This Assholes Anonymous Meeting is Called to Order

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” –Marilyn Monroe

The quote has popped up on my Facebook newsfeed more times than I care to count. It is posted most often by single friends but not exclusively. Regardless of whether or not the person blasting this quote on Facebook is single or married, younger or older,  this Marilyn Monroe quote seems to be typically heralded as an expression of female empowerment and  is almost always met with agreement and support, like:

“hell yeah!”

“I love Marilyn”

“AMEN!!”

“That’s right and any guy who can’t manage can get lost”

Well, here goes–I’m going to just come out and say it—STOP IT! If the above quote truly describes you and your behavior, perhaps you should consider therapy. If you actually believe that you are entitled to behave irrationally, selfishly and out of control and others are supposed to just accept it or be considered unworthy of being treated with respect, that is a problem. I’m not sure if these women aren’t really reading or comprehending this quote or if they think having a vagina absolves them of behaving like complete asshats.

Let’s change the scenario a bit. What if a man updated his status to say:

“I’m self centered and jealous. I’ll make mistakes,  I’ll lie, I’m controlling, quick to anger, manipulative and I will cheat. If you can’t handle the bad days, you don’t deserve my good days. ”

Would that be met with the same response? I have little doubt he would be completely admonished, even though, if you want to hold Marilyn’s original quote up against the details of her personal life, the rewrite is just an elaboration of the original quote. I suppose it just doesn’t sound as eloquent, much less admirable or empowering, even if it is completely accurate.

If you are the type of person to “test” your relationships, don’t be surprised when people eventually fail. Now, Marilyn Monroe’s mental illness is well documented and was obviously a major contributing factor in her treatment of and expectations in, not to mention outcomes of, her relationships. She was married and divorced three times and her longest marriage was five years. Her affairs are just as famous, if not more famous, than her marriages. The bottom line is, anyone that knows the slightest bit about Marilyn Monroe’s troubled history knows that Monroe’s personal life is not one to emulate. If I need to give my relationship philosophy in 20 words or less, I much prefer the tried and true “Golden Rule” or any of its variations. Just treat people the way you want to be treated. It’s one thing to admit to being fallible. It’s one thing to admit you are flawed. It’s quite another thing, though, to believe others are obligated to unconditionally love you and accept bad behaviors without the slightest consequence.

Now, for the love of Chardonnay, stop the madness. If it makes a difference, just remember Lindsay Lohan has stated how closely she identifies with Monroe. You don’t want to be in that club.

 

When I Am Old and Gray

The other day, my mother and I spent the day with my grandmother–my ‘Mammaw’. I’ve always been compared to her, physically and otherwise. We are both petite, at almost 5′ 2″, I am almost an inch taller than her and the rest of the family all tower over us at 5′ 5″ and above. In her younger days, Mammaw was quite the baton twirler, from what I am told.  Since baton twirling was out of vogue by the time I was in school, I shook my ass on the dance team. Close enough.  I began collecting shoes when I got my first job at the age of 15. My mother never understood my affinity for shoes and she said she never understood it, growing up, when it was her own mother that took the same delight in growing a shoe collection.  I suppose that would go hand in hand with the love for shopping that we share but that is a fairly common hobby.  Although, she seemed to share my shopping  mantra of “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission”, a philosophy that, evidently, got her into trouble with my Pappaw in much the same way it did for me with Husband.

She is 87 years old and, as such, there are certain rules pertaining to proper etiquette–not hers, yours.  To my knowledge, these guidelines have not been put in writing until now and this may not be a complete list. Based on my observations over the years, when spending time with a Mammaw:

• Even if she has just let out the longest, loudest burp that was so disgusting it caused you to throw up in your mouth a little, YOU HEARD NOTHING.
• If the sound of the gas she is passing woke you up in the next room, even if you are almost completely certain that she just sharted—YOU HEARD NOTHING.

