One of the first things I did after we bought our house was lay down on the then-only-slightly-dingy-white (WHITE!) carpet and make a carpet angel. Because, well, OBVIOUSLY. Also: we’d gone from living in the three-bedroom equivalent of a dorm room into a house that had three floors. Like I could be in one room? And Daver could be in another? And we couldn’t hear each other.

(unless, of course, Daver was chewing, in which case, the squirrels in Siberia heard him)

It was beyond weird.

One of the second things I did was try frantically to make a baby (sorry for making you want to scrub your brain). For someone who got pregnant while on birth control just by being in the same room with a dude, I expected it to *ahem* be easier.

Eventually I got knocked up with Alex and 9 excruciating months full of  prepartum depression and lumbering about like a sea lion in maternity clothes later, he was born.

Hit your fast-forward button past the part where Alex looked like a garden gnome, his obsession with boobs, past the tremendous thyroid crash, past the near-nervous-breakdown, past the part where he wouldn’t let anyone but me hold him without shrieking, past the not-sleeping, past the insomnia and postpartum depression. Then go past the part where my friend of many years dies of cirrhosis at age 24 (or 25) and you’ll be caught up to Alex’s first birthday.

Or you can skip the words and just look closely at this picture to know all you needed to know about that year.

Anyway, when I told people I’d “planned to have another” I meant, “I’d planned to have another since I’ve been living in some sort of vaguely adorable hell and if I go too far from it, I’ll never go back.” They shook their head in disbelief – that is the kind of baby Alex was.

(thankfully, he’s merely grown into a maniacal mastermind who dresses up in butterfly costumes and watches My Little Pony)

A couple of days after Alex’s first birthday, once he’d finally decided that other people were not, in fact, Satan, I was out in the back yard, working in the garden I’d already painstakingly removed all traces of fake plants from (except, however, the petals, which I still, from time to time, find lurking in random places as a lil “Fuck You” from the previous owners, but I digress).

I realized, as I was sitting there, knee deep in dirt and mud, that I couldn’t actually recall the last time I’d had a period. Considering I hadn’t slept a full night in a year, I also didn’t know where my pants were and had just, upon waking one morning, poured an entire pot of scalding coffee on my hand before registering “FUCKING OW.”

I got up, left the kids out back with Daver, and went upstairs in search of an ancient pregnancy test. I’d had to stock up on them while we were TTC and had one leftover. One ancient test.

I bathed it in my urine, alone for once, quiet in the bathroom

Two lines popped up. The first – the “YOU’RE PREGNANT ASSHOLE” – line was there, but it was kinda…smeary.

Whatever, I said to myself (likely out loud, because I was that far gone). A line is a motherfucking line. Guess I’m having another baby!

I proudly brought my pee-covered stick outside to show Daver who had no idea what I’d been doing. “THERE,” I said, happily. “We’re having another baby!”

We did the happy dance for a second before returning to our children who were mucking around the backyard together.

The following morning, I woke up and, upon wiping, saw blood. Lots of it.

Okay, I figured, prolly a chemical pregnancy. That sucks.

I called my OB to make an appointment with the doctor to get my shot of Rho-Gam and make sure my beta was going down properly. He comforted me, I remember that, by saying that “sometimes these things do happen.” And while I was a little sad, I’ve known WAYYYY to many baby loss mamas for me to be sad about a bundle of cells that were never meant to be.

I called Daver at work and informed him that I’d lost the baby. We were both a little sad, but not like, prostrate (or prostate) with grief.

Until the next month.

When I got pregnant again.

The line was fainter, but, I told myself, it was still a line and hey, I’ve been drinking lots of water and shit, and well, LINE!

Two days after THAT positive pregnancy test, I began to bleed. Another chemical pregnancy.

I tried to comfort myself, but it didn’t work. I’d lost a lot in the previous year and, well, I’d really wanted that baby. I curled up on my couch and wept. And continued weeping until the hormones went back to normal. Dave just looked at me, unsure of what to do.

I did the only thing I could think to do – I went and bought roses. I come from a long line of rose growers, so I figured it was in my genetics.

It was.

It is.

Two climbing roses, I got that day at the greenhouse, 4 years ago. I didn’t know shit about climbing roses, besides that they prolly had spidey-sense and could be all, I WILL GROW ON TALL BUILDINGS WITHOUT TRAINING.

I was wrong.

Turns out? You have to train the fuckers. Like the puppy I’d gotten who, rather than comfort me in my grief, ate his own vomit, then puked it out on the carpet.

By this time? I was pregnant again. With my daughter. And when I began to spot around six weeks, I was placed on activity restriction. So my roses languished.

They languished again the following year, when I was coping with PTSD. The year after that, I tried, but barely managed to keep them “trained.”

This year, though, I have some help in the garden.

