PMS and Men...

So I've been discussing PMS on my page because mine this month is brutal. My normally barely C Cups have swollen into DD Cups, hard cups like someone inserted rocks to make them bigger. My ass is also an inflated puffy bulge that is twice the size of its normalness, and if I weren't so pissed off at the world, I'd probably enjoy dropping it like it's hot. But it's not hot. In fact it's all temperatures. I go from cold sweats to hot flash in point five, and it's constant. For days. Cold sweat for hours where I'm hovering over the broiler followed by a sweaty hot flash where I'm hugging the freezer just to get cold again....

Then on top of it, I have the mood swings. One minute, I want my own hotel room to get away from everyone and the next second I'm thinking that's not a good idea because then I'd miss everyone and I start crying thinking about not seeing my kids for a whole whopping night, and then I think how it would be awesome to not see my kids for one night just be free and then I feel super guilty for it because PMS IS A BITCH.

And that thought process goes for everything. Talking to people. Talking to other people's kids. Talking on the phone. THe husband. Taking a shower. Not taking a shower. Cooking dinner. Watching Dora....

Then the men come in with their brilliance. I think regardless of where you stand on the PMS psycho spectrum, you've probably had part of this conversation at least once a month...

Woman: Don't bother me right now. I have hormonal issues that make me mad over nothing and because i know that's not fair to you, I'm just saying don't bother me okay?

Man: But I'm really concerned for you. That's not fair you have to go through that. Let me help.

Woman: No, you can't help, and you are starting to  piss me off already.

Man: But I can make you laugh. Let me try with some stupid horseshittery...

Woman: Stop it. You are really starting to piss me off.

Man: Fuck you and your fucking woman problems and stupid mood swings like I'm not having one right now. Let me piss you off out of concern for your pissed offness. Let me help by making it worse. And now this isn't even about you or your PMS but about me and my stupid mamby pamby feelings, because pissing you off isn't enough for my sadistic evil pleasure. I must add guilt and make you second guess your sanity and self worth with it because I'm the alpha dog and you are the woman.

And then in many cases like mine:

Woman: Are you serious with that horse shit? (throw out evil glare where I really am thinking about divorce and murder at the same time)

Man: No, I was kidding. It was a joke. If you didn't have PMS you'd think it was funny. I'm sorry. I love you.

Woman: I don't know. Rub my feet. Then we'll see how I feel.


So I say this to all you ladies out there. Milk your men. If they are going to be inconsiderate assholes to you during your time of psycho where your body is preparing to tear down walls, whether it's intentional or not, whether it's sadistic maniacalism or not, use it to guilt him into doing the shit he should be doing anyway, whether it's taking out the trash, washing dishes or rubbing your feet. Yes you men SHOULD be rubbing our feet and our backs and what not because a massage therapist is 60 an hour. If I clean the house to avoid paying maid service, and I watch the kids to avoid paying nanny services, then you can rub my motherfucking feet to avoid paying massage therapy services.

Bet you didn't know I was a rebel at the pool today...

Today, I got yelled at by a lifeguard because she thought I was going to slide down the slide with the 3 year old, and I wasn't. I was just trying to get her to slide down. You would think the fact that my fat ass itself wasn't anywhere near the slide (I was standing the whole time, and we are talking a 3 foot slide if that) would clue the poor daft blond teen. I had to scream across the pool because bitch wasn't getting a clue. Cmon now, if I went down that slide, with my boobs, in that bathing suit, I'd flash the whole world and give all the married men wet dreams for the rest of their lives. I'm not in the mood to take on a mob of jealous wives. That should also have been obvious to the silly blond girl.

THEN, I got dirty looks from lifeguards when the pool closed. Three year olds have to do EVERYTHING THEMSELVES, including getting out of the pool. So we humored her, let her back in long enough to walk herself out since her stupid father had to go and carry her out knowing much better than that... Then I told the hubs, "I don't think they approve our parenting." He's like, "Just wait until they have kids. Karma's a bitch." I'm like, "How much you want to bet they read my blog and be like, 'it's like she really gets me,' having no idea they just eye rolled the person who wrote it..."

