I’m entirely certain I was a difficult child. Especially knowing now* what an all-mighty, insufferable pain in the ass I can be, it’s not too surprising that my mother would try to off me. I’m only surprised that she’d wait until I was eighteen to do it.

While the rest of you Pranksters had cars as teenagers, I didn’t. Instead, I bummed rides from you. See how thoughtful I was? I could drive, I just didn’t care enough to buy my own car. I much preferred to spend my dough on cheeseburgers and jaunty hair accessories. Not much has changed.

For my high school graduation, my parents gave me a car.

Before you begin hurling coffee cups at your computer monitor in righteous indignation, I assure you that it was decidedly UN-like the car commercials where the graduate wakes up to a brand-new bow-wrapped Lexus in the driveway.

No.

My parents gave me a two hundred dollar Dodge Shadow in a color I can only call “road chocolate.”

(that is a rough approximation of the Dodge Shadow I owned)

You’d think with a carpool lane consisting of Range Rovers, Porsches, and Jaguars, I’d have been underwhelmed by this dingy road-chocolate colored piece-of-shit car, and it couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Sure, the window didn’t roll all the way up and okay, I had to put a portable boom box in the front seat if I wanted to listen to music, and sure, the seatbelt didn’t quite….well, buckle, but it didn’t matter. The car was mine. I loved it. Pink puffy hearts.

I’d tool around in my jalopy, cold in the winter and hot as balls in the summer, and once school started, I drove it to and from my college classes.

One particularly hot autumn day, I approached a long line of cars stopped in front of me and began to eeeeeeeeasse onto the brakes. I felt something snap. So I eased more. Then I eased even more. By the time I realized I was fresh out of easing room, I veered off the road onto the gravel shoulder, the brakes were jammed down to the floorboard.

The brakes were d-e-a-d busted.

My mother, probably off buying cyanide to poison me with, didn’t pick up when I walked to the nearby elementary school to use the phone, so I had to call my boyfriend’s mother, who graciously came and rescued me.

I never saw my road-chocolate car again. I went back to bumming rides off my friends until the day I became suicidal and bought a two-seater cherry-red Honda del sol.

It was a bonus: a sweet ride that doubled as a coffin (in the event of an accident).

More importantly, it had a six-disc changer in the back. Even then, I was aware of the things that REALLY mattered in life: like air conditioning and the ablity to listen to all my Britney CD’s AT ONCE.

*teenagers are, of course, certain of their awesomeness and anyone who says otherwise is clearly a Communist.

Yesterday, I was standing at the sink, using my new reverse osmosis water system, giving my orchids a drink and silently going over the vertebrae subtypes (“Certain Doctors Love Saddling Coeds”), trying desperately to get the Facts of Life theme song out of my head, when he laid it on me.

“Mom,” my eldest asked. “What’s a ‘sexual favors?'”

Had I been drinking anything, it would have ended up on the window in front of me.

After I stopped choking on my tongue, I carefully said, “What do you mean?”

“In a Mario video, they said, ‘Why does everyone try to rescue the Princess?’ and then Bowser says, ‘Sexual favors, of course.'”

I silently thanked autism for giving him the inability to read my face, because if he had, it would have said, “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT.”

“Well,” I said, the cranial nerves long-forgotten, “it means like, kissing and stuffs.”

“EWWWWWWWWWW!” he yelled. “GROSS.”

He scampered off to play with his siblings and I returned to watering my orchids. I stood for a minute, watching him before I sang under my breath, “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, the Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.“

Now, we’ve established that I’m afraid of weird-ass things.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, for one. I’m afraid he’s – or one of his guilt-inducing minions – is going to knife me in my sleep because I didn’t donate ten bucks to him last year. Plus, I’m afraid that he’d judging me for all the shit I Google.

I’m afraid of showering while no one is home because, HELLO, have you SEEN a horror movie? That’s how they all begin.

I’m afraid of sitting with my back toward any open door because I’m pretty sure I was a mobster in a past life, and hello, have you seen how they always get the shit blown out of them when they’re sitting with their back away from the door?

