My older brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, who is ten years my senior, is still angry with my mother for dressing him in striped shirts for most of his childhood. Knowing my mother, she probably did try to stuff him into those hated striped shirts until he was well into college, so maybe he does have a point.

My mother gave me The Bangs that started at approximately the crown of my head and ended in a straight line at my eyebrows. The Bangs used most of my hair. The Bangs are the reason I shuddered when I saw that bangs came back into fashion a couple of years ago.

I cannot see bangs as anything other than The Bangs and I’m constantly terrified that a wandering pair of scissors is going to accidentally cut my hair into The Bangs again.

Uncle Aunt Becky, I don’t share your hatred of stripey shirts, but I totally get it.

Alex has made it abundantly clear that he’s all Sherrick (my middle/maiden name) and with the exception of the albino-translucent-don’t-let-him-in-the-sun-lest-he-set-on-fire-like-parchment he’s no “Harks” whatsoever.

Being a “Sherrick” means that there is only one way that things are done and that is the right way and if things do not go that way, you will simply poke-poke-prod-poke until they are done that way again. The PROPER way. If we eat ham on Easter, we’ll eat motherfucking ham every Easter until we have motherfucking PORK poisoning and it doesn’t matter if you hate ham, or if EVERYONE hates ham because we eat motherfucking HAM on motherfucking EASTER goddammit so you better get used to it!

I am *ahem* slightly less rigid than this (shut your whore mouth, Pranksters) but I certainly have quite a bit of Sherrick in me, too.

Alex, however is a miniature version of my brother, Uncle Aunt Becky, minus the vampiric skin, of course. Uncle Aunt Becky is swarthy like Your Aunt Becky. I attributed a lot of his Sherrick-ness to being a toddler until I realized that actually, you can’t breed that shit out. Like the poo jokes he makes. Alex is 100% Sherrick.

(Man, I know I’m just making you all want to come to my house for Christmas. “NOW, it’s time for YOU to tell a fart joke, Uncle Aunt Becky! YES YOU!”)

Last night, I was ordering some cheap-ass clothes from the Old Navy website. I’m generally not a fan of disposable clothes, but I’m still losing the baby weight (thank you, my children for helping me pile on a fuck-ton of weight while barfing my brains out), and Old Navy is perfect for these sorts of things. Plus, I had a coupon, and buying things with coupons makes me happy in the pants.

So I was adding some fall clothes for me and I figured I’d be nice and grab The Daver some t-shirts while I was at it.

While I was looking at their men’s clothes, I saw that striped shirts for men were back in vogue.

Your Aunt Becky: “Uh, dude, weird. Striped shirts for guys?”

The Daver: “What?”

Your Aunt Becky: “Yeah, Old Navy is selling striped shirts for men.”

The Daver: “Really?”

Aunt Becky: “Steve from Blues Clues ruined those for grown men.”

The Daver: “Ha, yeah.”

Aunt Becky: “Although, he’s got to get a lot of soccer mom ass.”

The Daver: “Maybe if I wore them, I’d get a lot of soccer mom ass.”

Aunt Becky: “Or maybe you’d look like Waldo.”

The Daver: “Touche.”

Alex: “I want a striped shirt.”

Aunt Becky: “What?”

Alex: “Will you get me a striped shirt?”

Aunt Becky: “Uh, really?”

Alex: “Yes, please. May I please have a striped shirt?”

(he thought I was asking him to ask politely)

Aunt Becky: “Ooookay, baby. I’ll get you a striped shirt.”

Alex: “YAAAAAYYYY!”

This morning:

Alex: “MOM! WHERE’S MY STRIPED SHIRT!?!”

Aunt Becky: “Uh, you were serious?”

Alex: “Yes please.”

Aunt Becky: “REALLY!?!”

Alex: “I would like a striped shirt from the store.”

Aunt Becky: “I can’t wait to tell Uncle Aunt Becky.”

Now, if Amelia wants bangs, I may have to have stage an Intervention.

———————–

Poke-poke-poke-prod-poke. CHARITY POSTS. I rewrote the intro for the Fans of The David Cook who have been finding their way here, confused and alone.

For the first time ever, I have had to rewrite a post, and not because I overused the word ‘fuck’ or got sued by someone (yet). In the original post, I made an unhelpful comment that started a comment thread that was unhelpful to the asker. The comment thread is important, so I left it on the post below, but I want this post to focus on the question and this Prankster.

It’s also very clear to me that we ASD people need a space to talk. I’m trying desperately to start something over at Band Back Together, so if you’re on the fence, please hop over.

