In high school, I dated a guy who had so much money that his father actually had gold bricks lying around the house. I always debated stealing one, but I’m not a thief and I never really knew what I’d do with one if I took it. I mean, I’m pretty sure those puppies are kind of well-tracked. It wasn’t like I could have taken that to the record store and bought Britney’s new CD without raising eyebrows.

Plus, I’m honest enough, and my conscience is guilty enough that the next time I saw his dad, and he’d said, “Hi Becks!” I would have responded innocently with, “OHMYGOD I’M SO SORRY I STOLE THE BRICK PLEASE DON’T HATE ME.”

Yeah. Not exactly coy, eh?

But in that neighborhood for 2 years of my life I learned a lot. Namely the term “trophy wife.”

As someone who, at age 18, had realized cleverly that she was allergic to a hard day of work, this seemed like an idea life to me. I’d marry an old rich guy, pop out some kids, occasionally sleep with him when Viagra could give him a boner, and live a life of leisure. I’d pop pills, have plastic surgery, hang out at the Country Club down the street. I’d lunch and spa and hand the kids off to the nannies to be raised.

Eventually, my husband would die, his First Wife would fight me in court for his estate, and eventually we’d settle. The only real kink in my Ultimate Plan so far as I could see was that I wasn’t blond, but that, I figured, could be remedied with a quick dye job.

A Trophy Wife, I liked the sound of that.

Age 22 found me unmarried with a kid, working my way through the prerequisites required to get into nursing school, and although I was pretty pleased with school, I was becoming increasingly aware that nursing school wasn’t going to be what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Age 22 also found me to be The Date for any of my male friends going to any company parties, because, well, they knew I put out everyone needs a standby date. Evan had been one of my best friends since I could remember and when he invited me to be his date for one of his work dinners, I accepted immediately.

We showed up together at a swanky steakhouse, and in the vein of broke 20 year old’s everywhere, I began drinking immediately. Because OBVIOUSLY. So by the time dinner began, I was fairly lit and began drunkenly talking to the guy on my left, an attractive guy with an accent, probably 20 years my senior.

Evan, always one to ditch me at parties, had probably already ditched me by this point anyway, so I made this guy my date. Besides, Evan and I were just friends, and this guy was charming and funny, and, well, Evan was the same guy who had come over to my house and left a framed picture of his naked ass on my pillow a couple of years before.

A real charmer, that one.

It probably wasn’t until the end of the evening by which point I was BEYOND fairly loaded when the guy who was sitting next to me stood up and started addressing the room when I realized that the person that I’d been teasing and generally making an ass of myself in front of wasn’t The Boss. He wasn’t the Bosses Boss. Oh no.

He was the Big, Big, Big, Big BIG Boss.

And somehow? He found me ADORABLE.

Because I had no idea who he was, I wasn’t shoving my tongue up his ass trying to get a promotion or a raise or a car or whatever it is that people do around the Big Boss People and I think he found that refreshing. Maybe I was just an awesome drunk or just On My Game that night, I don’t know. All that I do know is that the second I was out of there, he was all over Evan to hook him up with me.

The problem is, I really wasn’t interested in dating him. The prospect of living a life of leisure, even though he was funny and attractive AND had a sexy accent AND a assload of money just didn’t do it for me. I tried to reframe my thinking for an entire week and I simply couldn’t do it.

Turns out that life as a Lady of Leisure, even with the prospect of free pills and unlimited plastic surgery just wasn’t enough for me.

I know. I KNOW.

I still don’t know what I was thinking.

—————

In sticking with the bizarrely romantic themed things around here this week, I’m over at Toy With Me today, talking about people who marry…things. No. Really. I am. You should come visit because seriously, I didn’t make it up. I COULDN’T LIE TO YOU, PRANKSTERS.

Scene: Friday/Saturday night in a tiny cinderbox of a dorm room.