I’m also afraid of this guy:

Because do you want that guy giving you a thorough rectal exam?

I THINK NOT.

Oddly, it turns out that I am absolutely terrified of commitment. Especially commitment to the government.

See, I’m taking Band Back Together and (spoiler alert!) turning it into a non-profit. And because I am terrified of screwing that up and then owing the IRS sixty-bajillion dollars plus my kidneys (not because I expect to MAKE a single dollar, mind you), I figured I’d call my lawyer.

Yeah, I have a lawyer. It’s not NEARLY as glamorous as it sounds.

So, we get on the phone and I’m all nervously trying to explain what the site is and stuff, and he’s like, “I’m sorry, Becky, but I don’t know much about non-profits. You can PROBABLY do it yourself.”

Which is precisely what the people who help me behind the scenes at Band Back Together said. But I didn’t believe them because do you KNOW how I fuck things up?

Anyway, I went and found the place where I’m supposed to start registering but I got all nervous and started shaking like a Chihuahua. Then I had to close the browser and perform some “deep cleansing breaths” (read: make a margarita).

Do these people not know how STUPID I am? I’ve documented that well, I think. And yet, the Illinois Secretary of State has not BLOCKED me from their website?

That is such an error on their end.

Pranksters, I don’t think I can do it by myself. I can barely go to the grocery store without forgetting why I’m there.

Now I’m waiting for someone to come over and hold my hand and tell me what to fill in for each box and when to click, “submit” and then I will hand them tens of dollars.

Otherwise, I’m going to end up without a set of kidneys and as that Nurse McPervy up there would like to point out, one cannot function without kidneys. Also: he’d like to give you a thorough rectal exam.

You know, when you’re ready.

Hey Aunt Becky –

I submitted a question once before and your answer was pretty awesomesauce, so I thought I’d have a another go at it.

I’m (I think) what you bloggers call a lurker.  I read several blogs every day but I don’t think I’ve ever commented.  A lot of the time I’m several days behind or I just don’t feel like I have anything interesting/relevant to add to whatever discussion is taking place but sometimes I just realize that it’s kind of weird to be sitting in my living room with my coffee reading up on some stranger’s life!

I don’t want to be a creepy non-contributing lurker.  Is it as rude and weird to just sit there creeping on blogs without commenting or should I suck it up and make comments every once in awhile?  I follow the blogs because they are interesting to me, have excellent writing or because I can relate.

I’m not a total weirdo recluse, I promise.

Thanks in advance for your complete awesomeness!

Oh, Dear Prankster, I don’t think you’re a weirdo recluse for not commenting. Not a bit.

It used to be that blogging “currency” (if I may)(and I always motherfucking may) was comments. It’s always been a little controversial to put up a donate button/tip jar* therefore a comment was the next best thing.

Since people began to read blogs in their readers (Google Reader, Feedburner, etc), commenting has gone the way of the condor. If the condor is actually dead. If he’s not, then I just lied. If you have a full feed published to your reader (which you should), people just read there.

The obvious answer would be to publish a partial feed so people click through, but partial feeds piss people off. For good reason. From a reader’s point of view, bloggers should make their blogs as accessible as they possibly can. EVEN IF IT MEANS LOSING A FEW CLICK-THROUGHS.

Also killing comments is that there are a number of commenting systems that are, flat out, a pain in the fucking ass to use. I read hundreds of blogs. If it takes me twenty minutes to figure out HOW to leave a comment, guess who loses a comment?

The Twitter and The Facebook don’t help. People comment there instead of on your blog.

And frankly? I don’t care. You don’t have to comment. I love comments, don’t get me wrong, but I’m happy enough to know my lurkers (and six kazillion robots) are out there.

And, lurkers, if you ever want to speak up, please do (or send me an email: aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com). I’m beyond happy to make your acquaintance.

*don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Dear Aunt Becky,

Did you know there’s a new sitcom on ABC called “Happy Endings?”  Whether you knew is important, Aunt Becky, because I recently watched a DVR’d episode of said show, and not once, but TWICE, they stole your “Shut Your Whore Mouth” phrase.  I do not know if you are secretly working on this sitcom and put it in there so only your lovely Pranksters would recognize it, or if the writers stole your phrase.

