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.

—————–

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.

——————

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.

—————–

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.

—————-

How’s your week, Pranksters?

Dear The Makers Of Cialis:

Can I call you Eli Lilly and Company? I hate to be so informal without the pleasure of having met you personally, but I feel like I know you already. I mean, you’ve put commercials of old people with boners in bathtubs onto my television for years causing me to think of old men peen for the rest of the day, which makes me feel as though I do know you, Eli Lilly and Company. We’re practically Christmas Card friends, now, aren’t we?

I get it now, Eli Lilly and Company, I do. If I had erectile dysfunction, I’d probably never enjoy sitting in the middle of the forest in a bathtub holding hands. If I had erectile dysfunction, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to stroll in fields of wheat (or is it barley? I tried to scour the Internet for answers, but no one could tell me if erectile dysfunction = strolling in wheat OR strolling in barley. I feel like you should inform us of the proper fields to stroll through with our limp penises, Eli Lilly and Company). I also now know, thanks to your informative commercial, that if I had erectile dysfunction, I would never, EVER take a whimsical bicycle ride for two through a cobbled street.

These, Eli Lilly and Company, are all things I now know about erectile dysfunction.

These are also things my nine-year old son now knows, too. When he asks me, “Mom, what’s erectile dysfunction?” I simply tell him that it’s some confusing thing involving roving bathtubs in forests. He seemed satisfied, although he may have a life-long fear of roaming claw-foot bathtubs. I’ll send you the therapy bills, Eli Lilly and Company.

What I need to know, Eli Lilly and Company, is how one should call their doctor for erections lasting more than 36 hours because that seems, well, a little awkward, don’t you think?

Receptionist: “Hello, thank you for calling Your Doctor.”

Erection Guy: “I’ve had an erection lasting for 36 hours!”

Receptionist: “You’re a perv.” *hangs up* *files restraining order*

You see, Eli Lilly and Company, how this could be a little awkward for all parties.

I nearly called my own doctor to see if I could get a prescription for this Cialis, as I wouldn’t mind a leisurely bath in the forest (I do not have the same roving bathtub fear as my son), if only to get away from the short people who insist upon whining, “MOOOOOOOMMMMM,” every 2.3 seconds, until your actors, pretending to engage in a personal conversation with me (ME!) said that, “Cialis is not right for everyone.”

Well. Now. Talk about a bait-and-switch!

So, Eli Lilly and Company, I’m going strap on my black leather motorcycle jacket and join my friends in a guitar circle singing, “Vivaaaaaaaaaaaaa Viagra.”

Yours Always,

Aunt Becky

People who use “alot” rather than “a lot” will be banished to a small island where they will be forced to listen to the collective works of Captain and Tennile until they can demonstrate that they know that “a lot” is not, has never been, and never will be one motherfucking word.

Comic Sans will be banned to the alot island for being the stupidest looking fucking font, ever.

The commercial that begins “I have genital herpes….and I don’t!!” will be burned for all of the times it’s made me choke on my breakfast cereal because I then had to spend the rest of the day thinking about diseased genitals. STD’s aren’t something we should be ashamed of. Commercials that make me think of weeping sores are.

People who write blogs like Mommy Wants Vodka shall be exiled to star in erectile dysfunction commercials.

Any commercial that tells me to “have a happy period” should be forced to donate all profits to women’s shelters around the world. No one has a “happy period.” Even all those times I was like, “WOO HOO! GOT MAH PERIOD! I’M NOT KNOCKED UP!” It lasted for .04 seconds until I was all, “oh…my period. Ew.”

The word “Hubby” will be banished from the English Language for being too cutesy and making me nauseous.

All email programs will come with a Passive-Aggressive filter, and any that have a passive-aggressive tone will be immediately sent to cyber trash.

The Braggy Facebook Status Offenders shall be banished to MySpace.

The DMV will stop requiring a goat, three pails of milk and a kidney to renew your driver’s license.

All government employees will have to be polite and courteous or they will have their sassy mullets shaved as punishment.

Naptime shall be mandatory for every single person, every day of the week.

Pants will be optional.

Narcotics shall be manufactured to be non-addictive.

Anyone who regularly uses corporate speak with buzz-words shall be banished with the “alot” people to the very same island.

Mayonnaise* and thousand island dressing shall be napalmed off the planet for being an abomination.

Random ZOMBIE ATTACK! Drills shall be practiced.