(not actually my garden. But my actual children)

I fucked up this year. When I was all, “Imma be proactive and shit, but not like John C. Mayer because I don’t have acne,” I got out all my chemicals and sprayed the bejesus outta the climbing roses, who have been fighting with black-spot for years.

Then, in an odd twist, we have a sudden cold snap. Guess what happened with the roses?

Oh yeah, their leaves were all, “Fuck this noise.”

So I was all, “Fuck me gently with a pickax – I’m never gonna be proactive again.” Then I kicked myself and thought about bacne for awhile.

I’ve spent the better part of several weeks removing the unhappy leaves from each of the roses. For normal roses, of which I have a kajillion, there are like 20 leaves. Maybe 100. I don’t know. Climbing roses, though, are a different story.

This rose?

I can’t count past twenty, but I think it has more than 100 leaves. And half of them have had to go. Painstaking, but true.

I’ve been removing dead shit like a motherfucker. And yesterday? I fought the rose.

The rose won.

(Scene: Aunt Becky, outside, underneath the rosebed, cursing my climbing roses, my lack of gardening gloves, the cats for peeing on my last nice set of gloves, and the stupid privacy screen for holding onto the fungus that causes black spot. The voices of little children can be heard in the background.)

Aunt Becky (fantasizing) “Grumble, grumble, I’ll fucking turn this cat into a fucking pair of slippers for pissing on my gloves.”

Alex, Age 5, (swoops over and plops on a tiny blue child-sized chair): “Mama, I’m bored.”

Aunt Becky: “Go play with Mark Zuckerberg.” (points at the peacock statue under the tree).

Aunt Becky (mutters): “Need to get some statues of the Brothers Winklevii. Flamingos? Gnomes? MOTHERFUCKING BUTTERFLIES?”

Alex (still sitting in the chair, grumbling): “Nah, that’s boring. I wanna swing.”

Aunt Becky: “Wait your turn, J.”

Alex (begins to smile broadly): “Hahahahahaah! Ben* peed in the yard!”

Aunt Becky (turns head in Exorcist-type fashion): “Whaaaaat?”

Alex (laughing so hard he can barely breathe): “Yep. He peed on the swing!”

Aunt Becky (recalling a similar incident several days prior): “BEN – GET OVER HERE NOW.”

Alex (giggling manically- scatological humor is, apparently, genetic): “He just whipped his penis out and started peeing!)

Aunt Becky (Furious George – about to throw down)

Ben (wanders over and looks down at me, under the rosebush, clearly confused): “What’s up, Mom?”

Aunt Becky (teeth gritted): “Did you pee in the yard – AGAIN?”

Ben (confused look): “No?”

Aunt Becky (knowing this child conveniently “forgets” things he’s done unless I’m particularly specific with him): “Your brother just said you did.“

Ben (still confused): “I did NOT! He’s lying!”

Aunt Becky (looks around for Alex for confirmation – does not see him in the chair): “Whaaaa?”

Ben: “ALEX, YOU STOLE MY SWING!”

Alex (laughing so hard he can barely speak): “I. stole. your. swing!” (erupts into gales of laughter)

Aunt Becky (secretly high-fiving the kid for being so cunning): “Alex – we don’t lie. Off the swings, both of you!”

Ben and Alex scamper off to play in the tree house that is not yet, in fact, a panic room ***.

Aunt Becky (beaming quietly with maternal pride as she goes back to her roses): “Atta boy.”

*my son, not the Guy On My Couch**

**I hope

***I have plans – GRAND plans for a panic room in my treehouse.

Dear “John C. Mayer,”

I know we’ve had a tumultuous relationship – we’re like when a tornado meets a volcano or um, cheese meeting macaroni, or something poetic, John C. Mayer. Whatever, John C. Mayer – I’m not the singer – YOU are.

For years, John C. Mayer, I despised you. Not because I knew you, John C. Mayer, or even because you, John C. Mayer had done anything personally to me.

Except that you, John C. Mayer did. You wrote that stupid “You’re Body Is A Wonderland” song. I mean, John C. Mayer, how many times do I have to hear my girlfriends ovulate all over the place when that stupid song comes on? How many torturous nights, John. C. Mayer do I have to hear my sappy girlfriends be all, “I *love this song – John C. Mayer wrote this about ME and now I want to have his sensitive babies,” before I snap, John C. Mayer?

Answer, John C. Mayer: about two hundred times.

And frankly, how dare you, John C. Mayer, sir, have the audacity to be both funny AND play the guitar like that? It’s unfair, John C. Mayer, because despite how much, I wanted to hate you, John C. Mayer, I simply cannot. Your humor, John C. Mayer is not a fluke, and you, John C. Mayer, are someone with whom I’d like to be friends.