So, if you are a secret writer on Happy Endings, kudos–I heard your phrase and recognized your handy work.  If you are not, then you might want to go EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER on ABC.

Your call.

Dear ABC,

I want some fucking royalties, ABC. Now.

Do NOT make me unleash The Pranksters on you, ABC, because I so totally will. And, ABC, do you KNOW what they did to John C. Mayer? They made him a VERB.

Yeah.

ABC, you don’t want that.

I’ll be expecting your check in the mail, ABC.

Cheers!

Aunt (motherfucking) Becky

Hey, Aunt Beck!

Was wondering…are your tees cut for chicks?  You know, a little fitted, a little more narrow at the waist, more of a cap sleeve?

The nosy, and possible purchaser, want to know!

Thanks!

Excellent question, inquiring Prankster.

Fashion Cut shirts = girls shirts = more fitted and tightish around the waist. Now, let me tell you something and don’t get all vain about it when you order one. BUY ONE SIZE UP. Just trust me.

That said, they make your rack look TREMENDOUS.

In which case you’re a dude. Then you probably want to go with Unisex.

And you should buy one. All of you.

(or not)

P.S. Working on new designs, too. Loved your suggestions last week. Thank you.

I was shocked by how much space my new house had. We’d gone from cramming ourselves into a wee three-bedroom condo without storage space to a house that had three floors and so much storage space that it seemed obscene.

It was beyond startling when, the weekend that we moved in, my new neighbors began showing up at my doorstep with plates brownies and cookies and treats to introduce themselves and to meet us. Our condo building was filled with incredibly unpleasant older, single cat ladies who didn’t like us. They’d have been more apt to leave a bag of poo on our doorstep than a plate of cookies.

With the exception of the people we shared a porch with, there was no one in the building who didn’t hate us. I still don’t know why.

We’d just happened to move into Pleasantville, which is what I STILL call my neighborhood. House after prefab house filled with pleasant, kind people. On Halloween, there’s a house that hands out hot chocolate and hot toddy’s. Another grills hotdogs and passes out beer and soda. If I had a binder, I’d write, “Aunt Becky + Her Neighborhood = Tru Luv” in loopy letters, surrounded by a bunch of pink, puffy hearts.

(sorta like I do with my Pranksters. You all have pink puffy hearts around you)

So when my neighbor, my son’s friend’s mother, invited me over for a “Pampered Chef” party, I was thrilled. Well, thrilled might not be the proper word. I was thrilled to be invited, but I liked cooking about as much as I liked grinding a lightbulb into my eye socket.

But I marched on over there for the party and sat down with a number of older women I didn’t know. Everyone was, of course, way friendly, but the person who was demonstrating the products began to blab. And she kept blabbing.

OMFG she kept on blabbing. I’d never SEEN someone talk so much. (as someone who routinely “talks paint off walls, THAT’S saying a LOT).

It was like one of those cooking shows I never watch because I cannot stand the blabbing. I mean, I love a good meal, but I’d rather cut my leg off than prepare it, or worse, watch someone who isn’t going to GIVE me the meal prepare it.

In the middle of her blabbing, I decided that I, too, could cook. And that I, too, needed THOSE SPECIFIC TOOLS to cook with. Certainly it wasn’t MY problem I couldn’t cook. It was because I didn’t have the Pampered Chef chopper-thingy! Or the cutting board! Or the grill thingy!

I blew a hundred bucks that night on crap so I, too, could be a COOKER-PERSON.

It took a week or so before my order came in. Immediately, I opened my miracle chopper thingy and put it together. I had fajitas I was gonna make! This was a WIN! Plus, my stuff looked so FANCY in the empty cabinets!

Only…the chopper thing didn’t really, well, WORK. The blades were always falling off, which meant that someone as dumb as me was tasked with slipping the blades BACK IN TO their rightful place. Without losing part of my thumb. It took me half an hour to cut up a green pepper, not including the time spent washing the stupid thing out. Had I used a knife, it would have taken less than five minutes.

