When I say that I’m a “big fan” of music, it conjures up the most delicious image of a gigantic fan, perhaps with a whimsical image of Your Aunt Becky in full geisha gear, doing something graceful and womanly painted on there. Then I giggle and forget what I’m saying because I’m on TOPAMAX, man, and that shit is BAD NEWS and I can barely remember your name, let alone what I was laughing at.

Anyway, for as long as my kid, Benner, has been alive, I’ve made him listen to music.

When he was a screamy baby, it was the only thing that kept me from driving off a cliff while he wailed on in the backseat (let’s just PRETEND I live somewhere besides the Midwest, where there actually MIGHT be cliffs). Later, it was one of the things that comforted him and soothed the savage beast within him when nothing else–save for his beloved Jupiter–could.

Never mattered what it was, could have been a commercial jingle, the kid would stop what he was doing, and start dancin’. Out of nowhere, I’d warble, “you could be dannnnccciiiinnnng” and he’d immediately stop, and start bouncing up and down. Which if you’re related to me, is dancing.

Don’t believe me? Go to BlogHer, or another place where I’ll be in front of a DJ and watch Your Aunt Becky dance. I call it The White Girl Shuffle, but really, white girls everywhere should be pretty mad at me for calling it that because it disgraces their name.

So the kid, he’s always been around music. And because I’m sort of Rainman WITH music, I’m always muttering the name of the song and who it is by to him. Like, he’ll be in the backseat listening serenely and I’m driving and out of nowhere I’ll scream, “SUPERTRAMP, GOODBYE STRANGER!!! MEMORIZE IT, BEN!”

If nothing else, the kid is going to be wicked good at bar trivia some day and probably scared of loud noises. He’ll thank me, I’m certain.

Music is the one thing we could agree on. Actually, it’s the only thing we agree on.

For years, the kids has been rejecting me. He preferred his crib to his mother, then his planets. Once he got his autistic spectrum diagnosis, I will admit that I was relieved because you know what Pranksters? It proved that the issue wasn’t with me. I wasn’t a bad mother (okay, maybe I was, but not for the reasons you’d think) and I cannot tell you the weight that was lifted off of me.

So music, I loved music too. Anyone who loved music as voraciously as I did is someone that I could love very, very much. Furthermore, it was someone who I could get along with quite well.

And so we do. He took up the violin when he was 6, took a year off when he changed schools, and is now back in the orchestra playing the violin. Yesterday, we went to his second concert.

I sat back in the hushed auditorium where I used to play my own concerts (I was a cellist), my seat-back assailed by a thousand tiny kicks from the turdlick behind me and I watched as my son took his seat. First chair, first violin.

That’s like watching your kid become quarterback.

My heart swelled with pride and I beamed ear to ear. I almost got up and announced to the packed auditorium, “Hey fuckers, that’s MY kid in first chair,” but I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. Especially Ben.

I sat there, glowing, and while I nearly passed out as the person in front of me farted and the turd behind me kicked my chair repeatedly, the orchestra of 300 third graders played Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I’ve heard it countless times before, and while never quite so…discordant, it was beautiful.

Mostly because it was MY son, MY kid up there in the first chair, doing me proud.

There we were, on the same page at last. My son and I.

When he wins his Bar Trivia Trophy, I’m betting he’ll want to dedicate it to me, too. Because, really, what barfly doesn’t want to destroy all chances of getting laid by commemorating their crowning achievement to their mother? I guess I’ll have to start clearing out room for his future trophies now.

Maybe The Daver can start sleeping in the garden.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Pranksters, but since I’ve been blogging since Jesus was my classmate, I’ve noticed that the climate of blogging has changed. My friends have noticed this too. I was at a conference (last year) and they were talking about the Word of Mom advertising being the new It Thing because that’s who people believed now. Like, no one believed The Man, people believed The Mom.

Who the fuck blames them?