A couple years ago, a lifeguard whistled me for employing the use of the F-word with my husband. See, my mother in law was in town. She's a bitch. She's worse than that, but we'll stop at bitch today. She was in town. We planned for days to take the kids swimming that day. MIL was all for it. Not one complaint. Not one "I don't really want to." No, it was, "They'll love it." Now I know some women hate the pool because bathing suits, but this woman is from Puerto Rico. She goes to the beach and the pool all the time. So when she made my husband leave me with a baby and two toddlers who can't swim by myself at the pool last second decision so she could instead go antique shopping, this momma wasn't happy. Of course, that day, my oldest daughter, like 4 at the time, befriended the kid who won't listen to anyone and breaks all the rules, so when that girl dove into the lazy river to swim with the current, my daughter followed. I lost my mind. Called the hubs. Demanded he get to the pool. He did. He was pissed. AT ME. Fucker what? Fucker you pissed at me? So was his mom. This was before i knew she was a cunt. I went off on him. 3 snaps and a neck roll. Nobody was around who could hear us but the lifeguard and my kids. I couldn't even hear other people's kids screaming.

So what does life guard do? Blows his whistle. Yes that ballsy little zit faced snot blew his whistle at me, mid rant. "Don't use the f-word." Fuck you talkin about? What fuckin F-word? "That F-word." Why? "Kids are present." Where the fuck do you think they come from? "It's a bad word. You shouldn't be using it." Really? Bad word? Well I'm French. It's not a bad word in France. "You are not French." Baisez-vous! Oui je suis. I am French.... That shut him up. BTW, I'm not French. I eat French Fries a lot, but I dip them in ketchup and that's pretty American.

I don't get lifeguards. I guess they get bored and have to troll once in a while, though the ones I seem to attract the most attention from don't seem to always require intellectual stimulation so I'm not really sure.

I also discovered today, at the pool, in the bathroom waiting for a kid to pee, I have my mother's ass. It's her ass. Not her sexy young woman's ass. No. Her I got old frumpy yet incredibly sexy for reasons beyond my understanding ass. She didn't really form it until her 50's. I'm no where near my 50's. My ass is aging too fast. I know. I know. I should try pilates or something.

And I need to clean my house like a cat in heat needs to go outside, or the vet... I'm vowing to do so tomorrow because my fortune in my fortune cookie says, "You will soon achieve perfection." Good enough for me. I think I'm even going to scrub the shower and change the shower curtain (if I can find the new shower curtains I bought for such an event). Yeah. It's been that long.

That last part was random. I know. I should probably end all my blog posts with the status of my house, not to brag, but so that you guys feel good about yourselves. It's almost like watching an episode of hoarders except I actually clean all the stuff a lot. You just can't tell. BTW, I always clean with the kids present. Yeah, I basically nail Jello to a tree on a regular basis. Of course, you can't tell because the Jello keeps sliding off, but that doesn't stop me from trying ALMOST every day.

And swim carefully. Lifeguards be tryin to catch you swimmin dirty. Remember also, a drowning kid is usually a very quiet kid. Don't trust a lifeguard to figure it out. They are too busy saving you from the Fuck word.

Non-PTA Queen Bitch: Excuse Note from Hell

I tell people I'm a bitch in my school system. I am. I'm  not a bitch to people. I'm a bitch about advocating for my kids' best interest, something the schools really don't seem to give two shits about. Once i realized the schools have their own agenda, separate from us, I realized I am my child's social worker -- another hat us moms wear.

But as mom, I have limited power. The schools are arrogant. They want to dictate everything we should be doing as parents with extreme prejudice, yet they have the lowest of expectations for themselves imaginable. What's okay for the schools to do would get CPS called by the schools on a parent. The hypocrisy is sickening. On top of it, education neglect, my favorite subject. I find it odd that the schools can't make AYP while they have things like Bad Kid Forts and are quick to suspend and expel children for bull shit, and they want to charge us for education neglect when our kids are too sick to go to school. Even worse, most of us accept this logic as sound. 

I've had an issue in the past with education neglect. I might tell the back story in more detail some day, but basically back when my oldest was in Kindergarten (last school year), the nurse told me my kid wasn't welcomed at school until she got her vaccinations caught up (again, long story you are missing details), so my kid missed 5 days to wait on the appointment. Then I bitched about the nurse's fabulous people skills on my Facebook, and it got back to her, so she retaliated by obsessively pushing education neglect charges against me for the 5 days she made my kid miss. The only reason I came out on top is the guy in charge of any and all education neglect charges is a great guy, great at his job, and he's not out to get people like me, and he already knew my story because he and I chat frequently. Not to mention, she started Kindergarten a year early, like technically, by law, she wasn't required to be in school yet. 