That Chopper-Thing Was BULLSHIT.

The tiny spatula I’d bought, well, the handle fell off after a couple of months. The cutting board was fine, but nothing I couldn’t have bought anywhere else more cheaply.

I was a little discouraged, knowing I’d never become a Cooker-Person, but I cheered up when I realized that this meant I could eat more McDonald’s.

Those golden arches, they NEVER disappoint me.

——————

Tell me, Pranksters, what do you think of those in-home parties like Pampered Chef or Tupperware? Love ’em? Hate ’em? I need a good laugh today.

This would be the pictures you wanted after yesterday’s post, Pranksters.

I suggested that he get a spider tattoo there for street cred, but he said no. Shockingly. Even AFTER I gave him this awesome mock-up of what he COULD look like.

Some people (psssst *nudge, nudge* THE DAVER), it seems, don’t appreciate HIGH ART.

He says he’s going to “get me back while I’m sleeping,” but I’m not worried about my hair. I’m worried he’ll rig up something I can’t turn off that will play to every single Rush album throughout my house over and over again.

Hair grows back. Being traumatized by Rush is for LIFE.

While I was dying of the stomach flu from hell last week, my daughter took it upon herself to throw rabbit food all over the family room. When I say, “all over” I mean motherfucking EVERYWHERE.

A week later, I’m still cleaning it out of the most random of places. Amelia has been grounded until age sixteen.

I was in the middle of frantically vacuuming it out from under my end table, mentally adding a couple more years to her grounding, possibly a moat and a fire-breathing dragon, when Daver asked me to cut his hair.

“I’m going short for summer,” he informed me.

“Sure,” I said, wiping sweat from my face. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

He grabbed his clippers and began to cut his hair. Eventually, he called me. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

With that he handed me the clippers.

He didn’t SAY anything about the clippers, so I assumed that they were on the proper setting. Or whatever. I’m no clipper expert.

So I just grabbed ’em and started clipping.

If this were a sitcom, this is where you guys would start to groan.

I neatly shaved a two-inch stripe on the left side of Daver’s head before I realized he’d set the clippers to their lowest setting so I could shave up the back. Not shave his whole head with them.

“Oh FUCK,” I said.

“What?” He replied, somehow oblivious that I’d just made him look like a second-rate Vanilla Ice.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” This was very bad. Very bad indeed. “I just shaved a vertical stripe on your head!”

“WHAT?” With that he ran to the bathroom to look.

“BECKY!” he hollered. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“I, um, I can FIX it,” I promised.

He sat back down and handed me the clippers again, proving that he’s a masochist.

“Maybe I should Bic it,” he said.

“Dave, your head is shaped like an alien. You can’t Bic that shit. You’ll scare small children.” I said as I tried to blend the hair.

I stood back to admire my handiwork.

“Um, maybe you can use some makeup or something.” I suggested.

“Makeup? What the fuck can I do with MAKEUP?”

“Well, um, you could apply brownish eyeshadow to that area some so your pasty whiteness doesn’t shine through. Like that spray paint shit they sold to bald guys.” I said it, then remembered it was an SNL skit.

“I’ll just wear a hat.”

(hours pass)(I eat a cheeseburger)

“The hat doesn’t cover that bit of my head, Becky. YOU OWE ME,” Daver said.

“Well, you could wear a ski cap. I have several…oh, wait, they have rhinestones on them. Plus, um, it’s summer.”

“Yeah,” he said, annoyed.

“From THIS angle, it looks fine,” I suggested, starting to laugh.

“You’re sitting on the OTHER SIDE OF ME.”

(I begin to laugh uproariously)

“I can try and make it look intentional. Shave a swish on either side of your head.”

“I CANNOT GO OUT IN PUBLIC LIKE THIS.”

“Bwahahahahahaha! (wipes eyes) People will just think you have some horrible condition that makes you bald on one side. You can tell them you have leprosy. Maybe people will give you free things!”

I’m laughing so hard that I’m crying.