The previous post is up for us to discuss our experiences with autism. This post is here to help, support and guide this Prankster.

Dear Aunt Becky,

Do you have any advice for mothers of children who have recently been diagnosed with autism? How did you figure out what was best for Ben? I feel so lost.

Oh Prankster, I’m so sorry for what happened in the last post. I tried to answer your question properly and give you some hope about your child’s condition. I wanted you to see that while you go through some of the really hard times, there are bright spots, too.

There is always hope. Special needs parenting does not always need to be as awful and overwhelming as it feels.

I’m afraid that the wealth of information of autism can sometimes overwhelm us. I did not have that when my son was born and in many ways, I am grateful. I was fortunate to have a child on the lighter end of the spectrum. I had a wonderful Early Intervention caseworker, we had some amazing therapies and putting him into a Montessori preschool full of physicists’ kids was the trick to help Ben.

Is he “cured?” Of course not. That’s not how it works. But I don’t regularly share the darker parts of autism and I didn’t figure that this would be the time to showcase it. Instead, I pointed out that my son was quirky and wonderful as he is. This is true. There are times when it has been dark and awful and hard. This is also true. As a newly diagnosed parent, you do not need to know the dark times, as your dragons will never be the same as mine.

What happened next was not what I wanted to have happen and for that I am deeply sorry. You wanted my help. I wanted to help you. I had hoped that my Pranksters could show you some resources that I did not know of to guide you in your journey. I’ve never used The Internet for autism resources. I’ve never connected with other autistic parents. I don’t have other special needs parents that I routinely talk to.

My son is older than most of the autistic parents I’ve seen online which makes it harder to connect with them.

I am trying to put together an autism resource page and get some of the autistic parents I’ve met to post over at Band Back Together so that we can form a community there. Perhaps there we can share our different perspectives and grow together. I think gathering in one place would be a good thing for all of us. I’ve never felt comfortable talking in great detail about my son here. I don’t know that I ever will. I’d be honored if you would come share with us over there.

Now, I am going to share some resources with you again.

Faces of Autism is a great resource for you.

US Asperger and Autism Association is another great source of information.

So, Pranksters, what would you tell a newly diagnosed parent?

And, if you’d like to talk about autism, I welcome in the post below, but now is the time to support this scared Prankster.

Autism. GO.

I brought you a new guest post today, Pranksters, so that I can spend today lazily writing up resources for Band Back Together on such light topics as “Rape!” and “Abuse!” I’m practically taking the day off, really. This is my home-slice LittleBig, and she’s fucking hilarious. Don’t forget your charity posts, yo.

————-

Recently Aunt Becky asked me to guest blog and several hours later when I regained consciousness I was almost bitten by a black widow. Coincidence? I think not. She made me an offer I can’t refuse.

I couldn’t fathom why she’d ask me to contribute until I realized she was probably needed time off to listen to her John C.Mayer albums. (Ed Note: I fucking hate you, slut) She’s doing recon to reveal his weak points. So far she’s uncovered the fact that this wonderland he keeps talking about is actually some sort of lame Euro-Disney.

Let me introduce myself: I’m a wife, mother and librarian living the agricultural center of California. My life is a glamorous mix of trying to make ends meet, surviving through an autoimmune disease, and savoring the small moments that make life worthwhile.

I took advantage of the fact I was interviewed by NPR to say ‘bird porn’ and ‘butt wiggle’ on the radio. My daughter is a year and a half and when I’m not playing outside with her I’m digging through bins of junk at the local thrift store. I love the thrill of tracking down good vintage items so much that in a former life I must have been a tomb raider.

I’m going to tell you a story about the time my house was invaded by bees. I wrote the original story in about two minutes so this version is revised somewhat. Why this specific story? Because if you know me then you know I get a ton of hits to my blog from people searching for “motherfucking wasp website.” That’s me! Your virtual source for angry hornets.

It started last year when Isobel was just two sweet weeks old. My sister, who was living with us at the time, noted that our 25lb cat Zorro was acting strangely, even for him, and she went into the kitchen to take a closer look.

SHE FOUND A BEE. IN MY HOUSE.

A BEE! IN MY HOUSE!

Zorro had stunned the poor thing and between the two of us and a shoe we managed to kill it.

Now, I like bees. In fact, I’d say I’m fond of bees and am keenly aware of their necessary role in our food supply. I’m worried about the loss of native pollinators in the Valley.

