

I got a letter from the vice-principal of the middle school. Due to lack of interest, the program won’t be offered this year.

When I stop weeping, I’ll let you know.

P.S. I know my site looks janked up – I updated to the newest WordPress and it took a shit on me. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS, WORDPRESS.

P.P.S. While at the time, I wept and shook my fists at the sky, I think I’m going to see this as an omen that I need a new site design.

P.P.P.S. Randomly, what’s an Amazon Affiliate? I’ve heard that phrase no less than three times in the past 24 hours but have NO idea what that means.

Go Ask Aunt Becky is a purely useless advice column I’ve been running for years (although I’ve been on a recent hiatus). You ask me a question – I try to find you a better answer than “pants are bullshit.” You may always submit your questions through the link at the top. Be warned, I am not a professional – I don’t even play one on TV. (insert more disclaimers)

Driver does not carry cash.

—————-

Dear Aunt Becky,

I so need your help and advice.

I was being sexually harassed at work.. This man stopped once other people were aware of the situation.

But my company? Made me work with him him. I walked into work yesterday, saw him, had a massive panic attack. 911 was called, and I ended up in the ER.

I LOVE my boss but the company is not looking for me. I’m so worried about losing my job. I am so lost.

At this point, I actuality want to kill myself.

Help, Aunt Becky!

———

Dear Prankster,

This is bullshit! I wanna punch this fucker in the gonads (assuming, of course, that he has any, which I’m beginning to doubt.

Please, don’t ever consider suicide as an option – what suicide leaves behind…well, let’s not go there.

If you are truly feeling suicidal, please call, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to talk to a counselor at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Also, please visit Band Back Together’s Suicide Resources – we have a lot of help over there.

That said, I know people. People who know people. And I spoke to my anonymous friend (not to be confused with Anonymous) about your situation. This is what my anonymous friend suggested:

Prankster, I sincerely hope this helps. And remember, we are none of us alone.

————-

Other Pranksters, do you have any suggestions for this writer?

I’ve been in a sorta downward spiral. I don’t want to get all Debbie Does Downers or anything, but things have been…not easy. But that’s hardly worthy of a blog post, because eh, things always turn themselves around. I was reminded of a lesson I learned many moons ago.

Let’s step into the Wayback Machine, shall we, Pranksters?

*cue a couple of wavy lines*

After I’d popped Ben out of my girl bits (read: had him yanked out with forceps) and gone back to work, I found myself in an odd predicament: I was twenty-one, 60 pounds heavier than I’d started out, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. There’s nothing like going from a nubile young thang to waddling around, wearing granny sweaters and wondering about this whole dating-with-kids shit.

My all-nighters were spent with a single man, a single Chubbers little guy who appeared to be wearing a toupee and I couldn’t fathom that any other 21-year old guys would be all, “YES! I LOVE DATING CHICKS WITH KIDS! IT MEANS THEY PUT OUT!”

My friends were as supportive as they could be, considering they were crawling the bars and having wild, untamed sex, while I tried to understand how a baby could be so…crabby.

One afternoon, my friend Ashley – who’d been as awesome to me as sliced bread – decided that it was high time that we get our shop on. I had the cash. She had the car. It was time to get our SHOP ON.

(insert random pillow fight reference)

Maternity fashion around the time I’d had Ben was one of two things:

A) Circus Tent Chic

2) Circus Tent Chic

(this changed by the time I had Alex and Amelia).

So I hadn’t bought or worn anything that made me feel, well, GOOD, since I realized my maternity underwear could double as the mast of a very large sail boat.

We started with purses. Ashley had a penchant for fancy purses which, through the process of purse osmosis, I inherited. I ended up at the sunglasses counter at Nordstroms, because I needed a new pair, and I wasn’t about to drop major cash on clothes that ran into the double digits. I picked out a pair of Ralph Lauren shades and bought them while Ashley tried on size -2 pants (while she was super-skinny and adorable, she never made me feel like I was Jabba the Hut and/or Pregnasaurus Bex, something I am still grateful for).