Anyway, that, of course, trickled down into blogging and I started to see PR blogs popping up. Then Sponsored Tweets appeared in my timeline (aka: “Come and try Standee’s* burgers!! They’re full of the awesome! #spon) and now pretty much every business has a Facebook page. Facebook, I have to laugh, used to be only open to COLLEGE students, and now I can keep up with what Crest toothpaste is doing (love their whitestrips by the way. No, that’s not sponsored, I just do.).

So last year, the FTC insisted that we bloggers maintain TRANSPARENCY when we talk about products that we were given which made me laugh until I nearly choked, not because it was far-fetched for OTHER people, but because seriously? NO ONE EVER GAVE ME DICK.

But that annoyed me because then suddenly I felt like I couldn’t possibly talk about something that I did happen to like (like my L’Oreal Eye Lifting Cream)(SO not sponsored), for fear of sounding like I was Shilling out to the Man. Which, let’s face it once more, no one ever sends me stuff to review probably because they’re afraid of me.

I’m asked more often than you’d think why I blog and the answer is simple: because I love to. To me, it’s not really about the subscribers or the page views or wacky search terms (although whomever is searching for “david cook nude,” back the fuck off my husband, yo), although I love knowing that my blog, my labor of love, is growing because I put a lot of work into it.

I remain slightly bewildered by this new blogging world order where I am supposed to stick to a strict 400-600 word count (because people TIRE of reading anything longer!) and break it up by SEO search term paragraph headers.

You know what that would look like, Pranksters? It wouldn’t be readable, that’s for sure. It would look like a fucking monkey hammered it out, and while I am certainly not winning a smart people contest unless I sit on the contestants, I take my writing seriously enough to care how it looks and how it reads. If that means Google search crawlers won’t direct people here, I don’t give a shit.

If I am also following the PR guidelines, I should take out all terms like this (and feel free to add more in the comments):

*fuckwad

*assbag

*venereal disease

*scrote

*fuckbag

*chesticle

*sweater kitten

*banana hammock

*funbags

*breasticles

Because while I would love for my smiling face to end up on national television–without having committed a mass murder–I also would like to keep my integrity about myself. I’d rather remain true to myself and my blog and my band of Merry Pranksters.

I read most of your blogs and I know that all of you blog with the same sense of integrity about what you do and that is why you’ll succeed. People can spot a phony a mile away which is why the Word of Mom advertising is going to fail as The Word of The Man advertising did.

So the climate of blogging may have changed, but I have faith that those of us who blog as we are and blog because we must, those of us will continue to do as we’ve always done. I have faith that this will be what sets us apart.

Maybe we can all get a big blogging house and live together like Three’s Company. Except it’ll be like, “7,000’s Company.” I’ll be the dude. Heh. Then I can finally pee standing up. SPEAKING OF THAT. I have to get The Daver to put the final touches on the community site and do a dramatical unveil.

P.S. The community site will be Full of The Awesome because you can ALL POST THERE. Like your own blog posts.

P.P.S. Can I please be the dude?

P.P.P.S. What do you think about blogging, Pranksters? Hit me up in the comments, yo.

*that’s for you, Pashmina.

Back when I had a life that could be documented in things beyond “seasons,” I took ridiculous amounts of pictures of myself doing bizarre things with my friends. I also threw outrageous parties, got drunk a lot and took more pictures of questionable quality. In short, my life was pretty much full of The Awesome.

Only problem was, I managed to somehow throw away the photo album that documented a lot of my more ridiculous times and while I don’t normally care about things, beyond my iPad, iPhone, iMac and Britney Spears Singles collection, I mourned this heavily. I had no digital copy of these exploits and my friends, while full of the awesome, had no copies of these pictures either.

So while I could TELL you that I did hilarious, nefarious things, I could also tell you that I’m really British royalty and then I could try to sell you shit.

Probably the best thing my mom has given me in years was a box of crap that we’d thrown in her basement years ago when we moved. In it was a couple of framed pictures, including one of me looking like I was about to have sex with a cup of Diet Coke (which, I mean, could be taken today), a picture of Ben in diapers, and an old wedding magazine.

At the very bottom, was my photo album: Aunt Becky, The Lost Years!