But I had a newborn baby in the house and I wasn’t taking any chances. How the bee got in my kitchen was a mystery. We don’t have window screens so we never open the windows for fear the cats would get out. The only thing that seemed to fit was the air vent in the ceiling. At the time we had a pest control service, so I immediately got on the phone and requested someone come over POST HASTE to fix our bee situation.

I explained that we had a newborn. I didn’t have to explain that I was on the edge.

As much as I loathe the idea of spraying poison around our yard we have something of a black widow problem. Our house sat vacant for a year before we moved in an black widows established so many colonies we had (a mourning? a murder? a poisoning?) a SHITLOAD of black widows. I’d find them daily, sometimes twice a day, whenever I went outside. We temporarily decided it was worth it to get pest control.

Our Very Nice Pest Man arrived and searched for an entrance. He sprayed and double-sprayed. He said that most likely the bees were getting in from the attic. He could spray there but we’d have to load up the baby and cats and be gone awhile. I was not happy with the idea of bug-bombing the place with a newborn, so we decided to wait.

After that first incident, our Bee Incidences died down.

Occasionally throughout that summer we’d noticed Zorro flipping out and we’d realize we had another bee in the kitchen. Zorro would either kill it for us or damage it and we’d finish it off with the fly swatter. I’d like to say right here, right now that our cat Zorro is THE BEST DOG EVER AND I LOVE HIM.

Once the weather started cooling down in October our Bee Incidences stopped altogether. Winter saved our home from insect invasion better than The Very Nice Pest Man could.

Winter passed, and summer rolled around again. But this time it was different.

WE FOUND WASPS.

MOTHERFUCKING WASPS!

IN MY MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE!

As horrible as the bees were, this was a million times worse.

Yellow Jackets.

Even the name makes me shudder.

Have you ever been stung by a Yellow Jacket?

Those bastards don’t die with the sting the way THOSE POOR SWEET BEES DO. Those bastards ARE SADISTS WHO ENJOY YOUR TERROR AND PAIN. They sting you OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Nobody is ever stung just once by a wasp. They are stung multiple times before the wasp flies off, FREE AND CLEAR, LIKE A HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER.

Wasps are terrorists.

Wasps are bullies.

And they were in our house.

We finally were able to determine (after much angst and hand-wringing, and multiple wasp-blows with a shoe) that they were indeed coming in through a vent. Perhaps they were coming in through our dilapidated roof, or perhaps they were coming in through our attic.

Either way, they were using the vent.

At this point we could no longer afford the services of The Very Nice Pest Man but I convinced Anthony that something needed to be done.

I was tired of these MOTHER FUCKING WASPS IN THE MOTHER FUCKING HOUSE.

He said, you’re right. Let’s go to the store.

At our local Hardware Supply Store we talked to a very understanding and sympathetic girl who was probably half my age.

What could she possibly know about wasps? I thought. She’s still learning the ways of the world!

She told us where we could not only get Yellow Jacket traps for the attic but also filters to physically block the vents that would still let air through.

I said, Thank you. We’ll take seven.

At this point we were averaging about four wasps per week which in my opinion is ten too many. This situation disturbed me so deeply I started having nightmares about it.

I’m happy to say that since Anthony installed the trap and layered our vents with filters we’ve had only one wasp issue, and that was because Anthony did not layer up one vent completely like I requested him to.

Since then we haven’t been troubled by wasps inside our house, but the experience has scarred me for life.

——————–

If you missed me, Your Aunt Becky (which, hi, you totally didn’t because I’m still laughing at this motherfucking post), here’s where I was this week.

HOW TO HAVE BETTER THE SEX. I bolded it because, well, obviously. Also, I had a troll tell me I was prude, so I motherfucking SHOWED HER.

I got interviewed over at Sex (SEE, NOT PRUDE) and the Single Dad.

My essay about my friend Stef is up over at The Drinking Diaries.

And holy shitballs, Band Back Together needs you. Yes you. Get your whore mouth over there. I know you have a story. So get your pants on (or off) and tell it.

Get your prank on, Pranksters. Time to Pull a The David Cook for charity. AND the chance to win free ice cream for a year from Cold Stone, yo (you can raffle that prize off if you win it).

——————

The weather in Chicago goes from ass-hot to ass-cold overnight which always leaves me frantically unprepared. I’ve always wanted to be one of those people* that stocks up on clothes for their crotch parasites for next year, and I’ve tried that a couple of times, only to put them “somewhere safe” (like the bathtub or the oven) and forget about them entirely. When I unearth these fossils, the clothes turn to dust in my hands.

Instead, I have to risk hypothermia by rushing out to the store in flippity-flops and a tank top, shivering and chattery, to grab fall-ish clothes. What, me prepared? NEVER.