You may recall, John C. Mayer, when the Internet Pulled A “John C. Mayer” and beat Google’s search algorithm to be among the very top of the search terms for “John C. Mayer.” It was originally an accident, John C. Mayer, but it turned into a prank so large that “Pulling A John C. Mayer” made it into Urban Dictionary. That may be, John C. Mayer, the very pinnacle of my existence.

A photo taken during the John C Mayer Prank, complete with my fake cat, Mr. Sprinkles.

Today, John C. Mayer, I checked to see where I ranked on Google. It’s been over two years (I think) since I Pulled a John C. Mayer on the Internet – certainly my page rank must’ve gone down. After all, John C. Mayer, I do not write a blog about John C. Mayer – instead, I prefer to write narcissistically about, well, me. That is what blogging is all about, right John C. Mayer?

(answer: yes)

And yet. And how. And this:

Screen shot from today. I beat out John C. Mayer’s blog AND Wikipedia. John C. Mayer totally loves me.

Anyway, I’m sure that your publicist, John C. Mayer would like me to die in a fiery blaze started possibly by a “malfunctioning kitchen appliance,” because WHOOPS! Behold the Power of the Pranksters, John C. Mayer!

But I’m a little afraid, now, John C. Mayer, that while your publicist may want to murder me with a pitchfork, that you, John C. Mayer may be in love with me. Now, I know what you’re thinking: who isn’t in love with John C. Mayer and his luscious mane of hairs? The answer would be me, John C. Mayer. I am not in love with you. While I do respect your kickin’ guitar riffs and may (or may not)(I’ll never tell) own several of your songs, I am not, John C. Mayer, in love with you.

But you, however, are stalking me John C. Mayer. Why would I say such a thing, John C. Mayer?

Because I got this in the mail. No return address. Just this. Now when I saw that I’d gotten mail, John C. Mayer, I got all happy in the pants because who doesn’t love PRESENTS? (answer people who hate the color blue, baskets of kittens, and/or lemon meringue pie).

Yes, that’s right. I got an unmarked life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer. And I cannot think of a soul who would send this picture of you, John C. Mayer, rocking out besides, well, YOU.

Which means that you’re clearly stalking me, John C. Mayer.

And while that’s well and good – who can resist a chick who gardens in a cocktail dress and chainsaw? – I must inform you that sending me a life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer is not the quickest way to my bubble gum lips.

Besides, John C. Mayer, I’m engaged. To a Twitter Dog, Dublin Cook.

DON’T JUDGE OUR LOVE, JOHN C. MAYER.

Warmest Regards,

Aunt Becky

P.S. You might want to try sending diamonds next time, John C. Mayer. Works better on loosening up the vaginal bits than a life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer.

————

P.P.S. The original John C. Mayer Prank was done by accident – I’d written him this letter, which boosted me up to Google’s like 4th search term for “John C. Mayer.” Drunk on my new-found knowledge, I then taught the Internet how to prank Google so that we can get our blogs to be the top search term for a particular celebrity. Whacha think? Should we do it again, Pranksters?

The answer, John C. Mayer Pranksters, is YES. Things have been too damn serious for too damn long – it’s time to do some prankage, Pranksters. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

(Instructions for Pulling a John C. Mayer are here)

So it’s your turn. Link up, Pranksters, and help each other by leaving comments wherein you use THEIR celebrities name a lot in the comments, use Stumble Upon, Facebook, retweet them, you know – let’s get Google good! Let’s get PRANKING!Comments should look like this to get more traction with Google:

“Aunt Becky I can’t believe you’re pulling a John C. Mayer again. John C. Mayer will rue the day that John C. Mayer wrote “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

I put on some profile thing somewhere or another (probably under my “job skills” on LinkedIn)(no, I can’t believe that I bothered with a LinkedIn profile either – the only way I’ll land a job is if I change my name) that I “can use the microwave.”

Generally, that’s true.

Okay, if I’m being honest, sometimes the things I microwave turn into a hard lump of ash, but I figure nitrates are good for you (don’t you go disproving this one, Pranksters).

I’ve spent years trying to work coffee maker and while I haven’t quite mastered it, I feel confident that someday, SOMEDAY, my grown-ass self will be able to brew coffee, too. Until then, I will live with cold coffee or chunky coffee.

ANYWAY.

My history with kitchen appliances is not stellar. Actually, my history is not stellar. I once broke a toe making a sandwich. I also broke a door carrying a diet Coke, but that’s neither here nor there.

Tom Jones wrote “She’s a Lady” about me. He was being sarcastic.

The dishwasher, however, I like to think of as my BFF. Not because it’s particularly good at cleaning my dishes (it’s not), but because I’m holding onto a vain hope that I will one day be able to teach it to sing Christmas carols.