The entertainment industry will stop making vampire-related movies and television shows. The trend is kinda played out, people.

Email programs will come with a “translate” feature allowing you to translate your email into:

• Zombie

• Pirate

• LOL! Cats

• Porn Speak

• Old Englishe

• Hipster

• Hippie

• Cheech and Chong

Richard Simmons shall be the national mascot.

Gladiators will make a fierce comeback.

Apple will make all of its products affordable to everyone.

All internet reference sites will have to be reputable with credible sources used as references for any statements said as facts.

People will stop arguing about breast v bottle feeding because they will finally realize that it’s really fucking boring.

APA format will be blown off the scholastic map. Or an actual reference guide will be invented.

*You Lovers of Mayo win. I won’t ban it.

——————

Your turn, Pranksters. What will you mandate when YOU rule the world?

John C. Mayer, you are providing the Internet with more happiness than I’d ever thought possible from someone who emotes to his guitar and writes songs about wonderlands and bodies and previously made Aunt Becky want to vomit. I hope that you know, John C. Mayer, that in the minds of 95% of people I know, John C. Mayer, you and I will be forever linked. That, John C. Mayer, is your legacy. Apparently, it is mine, too.

I only wish, John C. Mayer, that I had chosen a better, more douchy target to use for Pulling a John C. Mayer, like Dave Matthews, whom I still hate with the fire of a thousand flaming STD’s. Because the more I think about you, John C. Mayer, the more I really do like you.

So, Pranksters, we’re still going strong with the John C. Mayering of the Internet. How could we not? (I’m still adding posts to the original John C. Mayer call for posts page, so please, leave comments, links and track-backs if you have not).

—————-

I’ve gotten a couple of nervous comments about the new site, Band Back Together, and I wanted to make sure that you knew, Pranksters, that you are personally invited by me, Your Aunt Becky, to write there. A lot of the submissions that we’ve received thus far have been of stories that are very tragic and heartbreaking and I’m proud to have them over there as I think that the site is going to do so much good.

But.

I want you to know that even if your problems, your stories, don’t feel like they stack-up, and you don’t feel like they are as important as the ones you have read, you are wrong. I cannot begin to tell you how wrong you are.

Because you never know who is on the other end of that Google box, searching desperately for someone to connect with, someone who may have exactly the same problem that you face, and whether or not it’s “stacking up” against someone else, that’s not going to matter at all to the person on the other end.

And frankly, it doesn’t matter to anyone else either. This isn’t a Pain Olympics. There’s no judgment of who is more worthy of our sympathy and support. There’s no prize for Saddest Story.

We want your stories. We want you.

We’re none of us alone, remember. That includes you, not just the person who is deeper in the shit than you may be. Please, stop worrying about whether or not you deserve to be on the site because if you feel like you want to be there, you already belong there.

There’s light in every word, every single word you write, and somewhere, someone is reading what you say. You never know who is connecting with you and who you are helping when you open that blank document and start typing out your story. If one person – one single person – reads one post on the entire site and decides to get help, feels less alone, or makes a positive step, you know what?

We’ve done something good.

And there’s no way of measuring which post that is. It may be the one floating around your head. The one you’re afraid to write because you don’t think it’s enough. It is enough, Prankster.

So GO. And Write Hard, my Pranksters. Believe me, we want your stories. All of them. Old stuff, new stuff, any stuff you want to give us. We want you.

And while you’re there, please, pass on the word about the site.

———————–

Friday, I sold my car.

Not my Honda Odyssey or my CR-V, but my Acura.

I’d been meaning to sell it for years. It’s been sitting in the garage, unused, since Alex was born. It was impractical for driving my two crotch parasites around. Shoving three of them in there was laughable.

But this was more than a car for me.

I am a wanderer. This car was my lifeline.

Nights when I couldn’t sleep, it was me and my red car, nothing but endless black sky above and the road slipping by under my wheels, the hum of the engine keeping me company as I shifted seamlessly from second to third, third to fourth and finally fourth to fifth gear. The car and I were one.

The discs in my CD changer would flip quietly to the next as they each finished their set and we’d drive on into the night, wandering. Just me on my red horse. The nights were silent then, peaceful, the green glow of the dashboard my only company as the wheels turned on and on, the road whispering, beckoning, just a little further, kid, what’s down here, let’s take this right, you haven’t been here before.