Act  natural. Continue what you were doing. My children have, on more than one occasion, broken this protocol. When everyone else has their heads down, pretending that they didn’t hear her backside trumpeting, and a child announces, “Ewwwww, Mammaw just farted”, do not laugh. Ignore the comment and redirect the child, IMMEDIATELY.

Above all, you can’t get mad. Ever. Even in such scenarios as:

• You come home to find your kitchen looks like it has been readied for a rave foam party and the bubbles are still pouring out of your dishwasher. Turns out, she put liquid dish detergent in there, instead of dishWASHER detergent. You thank her for doing the dishes and then laugh and tell everyone about it when and where she won’t hear.
• You realize her method for putting dishes away boils down to just finding a place that the dish fits.
• On a daily basis, you think you are going crazy because you could SWEAR that you had put your coffee cup down right there but it is gone and you walk room to room, retracing your steps with a confused look on your face. You even talk to yourself: “I know I put that damn cup on that table. What the hell? Did I? Yes, of course I did. I guess I didn’t because it is gone. What the shit did I do with my damn coffee?” You walk into the kitchen and she has just finished rinsing it out. You may repeat the suggestion that if the coffee is hot she should leave it alone but understand that she will forget and this will happen again in about an hour. You must keep it with you or, if you must walk away, assign a babysitter.

You can only laugh with her, not at her. When my mother and I were visiting her last weekend, my mother came out of the restroom and asked my Mammaw where the hand towels were so she could dry her hands. My Mammaw searched around the bathroom, muttering about someone taking her hand towel off her sink and then said, “I guess we’ll have to make do” and reached into a drawer, pulled out an incontinence pad and handed it to my mother. I plan on implementing this hand drying method with my future guests by just sticking a few on the counter, next to the sink and replacing a couple of times a week. Less laundry for me!

She asked me seven times in seven minutes how old Number Four was and, as protocol dictates, I answered her each time like it was the first time she’d asked. I’d add to that all the times she has forgotten my name over the years but, to be fair, she has like 12 or 13 grandchildren and probably 20 great-grandchildren. We are a family of MAY-JAH breeders. I’ve had times when I need to yell at my own kids and I call them every other child’s name and even gone down the list of dog’s names, so I can’t even rib her about that one because, on top of having a hundred names to remember, she has the whole onset of dementia. The fact that she gets my name right at all, much less more than half of the time, earns her a gold star.

 

How Did You Find My Blog?

Here are some of my favorite search queries that have led people to my blog. They are funny and disturbing.

 

1) Footballs in vaginas – Ouch! Why? I bet half of you are just curious enough to go look for videos.

2) Fuck whole world – Bad day? This blog could make it better or worse!

3) underwear with penis on inside – is there underwear with penis on the outside?

4) little kids dick – Ummm–disturbing.

5) Caillou cake ideas – Ha! I doubt this person liked my opinion of Caillou. If I made a Caillou cake, it would only be so I could stick in a knife.

6) slut tips – That would have all been archived in my pre-mommy blog.

7) penis covered in glitter – it still won’t be pretty. I promise.

8) vagina doorbell – how I feel about this depends on if we are talking about a vagina for one’s door or a bell for one’s vagina.

9) if you fuck a girl in her ass can it hurt her – I feel sorry for the girl with the person responsible for this search.

10) hot sexy mermaids touching there boobs naked – I know! Can you believe the grammar error?

11) fb status getting so weird dat dat day is nt far wen people will update dat they r fucking – I need my decoder ring but I think this person may be trying to make a good point.

12) can i get a humorous story using these following word’s? sarcastic, laughable, mocking, hysterical, cute, amusing, outburst, titter, groan, and smile? – This may be one of my favorites. Though, I can swear that I have never used the word ‘titter’.

 

This is just a glimpse of what search terms people use that land them here. Look for this to be a series. I don’t understand how most of these searches result in this website but they do, which gives me a vivid glimpse of what kind of crazy is out there!