Aunt Becky pokes at a water bra she is wearing that she’d borrowed from a girl down the hall marveling at the jiggliness of her new-found perky sweater kittens. She lays in her bed, chain smoking Parliament Light 100’s while occasionally poking her now very pert chesticles, drinking a vodka/diet coke and looking incredibly annoyed.

She scowls at the CD player, which is playing an endless loop of Cake’s “Never There” where two boys are standing, near-crying and singing it at top volume. Rolling her eyes every time they click the BACK button to hear it again, she takes a drag off her cigarette and wonders how to ditch the lamewads.

When I was in college, my two best guy friends would frequently come and stay with me for the weekends when my passive-aggressive roommate was off doing whatever it was she was doing when she wasn’t torturing me by IM-ing her boyfriend at all hours of the day. Maybe designing new POW interrogation techniques or something. We had a tiny dorm room, but somehow we managed to cram the three of us in there for the weekend and we’d make mischief and mayhem throughout the city.

Until they both got lovesick.

I had no issues with either of them dating other girls, since I wasn’t dating them and while we occasionally “slept together” really, it was actual sleeping and nothing else. Even then, I learned not to blur the lines.

But the two of them, Evan and Mikey, they both had girlfriends who went to schools in other parts of the country, and while I was single, it never seemed to matter much. Or if it did, I may have been known to their girlfriends as “their friend ‘BRIAN.'” I’m not sure that it was revealed to their womens that I had a vagina, even if they never saw it.

One weekend, the three of us got spectacularly drunk and rather than lock each other into the shower or go and try and wrap each in toilet paper (so we could look like mummies!) or something, they got moony over their ladies. And HOLY FUCKBALLS did they get melodramatical.

They somehow got their grubby hands on my Cake CD and decided that “Never There” was their theme song. Drunkenly, they wailed it. They cried to it. They pounded their collective fists at the injustice of having to wait weeks to see their lady-loves. They ruined the fucking song for me.

A song, I might add, that I barely liked in the first place because really, if you’re going to pick a song to be moony about, why not Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here?” I can think of 10 better songs* to be all “ZOMG!! I LOVE SOMEONE WHO IS NOT HEEERRREE!” and never, ever does “Never There” make the list.

So there I sat, on my bed, which was approximately 3 inches wide, poking my boob and giggling while it jiggled, rolling my eyes, blowing smoke in their direction (and hoping it would get into THEIR eyes, giving them a better reason to cry then over some trashy bitches). Eventually, I left them a box of maxi-pads to cry into and went out with my other friends to do…something else.

Really, anything was better than listening to those two vaginas cry over their girlfriends.

I say the term “vaginas” with the utmost love, because one of those vaginas was my Man of Honor at my wedding and stood up next to me while I promised to love, honor, and repay The Daver for slapping a ring on my finger. He’s the uncle to my kids and one of my best, most devoted friends. Even if he does have a gaping vagina.

ALLEGEDLY.

That would be this one:

Evan, shown here at my bridal shower. He was forced to sit between his mother and mine, who sat there for the entire shower, discussing how they’d planned out OUR wedding for years. In front of my future mother-in-law. Let’s talk about awkward, shall we, Pranksters?

Anyway. He’s clearly wised up and no longer is dating the Never There girl, and only this weekend was I able to listen to that song again after it randomly came on my Nano, without wanting to drive a spike through my brain.

Also, I am going to be murdered in an unusually gruesome way for posting this story, so it was really, really nice knowing you all.

*That is an utter lie. I could think of only one. “Wish You Were Here.” Which I referenced. What am I missing? I tried to think about it but got calliope music stuck in my head.

It seems that it gets worse every year, and this year it was the worst yet. About December 15th, I started fantasizing about screaming in the streets “I F-ing hate Christmas!” (I actually thought about saying “F-ing.” That is how repressed I am–I censor even my fantasies.)