I had a baby. Another. Yet another. The nights were complicated, full of colicky babies and ghosts. My car cried from the garage, come on kid, let’s go out, let’s take the night back, reclaim it for our own, let’s wander, just you and me, for old time’s sake. I’m gassed up and ready for you, kid, and you need me. I know it.

And I did. I still do.

That life, I miss that life more than anything. The wanderer is in my bones. Staying home, being Mommy, that’s something I do, but it’s not what my soul cries for at night, when the hours yawn on, the numbers on the clock seem to stand still and the road beckons me like a siren.

The van is a van. The CR-V is a truck. They won’t know me. They can’t wander. They don’t hug the road like a tight red dress, screaming with pleasure as I power-shift from second to fourth. They’ll never beg me hey kid, take the long way or go down that road down that way just to see what’s down there.

Eventually, I’ll get another car and I’ll start wandering again. I can’t deny myself forever; it’s in my blood.

The red car went to someone who will love it and for that I am happy. But my heart, my heart is sad.

It still longs to wander.

————

I finally got the links to my Ford Story: What Women Want interview, and it’s up over here, at We Know Awesome, if you want to take a listen. If I sound douchy, blame John C. Mayer and the tornado.

Pranksters, we’re still pulling a John C. Mayer on the Internet and it’s beyond successful. Google John C. Mayer and look at the first couple of pages. Since we got the term “Pulling a John C. Mayer” in Urban Dictionary, the whole Pulling A John C. Mayer prank is spreading like crazy. So keep on pranking, Pranksters. We’re going to keep on keeping on. HILARIOUS.

@mommywantsvodka on Twitter if you are Pulling a John C. Mayer (also: whomever is running #Pulling A John C Mayer on Twitter is hilarious) so that I can add you to THAT list, and I’ll add more of your blogs to the list of people who have been John C Mayer-d.  Clicking those links are good for SEO. Also: if you have a Digg account (I’m Mommywantsvodka), try and go through and Digg all of the posts that have been submitted.

Okay, ONTO Go Ask John C. Mayer!

Go Ask John C. Mayer

Hi Aunt Becky- John C. Mayer,

Thank you so much for posting my question to you regarding how the hell you managed with a little one in the hospital, etc. I am overwhelmed with the outpouring of support, thoughts and prayers from you and your Pranksters. I really want everyone to know (and you, of course!) that I am truly, TRULY thankful for all of their love and support. I just can’t figure out how the hell to say it! So, “thank you!” to you and to them. You have all touched our hearts.

Also the blog is at:  prayersforjillian.blogspot.com

I did a happy dance when I got this email. Thank you Prankster for coming back! My Pranksters really are the best people on the Internet, aren’t they? Without them, I wouldn’t have made it through Amelia’s first weeks. That’s not a question. We’ll be praying for you, love, and your sweet baby Jillian.

We’d love to have you over at Band Back Together, too, if you’d like to share more over there. I think you’d really find a good home there.

Much love,

AB

Dear John C. Mayer,

I am a writer and a photographer. My first DSLR was stolen (maybe by John C. Mayer) around Christmas and my boyfriend bought me a new camera to replace it. I thought he understood that the photographs I take are not just pictures to me, they are things I create, that are part of me. They are my passion.

So, this past weekend, I took some photographs (not pictures, not snapshots, photographs) of his daughter’s birthday celebration. I have also taken photographs of his son at motor cross races this summer.

Monday morning I discover that the photographs I had taken of his children were now posted on his FB page – without giving any credit to me for them. Without asking me if he could use them. Without telling me he was using them. And without apology.

Now, I don’t care that he put them on his FB page. They are photographs of his children. I am not saying he needed my permission to use them. I would have had no problem with any of this at all if he had just given me a heads-up about it first.  My photographs; my camera.

He figures he bought the camera so he has unlimited access to the camera and everything on it without having to ask at all.  It’s his, he owns it since he paid for it. His exact text message?  “I don’t believe this shit. Fuck you. I don’t have to ask. Those were of me and my kids and again I paid for the damn thing.  Come get the rest of your shit.”

When I told him my photographs are like my writing to me, I create both, he told me “That’s just ridiculous.” I feel as if he’s calling me, my photography, and my writing all ridiculous and stupid. Now, I have no desire to ever pick up that camera ever again because he was so flip about it.

Then my blog, which I’ve had since before I met him, got brought up into it as well. He’s never said anything about it, but now apparently his “friends” are all offended at what I write about him on my blog.  So now, he’s taking that away from me as well.

My passions, my safe places, my creative outlets have been tarnished and violated and destroyed in my eyes.  I have no where to go.

