(scene, 11PM, just returned to the couch to watch another episode of Prison Break with Guy on the Couch. The Daver watches Deep Space Throat Nine Downstairs)

Aunt Becky: “FUCK, I just knocked over my Diet Coke.”

The Guy On My Couch: “I got the paper towels.”

Aunt Becky: “No, I mean, like FUCK!”

The Guy On My Couch: “Um…okay?”

Aunt Becky: “There should be a law against this.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “No Diet Coke shall spill after 11PM.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “Why are you staring at me like Michael Scofield? YOU’RE NOT IN PRISON. YOU DON’T NEED TO BREAK OUT OF IT.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “What are you waiting for? CALL FEMA! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD! CALL AARP! CALL NAACP! CALL THE BLACK PANTHERS! This is a fucking emergency situation.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “And tell them to bring Funyons. I’m hungry.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “I’d be okay with Chex Mix too. Just, you know, if Doctors Without Borders is out of Funyons.”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “THIS IS A DIRE EMERGENCY.”

The Guy On My Couch: (rolls eyes)

Aunt Becky: “Can you stop giving me the Michael Scofield stare, PLEASE? To circumvent your next question, I do not have a fake-gold crucifix with which to help you turn off the electricity.”

The Guy On My Couch: “I think there’s more footage of Michael Scofield staring out the window than any other scene in the show.”

Aunt Becky: “It’s signifying that he’s working something out. You know, how in House, MD (pauses for a moment of silence), they’re always walking with House and talking as a way to show plot progression?”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “If he just was all, ‘I need a 12×14 cardboard box, a blue felt-tipped pen, and a pink starburst,’ it’d be all, ‘where the shitballs did that come from?’ Looking out the window gives his plans some credence.”

The Guy On My Couch: “What would Scofield use those for?”

Aunt Becky: “The box would be to send a message via carrier pigeon and the blue pen would be a red herring – the pink starburst? That’d be because they’re delicious.”

The Guy On My Couch: (laughs)

Gimmie the Pink Starburst and NO ONE GETS HURT!

Aunt Becky: “Well, they ARE. And where the shit is AAA to clean up my Diet Coke? You DID call them, right? You DID stress that this was a NATIONAL EMERGENCY, RIGHT?”

The Guy On My Couch: “…”

Aunt Becky: “Maybe the IRS can help.”

The Guy On My Couch: “What, are they gonna give you a tax break or something?”

Aunt Becky: “You never do know…” (gazes into the distance)

(several minutes elapse)

Aunt Becky: “If I made a baby with Wentworth Miller, would it cry in a British accent?

The Guy On My Couch: “You’re fired.”

Aunt Becky: “So are you. Where the fuck is the Red Cross?”

If I could tell the world just one thing…

The January air was cold, crisp, the sort of Chicago winter that seared your boogers to the insides of your nose and made your eyes water, your tears freezing as soon as they emerged from your tear ducts. I was just crossing the river, the grey of the cold January afternoon oppressively suffocating me as I noted the chunks of ice floating down the river. I wished I could fall down there with them, and wake up to a new day, a new life.

I was driving my dad’s old car, the roads wet and icy, the salt making a jaunty click-click sound against the bottom of my red Acura Integra, the one I’d inherited to replace my del Sol for something, well, with a backseat. A backseat that held one tiny infant, with a shock of black hair who squalled and cried, even as we drove. I hadn’t slept in days. To keep me awake, and to drown out the sound of my tiny sons wails, I put on one of my most favorite Christmas albums.

….it’d be that we’re all okay.

I was baffled by my new baby.

His dislikes included me, air, food, being touched, the world, gravity, the universe, and, well, life. Babies are supposed to love this shit, right? If babies are supposed to love this shit, then it’s clearly some character flaw of mine that he couldn’t even look me in the eyes.

In 2001, autism wasn’t The Thing – no one walked, or ran, for a cure – no one really knew much about it. And I certainly didn’t suspect that he had a problem.

He was just…temperamental. And he probably sensed that I was a bad mother, a piece of shit person, and could tell that he’d drawn the shitty card when he was born to me.

In the end, only kindness matters.

My heart was as heavy and oppressive, like my mood.

I’d waddled back home at twenty, pregnant with my young son, tail between my proverbial legs. My parents graciously allowed me back into their home and helped me set up a nursery for him, but, like any other kind deed, this one came with strings so long that I nearly hung myself on them. And my son’s father, angry that I’d had the audacity to get pregnant while on birth control, (while we get along now) well, he wasn’t particularly kind to me.

The last person I recalled being truly kind to me was one of the nurses in the hospital as she wheeled me out to the car with my new baby.

