"I had to eat that pint of ice cream because I hate you so much." This is a quote.

Yes, it is all so clear now. Teenage hatred of parents drives them to do crazy things...like eat a pint of Haagen Dazs (while screaming at the rest of the family for being fat* and spewing anti-fast food rhetoric**), telling your mother to "fucking shut up" in a restaurant because her voice is so irritating, and telling her that 5 days a week of Zumba for the past two months hasn't made a bit of difference and she is as fat as ever.

This is the joyous and wonderful child I have raised (along with my husband, who I blame for pretty much everything that is going wrong with these children).

Why am I such a loathsome parent? Because I have done the following (these are the biggies and I'm sure there are more I haven't heard about yet): 1) I have called for a mostly electronics-free summer (everyone gets 30 minutes a day to check e-mail, Facebook, etc.); 2) I am moving 50% of all pay earned into a savings account for the future; 3) my husband and I have asked the child to consider ways to help pay for college; 4) she has not been provided with a new car; 5) we have not purchased her an iPhone; and 6) I have not been a real mom who takes her shopping for clothes and makeup (because, apparently, this is what truly caring mothers do...in addition to providing luxury vehicles and a full complement of Apple products).

The piece of shit moms who don't give a crap about their kids are the ones attempting to limit media, insisting on saving for the future and asking kids to take action in planning for one of the largest commitments of their young lives. That would be me. I'm that mom.

As far as the college thing goes, last night we took child #2 out to dinner to attempt to discuss the next few years. We thought taking the wild animal out of the cage into a more public environment might be a smart move, as public scrutiny of any crazy behavior might have a chilling effect. Um...no. While we attempted to discuss her plans in terms of starting to look for and apply for academic scholarships (as she is an all-honors student), the real possibilities of a sports scholarship, looking into other options such as the military, taking a year off to work (perhaps on a cruise ship or in some other job where you can see a bit more of the world), attending community college for the first two years, we heard the things you always hope your baby will grow up and say:

"If I have to pay for college, I'm not going."
"I don't value my eduction enough to have to work and pay for it."
"I'm going to do Herbalife. So and so is getting a seven-figure check this year."
"I'm not working next summer. I'm taking the summer off to hang out with my friends."
"You don't need to save for your retirement, you need to pay for all of my college."
"Fucking shut up Mom. Your voice is so irritating."

After hearing all these endearing and downright brilliant retorts, she announced that she could not be in the same car as us and proceeded to walk home from the restaurant two miles from the house. I'm just grateful we chose a restaurant relatively close to the house. My husband had to trail her to keep her from being raped or kidnapped. As child #2 will tell you, we do live in the wrong zip code in a shack.


*As far as the fat comment goes, only two of us actually qualify. The majority of the family is not fat. I think child #2's apparent body dismorphic disorder applies to those around her, not her.


**I find anti-fast food rhetoric distasteful and unfortunate. I love fast food and I normally will not stand by while people put it down. However, because I live in mortal fear of child #2, I kept my mouth shut.
 
 

My, things have taken a disturbing turn

For those of you wondering if I may have suffered a psychotic break, never fear, it's nothing like that. I just happen to suffer from PMDD. Those in the know recognize this as an acronym for a condition marked by severe PMS. Those really in the know recognize it as a condition where you verbalized your desire to hack someone into pieces instead of smiling and pretending you are OK while rage stews internally where it may cause cancer. Idle threats of dismemberment are just me trying to stay cancer free. No need to alert any authorities (if you do...Snap Pinedale is my name).

I'm at the beginning stages of what will develop into near complete loss of my ability to cope over the next two weeks. I know I am at the beginning because 1) I only ordered a medium caramel Frappe to go with my cheeseburger with extra pickle instead of two large Frappes to go with my super-sized fry and apple pie. And 2) when I couldn't find a parking space in front of Kinkos because a Range Rover took two spaces since the owner is clearly a superior POS in their own mind (because smart people know Range Rovers are horrible vehicles with terrible Consumer Reports ratings for reliability and maintenance costs and would never purchase one) and some SRP pole installing contractor truck driver couldn't park for shit, instead of walking in and yelling "Thanks Range Rover and SRP contractor for taking up the only available parking spaces with your elitist bullshit parking space-hogging mentality and your incompetent parking skills, RESPECTIVELY!"...I simply just thought it. Still in control, but teetering.

Is it me...or is everyone around me insane?

There is nothing funny about what I am going to post, but that won't stop me from mocking the entire situation if only to keep myself from driving off a cliff...except that there really are no cliffs here. However, a friend's mother-in-law who suffered from Alzheimer's somehow managed to drive off a cliff somewhere in the city, so perhaps I need to facebook message her and find out where that happened.

Recently, a paperwork snafu kept my son from getting into the Army. Of course, I was holding onto the tiny shred of hope that his paperwork would be reprocessed quickly and he would get right back in ASAP. Yep...no...not gonna happen.


We got a cryptic text Tuesday night from him saying he needed to talk to us. Hey, he might be coming out...you never know. Of course, now that I know what he needed to say, at least being gay won't keep you out of the military anymore. But having to go to court in a month for an underage consumption ticket just might. Will I ever catch a break with this kid?


So, the little outing with friends where he promised not to do anything illegal or that would jeopardize getting back into the military pretty much involved both. And, because nothing can be done with any moderation, he can't even remember what he blew for BAC...he just knows it had a couple 2s in it. Holy mother of God...


I can't continue on with any further commentary as it is just too fresh...and may result in me getting a divorce. Let's just say that my desire to not have child #1 drive any of our vehicles in the future was met with comments like "that doesn't make sense" and "that is sweeping." I'll leave my cathartic blog post on that precious conversation that for a future post when thinking about it won't make me want to hack the person who said these things into little pieces and feed them to my chickens. Good Lord, that sounds disturbed. Seriously, I don't have the motivation for that. The work, the mess, it would be too much. I'm more likely to just use a mean tone pretty much constantly and withhold sex.