“What’d you get?” she asked, carefully hiding the size from the pair of pants she was about to buy.

“These,” I whipped my new shades out of the bag and displayed them proudly.

“Holy shit, dude, those are expensive!” She said, a mixture of both awe and delight. “I’d never considered buying nice sunglasses before!”

I sorta shrugged. It was the first thing I’d done for myself in months and it felt fucking great.

We picked up a few other things here and there – a new bra and some undies, a purse or two, talking shit and being girly. It was the most fun I’d had in years (the years before I’d gotten knockered up with Ben were not particularly…kind to me).

And I’m sitting here today, no longer BFF with Ashley, feeling slightly mopey and a little Debbie Does Downers, sorta sad I’m missing my girls at Type-A this year, and realized something: I needed to lounge against the machine. I needed to do something just for me.

So I did.

Not one, but two pairs of new boots.

Why?

Because I’m worth it, dammit.

And so are you.

Now go do something kind for yourself – JUST FOR YOU – Pranksters. Because you’re worth it, dammit.

On Friday, the bomb fell.

“Hey Becky, did you know (insert name of preschool teacher) is gone all next week?”

Whaaaaaa?

No. No I HADN’T known, although that was likely due to the holes Topamax left in my brain. I’d remembered hearing rumblings of a “summer vacation” but when I realized that it was, in fact, now June (rather than the March I’d been convinced it was), I shit my pants. No, not literally – I have excellent bowel control.

WOAH. That got awkward fast.

Anyway.

Me + 2 squirmy kids + no back-up plan + Mysterious Oregon Trail Disease = copious amounts of vodka and a wagon wheel.

It’s not that I don’t love my children fiercely – I do. I’d do just about anything for those tiny germ-infested crotch parasites. Anything except stay at home day in and day out with them. It’s not that I don’t find them charming, amusing (insert your own positive adjective here), it’s that after three rounds of playing Princess Pinkey Pie, I’m ready for several drinks and some private time in the bathroom.

I wasn’t cut out to be a stay at home parent, however, since I work at home, when childcare gets fucked up or someone gets sick, it’s my ass that has to stop what I’m working on and shove my parenting hat back on.

But a whole week? While I’m coughing up what appears to be small tree frogs every other minute? Sleeping 18 hours a day WITHOUT Green Death Nyquil cocktails? Feeling as though I’m wandering around through a sea of orange Jello? I’m probably not up for the whole parenting three kids for eleventy-nine hours a day; even if I can manage to postpone my work*.

I loathe admitting that I cannot do something, but in this case, the Mysterious Oregon Trail Disease has left my brain full of holes one could probably drive a truck through, should they be so inclined. When I told Daver I wasn’t quite up to parenting the crotch parasites, I expected a lot of teeth gnashing, hand-wringing and other such behaviors. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

“I’ll take them up to my parents house!” Dave practically cheered, as I sat back, aghast. His enthusiasm was as though I’d offered him a night of hookers and blow, which, while it can be found in Milwaukee, would probably not sit well with my uber-conservative in-laws (although, to be fair, I do not know this for a fact – they could have a meth lab in their basement for all I know).

This morning, they left for my in-laws. Probably not to manufacture meth, but that’s speculation on my part.

The house, it’s eerily quiet.

I realized, while sitting here drinking my coffee while trying not to choke on my own spittums, that this is the first time I’ve actually been sans children for more than a couple of hours.

I used to laugh at people who got all, “OH MY BAY-BEE IS ALL GROWDS UP!” not in a cruel way, but because my children had temperaments that would make even the most seasoned of parents lose their hairs. If you look up the textbook definition of a “difficult” or “slow-to-warm up” child, you’d see photographs of my children. They’re wonderful people, but they require a metric fuckton of patience. Most kids do.

And I’m not going to lie and say that I’ll be up all night prostrate (not prosTATE) with grief, but you know what? It’s been 3 hours and already I miss those little buggers.

Rather than sit around moping, I’m gonna grab one of Daver’s bizness shirts, some sunglasses and go all air-guitar to some Bob Segar.