(shut UP)

Last weekend, I made the same frantic chattery Target run, nearly losing some fingers (from hypothermia) in the process. My shopping list looked sort of like this:

• Uncrustables**
• Edamame
• Diet Coke
• Uncrustables
• Motherfucking Fall Clothes, moron.
• Uncrustables
• Diet Coke

I am not very inventive in my eating patterns, you see.

I’d also brought my daughter with me to pick out some “motherfucking fall clothes,” and I assumed that like her brothers before her, she’d simply sit in the cart and squawk indignantly at me while I dared stop moving for mere seconds at a time.

I sorely underestimated the flesh of my flesh. The blood of my blood. The clone of myself.

Where I’ve always just haphazardly picked out boy clothes for my sons, hoping like hell that I don’t pick them out lame shit, my daughter has an OPINION. Oh yes, at 19 months, she sat in the cart and like a wee dictator, and while her vocabulary leaves much to be desired, she made her likes and dislikes well known. By shrieking. And grabbing. And throwing things she hated onto the floor.

Her mother’s daughter. I beamed so proudly, even as I bore the Wrath of Amelia, which is kinda like the Wrath of Khan, only different because I don’t know who the fuck Khan is.

My daughter:

Sparkle, Sparkle Princess

Myself:

Aunt Becky, Whiny Pants

Okay, so I was more dramatical than my daughter appears ON CAMERA. She knows how to turn it off when it counts. Smart, smart girl.

Also: I’m fucked.

*I’ve also wanted to be a blond. Tried that once. Black hair + an angry gay hairstylist = fire-plug orange hair.

**I am not paid to endorse this most delicious food of the gods. Because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to say things like, “for something that sounds like an STD, it’s motherfucking DELICIOUS.”

When I was in NYC, I was invited to the Bloganthropy Dinner which was thrown for bloggers who use their blogs to make the world a better place. Clearly, they mixed me up with another Aunt Becky. Perhaps Uncle Jesse’s wife from Full House? Not certain. While I was there, I was entered into a raffle, and while they were announcing the winners, I prayed like hell that I wouldn’t win anything, because I need stuff like I need to lose more brain cells.

I totally won.

I won a prize generously donated by Cold Stone Creamery. Pranksters, I won free ice cream for an entire year. A YEAR of ICE CREAM. See, Cold Stone loves charity. I love charity, too (shut your face, Pranksters) and they’re a huge supporter of the Make A Wish Foundation.

CHARITY, FUCK YEAH.

September is Make A Wish Month, Pranksters, and if you go into Cold Stone September 30th between 5-8 PM, you get a free 3oz of Kate’s Creation. Kate’s Wish was to create the World’s Largest Ice Cream Social. Cold Stone? Made that happen. Turns out Cold Stone has been supporting Make A Wish foundation for years.

Ice Cream + Charity = WIN.

I’m highly uncomfortable accepting such a prize. SO, Pranksters, I’m giving it away. For charity. Originally, I was going to have you pull a John C. Mayer** for charity, but when I think “charity” I don’t think “John C. Mayer.” And I am remiss to give John C. Mayer any more publicity, especially since I have effectively won at Internetting. LOOK:

I Win At Internetting!

Last night, I asked The Twitter which celebrity we should choose as our charity mascot and the only person who got multiple votes was The David Cook. That’s handy, because, Pranksters, did you know that The David Cook was my best friend as a child?

Okay, so some of you may say that The David Cook is a common name, and perhaps this The David Cook who won American Idol Season 7 is not the SAME David Cook who was my playmate in the sandbox. Perhaps this “The David Cook” isn’t the same The David Cook whose father was my dentist. Perhaps “The David Cook” is such a common name that I had a hard time deciding how to name “The David Cook” for this prank as famous people named The David Cook are about a dime a dozen.

And you would be right.

Well, since The David Cook WAS my friend as a child, I have now decided that all people named “David Cook” are my BFF for life, which is highly unfortunate for everyone else besides my former BFF David Cook, named “David Cook,” (which, a handy Google search tells me, is a lot). Besides, The David Cook has a Twitter dog. And his Twitter dog and I are getting married.

According to The David Cook’s Wikipedia page, The David Cook does a lot of charity work, plus, since we’re fake BFF and all, I’m naming this prank after him.

For The Pulling a The David Cook for Charity Prank (I wonder if Urban Dictionary will allow us to enter this one, too):

We each choose our own charity to Pull a The David Cook on. We’re choosing a charity this time, not a celebrity.

