I have food issues.

I like to think of them as sort of cute lil quirks, you know, the sort of thing that makes me endearing rather than annoying, but having lived with a foodie (The Guy On My Couch) and a pseudo-foodie (The Daver), I’ve come to realize that my food issues are more on the oh-my-God-you-are-so-weird spectrum. But hey, at least I have kicky hair.

See, while I happen to love fruit, I can’t look at canned fruit. In fact, the smell of canned fruit makes me heave histrionically. Actually, most things in cans repulse me. I’d rather go hungry than eat canned food. Which means when the Zombie Apocalypse happens, I’m gonna die. Immediately. Well, if I’m not raptured.

Hey, it’s possible.

(so is John C Mayer being un-douchey, the sun rising in the west and squirtable cheese in a can.)(…WAIT A MINUTE)

Anyway. Food issues.

They include a distrust of cream based salad dressing (especially thousand island, which appears to be the direct creation of Satan’s bunghole) and other creamy things in a can. Especially mayonnaise. The very thought of mayonnaise may ruin my appetite for mere moments at a time!

Mayonnaise is just so…so…WRONG.

A couple of months ago, The Guy On My Couch agreed to make me spinach and artichoke dip without the artichokes because who the hell likes those? (apparently most people who are not me). As I was off scouring the sale-rack for half-price Pop Rocks, The Guy On My Couch sneakily purchased a tub ‘o’ Mayo. I didn’t see it until we were in the car because he was being all stealth-like about it – he knew I’d overrule him and put back the mayo.

One morning, before he had a real job, I asked him to make the dip for breakfast.

Aunt Becky: “Hey, can you make the spinach dip now?”

The Guy On My Couch: “Sure.”

Aunt Becky: “You can’t put mayo in it.”

The Guy On My Couch: “Just…don’t come into the kitchen.”

Aunt Becky: “Why?”

The Guy On My Couch (shuffles feet around): “There’s a zombie in there.”

Aunt Becky (runs for the mustard): “Oh my GOD, REALLY? BATTEN DOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING HATCHES!”

The Guy On My Couch: “Um….yeah!”

Aunt Becky: “You’re going to put mayo in the dip, aren’t you?”

The Guy On My Couch: “LOOKIT THE SQUIRREL OUTSIDE. ISN’T HE HILARIOUS?”

Aunt Becky: (glares) “Nice try.”

The Guy On My Couch (preens): “THANKS!”

Aunt Becky: “On second thought, let’s go get donuts.”

Now that tub of white goo that looks mysteriously like spooge has sat in my lazy Susan for months, unopened. I’m sure as shit not going to open it up and grab out a nice big spoonful and if someone were to do it in my presence, I’d probably sit there making barfy noises until they opted to go into the other room. I’d, of course, follow them and continue heaving.

(my six word memoir? “Not just stupid, but annoying too!”)

The problem is this:

Aunt Becky wanders into the kitchen and, upon gazing lovingly at the box of Equal, notices a white tub of goo:

“OMFG, I CANNOT BELIEVE WE HAVE MARSHMALLOW FLUFF AND NO ONE TOLD ME!”

*Grabs can and spoon*

“FUCK, it’s MAYO. DAMMIT.”

Rinse, repeat, every two or three days. God BLESS you Topamax for wiping my short-term memory. So glad I can still recall every phone number I’ve ever had but cannot manage to remember where I left my pants or how to update my blog.

I’m aware that the “smart thing” to do would be to dump the mayo once and for all, but no one has EVER accused me of being smart unless they were being particularly sarcastic, which, who could blame them?

Now if you don’t mind, I have a tub of Marshmallow Fluff waiting for me….

….oh right. Never mind.

So what’s going on with YOU, Pranksters? What’s YOUR six word memoir?

I’d reached the point where I was simply praying that my middle son was going to find a particularly nice young man to room with in college – the kind who didn’t mind occasionally changing my son’s diapers.

I figured that there were plenty of people in the world who liked to poop into diapers (after watching Hoarders, I now know that there are plenty of people who like to poo into bags AND THEN SAVE IT. Best of all? YOU KNOW IT TOO, NOW.)(You’re welcome).

I mean, there was that crazy astronaut lady who drove across the country to kill her lover’s wife or something WHILE WEARING ADULT DIAPERS. Clearly, there’s a market for that stuff. And clearly, my kid was going to join into that market.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t a good example. Hoarders + Crazy Astronaut Lady don’t = great sampling size.

Either way, I’d resigned myself to it. It was that, or pull my hair out one by ever-loving one until I had a bald spot the shape of Alaska on my previously hair-covered scalp.

So yesterday, still sick as a motherfucker, I tried again with the potty training. As my son admired the tiny Lego Hogwarts that The Guy on my Couch (who firmly believes he will no longer be known as The Guy On My Couch once he does not, in fact, live on my couch) had lovingly put together, Alex asked to play with it.

As The Guy On My Couch tried to pick up his jaw from the floor (one does not, it appears, play with The Guy On The Couches Lego sets), where it was handily collecting cat hair, I seized the opportunity:

“I will buy you that set AND have Big Ben put it together with you, Alex.”