Between my mom and her “since you dad left, I have no one” and my sister and her “how can we make sure everyone is happy and never left out?” and my dad’s “when can I stop by for half an hour and drop off presents?” the ol’ Christmas spirit ends up nowhere near me. Finally it all came to a head at Christmas. My mom and husband got into a very short argument, he announced that we were leaving, I cried for two days straight, he sent my mom an email trying to explain why he’d been upset then and how he’s been feeling slighted for years.

You also have a family (parents, siblings) and in-laws and a desire to create memories and traditions for your kids. Any advice? My mom forwarded the email to my sister, which I don’t appreciate, but she responded by emailing everyone in the family and suggesting that we start a conversation, which I do. I just feel like no matter what I say–or to whom–I’m going to end up breaking what was already a very fragile dynamic between my husband and my family.

This is crazy long, and feel free to edit. I’m trying not to be one-sided or too complainy, but I’m just so worried that not only am I never going to have this close relationship between my husband and family (which my brother-in-law seems to enjoy), but they’re not even going to tolerate one another, which leaves me feeling like I have to choose one.

Ah, The Holidays, where Your Aunt Becky likes to imagine that she really enjoys drinking or perhaps medicating herself heavily to get through them (side note: I do not)(sadly).

I don’t think you’re being one-sided in wanting to have some sort of traditions of your own at all because you’re an adult, and that’s kind of what adults do: they branch out on their own and start their own. Or, in the case of others, they do not.

This is where you are at an impasse, my friend. You must decide what is important to you. Not to your mom or your dad or your sisters or your brother or Aunt Sally down the block. (Because we have so much family that has to celebrate holidays at odd random times throughout the season, we’ll end up dragging Christmas out for 4 months if we’re not careful, so believe me when I say that I know this from experience)

But it’s your turn to decide what you want. You get to make the call.

Sure, you may piss some people off along the way, because everyone wants you for something because OBVIOUSLY, but this is where it ends: you cannot kill yourself over the holidays.

Or, if you decide that that’s how you want to play it, and you’re going to cater to everyone else, then you have to just accept that the holidays really aren’t about you anymore. Then you can set aside your own feelings and just accept that the holidays are fucking stressful. Plenty of people do it that way and manage just fine.

In the Sausage Factory, we simply say “no” to the things we’re not going to do. It’s not fair to my kids to drag them to every-fucking-thing that we’re invited to just because we’re invited and we feel like we should. My family, my children, well, we matter too. I’m not guilty or sorry about that. And if other people have a problem, well, they can come over and deal with the post-Holiday Meltdown while I go home to their quiet house.

Don’t feel guilty about standing up for yourself, okay? You matter too.

Aunt Becky,

I need your help.  We all – except for the receptionist – have nice offices where I work.  For over a year now, she comes in my office every day for lunch and sits at my meeting table eating and reading.  At first I thought it was cute, but now its just annoying.  What if I need to call my doc about a raging case of vag herpies? What if I’m interviewing for a new job?  I’ve tried closing my door at 11:50 – she just comes in anyway.  Help!

Hungry for Silence

I am BEYOND sympathetic for your plight, my friend, because I cannot even work on my computer with someone standing near me (and believe me that I’m using the term “work” veeerrry loosely here) so I cannot imagine how annoying it’s got to be to have someone with you during your one period of solitude.

I’m sure that she, on the other hand, sees no reason that this would be any sort of intrusion, the same way people who kiss hello on the cheeks don’t find that to be off-putting to those of us who do not. Clearly, if she’s not getting the “door shut” thing, she’s not going to get any other sort of subtle gesture and obviously you don’t want to hurt her feelings.

So, can you put her in a conference room saying that you need to make some “personal calls” a couple of times a week? Certainly, it’s not like HONEST or anything, but you don’t want to make it all weirdness at work and you can’t exactly be all “here, sweetie!! Let’s go sit it SUSAN’S office today!!!” Because she’s not a toddler. (I’m assuming.)