Why?

Because I fucking can.

*Real work, not the dancing slug videos.

—————

How’s summer treating YOU, Pranksters?

Now, I don’t know if you knew, but if you want to be a successful blogger, you’re supposed to have an advanced degree in photography. At least, that’s what blogs like the omniscient Dooce and the ever-present, always delightful, Pioneer Woman have taught me. Well, that and I should probably make some shit homemade or roll around in a tub of butter or something, but I stopped listening at “photoblogger.”

I grew up in a photogs household. No, not the kind trying to get beav shots of Brit-Brit as she gets out of the car, but the people who have darkrooms in their basement, the smell of darkroom chemicals wafting from their pores. Every holiday, every given Sunday, any day of the week found my father, brother and grandfather, all with dueling cameras, trying to snap pictures. I don’t know how many holiday dinners went (quite literally) to the dogs as we were forced to pose, then pose again, then repose because “the light’s not right.”

I was primed to grow up with a camera in my hands or convinced that, in my formative years, I was a child star.

You know which happened.

Back in Aught Five, I had The Daver buy me a Christmas present – a DSLR. I figured that it’d be like osmosis – I’d grown up with a lens in my face, there was NO reason I wouldn’t magically understand the 8274-niner dials and begin speaking about “apertures”and “light quality” and “winning at life.” Except that, well, even with Ashton Kutcher (who was not QUITE so douchebaggalicious back then) selling me the thing, I still wasn’t much of a photog.

I mean, I got the idea of what composed a good picture, but did you know, Pranksters, that DSLR’s weigh approximately 250 pounds? With cameras out there the size of a granola bar, who the shit wants to lug THAT around?

(answer: other people who are not me)

But, since I was stewed in the embryonic waters of photogs, I did learn a bit about photography along the way.

Without further ado, here is Aunt Becky’s Guide to Photo-blogging:

First, one must capture their subject. In doing so, it must be referred to “subject” possibly using the term “medium” just because it makes you sound like a fancy person.

While you may note that there is, in fact, a cat in this shot, the shot was not for the cat. Because that is NOT my fake-dead cat, Mr. Sprinkles, but my perfectly alive cat Chloe, who is both stupid and possibly brain damaged.

First things first. Watermarks. That’s YOUR way of saying, “don’t steal my shit, shitheal,” because obviously adding that to a photo means you KNOW what you’re doing. A lot of bloggers employ this technique:

While that’s all well and good (supposing you don’t think people will just cut that bit of useless blather off the oh-so-coveted picture of cat vom, I much prefer THIS approach:

It’s ugly. It obscures the photo. And it says, “DON’T STEAL MY STUFF, SHITBREAD.”

Anyway. Watermark aside the subject of this particular photo would have been unclear, would I not to do this, a technique I like to call the “Captain Obvious Technique:”

If I hadn’t done the Captain Obvious Technique, you may have erroneously believed that I was talking about my brain-damaged cat Chloe, her water bowl (which says, “Good Dog,” which I find hilarious), or, perhaps, my floor, which is in desperate need of replacement.

But no.

Using the Captain Obvious Technique, I left NO room for error. Not only did I inform you WHAT you were to be looking at, I was sure to POINT to it, so that you weren’t under the impression that the cat puke was anywhere but by the arrow. I find that really helps one appreciate fine art.

But why stop there?

There is so much more to be done.

For example, we could make my brain-dead cat Chloe talk!

Although I assume it’s more like this:

By rearranging thought bubbles, I was able to capture that Chloe might be a super-genius, while the pile of puke is an angsty teenager.

But WHY STOP THERE? There’s so much more to be done. If one wants to be a TRUE photoblogger, one must be willing to make it ARTSY.

We ALL know artsy = soft core porn.

And never, ever be afraid to mix mediums:

You’ll note that in this particular photograph, I decide that the cat barf could use a whimsical touch – like a birthday cap and Tom Cruise shades. I added, because one should never be afraid to mix mediums, a textured background. Why?

WHY HAVE “OR” WHEN YOU CAN HAVE “AND?”