(again, don’t ruin this for me, Pranksters)

The dishes SOMETIMES come out clean, especially if I’ve washed them ahead of time, but I’m trying to gently talk my dishwasher into working a little bit more efficiently. The best part of the dishwasher – bar none – is I get to line up the dishes in a certain way, which satisfies my OCD in the same way owning 8475 things of handsoap does. If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, I will TOTALLY have clean hands. And a well-organized dishwasher.

Jazz hands!

Saturday night found me not sunbathing with hot french models on a luxury yacht, but sitting at my computer writing a resource page about puberty, brainstorming other words for “erection,” for Band Back Together (we have nearly 500 resource pages)(Thanks for that nursing degree, Mom!) But if you tell anyone I write resource pages and NOT hang with hot French models, I will cut you.

There I was, happily ensconced in some research. I’d just loaded the dishwasher, finally done making an Oreo Cake for Mother’s Day, the kids snuggled up in their wee beds*, The Daver off playing some nerdy card game that involved copious amounts of scotch (I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t strip poker) while the Guy On My Couch ran to the store to get stuff to make us some fondue.

As I was sitting there, giggling about boners, I began to smell…something. Initially I wrote it off. My neighbors are always throwing wild parties that involve margarita balls, bonfires and cooking shit on their grill, so I’ve learned to tune out most of the weird smells that float through my window. Besides, my cats shit on a schedule, which ensures that most of what fills my nostrils is the scent of their bung.

I’m considering sewing up their bungholes, but that’s neither here nor there.

As I continued giggling about the term “woody,” I noted that the smell – sorta like burnt plastic – was getting stronger. I assumed that it was merely the margarita ball on fire or something similar. There are always teenagers milling about and while I, as an adult, would consider that to be alcohol abuse, teens are less protective of their margarita balls.

Still giggling about the word, “boner,” I got off my ample ass and wandered into the kitchen to find my iPad and make sure my Tiny Tower was well-stocked. When I turned the corner, I saw that the kitchen was, in fact, filling up with a thick acrid smoke.

Fuck.

The electrical wiring in my house made it clear that SOMEONE in the Daley administration was paid off. Pranksters, if you don’t hear from me awhile and learn that a St. Charles, IL family was burned to death while they slept, please tell the Fire Marshall that it was not, in fact arson, but was, in fact, a feature of my abject laziness and inability to fork out zillions of dollars in order to rewire a house. Also mention that I busted both ankles using a pickaxe, just to drive the point home that I should never, ever, be involved in anything to do with “electricity,” “power tools,” “kitchen appliances,” and once burned by bed with a heating pad.

My first thought was that I’d probably left a candle burning directly next to a pile of papers, something I’ve done before and will do again. When that didn’t seem to be the case, I looked at the light fixture in the kitchen, which is so fug that it may lead to blindness if stared at too long. I remembered that it had blown a fuse the week before when I’d had the audacity to turn it on.

The light was not smoking. Phew. That’d have been awkward to explain. “Yes, Mr. Fireman, my kitchen light picked up a nasty smoking habit – Marlboro Reds.”

I didn’t have either of the dudes home to help me, so I ran around a bit, yelling, “BITCH, GIT ME CHICKEN,” before I saw it.

The dishwasher.

The very same dishwasher that cannot sing “Silent Night” OR “Jingle Bells,” (but can do a passing version of “Good King Wenceslas”). The same dishwasher I’ve been lovingly crooning to. The same dishwasher I spend hours upon hours filling, then refilling, then refilling again until it’s perfect.

(Yes there IS a wrong way to load a dishwasher)

It was…smoking.

Not a Marlboro Red or even one of those hippie American Spirit cigarettes. But like real, acrid smoke.

Fuck me sideways.

I opened the thing, which was still cycling, and was nearly bowled over by the acrid stench of burning plastic and steam.

What.

The.

Fuck.

I pulled out the trays and saw it.

My ancient pizza cutter. The one that’s so rusty and decrepit that we’re probably all dying from lead paint poisoning or scurvy. Or dysentery. Or something exotic. The pizza cutter I should’ve replaced nine years ago.

It was there, nicely snuggled in beside the heating element at the bottom of the dishwasher, the plastic handle melting every-fucking-where.

I pulled it out, not actually considering that if the plastic was melting, it was probably fucking hot. So I scorched the tips of my fingers with melted plastic that remains so firmly attached to the tips of my fingers I may actually coat my whole hands in plastic so I can FINALLY start on my long-held resolution of “become bionic woman.”

(the Not Becoming Lil Wayne resolution is going well, by the by, although The Twitter keeps informing me I should “follow him”)

As I was trying (in vain) to remove melty plastic from the bottom of the dishwasher, The Guy On My Couch came home. When he saw me squatting on the floor, covered in bits of melty plastic, he couldn’t help himself – he laughed himself to tears. I growled at him.