I nearly cried, except for crying is really lame and pointless, so instead I hid and looked at the pictures and marveled at how fun my life used to be.

Like this trip to Mexico that I took with my friend Jessica. We were both waitresses at the same place, and she was like the little sister I never had. She’d somehow managed to convince me to go onto a Party Bus and this was the Night Before Shot, taken right before I’d somehow found a cabbie to take us home.

See, she was so beyond drunk because she was 18 and thrilled that she could drink as much as she wanted that I couldn’t even count on her to help me find our crappy hotel, so I had to pool our money and find us a cab. Trouble was, I don’t think we had enough money and the cabbie probably put a hex on us because we were so annoying. Actually, I don’t remember getting into our room at all. Hm.

The Night Before.

And this was the Morning After Picture, right before we went down to the pool to start slamming tequila again. Hair of the Dog, baby.

Clearly, we are sexy broads. You know you want us (also: so much for the theory that bloggers only post very flattering pictures of themselves) to come over and drink your booze and then wake up in your bed looking like THAT. HA.

Now I can manage that same look WITHOUT having been wasted the night before. THANK YOU, my children. THANK YOU.

—————–

I share my most humiliating story over at Toy With Me today. It’s a doozy. You’d better come hold my hand, yo.

It’s pretty safe to say that no one thinks that I’m very bright. I mean, I routinely give myself the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness just for existing, but after admitting that I have been inadvertently getting myself loaded in the morning WITHOUT REALIZING IT, I don’t think I’ll be winning any sorts of genius competitions. Mostly because I don’t know that there ARE any genius competitions, and let’s face it, if I knew of any, I’d just drive by and whip donuts at the contestants.

I’d like to blame it on my almond-extract-spiked-coffee, but really, this weekend, it’s actually just that I am that stupid.

So I’m going on this cruise, right? And I knew that I had a passport because I’m all wordly and shit, but I neglected to actually see if my passport was up-to-date. Turns out, it expired two months ago. Just realized it, yo.

Well, no worries, Pranksters, I can get use my birth certificate, right? Well, apparently I was dropped onto this planet by a mother-ship because no one actually has a physical copy of the record of my birth. So I rushed around like an asshole this morning and had to beg Lake County, IL to send me brand new copies certifying that I was, in fact, born of this world.

*crosses fingers wildly*

This weekend was The March of Dimes March for Babies, (not to be confused with the March ON Babies, which would be a completely different kind of march) and I’ve been looking forward to it since last year. I would have marched then, but I was kind of a quivering mass of Jello and I could barely organize myself to walk to the bathroom, let alone walk for babies.

But I’m not really a “details person.” I’m just sort of the person who organizes things broadly and let’s other people worry about the other things. Like dates, or plane tickets, or whatever. I assume that I’ll figure it out, or if I don’t, whatever.

So I thought the walk was on Sunday, although I didn’t specifically LOOK at the date and like circle it in big puffy hearts on the calendar, right? Then I made an appointment to get my eyes checked on Saturday and The Daver was all “ZOMG, THE WALK IS THAT DAY, YOU MORON!” and I was all, “Whoops!” sheepishly because that really is something I would do.

I canceled the appointment, got the kids off to my mom’s house on Saturday morning, printed out the sponsor sheets and got in my walkin’ gear. We showed up to the walk site and….

….

….

No one was there.

Yep.

Turns out I was motherfucking RIGHT all along. It was pretty hilarious to sit in the empty parking lot and laugh at The Daver, who was FURIOUS GEORGE (I should add that I was not furious when I thought that I was wrong).

We used the opportunity to sneakily eat some motherfucking breakfast without our crotch parasites and then ambled on home. BRILLIANTLY, I took it upon myself to do a bit of Bushwacking because the best thing to do when you are about to walk 5.5 miles with a foot injury is to do some really strenuous digging. Of course, I hurt myself. Of course it was with the pickax. Really, no one is surprised.