Am I wrong here?  Did I overreact?  Help.

Oh Prankster, it’s hard when you feel like your safe haven is violated, which is how I feel whenever I get a internet mole person (until John C. Mayer and I tell them to shut their whore mouth), and that feeling isn’t fun.

Let me guess, your boyfriend is not a creative-type, is he? Because creative people, like John C. Mayer, might understand where you are coming from. But since he’s not creative like John C. Mayer, you’re probably not going to make him understand where you’re coming from. The best you may get is that he’ll never take your photos without asking again because that means something to you.

And if you never want to use the camera again, well, that’s your call.

It’s hard, Prankster, to get over that violation of your creative space feeling whenever it happens, but you have a few options:

a) get a new blog to write on. Sure, it’s annoying to change URL’s and be all stealthy, but you know, if knowing people who are upset with what you write are reading you prevents you from writing, that’s that.

2) Go password protected. Pass out the password to your readers and John C. Mayer ahead of time and there you have your space! Peachy!

5-9er) Pull An Aunt Becky (John C. Mayer) and realize that haters be hatin’ and sooner or later, you have to come to terms with the fact that people who actually know you (versus anonymous internet mole people) and dislike you will read your blog and think mean things about you while they read it. They make even *gasp* MOCK you while they read it, but never, ever John C. Mayer, because he is a gentleman. You get used to it, I promise.

c) Let them win and stop all creative endeavors forever and ever.

John C. Mayer and I wish you luck, Prankster.

Dear Aunt Becky, John C. Mayer,

Six years ago I went through a Very Bad breakup with my high school sweetheart during our first semester of college. His parents decided that we weren’t going to be together anymore and yanked him out of the college we were both attending to send him to a different one.  We tried to stay in touch for a while, but it just went downhill from there.  It was truly one of the darkest periods of my life (my whole identity had become wrapped up in him and us).  Shortly after breaking up with him, I met my (now) husband.  We’ve been married for two and a half years, more or less happily (thanks, recession!).

I just found out that The Ex is back at the college for grad school.  I’m still local and I actually spotted him yesterday (he didn’t see me)(I’m not a stalker, he was walking away from the restaurant we were eating at)(shut up).

So basically, I’m still pretty fucked up about how the whole breakup went down.

I’m in therapy, but practically, what do I do?  I’m not sure I can take the whole “you may bump into him” every time we go into town, living not knowing how that encounter will go (my money’s on Not Well).  Should I get in touch with him just so it’s not a surprise to anyone?  I don’t know if he knows I’m still around.  How do I not make my husband crazy by being all stupid about my ex showing up?

Thanks,
Totally Not a Stalker (Promise)

Oh Prankster, I think we all have The One That Got Away, like John C. Mayer, don’t we?

I even have the outfit picked out (a vinyl catsuit!) that I’ll be wearing when I happen to run into him! I’ll be dressed as Cat Woman, which John C. Mayer likes, and he’ll be dressed like a homeless person. In all actuality, when I run into him, I’ll be wearing track pants and a ratty t-shirt and fresh from the gym so that I’ll smell like I just rolled in dog poo.

I may actually be mistaken for dog poo by other piles of dog poo.

He’ll probably be wearing an Armani tux. Like John C Mayer!

But the thing is, I’m not actually hung up on it. I’m genuinely over it and I don’t give a shit what I look like when I run into him. Unlike, of course, John C. Mayer.

It sounds like you have unresolved issues that you need to address with your past relationship and I think you need to take a hard look at what you hope to accomplish by reaching out to him. What’s the best case scenario? And the worst? I’m all for pulling out the skeletons in your closet and making them dance, but John C. Mayer and I want to make sure that you’re not setting yourself up for some major problems in your present.

Talk to your therapist and explain that you have unresolved issues. You don’t need to be skulking around and hiding from your ex, but you do need to be ready, I absolutely agree. And your husband needs to be ready, too. Your husband is your future and with the help of your therapist, and your husband, I’d bet that you can come up with a game plan.

Maybe reaching out first is a good idea, but not without those two completely aware of what’s going on. And maybe all you need to do is make a phone call to say “hey, I’m in town, don’t be surprised to see me” and nothing more than that.

I wish you luck, Prankster. It’s hard to face up to your skeletons and John C. Mayer and I commend your bravery.

——————–

As always, Pranksters, please fill in where John C. Mayer and I left off in the comments.