The Guy On My Couch: “What…(gigglesnort) happened?”

Aunt Becky (through gritted teeth): “I. don’t. want. to. talk. about. it.”

The Guy On My Couch: “Bwahahahahahahaha!”

Aunt Becky (stands up, swiftly kicks him in the shins): “I hate you.”

Kitchen Appliances: 1

Aunt Becky: 0

I’m still hoping that the dishwasher will master “Silent Night” before December. That is, if it’s not broken. I don’t want to retrain ANOTHER dishwasher to sing Christmas carols, and the coffee maker simply sneers at me.

*throwing things around their bedroom laughing like maniacs

————–

How was your weekend, Pranksters? Did you break any appliances?

This weekend, at Band Back Together, we’re hosting a carnival of posts about Mother’s Day. Before you run away gagging, hear me out: these are the kinds of Mother’s Day posts I wish I’d read years ago. Knowing that I was not alone in my struggles was a pivotal point in my life.

Today, we celebrate the tables forever missing one.

Today we celebrate the mothers we’ve lost and the mothers we’ve found.

We’re celebrating the mothers we wish we’d had while acknowledging the mothers we did have.

This year I’m proud to celebrate a carnival of Mother’s Day posts from perspectives that aren’t always storybook. Perspectives like mine. Perspectives like Jana’s. Perspectives like yours.

Today, no matter where you are in your life, whether you’re missing your own mom, happily celebrating with family, stuck at a table forever missing one, wishing desperately that you were a mother, or wishing desperately that you had a mother, know these two things: you are loved and, more importantly, we are none of us alone.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” he asks as he climbs onto my lap, a spindly bundle of arms and legs that always manage to sucker-punch an internal organ.

“Oh, I’m just sad,” I tell him, running my fingers through his long dark hair, knowing there are some things that cannot be explained to a five-year-old.

“Did someone hurt your feelings?” he asks, as he stares intently at my face, his wide brown eyes boring holes into the back of my skull.

“No, baby, no one hurt my feelings,” I reply, the truth.

“Did a bad guy come?” he asks, quite seriously as his eyes attempt to puzzle out my expressions.

“No, baby, there are no bad guys here,” I laugh a bit, the tears still pooling in my eyes.

His sister wanders in to notice us on the couch together, and, seeing an opportunity in which she should be occupying the space on my lap, climbs up with a grace I didn’t know could come from my genetics.

“You have a boo-boo, Mama?” she asks, her long lashes open and shut as she, too, studies my face with a stunning intensity.

“Sort of,” I tell her as I kiss her, then her brother, on the forehead. “Sort of.”

“Can I kiss it and make it better?” he asks, looking for any open wounds to put his mouth on.

Before I can respond, she climbs down and runs off. She returns holding a box of Hello Kitty Bandaids.

“Here, Mama,” she says, “I got you a Bandaid – a HELLO KITTY Bandaid – for your boo-boo,” proudly she hands me a single bandaid from her precious collection.

“Thanks, Mimi-Girl,” I say, the tears, once again, falling from my eyes, this time, however, from the incredible sweetness of my children. “A Hello Kitty Bandaid will fix it.”

I allow them both to cover me with Bandaids – every mole, every bump, every scrape now carefully protected from the outside world.

“‘Dere, Mama,” she says proudly. “You’re all better.” She scampers off to find her Lego guys to play with.

My son, however, stays sitting upon my lap, twirling a piece of my hair absentmindedly as he thinks.

“Some boo-boos,” he finally says, “they can’t be fixed with a Bandaid.” He speaks with a wisdom far beyond his years.

“You’re right, my boy,” I say, the tears dotting his hair. “Some boo-boos are in secret spots. Hidden spots.”

“Where you can’t see them, right, Mama?” he asks, without really expecting an answer.

“Yep,” I say. “Some boo-boos are on the heart.”

He looks at me thoughtfully before scampering off to a drawer, where I can hear him rummaging around, looking for something. I turn back to my game of Tiny Tower in the vain hope that my broken heart will soon feel whole again.

He whirls back into the room, a mess of elbows and knees, and clamors back onto my lap, where he elbows me in the sternum, leaving me momentarily breathless.

“Here,” he thrusts a piece of paper into my hands happily. “It’s for you.” He then hugs me so tightly I feel like I might burst and watch as he climbs down off the couch and off to find his sister.

I look down at the paper, curious as to what he would have given me.

Painstakingly, he’d sketched a heart in the center of the page and signed his name in a loopy, scrawling way that only a five-year old can. The tears begin again, but this time, they are happy tears.

He rushes back into the room, his sister and their Lego people in hand.

“See, Mimi? I fixed Mama’s heart.”