Write a blog post about your charity.

Stuff it with the words, links and SEO phrases like we did for the original John C. Mayer post and aim to get our blogs on page 1 of Google for that charity.

If you don’t have a blog, you can write a public note on Facebook with the same rules.

I’m going to link back to the John C. Mayer post for more instructions for how to trick the Google algorithm. Let me know if you have any questions.

Link your blog post back here in the comment section and I will add it to the big mother-trucking post (that post hasn’t been written since I am still frantically looking for a charity of my own).

Stumble, Digg, tweet your posts. Because, obviously.

One entry per person, but you can Pull a The David Cook for charity as often as you’d like.

You have until noon CST on October 10 to get your posts up and entered into the Big Mother Trucking Post (will go up tomorrow).

Winner will be chosen via random number generator on October 11.

The aim is to bring some awareness to these charities, their mission, and hopefully in the process, make some connections. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard through you guys about some rad charity or resource out there I didn’t know existed.

Let’s use social media for powers of wicked awesome. Plus, the potential to win FREE ICE CREAM.

Let’s get our prank on, Pranksters.

Okay, and since I am not only annoying but stupid, too, I forgot to mention that if these charities are a good fit for Band Back Together will be added to the resource pages for the site. That’s a huge win for both the charities and for Band Back Together.

P.S. I need a charity to get behind for tomorrow’s post. HALP. ME.

Charity, Fuck Yeah.

**A brief history of the Pulling a John C. Mayer Prank. It began when I wrote a blog letter to John C. Mayer wherein I begrudgingly told him that after I’d spent many years waging war against him, I hated to admit that I found him witty, clever, and hilarious. I used his name about a gazillion times, for comedic value only, and realized in doing so, I’d inadvertently beaten out his website and Wikipedia page on Google.

THEN, we turned it into an Internet Prank. I taught everyone how to use SEO to beat Google’s algorithm and we targeted celebs to Pull a John C. Mayer on. It was amazingly full of the hilarious.

Normally the things that Your Aunt Becky rages against are things like “tofu bacon” (I mean, really vegetarians? Bacon is meaty and delicious. Just…give up the ghost and call it something else. I love tofu. Tofu is not bacon. It will never be bacon) and “thousand island dressing” (because if you had ever been a waitress and had to clean up hot thousand island dressing, which, I should tell you right now, MELTS, into oil and bits of…gross green things *gags* you would call it bullshit, too).

Occasionally, I’ll wage war against a random celebrity, like John C. Mayer, (who, I should tell you, I’ve been at war with since 2003, and this cease-fire I’ve called has left a big gaping John C. Mayer-like hole where John C. Mayer used to be) but really, I can’t get worked up about a whole lot. You have to be smart to get mad about stuff, and Pranksters, we know my IQ rivals boxes of rocks.

This weekend I went on a tear.

I was 29 shades of Furious George because I had been putting together a reference sheet about encephaloceles for Band Back Together and realized, once again, there’s fuck-nothing out there about them.

Now, for those of you not glued to my archives, my daughter Amelia was born with a previously undiagnosed encephalocele in January of 2009. An encephalocele is a nasty little neural tube defect (like spina bifida), only with encephaloceles, the skull, rather than the spinal cord, is the improperly formed bony structure, and in Amelia’s case, part of her brain developed outside of her head.

It’s about has hilarious as it sounds.

Obviously, she’s fine. She kicked that encephaloceles ass.

When I talk about the statistics we beat, it’s staggering to me. I can’t even wrap my mind around the infinitesimally minute minority we fall into without crying.

But what’s bothered me this whole time, besides the lingering PTSD and the unanswered questions about it all, is this: there’s nothing out there for other parents who sit on the computer, perhaps even prenatally diagnosed with some sort of encephalocele or neural tube defect, scared and alone.

I do mean nothing.

Oh sure, you can find some articles about encephaloceles from Children’s Hospitals. Some eMedicine artcicles about encephaloceles. Terrifying images of dead babies. Babies with horrible encephaloceles. The worst case scenario of what your baby could look like with an encephalocele is right there.

If you broaden your search to “neural tube defects,” you find more information. A number of spina bifida support groups. The Spina Bifida Association is an awesome resource and support group for parents of kids with spina bifida. Then again, spina bifida, a sister neural tube defect to encephalocele is one of the most common birth defects. Spina bifida affects 1/1,500 babies every year.

When I first started researching (I’m a researcher at the core of it all) encephaloceles after Amelia had her neurosurgery to correct her encephalocele, I had lumped all neural tube defects together. I had been wrong. I had thought that encephaloceles were much more common than they are.