Or, you could start trying to sell her every sort of Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Candlight Party, Sex Toy Party thing, Ginsu knives imaginable. That normally works like a charm to get people the hell away from you.

OR, better yet, you could start polishing your knife collection during your lunch break and pretend to be a serial killer. Then she’d leave YOU the hell alone.

OR, you could pretend to have just married a pillow.

BETTER YET, I’ll open up the floor to my faithful Pranksters who will probably have much better ideas than I do because my next course of action was to suggest filling her car with balloons. CLEARLY I am the unbalanced one.

As always, submit your questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky on the sidebar, yo, and fill in ANYWHERE I left off. Please, Pranksters, HELP THESE PEOPLE.

When I first started dating The Daver, it must have been right around a new school semester starting for me in school. He was already a Working Person, and while I did work, I slung beers and pizzas on the weekends while I cared for my son during the week. He had a Big Boy Job and I was a student.

When I told him casually that “I needed a day planner” I was envisioning the paper and pencil kind that I was accustomed to. Perhaps I’d find one with a trippy graphic on it that I could perhaps draw something lewd–like a whimsical penis!!–on. My only real stipulation was that it was notebook sized. I didn’t and still don’t particularly like to scrawl notes in tiny hieroglyphics with pens designed for mice.

“No way,” The Daver was adamant here, “You need a PDA.”

“Um.” I hated to break it to him when he was being so fucking cute and forceful, but I knew I needed a PDA like I needed more baby daddy drama.

“No, you do. Here, let’s go get you a nice one.” He quickly executed a 3-point turnabout and drove into the Worst Best Buy parking lot. Out of the car he sprung and leaving me no choice but to trail along behind him, I followed him into the store unhappily.

Best Buy is NOT my happy place.

Quickly he steered me over to the PDA section and handed me a box. “Here,” he said confidently, “I’ll buy you THIS.”

It was approximately 76,000 times as much as the paper one I was looking at but he was so fucking earnest about it that I said only, “Um. Okay.” Maybe he was right. I could probably learn something from him.

“On one condition, The Daver,” I bargained with him. “I need a Coach PDA case.”

“Deal.” He said quickly.

I spent the next 3 days painfully entering all of my information into the stupid thing, all of my contacts (which I took from my cell phone, which really WAS my lifeblood, lest you think I was a total technophobe), all of the syllabuses, all of the stuff that I’d need for the next semester and I put it in it’s happy pink Coach PDA case and stuffed it into my backpack.

THERE, I thought to myself. LOOKIT how professional I look!!

I practiced whipping the PDA case out and entering something furiously into it like I always saw the commuters doing on the train, and I felt pretty cool for upwards of 2.4 seconds. Until I realized that I wasn’t fooling anyone.

Then, I forgot to charge the fucking thing and lost all of my painstakingly entered data. Then I lost the power cord for the thing. I considered flushing it down the toilet, but decided against it since I didn’t ACTUALLY buy it myself.

I furtively went out and bought myself an actual day planner and happily used real ink to write down my schedule for the next several months, happy to be dating a technophile, but just as happy to not be one myself.

Which is why it’s weird that on April 3, Mr. FedEx will be bringing me–Your Aunt Becky–her very own iPad. I actually pre-ordered the newest piece of technology for myself. It’s like I’m looking in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself anymore because it’s not even the $20,000 diamond iPad.

The Daver has been mocking me since I pre-ordered it, which is even weirder. It’s like we’re turning into the other person which means I should develop a love of whiny emo music and he should turn into a huge Britney fan. I guess I’m not that worried, because I’ll still never, ever enter my calendar information into it. Like, ever.

Because entering “FUCKING SURVIVE” every day is kind of depressing.

Whenever I go to post something on The Internet that discusses heavier things, I confess, Pranksters, that I am afraid. Of what, I don’t really know. What are you going to do? CALL MY MOM and tell her that you hate me? I’m sure she’d roll her eyes because that’s my mom for you.