Five months before.

Not to worry, because worry is wasteful and useless in times like these.

Since I could recall, I’d dreamed of going to medical school and becoming a doctor. I’d never considered having children, never thought that I’d be a parent but here I was. And there he was.

I couldn’t figure out what next. If I wanted a life with my son, I’d have to give up on the only dream I’d ever known – becoming a doctor. If I didn’t want a life with my son, well, I could go to medical school, see him on weekends and in between rotations, living with my parents until I was forty, but despite his dislike of me, I was pretty fond of the little guy.

Stuck between a rock and a bigger rock, the future a black question mark of yawning uncertainty, I drove aimlessly around, trying to make the kid sleep, trying to outrun my demons, trying to figure out what next.

I won’t be made useless.

I’d never not had a plan before. It was like waking up to realize I’d lost the right half of my body. I’d dreamed of medical school since I was a toddler – the dream was over. But what to fill it with?

I didn’t have that answer. I didn’t know where to look for an answer. I didn’t know what to do next. The emptiness was overwhelming.

My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own.

Everywhere I turned, someone else was telling me what to do. What not to do. How I was ruining my child. How I needed to do this or that. How I shouldn’t ever think of doing this again. I was twenty-one – there was no one in my corner telling me that I could do it if I just got all EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER about it.

I’ll gather myself around my fears.

Maybe I wasn’t the most qualified of people to raise my son; maybe my brother and sister-in-law were (my mother had asked them if they’d adopt my son should I “go off the rails on a crazy train”). Maybe he was better off without me. But he wasn’t going to get that chance. Whether he liked it or not, I was going to parent the SHIT out of him. I was gonna get him a family and we were going to make it.

For light does the darkness most fear.

The dark days outnumbered the light ones for a good long time. I had to learn to smile and nod as I was told that I was doing a bad job at parenting. Every jab, every poke, every complaint about me, I learned to smile and nod. “Yes, that’s right, I am a bad mother, you’re so right.” I ground my teeth into nubs and smiled.

Soon, my path veered dramatically. I entered nursing school, found a new plan and met the man I would marry. The man who would encourage me, after only reading emails I’d sent, to write.

I won’t be made useless.

Maybe my “plan” was gone – so what? The world was a big place – plenty of room for new plans. I would not be made useless. I would do something to make my small boy proud. I’d get him the family he needed, I’d get away from his father, and I’d give him the siblings that helped the autistic child emerge from his own world to join ours.

I did. I found my words as he found his, and together we were able to carve out a new plan – a better plan.

I won’t be idle with despair.

There have been months, years full of despair, sadness. My heart, however, has never been as empty as it was that day, crossing the mighty Fox River, me against the world. If I could tell my former self that day that, “hey, your life will be nothing like you thought it would be, but that’s okay,” I would. I’d give that girl a hug. I’d let her know that it was okay to be scared. It was okay to feel weak and powerless because, well, she was.

But not deep inside. Deep inside, there was a drive, a dream, to become more. To be better. To do something with herself.

And she has.

And I will.

I am never broken.

When my eldest was five, I was beyond delighted to find that they still manufactured EZ Bake Ovens. I, myself, had often begged, borrowed, and wheedled my mother about buying me one. Her response was two-fold:

A) They cook the cakes with a lightbulb

2) You can use the REAL oven.

Of course, she, being wiser than I, never allowed me within ten feet of an oven. I give you Exhibit A:

Actual attempt by Your Aunt Becky to create a fancy cake. At age 29.

Pranksters, tell me that cake doesn’t look like semen layered upon bubble gum and a sponge.

Anyway, it was with great gusto that I bought my son an EZ Bake Oven. And promptly realized that my mother, in fact, had been right all along – the thing was a piece of junk. The “brownies” we made tasted like water-logged cardboard.

When I noted the 80’s clothes coming back, I groaned, the same way my own parents groaned when I clomped into the house wearing platform heels and a Dashiki. As if leggings and pajama jeans weren’t bad enough, now grown-ass women can wear whimsical overalls?

WHY, o! WHY would I want to wear those overalls? They look like they’d crawl up your cootch and hang out there, not only making you uncomfortable, but also giving you a massive case of camel toe.

Alas, I digress.

When I saw that Strawberry Shortcake was making a comeback, I’ll admit that I got pretty excited. I mean, that doll used to smell like AWESOMENESS and hell, it’s better than listening to fucking Dora talking about her stupid fucking backpack or Ruby telling Max all bossy-like, “Now, Max…”

WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS, CARTOON CREATURES?

But then, they took on the Smurfs and made Katy Perry – who appears to actually be a smurf in real life – and did a creepy animated Smurf movie. When I stop weeping, I’ll let you know.