And I marvel at them, as they dogpile on top of me, at how I ever got to be so lucky.

…Love,

Aunt Becky

(I’ll be adding some more through the day. Why? Because obviously)

Hey Auntie B!

How ya’ doing dollface? Since I gather you are as OCD as me, I wondered what you do to de-clutter the house when the sheer amount of shit you have makes it look filthy? (Of course, I already know the throw-away-one-thing-for-a-year thing, but hubster out-voted me on doing that.)

Hey, did you get that monkey butler yet? If so, I SO want him to deal with my shit! Can I borrow him?

Thanks for the advice! I’ll let you get back to cussing out your whore pants!

Love always,

Buried under a mountain of shit (not literally)

Hi Prankster!

If you were to visit my home – especially today – you’d say to yourself, “Now THERE is someone who needs to watch Hoarders more often,” and you’d be right. Except there are no more episodes on Netflix which means that I switched to a show called “Obsessed” where (in different episodes) someone was:

a) afraid of an El Camino, yelling, “Oh FUCK! An El Camino” whenever he sees one. This has caused The Guy On My Couch, The Daver and I to randomly scream “El Camino” while the other two cower in “terror.”

b) afraid of eating her own poo*. THIS has lead to The Guy On My Couch, The Daver and I to randomly step out of the bathroom and say, “WHEW, thank GOD I didn’t eat it. It was a close call, though.”

Mental illness, who says it can’t be entertaining?

(not me, and I’ve got a doozy of a case of PTSD)

This is how I clean my house:

Step One: Cut A Hole In The Box

Step One: Look around the house angrily and wonder how three children plus three grownups can amass so much crap.

Step Two: Watch a video about snails.

Step Three: Grab 2 garbage bags and begin to either throw away or donate the shit on the floor and/or anywhere else it’s not supposed to be.

Step Four: Wait for someone to notice.

Step Five: Keep waiting.

Step Six: Continue waiting.

Step Seven: *hum the Jeopardy song*

Step Eight: Watch a video about dancing frogs and/or hamsters (time depending)

Step Nine: Realize no one, in fact, cares about the shit I’m dumping, so begin a massive purging of the home, until I have at least two garbage bags full of stuff to donate.

Step Ten: Allow sufficient bags to accumulate in the garage until Daver drives them over to Goodwill, where they remark, “HOLY FUCK” as he unloads the bags.

And when I’m trying to decide whether or not I should keep an item, I go through these Choose Your Own Adventure Style Questions:

Is it useful? If yes, go on to Question 2.

Is it useful to ME? If yes, go on to Question 3.

Is it REALLY useful?  If yes, go on to Question 4.

You’re not crafty. If still yes, go on to Quest 5.

Place item in DONATE bag.

Or this:

What IS this? If you know the answer, go on to Question 2.

Will they notice if I dump it? If yes, place passive-aggressively on pillow. If no, go on to Question 3.

Do I care if they notice it? If no, go on to Question 4. If yes, place passive aggressively on toilet seat.

Place item at BOTTOM of DONATE bag, then feign ignorance and/or discuss the whereabouts of robot monkey butler Mr. Pinchey until person whose item is now gone is so annoyed that he stalks off, ready to leave the toilet seat up in retaliation.

Plus, I try to get rid of ONE thing each day. It doesn’t always work when short people bring home rocks and sticks that they claim to love, adore, and cherish…until Max and Ruby is on. Then I wander off singing “Max and Poopy” under my breath, while I figure out a way in which I can murder a cartoon bunny rabbit for being so. fucking. annoying.

Also, Prankster, I’m planning to get a Roomba and label him (with my label maker!) Mr. Pinchey. It’s not as awesome as my imaginary camel named Mr. Stompy and it’s not as cool as a REAL monkey butler, but Daver tells me that PETA will throw fake dead fetuses** at my door if I get, then train, a monkey to be my butler. EVEN IF, I was sad to note, I bought him a wee tux.

Damn PETA, holding me back from living mah life.

*Coprophobia, I think.

**probably.

I’ve been on a fondue kick.

I do this pretty often – I’ll eat one thing for like six months straight until the sight of it makes me vomit. What, ME (with) food issues?

Lately, rather than spaghetti and meatballs, it’s been fondue. I’ve been on fondue like it’s my job.

I was feeling kinda mopey on Saturday, what with a week full of sick kids who decided that staying home to torture me while whining and coating my home in a nice glistening pile of germs – rather than going to school and infecting all of their classmates – was the way to handle it. By Saturday, I had a 101 degree fever, a cough that would make a TB sanatorium proud, and a case of the Mondays.

The only answer?

(not more cowbell)

(also not more vodka, but only barely)

FONDUE.