On the same token, yesterday, even though that post had been published twice in other places, I was as nervous as a cat to post it again. According to the handy chart of characteristics that I found (opens into a PDF if you click it), apparently we adult children of alcoholics are afraid of our feelings. Tell me something I DON’T know, right?

Anyway. As per usual, I could have better spent that energy rearranging my underwear drawer or bleaching out my garbage cans because you were wonderful and for that I am grateful. In fact, I’m always grateful for you, my Pranksters.

Whether it’s a condescending article (s) in the newspaper or some blurb on the national news, for some reason the blogging community is still seen as a pathetic little coffee club. How DARE we get mad when someone bashes us in the paper? We’re just silly little women/men/ people who should get our silly butts back to tending our children and off the computer! Our children are practically raising themselves while we selfishly DO NOT LIVE FOR THEM.

How DARE we have a drink or a life? WE’RE PARENTS, NOT PEOPLE! How DARE we talk about our FEELINGS in PUBLIC where some day our KIDS might see them!!1!! ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG! Let’s go back to a life of repression, y’all.

Some day, my children are going to read my blog and know that some days, I wanted to strangle myself because they behaved so horrifically. Some day, my children will know that I am a human being. I hope that they take comfort in that, rather than grow up in a repressed, sad home. Sure, they’ll hate me for plenty of things, my blog included (also included, my singing, my hairstyle, and my morning breath).

I never claimed to give up my life when I popped my first crotch parasite out and I’m not starting now.

Some day, someone will look back on blogging and see that we were building a community. Because like it or not, you, my Pranksters, are my friends. Some of you I haven’t met, some of you I do know pretty well, some of you are my FB BFF and some of you I would be lost without.

All of you, I cherish. I do.

I’m proud to know all of you and whenever I talk about you to The Daver or whomever ear I have selfishly stolen, I am always filled with happiness that I know so many amazing, diverse people. It’s not about subscriber numbers or Twitter feeds, it’s about people. YOU. I’m happy I know you. All of you. Thank you for being my friend.

So for those of you who do blog, and those of you who want to blog, I’m here to encourage you to do it. Ignore the critics and the naysayers and those who dismiss your “stupid little habit.” Write even if no one reads your blog. Write LIKE no one reads your blog. Write for yourself, and write authentically.

Write hard, Pranksters, write hard.

And know that no matter what, Your Aunt Becky loves you. Hard.

A version of this ran in The Drinking Diaries last year (it’s been rewritten for you, Pranksters) and today they’re running a follow-up interview with me today so I thought I’d be brave and post it on my real blog today.

——————–

I am an adult child of two alcoholics, and although there are nifty acronyms used to refer to us, I prefer my real name: Becky (unless you want to call me Princess of Power). The Internet knows me as Aunt Becky and there’s probably a number of you scratching your head over my incongruently named site: “Mommy Wants Vodka.”

I’ve been mixed up plenty into articles about Diane Schuler, the lady who killed her kids, bashing me for being a Cocktail Mom. Hell, I even made it into the New York Times for that, even though I seldom blog about drinking.

In reading up on the other issues facing my cohorts, my fellow children of alcoholics–who also, presumably, have names–I think that in spite of the flack that I get, humor is the far healthier way to handle it. I’ve somehow, by the grace of God, perhaps, been able to avoid many of the nastier lasting effects of my childhood. I am not shy, I do not suffer from low self-esteem, and I don’t obsessively hoard china cat figurines or keep my toenail clippings in jars.

I do have anxiety and guilt and the emotional range of a toddler and I frequently blame myself for things that never had anything to do with me. I’m about as trusting with even those closest to me as an abused animal. There are probably three people on the planet who really know me. Maybe less.

But I’m trying to work through this because I know I deserve better than I got.

Every day; every single day that I wake up, I wonder if today will be the day that it hits. We adult children of alcoholics are four times more likely than the general population to develop issues with substance abuse. FOUR TIMES. For someone like me, who has not one, but two alcoholic parents, this number must be infinitesimally higher. So I wait.