My children’s latest obsession is with something that, as a young lass, I, too, loved: My Little Pony. Oh, how I loved My Little Pony – nearly as much as the Pound Puppies and the Barbies that I was not allowed (my hippie mother didn’t want me to grow up thinking women needed to be 7 feet tall with double FF’s and blond). I watched the show as religiously as I could, considering I was allotted an hour of television each day – unless it was PBS, which is how I learned that the art of cooking is this:

“Throw a bunch of shit in a pan. Don’t measure. More ingredients = better. Then order takeout.” Thank YOU, Jeff Smith for that misconception.

I was all excited when the kids stopped watching Phineas and Ferb and began to watch My Little Pony. My middle son, Alex, is extra-specially fond of the show, which I found to be adorable until…

…I realized that they’d redone the show.

I mean, it’s not like the ponies are like all sexified and slinky or anything, which, after seeing the Bratz Dolls, I count as a win, but what was so wrong with the original cartoon? I ASK YOU TELEVISION EXECS, WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE ORIGINAL?

Sighs.

I guess I should go back to my Matlock reruns – interspersed, of course, with episodes of Murder, She Wrote – chug some Geritol, fantasize about getting a cane to trip random walkers-by and yell at the damn kids to get off my damn lawn.

Oh wait.

Those are MY kids on the lawn.

When people used to say things like, “Oh, I can’t WAIT for the fall TV lineup,” or “I have EVERY NIGHT’S TELEVISION SCHEDULE COLOR-CODED and in a GRAPH!” I’d do one of two things:

1) Wonder what a chart of pies would look like (rather than a pie chart).

B) Seethe in jealousy because WHO HAS THAT KIND OF TIME?

(answer: not me).

I started getting into watching television when I was pregnant with Alex, and everything – including the ice maker making ice slowly made me vomit, then cry, then vomit again. Dick Wolf lured me in Law and Order: Their Life Is Worse Than Yours So Suck It Up, Cupcake because, well, no matter what time of day it was, there were at least three episodes currently playing.

(when, much later, I got a DVR and tried to record some of the Law and Order: Fuck You And Your First World Problems, it wheezed, groaned, then laughed at me before refusing to record anything Dick Wolf ever created)

(sidebar: I cannot decide if Dick Wolf is the world’s perfect name or the world’s worst name. Either way, he’s a brilliant, brilliant man who should probably pull an Oprah and have his own television channel)

Eventually, I watched most of Law and Order: Being Out of Seasalt Is Not The End Of The World, and realized I needed another distraction, some way to turn my brain off from 11 to a nice solid 4. And, based upon what my friends were saying, I should try this House, MD thing.

I did.

It was there, through medical jargon I so desperately missed, that I found someone like me; someone who wasn’t perfect. Someone who had issues and bad hair days and wasn’t glitz and glam – someone who was broken.

Someone who was broken.

Someone who was broken like me.

House made it okay for those of us just left of center, those of us who are fragmented, those of us who fight to be normal, to be, well, who we are. House made it okay to use biting humor to mask my feelings because, well, some things are easier said while dripping with sarcasm.

He made it okay to be an antihero.

He gave me the strength to write things like this, things I’ve never before said aloud because they seemed too scary, too real, like if I gave them the airplay, my life might implode.

I’ve watched him painfully go through rehab, recovery. I’ve watched as he lost his mind, then found it again. I’ve watched him be brilliant and I’ve watched him as he fails. I’ve found myself crying, nodding because there was finally someone out there who was just like me. Maybe – just maybe – I wasn’t alone.

Tonight, House, MD, will run it’s finale.

Before I watch it, box of tissues in hand, I wanted to say thank you, to you, the brilliant writers of House, MD, for giving me a character who has helped me confront my demons. Who made it okay to be broken. Who made it okay to be weak. Who reminded me to keep taking that one step forward.

Who made it okay to be me.

One of the first things I did after we bought our house was lay down on the then-only-slightly-dingy-white (WHITE!) carpet and make a carpet angel. Because, well, OBVIOUSLY. Also: we’d gone from living in the three-bedroom equivalent of a dorm room into a house that had three floors. Like I could be in one room? And Daver could be in another? And we couldn’t hear each other.

(unless, of course, Daver was chewing, in which case, the squirrels in Siberia heard him)

It was beyond weird.

One of the second things I did was try frantically to make a baby (sorry for making you want to scrub your brain). For someone who got pregnant while on birth control just by being in the same room with a dude, I expected it to *ahem* be easier.

Eventually I got knocked up with Alex and 9 excruciating months full of  prepartum depression and lumbering about like a sea lion in maternity clothes later, he was born.