Up next, 821,722, 018  steps to be a better blogger!

The whole “nurses make the shittiest patients,” isn’t an untruth. It’s like somehow, since we passed the NCLEX*, we’re immune to everything, duh. And if we do happen to become ill, we’ll get over it like BAM! Because, again, didya SEE my NCLEX score? I totally aced that puppy.

I’ve been sick since I was a baby. At my first well-baby visit, I had a damn ear infection. I’d blame it on my mother, because that’s en vogue and all, but truthfully, she nursed on demand, she didn’t smoke or do drugs, we were organic before “organic” was a buzzword. I’m surprised I didn’t come home in a burlap onesie, but then again, it was the end of July (I had to stay in the hospital after I was born. ABO incompatibility, for the three of you who care) and my grandmother had bought me some frilly frock from Neiman Marcus.

Anyway, I was off and on antibiotics for ear infections until I miraculously outgrew them. Then, my tonsils were all, I DO WHAT I WANTZ, and I got strep throat every three weeks – like fucking clockwork.

(these were the days, I don’t have to add, where ear tubes weren’t yet the standard of care for multiple ear infections and having a tonsillectomy was considered in bad taste – instead, I had to wait until they had actually rotted – age 14 – and then have them out. The ears, well, they’re still tube-less).

I’ve been sick more or less, since birth.

Which is why I don’t pay terribly much attention to it. While I joke that I’m moaning histrionically at the ceiling, letting out a croaked “Why God, WHY ME?” I’m actually on the computer working my balls off. Or in the garden, “sweating it out” to the Golden Oldies.

You shut your whore mouth while I’m listening to my Golden Oldies.

See, if I spent the time I was ACTUALLY sick moping about the house, I’d never get anything done. And if I didn’t get anything done, well, the world might actually implode keep spinning like it always does. No seriously, I know** nothing would happen if I stopped for awhile, but I’m not the sort who relaxes well. When I’m told that I should “relax” a bit, I laugh. Not because it’s a bad idea, but because without heavy doses of vodka, I just can’t. My version of “relaxing” is only scheduling out 4 weeks of posts for Band Back Together and writing 2 resource pages while deadheading THREE rosebushes rather than 16.

Why?

Because I realized a long time ago, like at least three weeks ago, that I love to work. I need my mind to stay occupied to stay sane, and while tiny crotch parasites are, in fact, entertaining, singing songs about pooping is only entertaining for so long. So I push myself. When I get down, I push harder, I push until I pass out. Stopping? Well, that’s bullshit. I’m unapologetic about this – I am a work-at-home parent and I love it.

Until I get the pertussis. Or the pneumonia. I’m not sure which exotic Oregon Trail disease I have at the moment – only that I’m hawking up tree-frog sized balls of phlegm – and that I’ve been confined primarily to the couch until The Guy On My Couch and The Daver see fit to let me up.

All of this sitting around doing fuck-nothing has reminded me of this: in all my efforts to work harder, do more, and push push push, I’ve neglected the one thing that I shouldn’t have: myself.

Certainly I’m more or less sane (as sane as anyone who calls herself “Aunt Becky” and wages anonymous wars on Internet users like John C. Mayer). My children are happy, polite, and charming individuals. My home? It needs a dumpster, but that’s a different story. I realized this:

Each thing I do, I rush through so I can get to something else.

While normally, this poses no problem, I realize that I’ve neglected even the most basic of self-care – I’ve needed a hairs cut for months. My feet need a pedicure and a tiny Asian woman (probably speaking ill of me under her breath) wielding a razor.

In short: I need some time to myself. Wherein I do not work. Wherein I do not care for small squirmy people or large squirmy people. I have decided that it’s time. In fact, it’s so far PAST time that I can barely cop to it without feeling shame.

There will be no more “I should’s,” or “I can’s” in my vocabulary. No more guilt if I fall short of my mark.