“Oh great,” he said, playing the straight man. “People will think that I’m rotting. That’s just GREAT, Becky.”

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Especially if you flail around a little bit. You should practice flailing around. OHMYGOD WE NEED TO GO OUT IN PUBLIC NOW.”

“No.” Dave replied.

“Well,” I snorted. “It’ll grow back. Remember that time I had a mullet?”

He laughed.

“Exactly.”

I’d been casually chatting with my father about my growing orchid obsession. He looked at me a little funny – nothing out of the ordinary there – when he dropped a bomb, “You know, your grandfather grew these orchids.”

No, no I didn’t know that. I’d remembered the greenhouses from my early childhood. Every other weekend, I recall, we’d go to a certain greenhouse or another, which is why the smell of that good green growing earth makes me nostalgic and warm inside. I remember being a toddler, spending hours at the rose garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden, listening to my family plan my future wedding there. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that I did not marry there.

My grandfather grew roses – beautiful roses – always puttering around with them, lovingly spraying them with this and that, warding off all potential pests and coaxing out the most beautiful, heavenly-scented blooms.

When I grew my own rose garden, lovingly spraying them with this and that, warding off potential pests, and coaxing out the most beautiful, heavenly-scented blooms, I’d think of him. Not at first. But eventually, I felt as though he was right there beside me, helping me identify pests and apply the proper fertilizers.

The orchids, though, they threw me through a loop. Until I found this:

That’s an orchid bloom in my curls.

My grandfather is with me always, it seems.

He is my hero.

And not just because he grew orchids and roses like I do, but because he lived the sort of live I hope to live. It was a life less ordinary.

He graduated from Johns Hopkins medical school at nineteen and became a doctor at the same age that my life hit a crossroads. I’d always planned to go to medical school myself, and life found a way. I became a mother.

He worked as the sort of family doctor that made housecalls, his forceps and stethoscope always in his medical bag, ready to deliver a baby, diagnose rubella, or treat a broken arm. It was during these housecalls that he was exposed to tuberculosis and spent many months at a TB sanatorium in the mountains, missing out on his first son’s – my father’s – early life.

Before that, though, he was a doctor in the United States Army. He was the first on the scene when the Allies liberated the concentration camps. He was the first medical personnel to treat the concentration camp victims. He never spoke of those days, what he saw, the atrocities of the Nazi’s, and what he had to do to help the survivors, although I know they weighed on him.

By the time I rolled around, he’d given up his medical practice and became the head of pathology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The apple of his eye, his granddaughter, he spent as much time with as he could. Weekends roaming the botanical gardens. Nights at Ravinia, on the lawn, under the stars, listening to the magical strains of Saint Matthew’s Passion and The 1812 Overture, eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket. Those were the best days of my young life.

An adult with children of my own, my grandfather long-passed, I have the vain hope that one day, my life will, too, be remembered as less ordinary, if only by myself. That because of the choices I’ve made, the people I carry in my heart, the people who now (however virtually) walk by my side, the experiences I’ve put behind me, that my own life can be as far from ordinary as his.

I’d say that I miss you, Grandpa, but I know you’re always with me.

Today, tomorrow, always.

Dear Pranksters,

I’m planning to make some new shirt designs, but since I cannot eat a sandwich without first consulting The Internet, I am asking for your opinion. In nifty poll form!

Would you order any of these shirts? Check all that apply. And, of course, you can write any other suggestions in the comments.

[poll id=”6″]

Dear Aunt Becky,

I’ve been at this craptastical job for 5 years, during which they ass raped me with a spiked concrete dildo during both my maternity leave and the more recent incident with my husband’s stroke. During that, not only did they choose to string out the Medical Leave paperwork and make it more stressful than my HUSBAND BEING IN THE ICU, but also kept me on a line about whether or not they would be laying me off.

I’ve just been offered a job at Apple Retail (which I will be accepting) and be able to do my photography (holla!) and virtual assistance on the side (if you are a photographer or small business owner, check me out! http://thephotogshelper.com *cough* ) and will be starting training this weekend.