I mean, it’s just a giant knot on my leg and I knarfed up my foot again, but really, did I HAVE to get out there and attempt to dig out the bushes before the walk? CLEARLY I did. Anyway, the bushes, like my stupidity, are going nowhere. Those motherfucking roots are of The Devil. If I see the person who invented evergreen bushes, I will punch him in the testicle.

Sunday dawned beautifully, and while I may not have been able to move comfortably, I was beyond happy to be walking, although I was eying Amelia’s stroller jealously.

The park where the March of Dimes walk was held was the very same park where we, in high school, used to hang out and party every night, so to be there in a very different fashion was completely discomfiting to me. But when we walked in and saw all of the March of Dimes families gearing up to walk, I’m going to admit to you that I got choked up.

Just knowing that we were there–that we’d all survived–it made it all that much more real to me. I don’t sit around all day every day thinking about my daughter or about all of my nieces and nephews that have been born too soon, or stillborn, or those who have passed. They’re always with me, but I couldn’t possibly function if I thought about that all the time.

But standing there in the park, the ghost of who I was and who I am, now a March of Dimes Mom, beside each other, my daughter chirping away in her stroller, her scar very visible in the morning sun, it was as much a celebration of life as it was a mourning of what could have been and what once was.

I walked for all of the names on my Wall of Remembrance, all of my nieces and nephews on that wall; I walked for my friend Heather’s daughter Maddie Spohr; I walked so that some day all babies will be born healthy.

And I walked proudly with you, my Amelia, who defied the odds. Born with a very serious neural tube defect, an encephalocele, that should have killed you, you now take life by the balls and you make it your bitch. There’s nothing about you that doesn’t make me proud to be your mother.

Because you will continue to help give a voice to those who cannot speak. You will give a face to babies who are sick or dying. You will help give hope to those who need it most. You will help make the world a better place.

I know this to be true, love, because you already have.

You let your light shine, baby girl. Clearly, you’re showing us the way.

So, I’m getting married this summer, and was struck with the realization that, while I am looking forward to taking my fiancee’s last name as my own, I’m going to miss the complete absence of my maiden name from my life.

After giving it some thought, I decided I like the idea of dropping my current (boring) middle name, and changing it to my current maiden name. I like the way it looks and sounds.

My fiancee doesn’t seem to thrilled by this new name, but the only thing he’ll actually say is “do whatever you want.”

What do you think, Aunt Becky? I need your wisdom as a second opinion.

Also! Do you think it would end up being weird whenever the question came up of my middle name being the same as my maiden name? Is it going to be a pain in the ass? This is starting to make me a little crazy.

Well, o! Prankster my Prankster, pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name. If you didn’t, it’s not actually listed as Aunt Becky on my birth certificate (which, by the by, if you’ve seen it, I kinda need it). My given name, Prankster, was Becky Elizabeth Sherrick.

When I got married, like you, o! wise one, I didn’t want to change my name. I liked being Becky Sherrick. I’d been Becky Sherrick for 25 years and I didn’t really LIKE the sound of Becky Harks. In fact, it sounded like a venereal disease.

But, my husband-to-be was slightly aghast by my reluctance, AND I had a kid with a different last name then my own, and I thought about all of the confusion that we’d suffer with subsequent kids and decided to change it.

I would be: Becky Elizabeth Sherrick Harks (NO HYPHEN)!

Then the Social Security Office called and took a massive shit all over my parade. Turns out, you can give a kid 4 names (all of mine have 4 names)(preemptively, you’re welcome, children of mine), but the sea hag at the SS office said no to adding a name, unless you hyphenate.

Stuck with a choice of dumping the Elizabeth or the Sherrick, I dumped the Elizabeth.

Like you, I became a First Name, Last Name, Last Name. Happily. That’s what I go by everywhere. The full three names.

This is my advice to you: if that’s what you want, and it helps you to feel connected to your past (which, I mean, I totally get.) as you’re turning in your old name for a new one, do it.

So fucking what if your fiance doesn’t like it? HE is not changing his name. Because his name clearly means enough to him to fight you to take it, he should respect that yours means enough to you to let it go.

He’ll get used to it.

Marriage does = compromise. Heh. Just ask The Daver.