Spina bifida affects 1 in every 1,500 babies a year.

Encephaloceles occur in 375 babies a year in the United States.

Not 1 in every 375 babies. Just 375 babies. That’s hardly any babies at all.

That’s why there are no support groups for parents of babies with encephaloceles. There’s no one running a website devoted to these particular neural tube defects (that I could find). There are no places to go when you’re scared and terrified and alone and shit, encephalocele is a fucking scary ass diagnosis. Look at the statistics. They’re grim.

Then, look at my daughter:

She’s not particularly grim. Unless, of course, you take away her cuppity-cake. Then she’ll cut a bitch.

Through some magic key, eventually if you search through enough pages about encephaloceles, you’ll find my blog. I know this, because I’ve met a couple of families who, when they’ve been diagnosed prenatally with an encephalocele, they’ve come by and talked to me.

It’s how I met my now-niece, Lily Grace (named in part, I should say, after my Amelia Grace), who is also kicking ass and taking names.

The gut-punch came this weekend, when I saw that in the searches for my new blog, the only thing besides some combination of “Band Back Together,” that people had searched for was “encephalocele – parenting.”

Okay, so that’s when my cold, black heart broke and I got good and motherfucking mad. I knew that someone was searching on the other side of a computer for something that does not yet exist. Some comfort. Some place that does not show you the horrors of a diagnosis that is not always horrible.

After I paced around the house, furious and upset, because Pranksters, that is motherfucking BULLSHIT, I realized that it was time. I’ve been slowly reaching out to people and asking them to contribute stories about neural tube defects to Band Back Together, because that’s a place to start.

I’m gathering research and I bought a domain. I have two partners. Lily Grace’s Mom, Nikki, and Katie. We all think it’s bullshit, too. It’s time to take action.

So, Pranksters, if you know anyone who has a story about Neural Tube Defects, please let us know. OR, you know, if you have some other full of the awesome ideas -like a dance party- let us know.

Or, you can just tell me something you think is bullshit. Because there are so many things that are bullshit out there. Like turkey bacon. And clowns. Clowns are totally bullshit.

(tomorrow, it’s Prank time. We’re gonna pull a John C. Mayer for charity)

Dear Pranksters,

I will ask you more about this tomorrow, but if you know of anyone who has a child with a neural tube defect, especially an encephalocele, will you please holler at me? Email, comments, carrier pigeon* WHATEVER.

There is much advocacy and work to be done. It’s time. I’m starting with gathering stories and information over at Band Back Together, but that’s not enough. It’s simply not. So we’ll start there.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I recently received an e-mail from my aunt stating that her and her family would be visiting my area sometime in the near future to be able to visit my family. She sent a list of places that she might be staying at and asked me to check them out.

I haven’t seen this lady since 1999 and speak to her on the phone about once a year. This is the first time I have heard of this visit and it appears I have no say in it.  How can I get across that I have no desire for her to visit without seeming too ungrateful and bitchy?  Should I just let the visit happen and suffer through it?  Help!

Oh Prankster, I like unwanted guests like I like head lice, which is kind like of an unwanted guest if you think of it. So, my suggestion is this: get head lice. No one likes lice. Even lice don’t like lice.

And if you want to be a better person than Your Aunt Becky, you could simply send her a list of things in the area that she can hint, hint, hint, do while she’s visiting, hint, hint, hint. Perhaps a nice meat-packing plant. Or a tour of a morgue? I mean, certainly there must be some awful attractions in your area that no one in their right mind would want to visit. I’d be showcasing those right about now.

Good luck, Prankster.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I have an overzealous mother-in-law who absolutely cannot stay out of our business.

How do you politely tell your Christian mother-in-law with her Christian dog and Christian friends to jump off the soapbox and quit meddling? She’s a closet Negative Nelly and it’s fucking making me insane. My husband is excellent at telling her where to shove her intel but she’s smart now and waits until he’s no longer in earshot to spew her poison.

Topics vary from parenting, finances, religion, anything she can turn into a argument. I am all for being respectful and polite but it’s getting to be hell. She loves to say I take her advice/comments/bible thumping judgments out of context but I am positive I am in the right here.

Advice?

Well, I had to check the email address on this one, Prankster, to see if I had, perhaps, sent this to myself in a Blueberry Vodka-induced haze, but since I require no email to send me a question, I am not sure that I am not answering myself here.