Now, my question is this! What is the most epic way to quit? I don’t care about burning bridges, as they have already screwed me here to there and I would rather whore myself out than try to come back here to work, but I want something good.

Sincerely,

Pissed in Portland

Dear Pissed in Portland,

My suggestion is something that someone I knew once did. Not, of course, myself, because I’m a VERY classy person. Or maybe it was a dream I had. I don’t remember.

He went in on the day he was going to quit and took a gigantic piss on his bosses keyboard. He then left his resignation letter floating in the piss puddle on the desk.

You would probably have to put your pee in a jar, but you know, same sentiments.

Do let us know what you decide to do. And Pranksters? Any suggestions?

Dear Aunt Becky

I have 3 kids with autism. What this means is that I am always too sleep deprived to be quick on my feet when people say stupid shit to me. Usually I can think of a snarktastic reply to stupid shit later, and use it on the next idiot.

Example:

Them: That child just needs some discipline! (i.e. Why don’t you beat him?! I would totally beat him!)

Me: OMG! Why didn’t I think of that! Of course, I’ve just been letting him do whatever he wants whenever he wants without the first thought of trying to discipline him. WOW. Thank you for curing his Autism with a single ignorant remark!

However, I have run into one I don’t know what to do with. And since you seem to be thoroughly awesome at snark…

How in hell do you reply to, “Is your kid a retard?”

I refuse to reply, “No, but I have my doubts about you” simply because that would be using that horrible slur back on someone else. It’s not okay to use the r-word, regardless of how stupid someone is. So… do you have an idea?

Jesus Christ, people can be such ignorant fuckbags, can’t they?

Honestly, I’d shoot them the death glare for a couple of loooooooonnnngggg moments before replying with, “Hey, FUCK YOU.” Baring that, “you shut your whore mouth,” always works.

Pranksters? Any thoughts?

—————

As always, your sage advice is appreciated in the comments below. What would you tell these Pranksters to do?

And submit your questions to the Go Ask Aunt Becky section at the top of the blogs, if you dare.

(no, I am not pregnant. This was something I created for Band Back Together’s Resource Pages. See, Mom! Those nursing textbooks you bought me ARE useful for things other than doorstops!)

Week One HA! Fooled you. It’s your period. The last one you (should) have for forty weeks. Enjoy it.

Week Two: Thank GOD that period bloat is gone.

Week Three: Sperm, meet egg! Hopefully it was preceded by a very nice, extremely expensive candle-lit dinner. If it wasn’t, WELCOME TO THE CLUB.

Week Four: Your baby is now a BLASTOCYST. It sounds like something you’d say when you sneeze, but I assure you this is where the magic happens (also: when you eat Twizzlers. They’re magical). That ball of rapidly dividing cells will implant itself into your warm cozy womb.

Week Five: CONGRATS, MAMA! Yer knocked up! But…your baby looks like a brine shrimp. It’s a very CUTE one, but it’s a brine shrimp. It does have wee arm and leg buds (I don’t think shrimpies have those, but I’m allergic, so you know). Even more exciting, all of it’s organ systems – including the heart and lungs – are beginning to form. You know, so it can scream it’s head off to you when you don’t buy it Justin Beaver tickets.

Week Six: You’re probably feeling like dogshit. It’s okay, have a saltine and some nice Gatorade. Y’know, stuff you can puke up more easily. If you’re like me, you probably look six months pregnant already, even though your blastocyst is the a little bigger than a poppyseed.

Week Seven: Your baby is getting it’s kidneys ready to properly whiz all over your face, your carpet, your couch, it’s bed, and anywhere else it can possibly pee. Babies are good that way. It’s approximately the size of a blueberry, which should make you a) starving or b) vomit to read. Sorry about the fruit thing.

Week Eight: Well, okay, good, your baby looks like a baby and less like a shrimp. PHEW. It’s got fingers and toes (they are webbed, but you know, think of it like a duck and NOT like a Carny.) Even better? IT’S TAIL IS ALMOST GONE. Yep. I said tail. I meant it, too. Plus, it’s brain is forming. So it can outwit you. Trust me, it will.