If Mississippi lends Missouri her New Jersey, what will Delaware?

I don’t know but Alaska.

When my son died last May, my insurance company decided to show everyone why insurance companies are the devil…but refusing to pay for basically any & everything relating to my son, delivery, etc.  I’ll spare you all the details, I’ll just direct you to the blog I’ve wrote today about my recent appeal & denial.

http://yaycowsyay.blogspot.com/2010/04/help-dead-baby-family-convince.html

Anyway, if you read that I’m asking if anyone who is willing to help me provide letters as “evidence” I can use in my claim.  Knowing you care about fellow loss moms & loss moms care about you, I thought you could help me out by spreading the word of my letter effort.  I feel like I’m asking for a cheap blog plug or something, but I hope you realize I’m not.  I’d just like the chance to blow the company’s mind.  Even if I don’t win, I want them to know people know they suck.

So would there be any way you’d be willing to talk about my issue & let people know if anyone would like to help we’d truly appreciate it?  Again, I feel lame asking you, but I’m kinda sorta desperate & want any help I can get.  Can’t hurt to ask, right?

Consider it done, my friend. Baby Loss Mommas, if you can help, please do.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I have been working at a new company for a year. I am the highest seniority person there since I was hired right after the company was formed. My problem is with the secretary. She hasn’t even been there a year yet, but she is driving me insane. I often hear her steal my ideas and claim them as her own. She also tries to blame me for her shortcomings.

I’ve spoken to my bosses twice about this, and they do not see it. Everyone that works under me has come to me with complaints about her. It’s my job to take take those complaints to our bosses, but they don’t see it so they don’t really do anything about it. To add insult to injury I recently found out that my bosses have given her two raises in the eight months she’s been there, and I have never received one in over a year (though I have to admit I get more perks than she does)!

I make this company a lot of money, they know I am valuable. When I returned from vacation recently I found out this secretary was bad mouthing me to my bosses. She lies about me, but they just don’t see it.  How do I show my bosses the true colors of my co-worker?

There is nothing–and I mean nothing–more discouraging than a shifty coworker (I think the word “shifty” needs to make a comeback, don’t you?). Been there, done that and it’s a fucking bitch. Literally.

If I were you, Prankster, what I would do is this: get some sort of documentation that you can take to your bosses. Because without it, you’re never going to convince them that she’s not some sort of saint or Jesus or something. With the rest of the staff on your side, it shouldn’t be quite as much of a task as it sounds. But you need real proof to get her in your cross-hairs.

People like this tend to eventually dig their own graves. So if you don’t get proof in time, eventually she’ll fuck up so badly that even your bosses will see what an assbag she is. In the meantime, you need to make sure you’re on your best behavior around her so that she doesn’t try and throw you under the bus.

Also, you should start bringing Ginsu knives to work. Not because you’re going to ACTUALLY cut a bitch, but just to have them and look threatening. You never know when you might have to cut up a nice stir-fry.

—————

As always, Pranksters, fill in where I left off in the comments.

And I wanted to thank all of you who have supported Amelia and I. Today, we’re walking for March of Dimes and Team Mimi and I’m beyond touched by how many of you have chimed in over the past year to tell me how you’ve read her story.

Without you, I really don’t know where I’d be. I certainly don’t think I’d be in one piece.

Thank you, my Band of Pranksters. Thank you for everything.

Team Mimi FOR THE WIN!

Because I gain a metric fuck-ton of weight when I’m gestating crotch parasites, I am also stuck removing it once I am done expelling the parasite from my body. Shockingly, the weight doesn’t just “fall off” of all of us. Especially those of us with GLANDULAR PROBLEMS.

*kicks thyroid*

Anyway, so I’m on a diet*. Why? Because I really don’t want to be fat.

One of the things that I had to give up was the delicious sugared syrup in my coffee. It’s not that I couldn’t use it because I COULD, but I’m trying to use less carbs and I know that you can use the stuff with Splenda, but honestly I think Splenda tastes like licking the devil’s butthole (and I am being GENEROUS here) so I just go without.