I bribed The Guy on the Couch to go to fondue with me, and when I say “bribed,” I mean that it went like this:

The Guy on my Couch (mowing lawn and singing loudly off-key)

Aunt Becky: (standing on driveway waving frantically)

The Guy On My Couch: “Shit are you okay?”

Aunt Becky: “Yeah, why?”

The Guy On My Couch: “You looked like you were having a seizure.”

Aunt Becky: “Nope, just hungry. HEY, Fondue Reso in an hour and a half. BE READY.”

The Guy On My Couch: “You sure you’re not seizing?”

Aunt Becky (mysteriously) “Can one EVER be sure of such a thing?”

———

Upstairs, trying to find something to wear. Have forgotten that I’ve thrown all my clothes down to be a) washed or 2) given to Goodwill. Have no clean pants that I can find and do not feel like wearing a dress as the fondue restaurant tends to be cold.

Ah-HA I say to myself as I pick up a pair of jeans – this is PERFECT!

I slip into the jeans and change out of my Shut Your Whore Mouth shirt and into something slightly more dressy. Contemplate making dressy Shut Your Whore Mouth shirts as I slap on some makeup and perfume before heading downstairs.

The Daver: “You look nice.”

Aunt Becky: “Thanks!”

The Guy On My Couch: “Ouch, Daver. You didn’t tell me that *I* looked nice.”

The Daver: *laughs*

(a few minutes pass so I pick up my crabby daughter and whirl her around until she’s laughing so hard she can barely breathe)

The Daver: “Are you…”

Aunt Becky: “…?”

The Daver: “Are you wearing MATERNITY pants?”

Aunt Becky: “Thems be mah EATIN’ pants.”

The Daver and The Guy On My Couch begin to laugh uproariously. Unsure of why the grown-ups are laughing, all three children join in.

———-

An hour and a half later we’re sitting down on what we’d both forgotten was “date night,” so the restaurant is packed. Our server shuffles by us at least ten times before finally making his way to our table, by which time I am ready to gnaw off his arm. Uncooked, even.

A Server Named Dennis: “So sorry about the wait. It’s been crazy.”

Aunt Becky: “I heard that table behind us (an 8-top of a particularly annoying family) hound you for decaf. It’s all good.”

(sidebar: decaf coffee and hot tea are the banes of every server’s existence)

A Server Named Dennis: (laughs) “What can I get for you?”

The Guy On My Couch: “We’re weird.”

Aunt Becky: “You can say THAT again.”

The Guy On My Couch: “We’re weird. We don’t want meat. We just want cheese, then chocolate.”

A Server Named Dennis: “So it’s like a Festival of Cheese? Cool.”

The Guy On My Couch: “BRING ON THE CHEESE. Okay, we’ll start with the Swiss.”

A Server Named Dennis: “For two or…”

The Guy On My Couch (decisively): “For four.”

A Server Named Dennis: (laughs): “We shall begin the parade of cheese.”

The Guy On My Couch: “WINNING.”

Aunt Becky (on iPad) : “Fucking Tiny Tower – I need a fucking new elevator.”

Both stare at me.

Aunt Becky (mysteriously turns on her Slack-Jawed Yokel voice): “I got mah eatin’ pants on, y’all.”

Both stare at me.

Aunt Becky: “I done hurted mah elbey-bone.”

The Guy On My Couch: “Go back to Tiny Tower.”

Aunt Becky: “YOU GOT IT.”

Three cheese later, we get to the chocolate. The battle of the forks ensues.

Aunt Becky: “MAH MARSHMALLOW, BACK OFF FUCKSTICK!”

The Guy On My Couch: “You don’t get ALL the marshmallows, Miss Greedy-Pants.”

Aunt Becky (narrows eyes): “I can take you.”

The Guy On My Couch: “This IS a business dinner, yes?”

Aunt Becky: “Yes.”

The Guy On My Couch: “You probably shouldn’t kill off one of your board members. I’m guessing that’ll reflect badly on our non-profit status.”

Aunt Becky: “…”

The Guy On My Couch (smugly): “Pass the marshmallows.”

Aunt Becky (narrows eyes): “You’re fired.”

The Guy On My Couch: “You can’t fire me, Miss President. You’re a non-voting member.”

Aunt Becky: (begrudgingly passes a marshmallow)

The Guy On My Couch: (pops it into his mouth)

Aunt Becky: “I licked that while you weren’t looking.”

The Guy On My Couch: “I hate you.”

Aunt Becky: “Don’t FUCK with my marshmallows.”

————–

How was YOUR weekend, Pranksters?

I have a problem with windows.

Now you’re probably thinking:

a) AB is being neurotic about inanimate objects again

2) Another weird phobia? I thought the MAYO was bad enough.

But you’d be wrong.