Hit your fast-forward button past the part where Alex looked like a garden gnome, his obsession with boobs, past the tremendous thyroid crash, past the near-nervous-breakdown, past the part where he wouldn’t let anyone but me hold him without shrieking, past the not-sleeping, past the insomnia and postpartum depression. Then go past the part where my friend of many years dies of cirrhosis at age 24 (or 25) and you’ll be caught up to Alex’s first birthday.

Or you can skip the words and just look closely at this picture to know all you needed to know about that year.

Anyway, when I told people I’d “planned to have another” I meant, “I’d planned to have another since I’ve been living in some sort of vaguely adorable hell and if I go too far from it, I’ll never go back.” They shook their head in disbelief – that is the kind of baby Alex was.

(thankfully, he’s merely grown into a maniacal mastermind who dresses up in butterfly costumes and watches My Little Pony)

A couple of days after Alex’s first birthday, once he’d finally decided that other people were not, in fact, Satan, I was out in the back yard, working in the garden I’d already painstakingly removed all traces of fake plants from (except, however, the petals, which I still, from time to time, find lurking in random places as a lil “Fuck You” from the previous owners, but I digress).

I realized, as I was sitting there, knee deep in dirt and mud, that I couldn’t actually recall the last time I’d had a period. Considering I hadn’t slept a full night in a year, I also didn’t know where my pants were and had just, upon waking one morning, poured an entire pot of scalding coffee on my hand before registering “FUCKING OW.”

I got up, left the kids out back with Daver, and went upstairs in search of an ancient pregnancy test. I’d had to stock up on them while we were TTC and had one leftover. One ancient test.

I bathed it in my urine, alone for once, quiet in the bathroom

Two lines popped up. The first – the “YOU’RE PREGNANT ASSHOLE” – line was there, but it was kinda…smeary.

Whatever, I said to myself (likely out loud, because I was that far gone). A line is a motherfucking line. Guess I’m having another baby!

I proudly brought my pee-covered stick outside to show Daver who had no idea what I’d been doing. “THERE,” I said, happily. “We’re having another baby!”

We did the happy dance for a second before returning to our children who were mucking around the backyard together.

The following morning, I woke up and, upon wiping, saw blood. Lots of it.

Okay, I figured, prolly a chemical pregnancy. That sucks.

I called my OB to make an appointment with the doctor to get my shot of Rho-Gam and make sure my beta was going down properly. He comforted me, I remember that, by saying that “sometimes these things do happen.” And while I was a little sad, I’ve known WAYYYY to many baby loss mamas for me to be sad about a bundle of cells that were never meant to be.

I called Daver at work and informed him that I’d lost the baby. We were both a little sad, but not like, prostrate (or prostate) with grief.

Until the next month.

When I got pregnant again.

The line was fainter, but, I told myself, it was still a line and hey, I’ve been drinking lots of water and shit, and well, LINE!

Two days after THAT positive pregnancy test, I began to bleed. Another chemical pregnancy.

I tried to comfort myself, but it didn’t work. I’d lost a lot in the previous year and, well, I’d really wanted that baby. I curled up on my couch and wept. And continued weeping until the hormones went back to normal. Dave just looked at me, unsure of what to do.

I did the only thing I could think to do – I went and bought roses. I come from a long line of rose growers, so I figured it was in my genetics.

It was.

It is.

Two climbing roses, I got that day at the greenhouse, 4 years ago. I didn’t know shit about climbing roses, besides that they prolly had spidey-sense and could be all, I WILL GROW ON TALL BUILDINGS WITHOUT TRAINING.

I was wrong.

Turns out? You have to train the fuckers. Like the puppy I’d gotten who, rather than comfort me in my grief, ate his own vomit, then puked it out on the carpet.

By this time? I was pregnant again. With my daughter. And when I began to spot around six weeks, I was placed on activity restriction. So my roses languished.

They languished again the following year, when I was coping with PTSD. The year after that, I tried, but barely managed to keep them “trained.”

This year, though, I have some help in the garden.

(not actually my garden. But my actual children)

I fucked up this year. When I was all, “Imma be proactive and shit, but not like John C. Mayer because I don’t have acne,” I got out all my chemicals and sprayed the bejesus outta the climbing roses, who have been fighting with black-spot for years.

Then, in an odd twist, we have a sudden cold snap. Guess what happened with the roses?

Oh yeah, their leaves were all, “Fuck this noise.”

So I was all, “Fuck me gently with a pickax – I’m never gonna be proactive again.” Then I kicked myself and thought about bacne for awhile.