Until I came up with a BRILLIANT solution!

Extracts! I could use VANILLA fucking EXTRACT! There was nothing not awesome about that solution!

Until the cap got all stuck on and shit and I was denied the delicious vanilla flavor I had grown to love. So then I turned to it’s more delectable cousin: ALMOND extract.

Now, I love an almond latte like it’s my job, so this was an ideal solution for me, except in those rare moments when I’d wonder if I was being poisoned (I have a vivid imagination, y’all) until I remembered that I was in charge of the almond flavor addition to my coffee.

The other day, I was drinking my almond flavored coffee and I noticed that it had a bit of, well, BITE to it. Almost an alcohol flavored bite. It was weird, because I certainly didn’t add any alcohol to my coffee, but there it was. I could taste the booze, just underneath it all.

Hm, I thought to myself. That’s curious.

Then I promptly got distracted by staring at my cat’s butthole (there are SPIES in there, Pranksters!!) and forgot about it.

Yesterday, I finally read the bottle of fancy-pants almond extract. There it was, in bold letters: 35% ALCOHOL. DO NOT LEAVE AROUND CHILDREN.

Turns out that all of this time, I’ve been wondering why the hell I’ve been so fucking TIRED in the mornings, it’s because I’ve been getting sauced by accident. What the fuck kind of fool gets inadvertently drunk off ALMOND EXTRACT?

So I’m off the sauce this morning, and I’m going to guess that coffee will be a hell of a lot more effective in waking my ass up this way.

Also: I will probably have less of a hangover by lunchtime.

*Weight Watchers**

**Yes, it works.

What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done lately (besides read my blog)?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, Pranksters, but did you have any idea that raising children was a lot of work? Because holy fuckballs, is it ever! If I’d have known that, I might have stuck with hamsters. Actually, no, because the last hamster I had (and I am not kidding here) actually threw his own excrement at you if you walked near his cage.

So depending on who you asked, I was either the BEST hamster owner or the worst. Because, OBVIOUSLY.

The way I see it, when you pop out a couple of crotch parasites, it seems that one of the adults in the family–should you be lucky enough to have more than one parent–has to put their own life on the back burner to attend to said crotch parasites.

Well, in our family, I was the one who put my own life on the back burner, because, let’s face it Pranksters, I wasn’t exactly batting 100% with stellar life choices and The Daver’s star was on the fucking rise. So the decision to shelve my nursing career was pretty much a no-brainier for everyone involved and it was frankly kind of a relief because then I didn’t have to pretend that I was going to squeeze a turd into a tutu anymore.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve done everything I said I was going to do, besides date a cabana boy named Carlos (mostly because I have no cabana), and I’ve been waiting for it to be my time. It’s all been a matter of “when I can do what I want to do again” spoken in terms of years from now, not days or even weeks from now. Long term goals are great, but mine have always been “don’t die,” not “go back to school in 5 years” or even worse, “keep waiting for your own life to begin.”

Because my life as Mommy (or “Becky” as Alex calls me right before he scampers off so that I chase him around the house with my Tickle Claw out) is all of those crocheted platitudes and more, but it’s not all that I am. It can’t be. Mommy and Aunt Becky will exist together because they have to.

I don’t think I was ready before, but I do now. Change is in the air and it is throwing poop at my head. Universe, let’s do this.

I’m ready to find out what comes next. I’m playing “Eye of the Tiger” and punching the air. I’m doing visualization exercises and drinking green tea. diet coke. I’m ready, Universe.

I just hope it doesn’t involve poo-throwing hamsters.

—————–

How do you find balance, Pranksters? Better yet, how do you train a hamster to throw poo at someone RELIABLY?

Aunt Becky: “So I’ve decided that I’m not really a Cancer. I mean, I was born UNDER DURESS, many weeks early. The doctor says that I busted my way out of the amniotic sac somehow. I’m now a Leo.”

The Daver: “Can you do that?”

Aunt Becky: “Spoken like a true Virgo, Daver.”