Instead, I will set aside an hour every day – without pity – to myself. I will do something that benefits me, rather than those around me. If that means sucking it up and getting my hairs did? I will do it. If it means relaxing on the couch with a book while someone else cares for squirmy small people? So be it. If it means taming my eyebrows or waxing the cat? That’s what it means.

And I will do it.

Why?

Because I’m worth it, dammit.

And? So are you.

P.S. Pranksters, what do normal people “do for themselves?” I’m asking for, urms, a FRIEND.

*The National Council Licensure EXamination for nurses.

**”know”

I wandered into the foyer, acting on a tip from my friend Stef, who’d gleefully informed me that “they were hiring.” It was good enough for me; providing, of course, they didn’t expect me to wriggle into one of those slinky butt-short outfits or something – I was still lugging around the 60 pounds I was sure would just MELT off me as soon as I began nursing my new son, who, of course, would love me beyond measure, as I morphed back into the 140 pound 21-year old I’d been, happily fitting into my size 4’s by the time I had his first well-baby visit.

You can stop laughing now.

Okay, I’ll wait.

…

…

…

Done? Good.

Providing I didn’t have to wear Spandex, I was all over this job. I needed to do SOMETHING. I’d signed up for school, but managed to pop the kid out the very day that classes began, and I opted to stay in my hospital bed rather than waddle into college, with entrails and birthy shit hanging out of my vagina.

We’ve already discussed that I’d look like a fire hydrant if I’d tried to wear spandex, so that fantasy was out. So was the one where I’d lovingly feed my son, who’d gaze at my face and smile; making this whole single-parenthood thing okay. He was kinda…unpleasant. The kid, I mean.

So going back to work sounded like a plan and a fucking half.

Plus, it was working as a waitress, something I’d been doing in some form or another since I’d turned sixteen. I loved the hustle and bustle of working with so many opposite personalities. I loved the rush of getting five tables at once. I loved the way the glasses clanked in the dishwasher as I walked past, carrying my tray high on my shoulder.

Half of my co-workers I knew from my previous stints as a server, one of them, Nikki, was my oldest friend on the planet. Going to work was sorta like walking onto the set of Cheers, only with pizza. (I don’t think they had pizza on Cheers, but I could be wrong) We’d work our full weekend shifts (5-12PM) and then go out and drink the night away, laughing about the person who demanded 75 different drinks all with the one particular mixer we were out of, then wept once we informed her we couldn’t make it. The guy at table 42 who barely acknowledged me, except for to point out some spot on the floor he wanted me to clean. The crusty seahags who told me, over and over, as though I were not only stupid but deaf, “that’s Half-Diet and HALF-Coke.”

The job was tough, but at the very least, when people screamed at me, I could fix their problems, unlike a certain fire-hydrant-shaped baby who seemed convinced the world was out to get him, who screamed without the ability to be pacified.

We’d stay in the restaurant long after our shift ended, drinking from the bar, and swapping horror stories. It was the closest thing to a family I’d had in years. Going to work was like a salve – it was the one thing I could do, and do well, without making other people upset with me. And if they DID get upset? I could always have one of the other servers handle it.

(and by “handle it,” I mean “Walk by their table and fart”)

The politics in the restaurant, after I’d handily shed the baby weight (a full year later) and enrolled in nursing school, got to be a bit much. Restaurants are incestuous places – you can hardly go around a corner without seeing one server grinding up on another, or the bartender grabbing a quick feel on the new hostesses boobs. One of the servers, and a friend of mine (whom I later diagnosed as having Borderline Personality Disorder – thanks, WebMD, or, as I like to call you, You’reGonnaDieMD.com) had begun dating one of the managers, another friend of mine.

She managed to get between our friendship by whining about me to him, then telling him whatever I’d replied with, and doing the same to me: “Did you know that Sergio thinks you’re too fat for XYZ?”

Soon there was a rift between Sergio and I, each of us she’d handily played against one another. While he was an honorary uncle to my son and a good friend to me, he began looking for any excuse to fire me. With whatever drivel she filled his mind with, I can’t say that I necessarily blame him.

But I watched my back – any fuck-up on my end would be immediate firing.