I’ve spent the better part of several weeks removing the unhappy leaves from each of the roses. For normal roses, of which I have a kajillion, there are like 20 leaves. Maybe 100. I don’t know. Climbing roses, though, are a different story.

This rose?

I can’t count past twenty, but I think it has more than 100 leaves. And half of them have had to go. Painstaking, but true.

I’ve been removing dead shit like a motherfucker. And yesterday? I fought the rose.

The rose won.

(Scene: Aunt Becky, outside, underneath the rosebed, cursing my climbing roses, my lack of gardening gloves, the cats for peeing on my last nice set of gloves, and the stupid privacy screen for holding onto the fungus that causes black spot. The voices of little children can be heard in the background.)

Aunt Becky (fantasizing) “Grumble, grumble, I’ll fucking turn this cat into a fucking pair of slippers for pissing on my gloves.”

Alex, Age 5, (swoops over and plops on a tiny blue child-sized chair): “Mama, I’m bored.”

Aunt Becky: “Go play with Mark Zuckerberg.” (points at the peacock statue under the tree).

Aunt Becky (mutters): “Need to get some statues of the Brothers Winklevii. Flamingos? Gnomes? MOTHERFUCKING BUTTERFLIES?”

Alex (still sitting in the chair, grumbling): “Nah, that’s boring. I wanna swing.”

Aunt Becky: “Wait your turn, J.”

Alex (begins to smile broadly): “Hahahahahaah! Ben* peed in the yard!”

Aunt Becky (turns head in Exorcist-type fashion): “Whaaaaat?”

Alex (laughing so hard he can barely breathe): “Yep. He peed on the swing!”

Aunt Becky (recalling a similar incident several days prior): “BEN – GET OVER HERE NOW.”

Alex (giggling manically- scatological humor is, apparently, genetic): “He just whipped his penis out and started peeing!)

Aunt Becky (Furious George – about to throw down)

Ben (wanders over and looks down at me, under the rosebush, clearly confused): “What’s up, Mom?”

Aunt Becky (teeth gritted): “Did you pee in the yard – AGAIN?”

Ben (confused look): “No?”

Aunt Becky (knowing this child conveniently “forgets” things he’s done unless I’m particularly specific with him): “Your brother just said you did.“

Ben (still confused): “I did NOT! He’s lying!”

Aunt Becky (looks around for Alex for confirmation – does not see him in the chair): “Whaaaa?”

Ben: “ALEX, YOU STOLE MY SWING!”

Alex (laughing so hard he can barely speak): “I. stole. your. swing!” (erupts into gales of laughter)

Aunt Becky (secretly high-fiving the kid for being so cunning): “Alex – we don’t lie. Off the swings, both of you!”

Ben and Alex scamper off to play in the tree house that is not yet, in fact, a panic room ***.

Aunt Becky (beaming quietly with maternal pride as she goes back to her roses): “Atta boy.”

*my son, not the Guy On My Couch**

**I hope

***I have plans – GRAND plans for a panic room in my treehouse.

Dear “John C. Mayer,”

I know we’ve had a tumultuous relationship – we’re like when a tornado meets a volcano or um, cheese meeting macaroni, or something poetic, John C. Mayer. Whatever, John C. Mayer – I’m not the singer – YOU are.

For years, John C. Mayer, I despised you. Not because I knew you, John C. Mayer, or even because you, John C. Mayer had done anything personally to me.

Except that you, John C. Mayer did. You wrote that stupid “You’re Body Is A Wonderland” song. I mean, John C. Mayer, how many times do I have to hear my girlfriends ovulate all over the place when that stupid song comes on? How many torturous nights, John. C. Mayer do I have to hear my sappy girlfriends be all, “I *love this song – John C. Mayer wrote this about ME and now I want to have his sensitive babies,” before I snap, John C. Mayer?

Answer, John C. Mayer: about two hundred times.

And frankly, how dare you, John C. Mayer, sir, have the audacity to be both funny AND play the guitar like that? It’s unfair, John C. Mayer, because despite how much, I wanted to hate you, John C. Mayer, I simply cannot. Your humor, John C. Mayer is not a fluke, and you, John C. Mayer, are someone with whom I’d like to be friends.

You may recall, John C. Mayer, when the Internet Pulled A “John C. Mayer” and beat Google’s search algorithm to be among the very top of the search terms for “John C. Mayer.” It was originally an accident, John C. Mayer, but it turned into a prank so large that “Pulling A John C. Mayer” made it into Urban Dictionary. That may be, John C. Mayer, the very pinnacle of my existence.

A photo taken during the John C Mayer Prank, complete with my fake cat, Mr. Sprinkles.