So, Prankster-that-might-be-Aunt-Becky, this is how I handle the lovely passive-aggressive-you’re-doing-it-wrong jabs that are often winged in my direction: I fling them right back. I gave up being polite awhile ago when I realized that it was my motherfucking house and I don’t allow bullies to bully me in my motherfucking house. You want to tell me my business? Go for it. From the street. I can’t hear that far, especially when I’m inside with the door firmly locked.

That’s the trick for passive-aggressive poo-flingers.

Now, if your mother-in-law is an arguer, I would simply turn cheek and jump on the computer/iPhone/Blackberry and tune her out. People who are convinced of their right-ness aren’t going to be dissuaded by you, nor should you expect them to be. You won’t win at her game, so don’t play it. She wants to tell you your business? Ignore her. A couple of conversations when all you say is: Yeah, mmmm-hmmm, you’re right, I am doing it wrong. Always.

And don’t let her get you alone any more, Prankster-that-might-be-Aunt-Becky. Let your husband handle her.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I’ve been dating a really great guy for almost 8 months now. Everything was going great, up until a few months ago.

I royally fucked things up when I was texting with an old guy friend. Things in our text message conversation, taken out of context, were really inappropriate and my man who saw the conversation later wasn’t too happy about it. We hashed things out and I thought the ordeal was over, however, he keeps bringing the issue up.

He says he can’t trust me anymore and doesn’t believe me when I tell him I love him. I understand that I screwed up but it seems that nothing I say can reassure my boyfriend that this is never going to happen again. Everybody messes up sometimes and I believe in second chances. I didn’t physically cheat on him or even “text cheat”.

I honestly have no idea what to do anymore or if the relationship is even salvageable at this point (which I really hope it is). I just can’t stand feeling like shit every single day over something that happened months ago.

Man, Prankster, I want to come and smack your boyfriend for you, and then give you a big fat hug, because you don’t deserve to be put through the wringer for this.

Here’s the thing: he’s got to move on from this. I get that he was hurt. I get why. It happens. Miscommunications happen all the time in relationships.

But the insecurity he’s still feeling over a little miscommunication right now isn’t fair to you. You’ve explained the situation, you’ve apologized and he needs to move on. If he can’t move on from this, maybe it’s time for you to move on. The stress you’re under has got to be horrible and that’s just not fair to you.

Maybe it’s time to sit down and have another real heart-to-heart about this. Explain that he’s got to let go of his insecurities and trust you or this relationship just can’t work. Relationships are founded on trust. He cannot keep beating you up for something that happened so long ago. You deserve better.

I wish you luck, Prankster.

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I’d intended to shout this out on Friday, but I got distracted by my microwave.

My friend Anna, who is a smart fucking blogger, has written a how-to guide for making money from your blog. And? It’s free. That’s a total win, Pranksters.

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As always, Pranksters, please pick up where I left off in the comments. And feel free to submit your burningest questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky on the top of the site.

*What the fuck is a carrier pigeon?

Whenever I sit down to write about blogging, I have to be physically restrained from getting up and banging my head against the wall. It’s just not my thing. But, I get asked about increasing website traffic frequently enough that it appears that enough of you want to rifle through my mostly vacant brain cavity for blogging tips. Now you can see just how little I know about the blogging phenomenon.

(I do know that almost all of the articles about how to increase website traffic aren’t written by bloggers, which seems like bullshit)

1) Good content is probably the most important thing to running a successful blog. The blogging world used to have like 5 blogs in it, but now every time Dooce goes on Oprah, 6 million people decide that they’re going to make a million dollars by being a blogger like Dooce. To stand out from the rest of the people who start to blog (and then abandon it when they realize it actually IS work), you must have good quality content to keep your readers coming back.

It’s the simple law of supply and demand. Be an interesting blogger and stop being afraid of being yourself. The world is full of boring beige blogs or worse, blogs that are trying to be just like someone else. Be authentic. Be yourself.

2) SEO (as we learned in the pulling a John C. Mayer experiment), for personal blogs, may not be as effective as it is for business blogs. If I stuffed a post full of “vodka,” for example, and got to #1 on Google Search, everyone who finds my blog is going to be mighty annoyed that I am not selling vodka.

Plus, stuffing your blog full of keywords makes your stories read stilted and awkward. Right John C. Mayer?

I don’t use SEO on my blog. I know other bloggers do. I don’t.

3) Make friends. Comment. Connect with other people. Friends will be your loyal readers.

4) Offer your readers as many ways as possible as to subscribe to and read your blog.

• Get a Twitter account to hook up with your blog and use it to tweet as well as occasionally announcing when you’ve written a new post. If you only post links, many people won’t follow you because they will think you are a spam account.