The Daver: “I mean, does it really matter to you that your astrological profile doesn’t fit you? You’re not even INTO astrology.”

Aunt Becky: “Okay, so Cancers are all supposed to be in the kitchen and making fucking motherfucking PIE for you and all crying into their pies about how they FEEL and blah, blah, blah even the INTERNET knows that I need a stunt double to cry. I mean, Cancers are all about feelings and crying and they’re all moody and shit. Do I look like I’m getting my bitch ass back to the kitchen for you?”

The Daver: “Heh. No.”

Aunt Becky: “Okay, then. So we can agree that I am not a Cancer?”

The Daver: “Absolutely.”

Aunt Becky: *does a little dance*

The Daver: “I didn’t realize this was bothering you for so long.”

Aunt Becky: “I don’t cry into my pies and I barely have feelings and it’s always made me wonder if I was just a lousy judge of personal character. A Leo just makes more sense.”

Aunt Becky: “While we’re at it, can you call me Princess Grace of Monaco instead of Becky? It’s just such a DRAB name.”

The Daver: “Whatever, Princess. Oh! I took your birthday off as a “floating holiday.”

Aunt Becky: “Well, it IS a holiday. It’s my fucking birthday, yo. It should be a national holiday.”

The Daver: “Clearly.”

Aunt Becky: “I should probably write to Congress and tell them to make July 15 a National Holiday. Then I can call the Zodiac people and tell them that they need to make an exception and make me a Leo.”

The Daver: “Clearly.”

Aunt Becky: “I’m all over this, Daver.”

The Daver: “You go get ’em, Tiger. Or shall I say, LION.”

Aunt Becky: “That’s the spirit!”

*sprints off warbling Eye of the Tiger*

——————-

Last day to enter my contest, Pranksters!

4: approximate weeks until my cruise

12.8: times each day The Daver references my cruise by saying “well, I don’t know what I am going to DO without you for those 5 days!”

90: times a year that Dave mentions that he’d be “just fine” if left as a stay-at-home parent.

90: times I roll my eyes when he says that because brother, he’s talking out of his asshole.

0: times a day I plan to call and check in with him from the cruise to hear, “pant, pant, pant *crash* THESE KIDS ARE INSANE! PLEASE COME HOME, I WILL CALL THE COAST GUARD NOW.”

0: idea of where this cruise is going because frankly, big boat in the middle of the ocean where I can pee alone (but probably not IN the ocean)? Doesn’t matter where the hell we’re going.

7: bushes I pulled out yesterday (from a view that I didn’t even show you), thereby rendering me unable to move today without swearing wildly.

68: times my son has said, “OUCH, SHIT” when he moved, just repeating what I’ve said.

68: times I’ve wondered if I should probably cut out my tongue.

12,000,000: times I said, “I. Fucking. Hate. Bushes.” in my best Clint Eastwood voice, which, let’s be honest, isn’t very good.

87: times I cursed the previous, PREVIOUS owners of my house for loving both bushes and wallpaper. Fucking wallpaper.

3: times a day I have to put eye ointment into my poo-eating dog’s eyes.

16: pounds my poo-eating dog weighs

2-3: people it takes to restrain my poo-eating dog in order to put the ointment in his eyes

.2 million: times I’ve wondered if my poo-eating dog was actually a mutant Incredible Hulk dog.

0: times I have eaten beef sticks, even though they are technically encased meats (which I adore).

90,093: times Daver has eaten beef sticks.

84: times I have gagged, thinking about Daver eating beef sticks.

2: times I have enjoyed American Idol this season

infinity: amount of love I have for Glee, even though the show contains NONE of my boyfriends.

4: current television husbands.

infinity: dorkiness quotient I will achieve after going to the Glee concert (oh yes, yes I am).

0: likelihood of Daver eating beef sticks at a Glee concert.

0: likelihood of me caring about American Idol, even though one of my husbands was on that show.

0: likelihood that I will ever learn how to properly use a comma or apostrophe.

12.8 million: likelihood that you will go read this, my post about the Grand Gesture guy.