His eyes opened as wide as saucers as he looked at me. He’s too young to know that statements like that are always followed by a rather unpleasant, “if…”

“…if,” I continued, “you go poop in the potty.”

“No.” There was no room for argument. Guess that wasn’t the currency the kid wanted to dabble in.

“Okay, if you poop in the potty,” he giggled as I continued. The word “poop” is always cause for much ruckus and merry making in my house. “I will take you to Chuck E Cheese TODAY.”

I’d been promising them a trip there as AMELIA had already dropped her deuce in the shitter – but I was going to hold off until whatever bug is currently eating away at my soul decided that my feeble immune system was actually going to kill it. Going to a Chuck E Cheese on a Sunday is worse than waxing the cat or picking out stray pubes one at a time with a pair of tweezers.

His siblings, also in the room with me, chimed in, all pressing the kid to take a shit on the crapper. After a couple minutes, an overwrought Alex protested so loudly that we all stopped and then went about our day (read: tried to stave off a headache, while the banshees chased each other about). My eldest, Ben, continued pressing his brother.

Twenty minutes later, Alex was actually perched atop the porcelain throne and five minutes later, he dropped his first deuce.

The whole house erupted into cheers as the small ones scurried to find pants to wear to Mouse Hell, Where A Parent Is Reminded To Take Her Birth Control, to eat Mouse pizza.

Ears still ringing from the sounds of Mouse Hell, I looked at Dave sheepishly, as we pulled into the toy store after our hour in Mouse Hell (happily, I noted, firearms are not allowed there), and shrugged. I had promised the kid a zillion hundred dollar Lego kit.

“I never thought he’d do it,” I said.

“Me either,” The Daver replied.

And that is how Your Aunt Becky learned to never, ever bribe a kid – no matter how unlikely it is that aforementioned child will actually perform a feat.

Turns out, I am as stupid as I look.

How was YOUR weekend, Pranksters?

(I have to apologize – I’d been planning to start writing my Go Ask Aunt Becky column again – I have plenty of questions, but I was beyond sick on Saturday)

Now you’re probably not going to believe me, Pranksters, when I tell you that I occasionally bake. You’ve seen what happens when I try to cook (see also here and here) and we all know that while I’d like to PRETEND that what happened in those blog posts were just for show, they weren’t. Sadly.

But once or twice a year, I forget that I can ruin Jello and decide to bake something. This year, it was my mom’s famous Christmas bread.

Round about September, I got all, “IMMA MAKE HOMEMADE BREAD, BITCHES.”

Stop laughing.

I mean it.

Ass.

I carefully mixed up all of the ingredients. I even followed the recipe rather than throwing a bunch of shit into a pan like they do in those cooking shows.

(I learned the hard way that this is not, in fact, how one cooks)

I threw it into a bowl, after I beat the fuck out of it, and waited. I’d started in the mid-afternoon, my cobwebby-memory banks telling me that it took a couple of hours to actually rise. I waited. And waited. I watched some annoying cat videos. I waited some more. I shook my fist in fury at the three toys that randomly come to life and play music whenever the fuck they want, scaring the bejesus outta me.

Still, I waited.

By 6PM, a full five hours after I’d lovingly placed the dough in the bowl? Fuck nothing. It hadn’t moved a millimeter.

By 8PM, I got frustrated enough that I slapped it into a pan and was all, IMMA EAT THIS, YOU’RE GONNA EAT THIS, WE’RE ALL GONNA EAT THIS.

By 8:30, I admitted defeat. I pulled the bread from the oven, dumped it onto a baking rack and realized it could easily double as a brick (to throw through a window) or a paperweight (if people actually used such things). I tried to eat the thing, because I’m stubborn, but it was…it was not good.

A few weeks later, determined that it was, in fact, the YEAST that had fucked mah bread up, once again, I gathered up my ingredients, threw them together and practically sat there, trying to watch the bread rise.

It was like one of those optical illusions – if I looked at it with THAT eye, I could ALMOST see that the bread had moved. ALMOST.

After 8 hours (bonus points for being both stupid AND patient), I sadly accepted my fate: I would not be able to make this bread rise. Angrily I dumped the rock-solid hunks of dough, where, adding insult to injury, they succeeded in knocking over the garbage can.

Last week (or was it the week before), I picked up some frozen loaves of bread. I’m not certain if I was thinking, “Oooo! Bread!” or “Ooooo! Frozen weapon!” but I guess it doesn’t much matter. Same thing, if you ask the Atkins movement.

Yesterday, I dumbly was all, “IMMA MAKE SOME BREAD” because I’m still not on solid food. Fucking tooth socket.

So I pulled the frozen hunk of bread from the freezer and debated using it to kill someone. Seemed like a good idea at the time. In the end, tho, I merely threw it into a pan to “let it rise.” Which, after all that time making UN-risen bread, sounded like a conspiracy.

And um.

Woah.

I’m now strutting around, feeling all accomplished, until I remember that I didn’t actually participate in the actual assembly of the bread.

Which, as I’ve learned the hard way, is how it should be.

—————–

So, Pranksters, tell me something. Anything. I’m in the mood for some stories.