It’s exhausting, this waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So I sit and I wait, and while I do this, I build a new life for myself: I’m a mother, a writer, a friend. A daughter. A sister. A niece and a cousin.

My name is Becky, and I am not an alcoholic.

You know when the Urgent Care doctor looks concerned after he’s examined you that you’re pretty much fucked. You know that you’re really fucked when he actively prescribes you narcotics and steroids that you’re really fucked. Sadly, I was able to procure no fentanyl lollies, but still, I have a big ass bottle of Vicodin with my name on it.

Rather than loll about the house in a narcotics filled haze (THEY ARE LEGAL, MR. DEA AGENT) occasionally hallucinating Cuban cabana boys (and, for that matter, a cabana), I am as tightly wound as a wee circus mouse on a crack bender. I’m desperately wishing that I had some houses to build or decks to pound together with my bare hands or perhaps a dozen orphans to care or maybe a small island to build with some dirt and a bucket.

This here, THIS IS MOTHERFUCKING BAT COUNTRY, Pranksters.

Or maybe I’m just on speed. And it totally and completely sucks.

I’ve never been on it before, but Ben had to take it for his chest years ago and I remember he was a total asshole whenever he was on it. Daver and I always dreaded it.

I’m just incredibly annoying to be around and I’ve apologized preemptively to anyone who deals with me on a regular basis because I’m now wired and COMPLETELY aggressive.

My internal monologue is something like this:

WHERE IS EVERYONE? WHY AREN’T THEY TALKING TO ME? I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD. HELL, I WISH I COULD LAY OFF THE SPEED. WOW, I CAN GET SO MUCH DONE. WHERE IS EVERYONE? WHY AREN’T THEY TALKING TO ME? WHY ISN’T PURPLE A FLAVOR? WHY ISN’T SOMEONE MAKING ME BACON RIGHT NOW?

So if I’m annoying to deal with, it’s actually MORE annoying to be inside my head.

Only. seven. more. days.

I am over at Toy With Me talking about how I annoyed a stalker into submission and shockingly, it’s safe for work, which means I am probably losing my edge and should be taken out back and shot.

My Dearest Darling Dexter, Dr. House, Anthony Bourdain, et. all,*

Dexter, remember just this past winter, when I had the swine flu and you helped me make cupcakes? That was probably one of the most romantic things anyone has ever done for me in years. Except okay, there was that guy who helped me put my groceries in my cart AND THEN HE HELD THE DOOR OPEN FOR ME because motherfucking chivalry isn’t DEAD.

Sure, okay you’re a vigilante serial killer and I like the IDEA of killing people and “serial” is ALMOST like “cereal” and I could write massive tomes about my love of cereal. And maybe I am too cheap to have gotten Showtime to watch your forth season, but know that I tweeted ANGRILY at the stupid fucking New York Times Blogger who insulted your hat.

And you, Dr. House, your Vicodin-popping ways made me fall in love with you every Monday night. PLUS, I use your show as a way to use my medical knowledge to feel smugly superior to upwards of two toddlers and a host of houseplants. I am often way ahead of your team when I diagnose your patient for you. (P.S. It’s never lupus or perineoplastic syndrome)(except when it is)(that, my friends, is medicine for you) and then I feel very lofty and important.

Mr. Bourdain, while you can say words like “pube” on national television and are snarky enough to make my girl bits jiggle with glee, I have a feeling you’d take my steady diet of Uncrustables and Diet Coke personally. But call me, we can can wear matching BFF necklaces because I sort of want to follow you around everywhere you go and see if you really are always that awesome. If you are, I’m going to admit that I’ll be VERY jealous.

THEN, I might have to sic Dexter on you.

But, gentlemen, while we may always have our nights of the week together, I am afraid that I have found someone else that has captured my heart. While trolling Craig’s List for love porn missed connections a new couch**, I found my new boyfriend.