Things only got worse when Sergio’s girlfriend (my friend) got “pregnant.” I don’t know and don’t care to speculate upon whether or not the pregnancy was something that was in her head or not, but I do remember her showing up on Friday night, then on Saturday night, weeping openly in the tiny closet of a manager’s office. Then, she waited outside for us to close the place down.

When we did, she erupted.

She ran into the restaurant, screaming incoherent obscenities, and trying to attack Sergio, throwing plates around on the floor, shoving an entire tray of freshly-washed dishes onto the floor, where they shattered. I got an elbow to the face when I tried to grab her. Eventually, she went out the back door, leaving a trail of broken dishes in her wake.

Phew, I thought, as I iced my eye. She’s gone.

Except she…wasn’t.

She was in the parking lot, where I could see her jumping up and down on my manager’s car, kicking and punching it as though it were a particularly annoying mosquito. It was bewildering.

The cops came.

I gave my notice the following day. On my last shift, where I may have gotten a cake and a bunch of free drinks in the past, I simply walked out the door, with that ominous-this-isn’t-quite-over feeling in the pit of my gut.

Months later, safely ensconced in nursing school, dating The Daver, I realized I had a bit of a cash crunch. Both Sergio and his former girlfriend had been fired, management had changed, and I decided that it was time to go home again.

I called the restaurant and was asked to start that very Friday – a stroke of luck if I’d seen one. I’d been prepared for things to have changed; I simply didn’t know how much. That Friday was an object lesson in why you should never, ever go home again.

The new manager (slash) waitress was a coke head, not terribly uncommon among servers, who all seem to abuse their problems away, who was up and happy one minute, and the next, she’d be stealing my tables and/or telling me that I needed to pick up an extra table, why hadn’t I done it yet? All in a very heavily accented Polish voice.

She was careful to ensure that I’d get the back station, the crappiest in the place, where I’d make, after a whopping 5 hours – thirty bucks. Considering how busy I was with school and raising my kid, it was hardly worth it.

But I waited it out. Certainly brighter days were in my future, right? We’d had so much FUN!

The end came, not with a whimper, but a bang.

I, once again, got into a fight with the manager (slash) waitress (slash) cokehead about a particular table, who was either in my section or not. She’d either stolen it from me or not: I was never clear on the details. Either way, once she began screaming at me in front of the entire dining room in Polish, I realized that it was over. Done. Finished.

I mustered whatever dignity I had left, smoothed my stained and somewhat tattered apron down, and left, never to return.

The place is still there. I have no doubt the manager (slash) waitress (slash) cokehead is still embezzling the restaurants cash to pay her gambling debts and throw the rest up her nose, although I’ll never be sure: I certainly have no desire to go in and find out.

It wouldn’t be the same.

The Guy On My Couch gleefully cackled as he boasted, “MY daughter got dysentery!” I glared over at him, jealously, and said under my breath, “ass,” which I soon followed up with, “Are you going to leave her behind or sell a wagon wheel?”

“It’s my DAUGHTER,” he replied, “Of COURSE I’m going to leave her behind.”

I glowered into my Tiny Tower, angrily naming my spa, “Facial Cum Shots,” which normally would’ve netted me at least five seconds worth of giggles, but I was too bitter to even enjoy that particular gem.

I remember the day that our class was introduced to a dull row of depressingly beige computers, their monitors a blank black, the words on the screen a delicate green flower. “This,” our librarian announced proudly, “this is what we’ll be working on next.”

We’d been doing a unit on the California Gold Rush – I’d even gone as far as to make a terrarium scene with rocks -n- shit that I’d carefully painted gold with one of those markers you can snort and get high – and we’d taken a trip to the Old West-Themed Portillo’s* in Naperhell. What, I wondered, glowering a bit at being taken away from the books I’d so treasured, was so awesome on a computer?