Week Nine: Your less shrimpy baby’s weight can now be measured in ounces. Like vodka. Even better? NO TAIL. Although, I might like a prehensile tail sometime.

Week Ten: Those creepy arm buds are limbs that can move now, which means that your baby could very well be flicking you off RIGHT NOW. You should put the naughty baby in Time Out and give Aunt Becky his toys.

Week Eleven: Did you know I had to look up how to spell “eleven?” Because I did. Your baby and his developing brain is much smarter than me, even if his muscles are gearing up to kick your ass from the inside.

Week Twelve: Okay, so your baby has a big head. Like HUGE. A melon of a head. Well, in proportion to the rest of it. Your bobble-headed baby is getting nails, too, which is fancy. If you’re lucky, you should be able to hear the galloping heartbeat via Fetal Doppler, too. Always exciting.

Week Thirteen: Did you know that fingerprints are thought to be created by fetal movement in the womb? I thought that was kinda neat. Anyway. Your baby’s three inch long body is catching up to it’s gigantor head.

Week Fourteen: Welcome to the second trimester. If you call it “the golden trimester” in my presence, I will cut you. So, your baby can now do all of these fancy things with it’s face, like grimace, suck it’s thumb, squint and frown. That’s all gearing up for the terrible two’s and the teenage years. Enjoy the expressions when you can’t see them in front of you telling you how LAME you are.

Week Fifteen: Your baby weighs as much as a shot of vodka. Or the ones Aunt Becky pours, which are two and a half ounces. Plus, it’s starting to look like a REAL BABY and not a freaky shrimp creature.

Week Sixteen: Your baby’s head is still ginormous. Luckily, it’s getting hair on that beast, so if it should decide to comb it’s hair in the womb, it so could. Your baby is also getting big enough to dance the night away, probably on the bladder, thereby interrupting your sleep in a series of nights that, trust me, you’ll be up with the baby. (you should put your baby in Time Out for that)

Week Seventeen: I’d tell you your baby was the size of a turnip but I have no clue what a turnip looks like so it’s useless. Your baby is getting sweat glands this week which means LOTS of stinky socks in your future.

Week Eighteen: Hopefully by now you’ve gotten to feel your baby tap-tappity-tap-tap you. Because he’s dancing up a freaking storm in there. And those small movements (called quickening) are what makes pregnancy worth it. No, seriously. SHUT UP, I’M ALLOWED TO HAVE FEELINGS.

Week Nineteen: Your baby can hear you sing. So knock off the crappy Britney impersonations (that was my note to self).

Week Twenty: So your baby is learning to breathe. Talk about awesome. No seriously, those lungs are important and it should practice breathing so it can scare the shit out of you with shrieks someday soon. I told you the good stuff first. Now? I need to warn you. Your baby is also covered with cheesy vernix caeseosa. And hair. Everywhere. See? I told you it was scary.

Week Twenty-One: You’ve probably figured out if your gestating a boy or girl. So get ready to pick out paint colors for the nursery and then make someone else paint it. Milk that pregnancy for all it’s worth, girl.

Week Twenty-Two: Your baby weighs almost a pound and is getting fatter by the minute. Don’t think you need to put him on Baby Atkins yet. Baby fat = good.

Week Twenty-Three: From the outside, your baby looks like the alien in Alien, what with the squirming and twisting and trying to exit through your belly button. Stupid baby; we all know that the belly button is NOT the place a baby comes from. It’s your vagina.

Week Twenty-Four: Now your baby can hear. So you can TOTALLY put it in time-out for making you retain so much freaking WATER.

Week Twenty-Five: If you have an ultrasound now, you can probably see some of baby’s hair swirling around. Unless you have a cue-ball baby. Then, not so much.

Week Twenty-Six: If you’re having a boy crotch parasite, his testicles are descending to the scrotum. Just what you wanted to think about.

Week Twenty-Seven: You’ll know if baby gets the hiccups now because your belly will jump around all freaky-style. Luckily, baby isn’t big enough to HURT YOU yet when it does that.