Last year, when Mimi was still one of those babies who STAYED where you motherfucking PUT THEM, I went outside of my house for a second. And when I was standing there, looking at my bright yellow house, I noticed something that I hadn’t previously seen with my bleary post-partum eyes.

Knock out a couple of windows and board them up and you suddenly have a house that looks like a creepy recluse lives there. I mean, I sort of WAS a recluse, thanks to a baby who screamed every time she got near the car, but that wasn’t the point.

The point WAS, Pranksters, the fucking bushes. I had to do SOMETHING about those bushes.

See? WIRE HANGERS, Y’ALL.

Those are a lot of motherhumping bushes. (also, not all are going)

But not then. OH NO, not then.

The Daver, bless his tiny heart, doesn’t like change. Nor does he like anything that requires manual labor (on his part) and I wasn’t exactly doing well mentally thanks to some wicked PTSD, so I decided that Bush-Wacking was going to have to wait until 2010.

He told me that I needed some elaborate plan as to what I needed to DO with the area where I was going to remove approximately 3,082 bushes, but really, I am kind of a less-is-more person anyway and the house is so fucking over-landscaped as it is, I was going to haul them out and see what happened.

I can see how ominous that sounds given my history of just “doing things” (see exhibit: Aunt Becky’s Cake Wreck), but I swear to you, Pranksters, I am actually an avid botanist. I mean, I grow ORCHIDS, and those things are notoriously hard to keep alive.

Anyway, it’s now the Spring of 2010 and Bush-Gate has officially arrived which means that I’m running around the house yelling, “I NEED TO GO BUSHWACKING, Y’ALL,” and Dave rolls his eyes at me a lot, because this is pretty much the way our relationship works. If you’re wondering how I got married, really, I don’t know either.

But I still don’t have elaborate blueprints created to show at precisely what trajectory I will put the new plants I haven’t chosen to go into the holes I haven’t yet created because do I look like I listen to The Daver? (answer: CLEARLY NOT)

Mostly because I am aware that his technique of making me do something painfully annoying is mostly just a stall tactic on his part so that I throw in the towel on my original project. Which, hi, not going to happen because I’m one busted out window and lamp made out of hooker boobs short of a Serial Killer Recluse looking house. The Daver, he doesn’t notice such things.

But, in order to perform such tasks, I was stuck surveying my sad stash of Bush-Gate materials in my garage. Nothing was quite up to par.

So much to the dismay of my search engine (who, of course, judges me based upon the shit that I search for, because OBVIOUSLY), I searched for “how to remove bushes.” Turns out? MOST OF THOSE SITES WERE NOT SAFE FOR WORK, PRANKSTERS.

Left to my own pea-brained devices, I decided that the best way to complete this project was to get a pickax. Obviously. Mostly so I could go BUY a pickax and then carry it around like Paul motherfucking Bunyan.

So I loaded my family into the car to go to what the three-year old calls the “hammer store” because he was convinced that I was stupid enough to buy him a hammer. While I was stupid enough to buy MYSELF a pickax, I didn’t think he needed to act out “If I Had A Hammer” on his sister’s head.

The pickaxes, it turns out, are in a special part of the hardware store that I like to call “Serial Killer Row.” They’re right next to the regular hardcore axes and while I carefully perused them, I can almost swear that I was being recorded. Probably because the hardware store people are very smart. Most people buying pickaxes are probably not doing anything but putting them into eye sockets and stuff.

Me, for as much swagger as I have, I am busting up roots and probably a finger or two because anyone who allows me near sharp pointy things has probably just increased my life insurance policy. But I’m guessing that I’m probably on some secret database now, maybe cross-indexed with RIDICULOUSLY BAD BLOGGER and POSSIBLE VICODIN ABUSER.

Which is why I made sure to have The Daver bring in the hardcore insecticide, pickax, gigantic loppers, and saw from the back of the mini-van before I took the kids to school. I didn’t need Ben piping up and telling his teacher that I’d threatened to cut off his fingers one by one if he didn’t stop slamming the door.

Even if I HAD promised him a shiny hook in return.