Dear Stupid Boys,

(I will preface this post by saying that there will be lots of grand generalizations and stereotyping in this.  I know not ALL boys are selfish, ego-maniacal, social retards… just the ones that I’ve come in contact with.  My whole life.  All of them.  So only take offense if you’re guilty of any of the mentioned behaviors- and if you are offended, don’t yell at me.  Take a look at yourself and CHANGE… dick)

I’m not sure why it is so hard for fellas to get a grasp on basic common sense.  And why it’s even harder for them to follow the “Golden Rule” in relationships.  They get a little comfortable with their lady- and POOF!  They guy that we fell in love with disappears, and we’re left with a grumpy foot-stomping asshole who can’t pick up after themselves.  Why the fuck is this?  Don’t they know that the more you like someone, the better you should treat them?  And if you actually fall in LOVE with someone, you should treat them the BEST… not worse.  It’s insulting, and infuriating, and my patience with it is gone.  So to any boy who is reading this, take notes, and then treat that special lady like she actually IS SPECIAL- not just some chick who happens to be around all the time.

1. If you have a hard working lady who rarely ever gets to leave the house (but you get to go out and run around every fucking night), and you have a rare situation where the BOTH of you get to go out and run around- make it something SHE wants to do.  She works her ass off every day, and doesn’t want to spend her free time doing your douchy guy bullshit.  It’s not fun for her- so it won’t be worth her time.
2. If you mention doing your douchy guy bullshit on your free night out, and your tired and hardworking lady isn’t totally excited about it… don’t yell at her.  Don’t make her feel bad, and guilt her about not wanting to take part in your douchy guy activities.  These angry and infantile behaviors won’t make her suddenly want to do your douchy guy bullshit.  It will make her hate your douchy guy bullshit that much more because it has caused arguments,  AND it will make her not want to hang out with you AT ALL because you’re a fucking asshole.  Why not take a stab at being romantic and thinking of something creative that SHE likes (ya know, the way you used to when you were trying to show her that she was important to you).
3. If you’re lucky enough have a super hardworking lady in your life, show her you appreciate her hard work.  How about picking up all your stupid dirty laundry and piles of crap that’s littered all over the house.  Or cleaning the sheets.  Or wiping down the counters in the bathroom.  Or cleaning the floors that you spill coffee on EVERY FUCKING DAY.  Or surprising her by making her dinner ONCE in the 7 years you’ve been together.  Those are some starter ideas.  She works hard, and puts up with you.  She deserves a damn medal… but is awesome enough to accept only a little help around the house.
4. If you say you’re going to do something…. do it.  I don’t care what it is.  Just do it.  It’s far more insulting to promise to do something and then not do it, than it is to never offer in the first place.  It shows us you can’t be relied upon to help us, and that you’re full of shit.  Don’t be that “full of shit guy”.  No one likes that guy.  He sucks.
5. If you say you’re going to do something, and then start to do it, DO NOT get whiny, and bitch and moan the whole time you’re doing it.  You agreed to do it- so grow a set and get it done without incident.  And DO NOT act like we owe you the world because you’re actually doing the mundane and simple task that you agreed to do.  If you don’t want to do the task- then don’t agree to it in the first place.  We would much rather do the task ourselves than listen to you whine like a little sister.  Your whining shows lack of character, and it’s fucking annoying.
6. Things like birthdays, mother’s day, valentine’s day, etc., ARE important.  Acknowledge this.  Always.  It doesn’t matter if your lady says that she doesn’t like holidays, or doesn’t want to celebrate birthdays… do something anyways.  Maybe if you make these days fun for her, then she will start to like them.  But ignoring them, or FORGETTING THEM, or screwing them up with your own selfish grumpiness only makes her feel unimportant and hate them more.  Don’t tell her you’re taking her to a metal show on Mother’s day when you KNOW she doesn’t like going to metal shows, and THEN get mad at her because she doesn’t want to go to the metal show.  THIS IS NOT THE WAY FOR A GOOD HUSBAND TO BEHAVE.  She just might spit in your coffee on Father’s Day.  And you would fully deserve it.
7. If the cat pukes, don’t leave it there until she comes home to clean it up.
8. If you can’t remember the last time you made her feel pretty, then you’re a total shit stain.  Note- I didn’t say “tell her she’s pretty”… I said “made her feel pretty”.  There is a MASSIVE difference between these 2 things.  And if I have to explain them to you, you have no right being in a relationship, and you’d better figure it out fast- or else someone else might “make her feel pretty” and then you’re shit-outta-luck and alone.
9. Relationships are all about compromise and sacrifice for the good of the couple/family.  If you can’t handle this- you’re a dick to have sucked someone into a  relationship with you in the first place.  It isn’t YOUR relationship, or YOUR sex life, or YOUR money, or YOUR house, or YOUR free time- it belongs to both of you equally.  So behave accordingly.  You have to look at the good of the group- not just what YOU WANT.  This applies to every aspect of the relationship from chores to sex.  So get over yourself.  (and she HAS made sacrifices for you- but you might not know it because she doesn’t make a huge production about it)
10. The Golden Rule applies most to the people you care about.  If you want to come home to someone who will greet you with loving, understanding and open arms- you have to be that person as well.  If you want your lady to be fun, playful, spontaneous and filled with giggles, you have to be that person too.  It’s hard for us to be loving and filled with giggles if you’re a grumpy stompy demanding stick-in-the-mud.  It’s ok to be grumpy and have bad days- but allow us those kind of days too.  And if you want us to help you pull out of a bad day- do the same for us.

