I started work at age sixteen (no, not uphill both ways in the snow) in a fancy restaurant. Before I could serve tables, I had to turn 18, so I spent those years as a hostess. I’m telling you – you’ll never learn more about people than you do if you are forced to massage egos – very expensive egos.
It was there, at the now-defunct Mill Race Inn, that I learned about Valentine’s Day.
That’s not to say that I didn’t know about VD Day before working there – I simply didn’t understand the great lengths people went to to create the “perfect night.” I also didn’t understand the ire that was evoked by having a “perfect night” go awry. I don’t know how many people pitched fits when they didn’t get sat at the perfect table, but it had to be in the hundreds. One perfectly normal looking woman actually got down on the floor and began kicking and screaming. In the middle of a crowded restaurant. With no shame.
Valentine’s Day was always a cluster of fuckery.
I personally haven’t had a typically romantic Valentine’s Day regardless of relationship status – one year I ordered us a heart-shaped pizza. Other years, I went and purchased myself something shiny. It never mattered to me much.
Most importantly, it never changed the way I felt about the holiday – I love Valentine’s Day. Pink, puffy, glittery hearts type of love.
When Ben was a baby, my best friends and I found ourselves (rarely) single at the same time on VD-Day. Rather than mope about our doomed relationships, as we could easily have done, we decided that it was high time to start a new tradition: Lesbian Valentine’s Day.
No, no, we didn’t do a Four Girls One Cup kinda thing – that’s for amateurs. Instead, we fed my (now-deceased, overly large and awesomely adorable) cat bacon cheeseburgers. We ate Wendy’s there in my living room, the lot of us together, laughing and talking until late in the evening. They’d interrupted my studying for the evening – something that I rarely allowed to happen – and we had one of the best Valentine’s Days ever.
So what if we weren’t drinking Cristal atop the Hancock building? So what if no one had purchased us baubles and trinkets? So what if we didn’t have a special someone to tell us all the reasons we were worth loving?
We had each other.
We had Lesbian Valentine’s Day.
We also had Big Pink.
Yep, my best friend bought the lot of us Big Pink – the world’s best vibrator.
I will tell you here and now, it was by far, by FAR, the best Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten. Even better than the heart-shaped pizza and the diamonds.
Although, I’d have been pretty happy with a Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirt (that’s the perfect VD Gift, I’ve seen), had I created any at that time. P.S. I started a Zazzle Store, which I’ve been working on in pieces. That shit is confusing.
What’s your favorite VD-Day memory?
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)
Since moving The Guy On My Couch onto my couch, we’ve had a lot of desserts around. We all know I can’t cook. Shit, I’ve burned Jello and tried to microwave a can of SlimFast (not recommended, by the by), and not been even the slightest bit put off by it.
But the Guy On My Couch can cook. He LIKES to cook. He also likes home repairs and would probably clean the pool if the one I had wasn’t four feet across and made entirely of plastic. And no, you cannot have him for yourself. MY Guy On The Couch.
(he doesn’t know that he’s never moving out)
Anyway, he likes making desserts for the crotch parasites, who, in turn, love him more than they love Mario. Which is a lot.
This week, he made them a cake. A white cake with chocolate buttercream frosting THAT DIDN’T COME FROM A CAN. Did you know that you can HAVE frosting without using a can?
(my next invention: aresolized frosting)(PATENT PENDING, MOTHERFUCKERS)
It’s not been a great week for Child Behavior around these here parts – I’m sick, you’re sick, we’re all sick, which means I have three extraordinarily crabby children fighting over who gets to the top of the stairs first and who gets to use what cup (despite having three identical cups).
So I haven’t been doling out the cake. I figure, why reward bad behavior? The cake has been largely untouched by the rest of the house, since, well, it looks better on your ass than mine.
(hey, have you been working out? You look HOT in those pants).
I woke up this morning to see this:
The remains of the cake.
The vultures have been steadily removing frosting from the top of the cake when I was too busy playing Angry Birds or watching dancing cat videos.
You can’t help but laugh.
Wait, what’s that next to the cake? (hint: it’s not Hong Kong Fooey)
Why, it’s one of the Twitter Klout Perks I got!
With Klout like THIS how could I ever want anything else?
Seriously, does ANYONE want a Banana Hanger? Because I keep thinking “Banana Hammock” and laughing, which means it’s going to stay in it’s box for the rest of eternity (or until I get low on my “throw/donate one thing away every day” resolution).
P.S. Klout, you are a genius.