My classmates may have been thrilled by the usage of the row of dingy beige machines, but I’d practically teethed on computers. My father, a certified geek-a-holic had been certain to own some of the first home computers – to this day, my brother and I have an unspoken agreement that whenever either of us gets a new gadget or computer, we’re sure to show it off to my father. He, in turn, immediately goes out and one-ups us – if I have the newest, pimpest, 17-inch MacBook pro, he’ll get a video card worth 2K to put into one of his 37 home PC’s. After all, who wants to be outdone by his children?

(answer: not my father)

Anyway, I teethed on the keyboard of the computer’s we owned. My dad lovingly taught me to tell time and use a clock using various combinations of bendable floppy discs that he’d have to insert quickly, then remove, while the screen hummed a nice green color.

Computers, well, they were not exciting to me. They performed a perfectly functional task; I used them when I needed them, and I was just as happy to write it out by hand, although, I must admit that half of that has to do with my father, who insisted that we go through haz-mat decontamination procedures before we grubbed up his precious computers.

So when the librarian sat us down and had us turn on our computers, I was nonplussed. I’d just spent an hour in the book stacks working out how my 5 BFF and I were going to be JUST! LIKE! THE! BABYSITTERS! CLUB! books. I called dibs on Claudia but I’d been summarily outvoted.

While our computers took the normal fifteen minutes to boot up, I sat there, giggling with Ryan, the guy who sat next to me alphabetically, about making our calculators say “SHIT” if we turned them upside down. He was in the middle of demonstrating how he could make his calculator say “FUCK YOU” when the computer finally popped on.

There it was.

Oregon Trail.

Each week, we’d get to play our game, learning that those who rode the Oregon Trail were really fucking pixelated. I was thrilled to learn that my characters could both get sick and die. I began naming my characters after particularly hated teachers and hall monitors, and being all, “Ford the river with my wagon – missing a wheel – and weighing 837229 pounds? WHY NOT?” Then they’d die, and I’d end up back at square motherfucking one.

Oregon Trail became the benchmark all other video games were measured against. It’s why I never got into games like The Sims, even though, I’ve been informed by my girl Crys, one can similarly name people after loathed enemies and make them depressed, so all that they do is wander around looking for cats to pet.

When I saw that I could download a version of Oregon Trail for my iPhone, I was nearly ecstatic. While the number of people that I’d avidly disliked had decreased since age eight, I could imagine a few people I wouldn’t mind leaving behind after a particularly vicious snake bite. Fuck selling a wagon wheel – let ’em rot in the sun!

What I found disappointed me. While I could “fish” or “pick berries,” not a soul died on my expedition to Oregon, a place I’d actually visited (and found to be sorely lacking in bathrooms)(fucking hippies).

So when The Guy On My Couch found and downloaded the same game for Android, I was smugly superior – “You won’t like it,” I nearly sang. “No one dies.”

Except his daughter. And his wife. And several of his ox.

Apparently, the Android version of Oregon Trail was more gruesome, as he happily pointed out.

I went back to my Tiny Tower and sulked because I couldn’t change all of my pixelated people to be named “Dirk Diggler.”

By Saturday, I realized I was getting sick. No worries, I told myself, like I always do – it’s probably allergies or rheumatic fever or something similarly unglamorous. I made myself a Green Death Flavored NyQuil cocktail and passed the fuck out, certain I’d wake the following morning full of piss and vinegar.

Over night, I’d gotten up a few times and noted that there appeared to be water running. I, in my NyQuil stupor, assumed that it was someone taking a bath or doing laundry, because that’s what normal people do at 2AM, right? They bathe and/or run the sprinkler?

The following morning, I groggily dragged my ass out of bed, cursing my NyQuil hangover, and schlepped off to the couch, joining both The Guy on my Couch and The Daver who were in an avid discussion about something that did not involve coffee or donuts – the two things I was most interested in.

The sounds of running water filled the living room, and eventually, I stopped their discussion about the merits of deep fried food to ask the question: “What the fuck is that sound?”

Daver and Ben both sighed – “The water heater went out,” they replied, in the sort of creepy unison that happens when two grown men live together in an intimate environment.

“Oh,” I replied, nodding, as though I had any fucking idea what that meant.