Week Twenty-Eight: Your baby weighs over two pounds, but still, it’s pretty skinny. On the upside, it’s less wrinkled and red than it’s been before. Even cooler, it can open it’s lash-rimmed eyes. Bummer it can’t tell you what it sees because I bet it’s rad. Also: 96% of babies born at 28 weeks gestation survive. Win!

Week Twenty-Nine: You should probably sign up for those Lamaze classes so you can answer me a question that has haunted me for years: why do the ladies in the birthing videos deliver naked?

Week Thirty: Now, baby is getting ready to be expelled from your body. It’s assumed the “head down” position, if it’s a good baby, and it’s getting fatter! See, unlike adult fat, baby fat is full of the awesome, for their health AND adorability. Also: your baby is aware of the sounds outside of the womb. Maybe it’s time to turn down the porn.

Week Thirty-One: Your mean baby is probably keeping you up all night kicking your spleen. I’ll lie and say “it gets better once they’re born,” but it’s not true. I mean, it IS true. You’ll have the miracle baby that sleeps through the night from birth. (P.S. ground that baby now and give me his presents)

Week Thirty-Two: Your baby is less wrinkled now, which is good. Who wants to give birth to a baby that looks like a old man wearing a onsie?

Week Thirty-Three: Baby is now pretty tightly fit in your uterus, which means you’ll feel it a hell of a lot more when baby kicks the shit out of your bladder. It’s okay if you pee a little when you sneeze. We all do. Well, except for me. Because I am a miracle.

Week Thirty-Four: You’re probably wearing underwear that could double as the mast from a sailboat. But damn, that shit is COMFORTABLE.

Week Thirty-Five: Even if your hospital bag is packed, color coded, and organized alphabetically, I promise you that you’ll forget the one thing you really need and make someone else go buy it for you. Or, you’ll never use the suitcase of stuff you brought because you’re bleeding everywhere and just want more of those damn ice packs for your crotch. Perhaps it’s just me.

Week Thirty-Six: All that hair that I talked about before that made your baby look like Sasquatch? Well, thankfully, it’s disappearing now. Because a baby with a hairy back is creepy. Your baby’s body is getting nice and fat, which is good, because it helps it regulate body temperature once it’s outside of the womb. Speaking of that, hope you have your nursery ready, because D-Day is almost here.

Week Thirty-Seven: Welcome to full-term. Your baby is cooked. NOW you can start obsessing over the signs of labor and assume you’re in labor every time you have heartburn (right, like you haven’t been doing that since Week Eight.) Trust me when I say this: labor feels like labor, not heartburn.

Week Thirty-Eight: Baby’s getting fatter, but every minute seems like an hour and every hour seems like an eternity as you wait to pop out your baby. Disconnect yourself from social media lest you go on a mad Twitter rampage about how unhappy you are. There ARE people without legs, after all.

Week Thirty-Nine: Sorry you’re still pregnant. I’m sure you’re miserable, especially since people stare at you with mouths agape when you go out in public. Apparently, the general public has never seen a pregnant woman before. You should kick them if they stare. I’ll get your bail money.

Week Forty: That cheesy vernix caeseosa is almost gone now, which is good, because it makes your baby look like a statue. Your baby is also fat, pink and happy. Well, okay, I lied. Most babies are decidedly UN-happy. But hey, you didn’t hear it from me. It’s time to push a baby out of your vagina (or have it removed from above) and wear those awesomely gigantic mesh panties they give you at the hospital. Screw Victoria’s Secret; THOSE is where the party is.

Week Forty-One: Are you STILL fucking pregnant? That’s bullshit. Get some really obnoxious music (think C and C Music Factory) and play it to your belly, all Branch Davidians-Style. You should probably take your phone off the hook so you don’t get a zillion “are you STILL pregnant?” questions. Because trust me. If you’re still pregnant, you don’t need to make nifty smalltalk.

Week Forty-Two: Okay, I feel sorry enough for you by now to actually help this along myself. Threaten baby with A Visit From Crazy Aunt Becky.