Today, John C. Mayer, I checked to see where I ranked on Google. It’s been over two years (I think) since I Pulled a John C. Mayer on the Internet – certainly my page rank must’ve gone down. After all, John C. Mayer, I do not write a blog about John C. Mayer – instead, I prefer to write narcissistically about, well, me. That is what blogging is all about, right John C. Mayer?

(answer: yes)

And yet. And how. And this:

Screen shot from today. I beat out John C. Mayer’s blog AND Wikipedia. John C. Mayer totally loves me.

Anyway, I’m sure that your publicist, John C. Mayer would like me to die in a fiery blaze started possibly by a “malfunctioning kitchen appliance,” because WHOOPS! Behold the Power of the Pranksters, John C. Mayer!

But I’m a little afraid, now, John C. Mayer, that while your publicist may want to murder me with a pitchfork, that you, John C. Mayer may be in love with me. Now, I know what you’re thinking: who isn’t in love with John C. Mayer and his luscious mane of hairs? The answer would be me, John C. Mayer. I am not in love with you. While I do respect your kickin’ guitar riffs and may (or may not)(I’ll never tell) own several of your songs, I am not, John C. Mayer, in love with you.

But you, however, are stalking me John C. Mayer. Why would I say such a thing, John C. Mayer?

Because I got this in the mail. No return address. Just this. Now when I saw that I’d gotten mail, John C. Mayer, I got all happy in the pants because who doesn’t love PRESENTS? (answer people who hate the color blue, baskets of kittens, and/or lemon meringue pie).

Yes, that’s right. I got an unmarked life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer. And I cannot think of a soul who would send this picture of you, John C. Mayer, rocking out besides, well, YOU.

Which means that you’re clearly stalking me, John C. Mayer.

And while that’s well and good – who can resist a chick who gardens in a cocktail dress and chainsaw? – I must inform you that sending me a life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer is not the quickest way to my bubble gum lips.

Besides, John C. Mayer, I’m engaged. To a Twitter Dog, Dublin Cook.

DON’T JUDGE OUR LOVE, JOHN C. MAYER.

Warmest Regards,

Aunt Becky

P.S. You might want to try sending diamonds next time, John C. Mayer. Works better on loosening up the vaginal bits than a life-sized poster of you, John C. Mayer.

————

P.P.S. The original John C. Mayer Prank was done by accident – I’d written him this letter, which boosted me up to Google’s like 4th search term for “John C. Mayer.” Drunk on my new-found knowledge, I then taught the Internet how to prank Google so that we can get our blogs to be the top search term for a particular celebrity. Whacha think? Should we do it again, Pranksters?

The answer, John C. Mayer Pranksters, is YES. Things have been too damn serious for too damn long – it’s time to do some prankage, Pranksters. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

(Instructions for Pulling a John C. Mayer are here)

So it’s your turn. Link up, Pranksters, and help each other by leaving comments wherein you use THEIR celebrities name a lot in the comments, use Stumble Upon, Facebook, retweet them, you know – let’s get Google good! Let’s get PRANKING!Comments should look like this to get more traction with Google:

“Aunt Becky I can’t believe you’re pulling a John C. Mayer again. John C. Mayer will rue the day that John C. Mayer wrote “Your Body is a Wonderland.”

I put on some profile thing somewhere or another (probably under my “job skills” on LinkedIn)(no, I can’t believe that I bothered with a LinkedIn profile either – the only way I’ll land a job is if I change my name) that I “can use the microwave.”

Generally, that’s true.

Okay, if I’m being honest, sometimes the things I microwave turn into a hard lump of ash, but I figure nitrates are good for you (don’t you go disproving this one, Pranksters).

I’ve spent years trying to work coffee maker and while I haven’t quite mastered it, I feel confident that someday, SOMEDAY, my grown-ass self will be able to brew coffee, too. Until then, I will live with cold coffee or chunky coffee.

ANYWAY.

My history with kitchen appliances is not stellar. Actually, my history is not stellar. I once broke a toe making a sandwich. I also broke a door carrying a diet Coke, but that’s neither here nor there.

Tom Jones wrote “She’s a Lady” about me. He was being sarcastic.

The dishwasher, however, I like to think of as my BFF. Not because it’s particularly good at cleaning my dishes (it’s not), but because I’m holding onto a vain hope that I will one day be able to teach it to sing Christmas carols.

(again, don’t ruin this for me, Pranksters)

The dishes SOMETIMES come out clean, especially if I’ve washed them ahead of time, but I’m trying to gently talk my dishwasher into working a little bit more efficiently. The best part of the dishwasher – bar none – is I get to line up the dishes in a certain way, which satisfies my OCD in the same way owning 8475 things of handsoap does. If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, I will TOTALLY have clean hands. And a well-organized dishwasher.