But I think the school still holds some animosity because every report card since then says, "Absences are interfering with her work." This year, so far we only have 2 unexcused absences, which are for days that were doctor ordered. I guess he can only write an excuse note for 3 days at a time, and he wanted her home for 5.

So, besides the fact that I'm trying to advocate for my daughter's needs and I refuse to be bullied about it, I also have a lot on my plate as mom and the bull shit the schools add to it pisses me the fuck off. I just don't have time and energy for their Jerry Springer shit, but if they are going to force me to play their games, they are getting me raw. Tired, cranky frustrated annoyed as fuck, resentful raw. 

This is how I'm a bitch, well it's one of the many examples. When my daughter got sick with this horrific cold that's out, I wrote this excuse note. I purposely let myself keep it long just to annoy the ever living piss out of the school. Next time, I think I'm going to copy and paste articles from scholarly journals who use large medical terms. I also keep a copy in the computer, and I make a copy for the teacher, and a copy for the secretary to process. When I handed the secretary her copy, I explained, "You know, if you guys, the school, don't like her missing school because she's sick, then stop making her sick. Every ailment she has caught this year, she caught from here."


*************************************************************************

To whom it may concern:

Please excuse [my daughter] from the following days of school:

Wed.  February 20, 2013

Thurs. February 21, 2013

She was sick.

Thank you.



[Mom]

Educational Reference NOTE:

In case someone doesn't believe me, or thinks I'm not qualified to determine if my child is sick (I know it sounds rude, but it's XXX County policy, not mine, that I am only qualified to excuse 5 absences a semester)…

There's that thing going around that looks like strep throat at the beginning, but then it turns into something that becomes more obvious that it's viral (common cold). It's even tricked some nurse friends of mine (the symptoms tricked them; Strep you can test for).

[my daughter] and my middle kid woke up Wednesday morning with a sore throat and mild fever.  I know most people generally don't send their kids to school with a fever at all, usual rule of thumb being 24 hours no fever with no fever reducing meds, so I had that going with my decision to keep them home. Plus I worried it might be strep, even though I knew it probably wasn't. Because I knew it probably wasn't, I watched it instead of rushing them to doctors.

Thursday rolled along and they still just looked sick. No fever that day, but it wasn't quite 24 hours no fever without fever reducing meds. They also started to develop the cough by the end of Thursday, and the sore throat got better.

Friday, fortunately, was a snow day or she probably would have missed that day too. It was one of those where she could have probably gone, but it was probably in her best interest to take that day and the weekend to get better before going back to an environment of a swarm of children and their germs, for her sake and the other kids.

Subjects that should not be open for debate:

I would think most people in their right mind can agree, don't send your kids to school sick and get everyone else sick. Right? Some parents feel so strong about that, that they verbally threaten and insult parents who send their kids to school sick. The problem is, when you are dealing with the common cold, the policy pretty much determines your kid to go to school contagious and sick.

Contagious period of a cold:

"First, scientists involved with common cold research do not know exactly how long a person with a cold is contagious. Based on previous studies, their best guess is that a person becomes contagious about two to three days before developing the usual symptoms of a cold. Second, this contagious period can last until the person no longer shows any symptoms. So in theory, a person is contagious for about two weeks."

Pasted from <http://cold.emedtv.com/common-cold/common-cold-contagious-period.html>

"When Am I Most Contagious?

Let's assume you're the one with the cold. During the two-week period when you're contagious, research indicates that you'll be most likely to transmit the cold virus when you're experiencing cold symptoms. The period when you're most contagious is when your symptoms are at their worst -- day 2 to day 4 of the cold. You'll become less contagious as the cold symptoms improve."

Pasted from <http://cold.emedtv.com/common-cold/common-cold-contagious-period.html>

So I shall be sending my kid to school contagious. She's not as contagious as she was on the days she missed, but she's still probably contagious for another week average.  This is why viral activities in the schools become small, localized epidemics. "It's going around…" Yes it's going around because we send our kids to school contagious. We don't have a choice. Then on top of it, I don't think the cleaners the schools use kill (so to speak) viruses, though whatever you use seems to be very effective on bacteria.  So my daughter is going to sneeze or cough on Monday, touch something, and that virus is going to sit there on that hard surface ready to infect people for at least 2 days unless intercepted with an EPA approved pesticide (disinfectant) for that specific virus.  Fortunately, I'm sure every kid in her classroom already has had this and built an immunity for it because that's probably where she got it from to begin with.