(please click to enlarge. But don’t get any ideas. He’s mine)

Now, see, he KNOWS that I won’t mind if things get a little weird, because with me they’re ALWAYS a little weird. I mean, I’m AUNT BECKY, bitch! And while I normally can only handle 3.5 minutes on a bucking bronco, baby, for you, I’ll hold out for four.

I’ve never cried after sex, baby, unless it was really bad, but I’m planning to collect your tears and weave them into a throw rug. We can lay on it while we watch The Notebook. Then I will run my hands through your heart-shaped chest hair and thank GOD we’re together.

I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANY LONGER, so I won’t even try.

But since you posted this in February and according to my faulty mathematics it’s been like a year or three, I am afraid some other vixen may have snatched you up. You’re clearly a catch that no woman could pass up. So I am posting my OWN Craig’s List ad.

Are You The Cheese To My Macaroni? Wait, That Came Out Wrong.

THINGS I LIKE IN A MAN…Not a sex offender and can preferably recite the entire opening monologue from Men In Black II. Enjoys frying bacon naked. Can handle upwards of 6-12 hours talking about my feelings and what they mean to you.

THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MYSELF…I dislike talking about my feelings, bacon and Men In Black II. I enjoy lustily holding hands, abusing prescription narcotics and giving blue balls. If you ever talk about cuddling, I will punch you in the throat….No pic, no reply. Also, shaved balls are a must.

————–

I’m pretty sure the replies will be rolling in.

*at the risk of making me sound like a hugemongous slutbag who puts out for her fake television husbands.

**Fidget sent it to me.

Dear Aunt Becky,

After your piece on Meat and Mushrooms… why do they call a beaver a “beaver”? Is it a “piece of tail”? Will it “chew your wood off”? I’m trying to put together a “dam” reference but failing.

I’ve asked nearly every straight man I know and you may finally be the source of enlightenment.

XOXO,

JohnOCinJP

The first time, Gentle Reader, that I heard a vagina referred to as a “beaver” was in the Primus song “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” Probably because I was 14 when the song came out and hadn’t developed QUITE the repository of awesome slang terms for vagina that you see before you today.

Now, I believe what a beaver refers to is a hairy vagina. I googled the term to be sure and pretty much all I could come up with was a bunch of people going, “why the fuck do people call the vagina a beaver?” and everyone else responding with “I have no fucking clue.” (aside, Internet, do you know?)

So yes. A beaver = a full bush = a hairy vagina = a PIZZA slice vag.

You’re so welcome for that image.

I saw this, Aunt Becky, and I thought of you!  Would you ever consider getting “vajazzled”?

www.momlogic.com/2010/02/vajazzle_your_vajay-jay_would_ya.php/r:t

If so, what design would you have done?

-Sara

Oh Sara, girl you know that I would! Making my ladybits as sparkly as a discoball? Now, there is NOTHING not full of the awesome about that. My biggest gripe with the whole thing is that it lasts only a couple of days. Which, to me, seems kind of…sad. I kind of want a permanently sparkly crotch. Because OBVIOUSLY.

But if I were going to do it, I’d probably get a gigantic pink cursive B. Because I am so often called B. Or AB. Or maybe, if I was feeling daring, an ACTUAL bee. Because, OBVIOUSLY.

So I turn the tables, ladies (or gentlemen), would YOU get your dangly bits sparkly? What design?

Dear Aunt Becky,

I recently found out that both my sister and my best friend are pretty anti the blowjob… where as I would be referred to as something of a fan. The real issue that we seem to disagree on is whether giving/receiving oral is more or less intimate than actually having sex. I’ve always considered third base a much less intimate place than rounding home plate if you know what I mean… but apparently there is disagreement in this area.

What are your thoughts, opinions… shinning dollops of wisdom oh wise one (okay I may be laying it on a little thick in an attempt to elicit a response from you :-P)

Lex

Well, my sweet friend, I can see it from both sides.