This is all so simple and basic that it blows my mind I even have to state it.  But there it is.  Stated in black and white.  There really should be no questions.

Thank you.

A few of my favorite things….

There are times (lots and lots of times) where I would like to destroy my husband.  There are times (lots and lots of times) where visions of my 3 inch heels being jammed into his eye sockets makes me giggle.  But then there are times that remind me why I fell in love with him in the first place, and that make me happily want to grow old with him (well… he’s already old… so he’ll just grow ‘older’).

One of those magical times where flowers and Care Bears shoot from my eyes are when he is talking to Customer Service Departments on the phone.  He has turned this into an artform, and really should make these calls a stand-up comedy routine.  These poor customer service representatives have no chance when they get on the phone with him.  Brad is now a good guy…. but because of his very checkered past of being an addict on the streets, he knows how to scam.  He only uses the “scamming skills” for good now (ie: fucking with Customer Service Representatives, or people from banks or credit card companies, etc)- but when Brad get’s going, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

He knows all the “sales people” tactics.  He knows their tricks and uses these tricks against them.  He plays the game like he was the one who wrote it.  He makes sure to find out the person’s name he’s talking to, and begins and ends every sentence with their name to emphasize that they’re “good buddies” (which is an old Sales Person trick).  IE his phone conversation with the Pinkney-Bowes customer service department today who was trying to trick us into paying an extra $120 worth of services that we never agreed to.  He was speaking with an elderly lady named Bobby.  Brad must have used her name 350 times in their 15 minute phone conversation.  “Well, Bobby, when we started with your services, the gentleman that I was speaking with never informed me of the year contract, Bobby.  And, Bobby, I keep detailed records of any conversation that I have when working with other companies, Bobby, and have learned to be able to see through the double-speak, Bobby…..”.

He makes the experience a game.  The more polite and chipper the Representative becomes, the more polite and chipper Brad becomes.  This builds and builds until they’re both oozing with false happiness, and giggling to each other- the whole time totally hating each other because of it.  But all the while, he listens very very carefully for things they may say that he can trap them in.

Today, the trap was recorded phone conversations.  Dear sweet Bobby didn’t realize who she was up against, and made the mistake of telling Brad that all their phone conversations were recorded and kept for review.  Oops, Bobby!!  You just fucked up!!!  Brad responded with “That’s FANTASTIC!!! If you’re unable to get your supervisor on the line, then we can totally work this out!  You find the tape where I agreed to the one year contract, and I’ll totally pay for it!!”

Poor flustered Bobby’s plan to back him into a corner with the threat of a recorded agreement exploded right in her face.  And in her flailings, she agreed to find the tape.  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  She said that it might take a week… Brad said “That’s great!!”.  Then she said it might take 2 or 3 weeks… Brad said “Ya know, Bobby, I’m a really patient person. So that’s totally fine! I’ll wait!!… AND I’ll be sure and call back in a week to see how you’re doing with that. This is FANTASTIC, Bobby!!”.  If they can’t find the tapes (because they don’t ever keep them, OR record ALL their phone conversations like they say… I worked in customer service, so I know this), then we aren’t legally bound to this bullshit contract that they say we’re bound to because they have no proof we agreed to it.

And through all this, Brad is smiling, and giggling, and asking Bobby if her day is still going great like she stated at the beginning of the conversation, and with every new offer she throws out he responds with “OH MY GOD!! That’s the greatest offer I’ve EVER heard of!!!!… but I think we’ll decline”.  It’s fucking magic.

I’m trying to learn his game- but I’m just not good at it.  I get mad too easily… which is what they want.  They want you to get frustrated, and then to agree to whatever just to get off the phone.  But Brad will proudly state to them “I’ve got all day to talk with you… so let’s get started, Bobby.”  I don’t have all day, and I frustrate very easily when I feel I’m being fucked over, and I end up telling them I hope they get in a car crash on the drive home from thier pointless job.  I know this doesn’t help my cause- but it feels really good to say it.

So Brad has marked on his calender to give good ol’ Bobby a call exactly one week from now to see how the search for the missing tapes is going.  He’s hoping this goes on for months.  He LOOOOVES this kind of silliness.