“Already called the plumbers, they’ll be out tomorrow,” Dave replied.

“So wait – can I flush the toilet? Take a shower? Water my plants?” I asked.

“Nope,” again in unison, the replied.

“It’s like Oregon fucking Trail,” I replied, still in my NyQuil stupid stupor. “We should trade in a wagon wheel or something.”

They just stared at me.

The following morning, I woke up and wandered downstairs, grumbling about wearing pants and coughing up what appeared to be a rainbow in phlegm form. Daver, head in the computer, looked up as I walked into the room.

“Jesus,” he said. “You sound like a whale just sat on a baby seal.”

I just nodded my head, which made my ears pop unhappily, bracing myself against the dining room wall.

“Go to the doctor,” he commanded. “We’ll have running water soon.”

Too sick to protest, I made my way to the doctor where I was diagnosed with the dazzling trio: bronchitis, sinus infection and double ear infection. One more illness (I was hoping for Pink-Eye) and I could’ve been entered into a lottery for a chance to win a bubble to live in.

I returned home to find that Dave had paid the plumber with a wagon wheel and some rattlesnake meat, and I curled up onto the couch, wheezing softly.

“Three days,” I said to no one in particular. “I’m setting us behind schedule three days.” I fell asleep, visions of fording a river dancing in my head.

*a Chicago-style hot-dog joint

So…

Hi! Is this thing on?

It came to my attention (when Becky yelled something at me about blah, blah, blah, guest post something people need to know!) that you’ve all been asking some questions about me. Who is this Guy On The Couch? Where did he come from? Can I get one at Targhetto? So, I’m here to set the record straight(ish) and tell you all a little about me.

My name is Benjamin, I’m a Midwestern boy at heart and came to Chicago last fall because I decided that I just hadn’t had enough of gambling that the frostbite wouldn’t take my toes this winter. Some of you already know that, because you work with, read at or follow The Band and have seen me at work, or seen my writing about being the face of Bipolar Disorder. I’m glad, but for those of you who haven’t, click the almost-invisible link there, and you can read all about it.

Basics – I’m thirty-one, tall and thin, sarcastic and had a blog that I wrote at until I stopped having the time to dedicate to it, which the internet has mostly – blessedly – forgotten all about.

So, the advanced course, Benjamin 301 – taught by your favorite professor, Yours Truly goes like this: There was this one time when I was 19, living in Minneapolis and walking through downtown in the summer with my friend Evan. Evan and I had been friends for time out of mind, and we were both about equally strange people. We’d met in grade school and stayed friends on and off since then, and we liked to hang out together because it made both of us feel a little bit more normal to know there was someone else out there who was just like each other.

Walking through downtown Minneapolis, we got stopped by one particularly flamboyant member of St. Louis Park’s fairly extensive GLBT community. Tall, thin and beautiful, she stopped dead center in the middle of the sidewalk in front of us – where we’d have no choice but to stop short – to stare at Evan’s shirt. I’ve never seen another shirt like it, before or since, and it was the shirt against which all shirts are measured in my head.

Robin’s Egg Blue, with cheerful white lettering that proudly proclaimed “Nuke a Gay Baby Seal – For Christ!”

It was the most brilliant shirt I’d ever seen, cheerfully calling out dozen’s of different types of hypocrisy at once, all wrapped up in a little sarcastic package and colored pale blue so that people really weren’t apt to look at it unless it mattered to them.

Arching one haughty eyebrow at us, she slowly said, “nuke a gay baby SEAL? FOR CHRIST?!” To which we responded, almost in unison and totally unplanned, “Well, you’ve gotta nuke something, right?”

She let us pass, I think she may have been too busy having a heart attack to stop and question us further about whether it was any kind of seal, or whether we had it out for one type of seal in particular. I think the thought of religiously-motivated nuclear pinniped genocidal catastrophe was just too much for her to really think about all at the same time. Did I mention that we were both atheists?

I’d say that pretty much sums up who I am, so read on and enjoy, and now you know a little more about The Guy On Becky’s Couch.

Hope you don’t regret it!