Doctor's Note:

Now, the doctor issue. I know these absences can be excused with a doctor's note because they are at least more qualified than I am to determine if my kid is too sick to miss school, well at least for 3 days at a time without getting under some strange radar. According to Pub Med, cold symptoms…

"Calling your health care provider

Try treating your cold at home first. Call your doctor if:

• Breathing becomes difficult

• Your symptoms get worse or do not improve after 7 to 10 days"

Pasted from <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001698/>

I did not need to call my doctor in this case just like most cases. While we do thankfully have insurance, they don't seem to cover the costs too well. Even when it was 100% insurance coverage, I still had a 10 to 20 dollar copay plus the insurance just refuses to pay some of the doctors for whatever reason. I am not racking up any more future collection letters from doctors who can't get paid from the insurance and instead of calling me about it, turns me over to collections 6 months after the appointment. I will do that when my kids need to see a doctor. Otherwise, taking them to a doctor just to retrieve a note for XXX County Schools to make you guys happy:

1. I can't afford it
2. I don't have time for it
3. Immune systems weaken a bit while fighting off colds. It's dangerous to put kids in a germ infested environment like the doctor's office, hospitals and schools when they are sick. I wouldn't let them visit a nursing home even while sick, not even to see their favorite family member had we had one in a nursing home.

I would apologize my child's best interest interferes with the school's convenience, but I won't because the apology is owed to me. The schools should not be placing their convenience of paperwork and policy over the health and well being of the child. I am well aware most people reading this, whether you agree with me or not, have no control over XXX County policy. I'm merely adding this information in the case there ever is a debate about negligence as a child's health trumps education, and for the record, we did read, add, and learned a new animal at home, among other things. Completely unrelated, but I also taught some adults, over the weekend, including a secondary education math teacher, the basics of division and fractions, which is sad like who's really neglecting education in this world? You guys really need to remove the old fashioned divide by symbol completely from the curriculum. It just confuses people.

If the absences are interfering with her work, my suggestion is to find a better EPA approved pesticide for the classroom because that's where she's catching everything. Chlorox offers some fabulous wipes for the healthcare setting (not the kind you get at Walmart). I also suggest upping hygiene in the school entirely. I believe her teacher is on it to the best possible paradigm of classroom hygiene, but they often leave the classroom. In addition, if people would stop sending their kids to school sick to conform to policy, you'd greatly reduce absences overall. On my end, we are doing what we can. We up the Vitamin C and Zinc during the school season, though I have yet to really find a product that bypasses the digestive system to intake those vitamins on a regular basis (as they are often killed in the intestines before absorbed).  We wash hands, and I germ chase (controlling the unwanted pests of the viral and bacterial world).

For more information: Jump on Google. Avoid WebMD and stick to CDC, WHO, EPA (pesticides, like instead of killing roaches and rats, you are killing viruses), and PubMed (my favorite), as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics and other places doctors with an IQ over 140 might bookmark.

*************************************************************************

Fuck Bad Words, and the R-word it rode in on

I guess people are blogging about the R-word, and I had this in my notes as a blog to do eventually, so I guess now is a good time. I haven't read other people's blogs about the R-word because it usually pisses me off on many different levels.

Speaking

Notice I call it the R-word? That's because things like the R-word, the N-word, and the homosexual slurs are disrespectful to a lot of people. I prefer not to use them out of respect. If I were to use those words, I wouldn't be using them to piss people off. I'd be using them to communicate or try to be funny, and since there are people who lose the point when one of those words are used, or they lose all humor if one of those words are used, it would totally be anti-productive for my purpose to use those words. The purpose of language is to communicate, and that purpose is lost when certain words are used. If I did want to offend people, I really prefer my point I'm making offend them than my vocabulary, though I do use the fuck word a lot because it's fun to do. That's a different fucking blog post.

Anyway, I do believe in bad words, but differently than most people. You know how there's a difference between truth and the norm (majority rules)? For example, the earth is round. That's a truth. For many years, the fact is the earth was flat because that was the common belief. It was wrong, but it was right because everyone all agreed. 