• If you’re not afraid of hooking your blog up with your Facebook profile, syndicate your feed through Facebook.

• Post a clearly visible RSS button at the top of your blog so that people can easily subscribe to your blog.

5) Be wary of constant self-promotion as a means of driving readers to your blog. It’s one thing to post your links on Facebook and Twitter, but it’s another thing to constantly barrage your readers with requests to promote you. Once in awhile, asking for some promotion is a good thing, because often people don’t think of advertising this awesome blog that they read. But I caution you that you will quickly lose readers if you are constantly emailing your readers asking for links, re-tweets (a Twitter thing), and promotion.

I had someone I didn’t even know on Twitter say something to the effect of, “Wow, didn’t realize you were a big deal on Twitter. Can you promote my blog?”

I’m sure that kind of thing works sometimes, but I find it tacky. I’ll help out my Pranksters, sure, but come the fuck on.

6) Keep an up-to-date blogroll*. Everyone likes to be on a blogroll, and I know it’s probably SO 2006, but I still use blogrolls to find new blogs.

7) Submit posts to StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, and any of the other bookmarking sites that I don’t know about because I am lazy and often forget to do this. I need to do this more.

8) The Internet loooooves The Dramaz. You’ll get some more traffic when you have drama. But, like the SEO stuff, when the drama dies down, the traffic does, too.

*which reminds me that I need to update mine. If you have a blog that is NOT on my blogroll because I am a lazy sack of poo, send an email to aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com with BLOGROLL in the subject line. Please, email me about it, don’t leave the information in a comment, or I may become even more confused than normal and my head might explode.

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So, Pranksters, what do you know about blogging that I’ve left off of my pathetically small list?

368: times people have searched for “John C. Mayer” and found my blog.

3: page number on Google for my blog when you search for “john c mayer.”

4: page number on Google for Urban Dictionary entry “Pulling a John C. Mayer” when you search for “john c. mayer.”

0: Times I made it to #1 for Google Search “John C. Mayer.”

Too Many To Count: Times I was pleased by my Pranksters ability to get to #1 by pulling a John C. Mayer.

1: Conference I was supposed to fly to Assville, North Carolina for (Type A Mom) this week.

0: Conferences I am actually attending this week.

45: times I’d planned to gorge on Chick-Fil-A while in the South as we Northerners do not have this tasty and delicious treat.

Too Many To Count: Calories I am saving by not eating Chick Fil A.

1: Dates I settled upon for Vegas to make up for my decided lack of travel this week.

11: weekend of December that I am inviting you, my Pranksters, to Vegas to celebrate my fake birthday.

0: Times I have been to Vegas

Infinity: Times I will beg you to come with me to Vegas so that I may get suitably wasted in front of an entire cadre of people who can then document my dumbass-ness on The Internet.

43: Times I will sing ‘Vivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Viagra‘ while in Vegas with you until you tell me to shut my whore mouth.

172: Posts published so far on Band Back Together. In a week and a half. (there are many in the editing queue)

55: Posts published so far on Mushroom Printing. In two months. (there are many in the editing queue)

1,105: Posts published on Mommy Wants Vodka….in 6 years.

1: times this week Amelia has taken off her diaper and finger-painted her entire body with poo.

1: new word she learned from the experience: “EWWWWWWW.”

98: times I’ve wondered if my 9-year old is a teenager already.

98: times my 9-year old has stomped around the house when I’ve dared to ask such things as, “have you had a bath yet?”

0: naps Alex has had this week.

5: naps Alex had last week at this time.

87.3: extra pots of coffee I have had since Alex has stopped napping.

98,766: times I have considered changing my name and moving to another state.

1: times I’ve been called a prude. Ever.

6,483,986: times I’ve laughed about being called a prude.

1: times I’ve been told I should “kill myself.”

4,827,474: times I’ve laughed about that, too.

1: post I will write tomorrow about driving traffic to your site to save my fingers from typing it in an email ever again. Won’t SOMEONE think of my poor, poor fingers!?!

Too Many To Count: times I will feel douchy blogging about blogging.

0: times I have said, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!!”

0: times I have wanted to crochet a platitude on a pillow.

0: times I have wanted to crochet, period.

0: times I have found a platitude helpful.

81, 768,330, 912, 875, 031: times I have wanted to punch someone who uses platitudes squarely in the taco.

1: Full Moon last night. PHEW.

1: ridiculously huge gift card that I’d won that I’m going to give away next week in some sort of John C. Mayer style prank.

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How’s your week, Pranksters?