On a lighter note, I had to drag child #2 across the house to the washing machine on her filthy bed sheet because she refused to have it washed and wouldn't let go of it. Fun times.

The cult of Herbalife

Check out this text I got from my daughter, who hates my guts (I fixed the usual grammatical issues): "Proud of you for having your shake! Don't forget lunch and eat your protein bars for snacks!" I have also received texts with helpful tips about yummy shake combos. What would inspire this creature who spends 99.78% of her time loathing my existence and sending me profanity filled texts about how I should leave her the $*#& alone: Herbalife. When Herbalife is the topic of conversation, this angst-filled, borderline psychotic teenager becomes a sweet and wonderful human being deeply concerned with everyone's health and weight-loss needs, much like a pod person.

Who would have thought a meal-replacement shake program could soothe a tortured soul...for about two minutes.

I have yet to try saying things like "healthy meal replacement," "cell activator," or "snack defense," when things get really hairy just to see what happens. Could these words possibly be used as triggers that cause her to turn from a rampaging freak show of teenage craziness into a docile, Herbalife robot repeating the benefits of supplements and listing all the fun meal replacement combinations that practically that turn your shake into a candy bar in a glass? Have the Herbalife people gotten this far in their programming? It's worth a try! I should have tried it last night when I asked her to fold some laundry...

I'm only on teenager #2 with two more to go...and the Church of Scientology just opened up next to their high school. Dear Lord baby Jesus, lyin' there in your ghost manger, just lookin' at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors, please help me!!!

Please tell me you are kidding

Just a quick post to let you know that I sent the link to this blog to my husband with the title "Don't inhibit me...don't judge me." I think it's only fair that he know what I am up to, and that I may possibly be revealing some of the darkest family secrets on the Internet for the world to see. He just called me and said how funny it was that I found a blog titled with that same line I "always say." Yep...pretty funny. Quite a coincidence.

Free steam treatments every day this summer!

I have a love-hate relationship with my office's toilet. There are qualities about it that endear it to me and others that are a bit disturbing. 

My office toilet is a 5-gallon toilet (please don't tell the government...but if you do, use my porn name when you report me: Snap Pinedale). I love 5-gallon toilets because you can flush a cat down one without it clogging, while a square of 1-ply in a 1.6-gallon* will have you writing a $120 check to Roto-Rooter. So, score one in the love column for my office toilet. However, the love ends right there.

To be fair to the office toilet, the reasons I hate it are not its fault. It is but a vessel for, a mere messenger of, the environment in which it is forced to exist. That environment being hell on Earth, aka Phoenix in the summer. For those who have not lived here or visited during the summer (hotels don't count...you have to stay at someone's house), you may not be aware that the water coming out of the tap is approximately 200 degrees, give or take. So, instead of doing what normal people do...run the tap until the water gets warm, we run the tap until the water is just below scalding temperature before washing our hands or getting in the shower. This concept, however, does not apply to the office toilet. The water in the office toilet just comes out hot as hell. So today, because of some bad etiquette on the part of my office buddy, I had to flush the toilet before using it. This resulted in me receiving, for free, what people probably pay big bucks for in a spa situation: a purifying butt steam. Yes indeedy, gentle waves of steam condensed on my ass while I sat on the toilet. It was strange and unpleasant. However, I think as a business scheme, this could take off in much the same way having small fish eat dead skin off your feet has in the mani-pedi business...

*As I think of the 1.6-gallon toilet, I would be remiss in not taking this opportunity to let you know that I have solved two of the world's most frustrating and significant problems (one of which is the 1.6-gallon toilet situation) for which I have received no notoriety or compensation. However, if you would like to send me money, please contact me at SnapPinedale@cox.net. Anyway...

1) I know where the missing socks are! They have not been eaten by a sock monster or stolen during the night by elves. They are UNDER the dryer.

2) I know how to keep a 1.6-gallon toilet from clogging! Hold the HANDLE down until everything is flushed. It really works!

Not only is this blog somewhat bitter and potentially a little angry...it's helpful!

Papcrastination

Yes, I am a pap-crastinator. I have not had a pap smear since I was pregnant with child #4 over 13 years ago. Of course, I'm arriving at the time of life (or arrived a few years ago) when I have to start having tests for this and that horrible and deadly disease, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

First, of course, is my anxiety on the issue of public weighing. I know how much I weigh, I have been weighed many times in my life, I have survived all of these weighings without significant damage. But, it remains an obstacle. Yes, I'm fat. I mean, I want to lose weight, but dammit, it's hard. And, if I continue on this path of denial and no early detection, perhaps I will get one of the dreaded cancers and it will take care of the weight thing for me. Why make the effort of losing weight when cancer may do it for me...effortlessly? (Although I have heard a vicious rumor that not everyone with cancer loses weight. That would be me...I'm always "that" person.)

Second, I'm not so much in to having all my parts felt anymore. When you're in college or in the childbearing years having kids right and left, you're used to having hands all up in your business and all over your body. I'm done with that now. I'm busy with other stuff, like trying not to shoot myself in the head because my kids are complete animals trashing my house, but I digress...

Finally, who will I go to for this pap smear? Being out of the loop for 13+ years means I don't have a gynecologist in my phone contacts anymore. This leaves me with a few options: ask a friend (of which there are few); consult Angie's List (that's how I found the dermatologist that I had to undress IN FRONT of to have my skin checked. She did say, we're all girls in here, but come on lady...); or wait for a Groupon.