On the one hand, having sex is more intimate because it’s THE SEX, MAN and it’s very emotional and you’re all up in each other’s face and then there’s the EYE contact and the breathing onto one and other and then you know, it’s SEX and of course it’s intimate.

But on the other, oral sex involves organs that, well, do things BESIDES provide sexual pleasure. Namely, they evacuate waste from the body. Plus, as we learned from Go Ask Aunt Becky Question 1, sometimes there’s a whole MESS of pubes there. Which can lend to some…unruliness and unpleasantness down below. You can get awfully up close and personal with something that doesn’t smell like roses really quickly, so on that hand, it’s pretty damn intimate.

Either way, there’s an exchange of bodily fluids into orifices, and anytime there’s bodily fluids, you’re pretty intimate.

What do you think, The Internet?

When I got pregnant with my second son, somewhere around week 16 he started moving. And once he started moving, he started using my internal organs as punching bags and target practice. I started to wonder if I’d somehow been impregnanted with a child with 6-8 arms and started to call TLC before the ultrasound tech informed me that, no, my son really only had 2 arms and 2 legs.

It doesn’t help that I have no torso and am mostly legs, so that at 5’5″, when I’m pregnant, I look frighteningly like a very chubby daddy long-legs.

At multiple prenatal appointments, he’d kick so violently at the fetal heart-tones doppler that it would go flying out of the nurses hand, across the room. I barely slept for six months, because no matter what position I managed to heave myself into, he’d find something that displeased him about it and kick.

My ribs. My pelvis. My sternum. My liver. My stomach. My kidneys.

My son kicked them all day, every day. All night every fucking night.

By the time he was born, I’d begged my OB for an induction, who must have taken pity on me. He apologized to me when he informed me that I wouldn’t be delivering at my choice of hospitals and glassy eyed, I told him that I would deliver in the back of a Pinto if that was all he would do. I meant it.

Hooked up to the monitors in the hospital, The Daver finally heard his son kick. And kick. And kick. And kick. For 12 hours straight, my son kick at the monitors strapped to my belly, which he found HIGHLY displeasurable, apparently. Dave laughed about it until he fell asleep.

Ass.

Anyway, after Alex was born, he didn’t sleep, and who was surprised? He never slept in utero, so why start now?

Shockingly, though, he also didn’t really move much. Late to crawl (10 months), I was too tired to consult Baby Center (dear Baby Center, I am not pregnant, plz be stopping emailing me) or give much of a shit. I mean, despite my awesome experience in the polo club in college, I am not very coordinated (dear Internet, plz be seeing the time I broke mah toe making a peanut butter sandwich).

When he did crawl, though, he just…took off. No hesitation, just BAM.

Several months later (15 months), late again to walk he just…took off one day. My jaw dropped as my son just started walking. I’d figured he was probably as uncoordinated as I was, but apparently I was wrong, he was like a Jedi or something.

The very next day, I noted that my son was standing there, foot next to a ball and I watched him to see what the hell he was doing. Angrily, he tried to use a single foot to make the ball move, and each time, he fell. Over and over, he stood back up, tried to use that foot to make the ball move and failed. The screams that came out of him made me close up the windows, lest my neighbors call CPS.

Alex was trying to learn to kick a ball.

It took him about an hour but he did it. I don’t know how this child was sprung from my loins, but somehow I have raised a wee jock.

He’s starting soccer soon and I can’t help but wonder if they’re going to look back and forth between me and my athletic son and laugh like I do. Couldn’t blame them, really.

Who the hell breaks their toe making a sandwich?

This was a pre-walking Alex who is already giving me the “you throw like a GIRL, Mom,” look. Which, I mean, I do.

ALEX, however, does NOT throw like a girl, Pranksters.

Don’t know WHERE he came from. Really. I’d say the mailman, but I don’t know if he’s more coordinated than I am.