And for that, I love him.

Women are from Venus, Men are from Retard….

A few days ago, I had a very long conversation with a good buddy of mine.  He was all stressed and worried that his special lady-friend was becoming disinterested and maybe having eyes for someone else, and even contemplating leaving him.  He told me how she was acting (despondent, apathetic, submissive to avoid conflict, and overall bored with his existence).  I don’t know his lady friend well, but I know ladies.  These are not happy signs.  Then I asked him what he was doing to try to save his sinking ship… to which he responded, “Duuuhhhhh… nothing.  What am I supposed to do about it?”.  Sigh.  Stupid fucking boys.

So I proceeded to tell him he WAS in fact a stupid fucking boy, and that if his special lady friend really was special, he needed to let her know.  His response…”Should I buy her flowers or take her out to a movie or something?”…. my response “God, you’re REALLY fucking stupid!!!”.  Life isn’t a goddamn hallmark card or some horrible Juila Roberts movie.  After a long period of neglect, you can’t fix a relationship with a handful of roses and a craptastic hollywood pile of shit.  Common sense, fellas…. common sense.

So I’m going to throw out some info for the fellas so they can understand how to try to “make things better”, and hopefully aid some ladies out there who have retards for boyfriends/husbands (because we ALL do… except my friend Tawni. Tawni somehow found the one male on the planet who isn’t an emotional cripple.  I would like her to know that I think of her every time Brad is being an asshole, and am green with envy).

Women are NOT complex.  I know that millions of comic strips, movies, sitcoms, and stand-up acts rely solely on the notion that women are just TOO far out there to even try to understand- but I promise you, it just isn’t true.  We may sometimes be picky.  We may sometimes be high-maintenance. We may sometimes be irritable (you try having one of your internal organs turn against you once a month causing genital hemorrhaging and knife stabbing pain and see how pleasant you are).  But we are not not not not not difficult to figure out.

To understand relationships is to understand people.  People are selfish, and driven primarily by selfish needs.  There isn’t a single person on the plant who’s actions aren’t governed by this.  It’s primal, and is there from birth (why do you think the concept of sharing is so difficult for toddlers?).  Because of this, we surround ourselves with people that fulfill something in us that we are lacking.  We spend time with people that make us feel something we need to feel.  We don’t hang out with jerks and morons and people that make us feel like crap about ourselves (unless we’ve been emotionally beat down and have terrible self-esteems… but then that fulfills a need, and is a totally different topic).  So in a relationship, once it loses all it’s fun and starts to become a chore- of course someone is going to start looking for an “out”.  This can be avoided, though.

If you’re a fella, and your lady is showing those apathetic and despondent signs, or you’re fearful that another fella has caught their attention, it really isn’t hard to turn things around… or to try, at least.  What was your relationship like when you first got together?  How did you make her FEEL?  Did you make her feel like the prettiest lady on the planet?  The most special person to you?  Women in our culture are bombarded from birth by messages telling us that we’re not pretty enough/thin enough/smart enough/ stylish enough/ exciting enough/sexy enough/ special enough.  We’re raised in a perpetual state of low self-esteem that we have to battle with everything we do.  So if we find a boy that shares our interests and makes us feel like we’ve knocked them off their feet, we tend to get weak in the knees.  Your job, as boys, is to keep making us weak in the knees.  Just keep doing all that stuff you did when the two of you first got together that made her feel like the most amazing girl you’ve ever met.  It’s not hard.  It’s all stuff you’ve done before…. it’s all that stuff that caught her attention in the first place and kept her attention long enough for you to grab her up.  Just keep doing it.  Don’t let things get old and stale.  It seriously is that simple.

And yes, you will have to keep doing this shit for the entirety of your relationship.  You may see this as “high-maintenance”…. but if you’d like to continue to have a lady around who will endure your male-stench, and your stupid jokes, and all the crap that comes along with existing with you, and have someone there for you to come home to, and emotionally support you, and to keep you from having to go back out into the “dating world” where you will face constant and consistent rejection just to come home to a messy and pathetic bachelor pad with nothing but your porn and your own company, then you’re going to have to keep making her feel special. But by all means- feel free to ignore what I’m saying.  Defiantly state “fuck that female-high-maintenance bullshit!!” and go try to find something better, or a relationship that doesn’t end up in the same place you’re in now.  Good luck with that.

But if you’ve found a good lady, and would like to continue to have that good lady around- just keep making her feel good things.  It really isn’t that much to ask.  Weigh it out… all you have to do is keep making us feel special, and in turn you get… well…. everything.  Not a bad deal, right?

I have now put away the soapbox.  On a different note, here’s what I made yesterday:

Severed Finger Cupcakes!!!  Available this week on the webstore!!!  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!