Jazz hands!

Saturday night found me not sunbathing with hot french models on a luxury yacht, but sitting at my computer writing a resource page about puberty, brainstorming other words for “erection,” for Band Back Together (we have nearly 500 resource pages)(Thanks for that nursing degree, Mom!) But if you tell anyone I write resource pages and NOT hang with hot French models, I will cut you.

There I was, happily ensconced in some research. I’d just loaded the dishwasher, finally done making an Oreo Cake for Mother’s Day, the kids snuggled up in their wee beds*, The Daver off playing some nerdy card game that involved copious amounts of scotch (I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t strip poker) while the Guy On My Couch ran to the store to get stuff to make us some fondue.

As I was sitting there, giggling about boners, I began to smell…something. Initially I wrote it off. My neighbors are always throwing wild parties that involve margarita balls, bonfires and cooking shit on their grill, so I’ve learned to tune out most of the weird smells that float through my window. Besides, my cats shit on a schedule, which ensures that most of what fills my nostrils is the scent of their bung.

I’m considering sewing up their bungholes, but that’s neither here nor there.

As I continued giggling about the term “woody,” I noted that the smell – sorta like burnt plastic – was getting stronger. I assumed that it was merely the margarita ball on fire or something similar. There are always teenagers milling about and while I, as an adult, would consider that to be alcohol abuse, teens are less protective of their margarita balls.

Still giggling about the word, “boner,” I got off my ample ass and wandered into the kitchen to find my iPad and make sure my Tiny Tower was well-stocked. When I turned the corner, I saw that the kitchen was, in fact, filling up with a thick acrid smoke.

Fuck.

The electrical wiring in my house made it clear that SOMEONE in the Daley administration was paid off. Pranksters, if you don’t hear from me awhile and learn that a St. Charles, IL family was burned to death while they slept, please tell the Fire Marshall that it was not, in fact arson, but was, in fact, a feature of my abject laziness and inability to fork out zillions of dollars in order to rewire a house. Also mention that I busted both ankles using a pickaxe, just to drive the point home that I should never, ever, be involved in anything to do with “electricity,” “power tools,” “kitchen appliances,” and once burned by bed with a heating pad.

My first thought was that I’d probably left a candle burning directly next to a pile of papers, something I’ve done before and will do again. When that didn’t seem to be the case, I looked at the light fixture in the kitchen, which is so fug that it may lead to blindness if stared at too long. I remembered that it had blown a fuse the week before when I’d had the audacity to turn it on.

The light was not smoking. Phew. That’d have been awkward to explain. “Yes, Mr. Fireman, my kitchen light picked up a nasty smoking habit – Marlboro Reds.”

I didn’t have either of the dudes home to help me, so I ran around a bit, yelling, “BITCH, GIT ME CHICKEN,” before I saw it.

The dishwasher.

The very same dishwasher that cannot sing “Silent Night” OR “Jingle Bells,” (but can do a passing version of “Good King Wenceslas”). The same dishwasher I’ve been lovingly crooning to. The same dishwasher I spend hours upon hours filling, then refilling, then refilling again until it’s perfect.

(Yes there IS a wrong way to load a dishwasher)

It was…smoking.

Not a Marlboro Red or even one of those hippie American Spirit cigarettes. But like real, acrid smoke.

Fuck me sideways.

I opened the thing, which was still cycling, and was nearly bowled over by the acrid stench of burning plastic and steam.

What.

The.

Fuck.

I pulled out the trays and saw it.

My ancient pizza cutter. The one that’s so rusty and decrepit that we’re probably all dying from lead paint poisoning or scurvy. Or dysentery. Or something exotic. The pizza cutter I should’ve replaced nine years ago.

It was there, nicely snuggled in beside the heating element at the bottom of the dishwasher, the plastic handle melting every-fucking-where.

I pulled it out, not actually considering that if the plastic was melting, it was probably fucking hot. So I scorched the tips of my fingers with melted plastic that remains so firmly attached to the tips of my fingers I may actually coat my whole hands in plastic so I can FINALLY start on my long-held resolution of “become bionic woman.”

(the Not Becoming Lil Wayne resolution is going well, by the by, although The Twitter keeps informing me I should “follow him”)

As I was trying (in vain) to remove melty plastic from the bottom of the dishwasher, The Guy On My Couch came home. When he saw me squatting on the floor, covered in bits of melty plastic, he couldn’t help himself – he laughed himself to tears. I growled at him.

The Guy On My Couch: “What…(gigglesnort) happened?”