When we bought our condo in Oak (no) Park (ing) (that’d be HiLARious if you knew what I was talking about), we were warned that our condo needed “new windows.” Now, after being told that the bedroom our son was sleeping in had high levels of lead paint, and the porch out back was being replaced as a part of a “special assessment” fee of 5 grand per unit, and that the walls of the living room were painted a color and texture best described as “cat pee on plasterboard,” learning that we needed new windows seemed almost…easy to rectify.

The windows were all, “how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” After the rest of the shitstorm, getting new windows was about as likely as being able to get central air, learn to fly, and be able to murder people with my mind.

And we moved before it turned into any problem. Considering our third floor walkup was directly under the gigantic (ancient) radiator, we spent our only winter there walking around in shorts and tank-tops, all windows open. We played “summer condo.”

We moved to our new house in um *counts on fingers* *recounts* *counts again* A LOT OF YEARS AGO. Or, back in 2006. When we did, we reveled in the lead-paint free walls. Sure, they were painted colors of green that made me want to lob things at small adorable animals, but they HAD NO LEAD PAINT. Also? Central air? After living with 4 window units that blew hot air into the already-hellishly hot condo, I nearly humped the real estate agent after learning we could get a house with CENTRAL (motherfucking) AIR.

Yeah, sure it had ugly white carpeting, that appeared to beg my children to want to upend grape juice and vomit on it, and yeah, okay, the backyard had fake flowers planted in it, and okay, the color of yellow our siding is tends to require sunglasses to look at it, but CENTRAL (motherfucking) AIR.

We bought our house in February, the inspector didn’t even note that a) the bathroom upstairs doesn’t work or 2) the windows were falling apart.

Whatever, I shrugged, imagining my Midwestern Summers spent lounging about the house in a parka and hat. CENTRAL (motherfucking) AIR, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Once spring hit, and I decided to open up the house, I realized that our windows? They could’ve been imported from the condo we’d just moved from. The condo that was built in like 1901. The windows appeared to have fallen off the back of some truck at some point during the Lincoln Administration.

Half the screens were ripped. The half that weren’t had storm windows that were rusted so tightly that I broke three fingers trying to pry them open. Most of the windows let in more air closed than they did while opened. Windows were constantly slamming shut, mere moments after they’d been opened.

The icing on the proverbial cake came when I opened the windows in my bedroom this spring, ready to air that motherfucker out. I have those light-blocking shades and the window in question, well, I didn’t open it often.

When I finally managed to draw the shade, I saw it.

Mold.

Motherfucking mold on this motherfucking window.

I bleached the fucker as quickly as you could say, “dumbass” and began wondering if this, in fact, was the reason I’d been sick since 1980.

Figuring it was time to draw a cross-breeze, after much work, that involved both sweating, breaking fingernails, and trying to navigate those stupid fucking cords, I began to draw back the blind from that window. Thank the Good Lord of Butter that I was somewhat slow on the uptake.

Because that window? The window on the FRONT of my house?

Got a nice crack in it. While other people might feel mortified that their neighbors would see that they’d improperly cared for their windows, I feel it adds a certain…something to my house. Like a creepy homeless tribe vibe.

But the mold? That’s problematic.

So I had The Daver Feldco, which is a window place out here. It’s probably a nation-wide chain, but I’m too lazy to Google it. The window guy came out on Saturday.

Window Guy: “Blah blah blah, here’s a quote if you do it today. Here’s another quote. Here’s another one.”

Aunt Becky (to herself): “I hate companies that pull that “if you sign today,” bullshit.”

As he was wrapping up, he asked The Daver if he wanted to sign today. We’d gotten a quote from a local guy and the quote from Feldco, well, it was substantially higher. Knowing Daver can’t say no to anything or anyone (see also: my Kirby vacuum), I piped in:

Aunt Becky: “We’re still looking around at other quotes.”

Window Guy: (rolls eyes)

The Daver: “Can I have a copy of the quote?”

Window Guy: “WHY? You already said you’re going with another place.”

The Daver: “…”

Aunt Becky (now annoyed): “I *said* I was gathering other quotes.”

Window Guy: “FINE. I’ll mail you a copy.”

Aunt Becky: (rolls eyes) thinks, “you just lost yourself a sale, fuckwad.”

Three days later, the local guy shows up and gives us a quote on replacing windows. He didn’t offer any special deals or bargains, he was no-nonsense. Also: probably part of the mob. But I didn’t care.

We signed the papers THAT DAY and by next Saturday? We should have new windows.

I haven’t reached such heights of orgasmic potential since I threw my serving apron on the floor and stomped off.

Oh wait. That was Jennifer Aniston in Office Space.

Same fucking difference.

I may have a window party. You’re all invited – IF you promise to admire the new grass growing on my lawn. (no, that’s not a euphemism for “admire my vagina.”).

I’m totally NOT inviting the douche from Feldco.