Aunt Becky (through gritted teeth): “I. don’t. want. to. talk. about. it.”

The Guy On My Couch: “Bwahahahahahahaha!”

Aunt Becky (stands up, swiftly kicks him in the shins): “I hate you.”

Kitchen Appliances: 1

Aunt Becky: 0

I’m still hoping that the dishwasher will master “Silent Night” before December. That is, if it’s not broken. I don’t want to retrain ANOTHER dishwasher to sing Christmas carols, and the coffee maker simply sneers at me.

*throwing things around their bedroom laughing like maniacs

————–

How was your weekend, Pranksters? Did you break any appliances?

This weekend, at Band Back Together, we’re hosting a carnival of posts about Mother’s Day. Before you run away gagging, hear me out: these are the kinds of Mother’s Day posts I wish I’d read years ago. Knowing that I was not alone in my struggles was a pivotal point in my life.

Today, we celebrate the tables forever missing one.

Today we celebrate the mothers we’ve lost and the mothers we’ve found.

We’re celebrating the mothers we wish we’d had while acknowledging the mothers we did have.

This year I’m proud to celebrate a carnival of Mother’s Day posts from perspectives that aren’t always storybook. Perspectives like mine. Perspectives like Jana’s. Perspectives like yours.

Today, no matter where you are in your life, whether you’re missing your own mom, happily celebrating with family, stuck at a table forever missing one, wishing desperately that you were a mother, or wishing desperately that you had a mother, know these two things: you are loved and, more importantly, we are none of us alone.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” he asks as he climbs onto my lap, a spindly bundle of arms and legs that always manage to sucker-punch an internal organ.

“Oh, I’m just sad,” I tell him, running my fingers through his long dark hair, knowing there are some things that cannot be explained to a five-year-old.

“Did someone hurt your feelings?” he asks, as he stares intently at my face, his wide brown eyes boring holes into the back of my skull.

“No, baby, no one hurt my feelings,” I reply, the truth.

“Did a bad guy come?” he asks, quite seriously as his eyes attempt to puzzle out my expressions.

“No, baby, there are no bad guys here,” I laugh a bit, the tears still pooling in my eyes.

His sister wanders in to notice us on the couch together, and, seeing an opportunity in which she should be occupying the space on my lap, climbs up with a grace I didn’t know could come from my genetics.

“You have a boo-boo, Mama?” she asks, her long lashes open and shut as she, too, studies my face with a stunning intensity.

“Sort of,” I tell her as I kiss her, then her brother, on the forehead. “Sort of.”

“Can I kiss it and make it better?” he asks, looking for any open wounds to put his mouth on.

Before I can respond, she climbs down and runs off. She returns holding a box of Hello Kitty Bandaids.

“Here, Mama,” she says, “I got you a Bandaid – a HELLO KITTY Bandaid – for your boo-boo,” proudly she hands me a single bandaid from her precious collection.

“Thanks, Mimi-Girl,” I say, the tears, once again, falling from my eyes, this time, however, from the incredible sweetness of my children. “A Hello Kitty Bandaid will fix it.”

I allow them both to cover me with Bandaids – every mole, every bump, every scrape now carefully protected from the outside world.

“‘Dere, Mama,” she says proudly. “You’re all better.” She scampers off to find her Lego guys to play with.

My son, however, stays sitting upon my lap, twirling a piece of my hair absentmindedly as he thinks.

“Some boo-boos,” he finally says, “they can’t be fixed with a Bandaid.” He speaks with a wisdom far beyond his years.

“You’re right, my boy,” I say, the tears dotting his hair. “Some boo-boos are in secret spots. Hidden spots.”

“Where you can’t see them, right, Mama?” he asks, without really expecting an answer.

“Yep,” I say. “Some boo-boos are on the heart.”

He looks at me thoughtfully before scampering off to a drawer, where I can hear him rummaging around, looking for something. I turn back to my game of Tiny Tower in the vain hope that my broken heart will soon feel whole again.

He whirls back into the room, a mess of elbows and knees, and clamors back onto my lap, where he elbows me in the sternum, leaving me momentarily breathless.

“Here,” he thrusts a piece of paper into my hands happily. “It’s for you.” He then hugs me so tightly I feel like I might burst and watch as he climbs down off the couch and off to find his sister.

I look down at the paper, curious as to what he would have given me.

Painstakingly, he’d sketched a heart in the center of the page and signed his name in a loopy, scrawling way that only a five-year old can. The tears begin again, but this time, they are happy tears.

He rushes back into the room, his sister and their Lego people in hand.

“See, Mimi? I fixed Mama’s heart.”

And I marvel at them, as they dogpile on top of me, at how I ever got to be so lucky.