To me, words are words. They have no soul, so they can't be good or bad. It's not the words, it's how you use them. That's the fact truth part. Then there's the part where the majority has decided otherwise on a somewhat ignorant level, but at least they usually have good intentions. Anyway, the majority has decided fuck is a bad word. Words like that, fuck shit ass… those are not bad words to me. They are naughty words, like farts. It's bad etiquette to use them in certain places at certain times. But now, because of this majority thing, there are words that are bad words. They are only used to demean people, like there isn't a good way to use those words because of the history of their use locked them in. At least fuck can be used as a good thing. I can say, "Mother fucker" to insult someone, but I can say, "Motherfucking awesome" to compliment someone.

There is no way to compliment someone when you use the following words…
 

Any racial slurs

Any homosexual slurs

The R-word
Fat

Listening

But, that whole concept is a double edged sword. Now, I may offend some people and for that I'm not sorry. Part of communicating is speaking, and I just discussed that. The other half of communication is listening. So how do you handle when someone else uses the R-word? Or any bad word for that matter?

Me, I look at their intentions. The context. Why?

A lot of times, people's definitions of the word is different than what it is, or what you think it is. For example, the n-bomb. It's a racial slur. A very bad one. Probably the worst word ever invented in the history of man. Look it up in the dictionary and it means ignorant. So some people use it to mean ignorant, which that's irony for you. Some subcultures have decided that it means trashy people of any race. They call white people the n-bomb, and they will point to a black man and say he is NOT the n-bomb in the same sentence. There are some people who use it as a way to take back the power, mainly black people (and white posers). Do I think they should be using that word? No, not in this world with that word's history. On another planet where it has no history, maybe, depending on the definition you give it.

But am I going to ostracize and criticize them for it's use? Depends, the intention. I do believe in God, and it's about what's in our hearts. Gotta look at the spirit and soul. Nothing physical can define morality. People try to. They try to make it tangible, and they lose a lot of the point of it in the process… The only black and white is in our hearts, not in our words or actions like most people believe (again truth vs fact).

What pisses me off with the r-word specifically… A, if you call a special needs person an R-word as a way to belittle or demean them, I'm going to be really pissed and I will hurt you one way or the other, whether it's your physical self or psychological self depending on how far you are from my reach. B, now the complicated part.

I have autism. My child has autism. We are both high functioning, which I hate that term, but anyway, that's us. People have called me the R-word because I'm weird. But I'm not an idiot. I know most of the population who uses the R-word use it to mean really stupid, low IQ that can result even with no diagnosis, and it generally has nothing to do with special needs or autism. I do not get offended when someone says, "That woman was so r-worded because she forgot the mayo." That has nothing to do with me or my autism.

What pisses me off is when people hide behind people like me to be mean to a stranger. I'm talking those situations where you are talking about the price of tea in China and someone says, "Wow, your husband did what with the tea? That is so r-word." Then out of the blue, Susie McJudgerson is on there clutching pearls damning someone to hell because they called my husband the r-word and somehow, with that, insulted Susie's kid, every special needs child, and all these people who were never part of the conversation or a subject in the conversation. It's like saying, "Fuck the man who was insulted, fuck his wife who is special needs. This is about me and my kid." I guess it's okay to call someone with autism an asshole as your means to advocate autism. See, that is DEFINITELY stupid and illogical and selfish.

Some of them then take it to the next step. They play the pity card. I mean we are talking a good cause here, and anyone who disagrees is insensitive, heartless and against the cause.
  

Criticizing people for shit they didn't actually mean is bullying. What happens is the social herding instinct comes into play with low attention spans and poor reading comprehension skills, and some level of laziness. If you criticize someone for insulting kids with special needs, everyone assumes that person just insulted someone with special needs, and the wolf pack preys on someone who never said anything about special needs.

Here's an EXTREME example to show how it works…

Erica: So I was thinking, now that Duke is dead, I have all this left over dog food. The humane society might take it. They could always use some extra food.

Susie: That is so fucked up Erica. How dare you? Do you know what the Humane Society does to these animals? They kill them, and that's after they torture them by putting them in these cages all day long. Sometimes the animals are actually abused beyond the regular neglect. That's just fucked up you'd donate to them.

Erica: Actually, I know someone at the Humane Society who is really good with animals, and they really do try to find homes for the animals so they don't have to euthanize them.

Susie: I can't believe you. Enabling that is the same as abuse. You are a dog abuser. I can't believe you don't care how they kill all those puppies with sad puppy faces. What did those dogs ever do to you?

Mildred: Hi guys. I'm too lazy to read all the comments, but wow. Erica really? You can go to hell and suck Satan's dick. The world would be a better place without animal abusers like you. You deserve ass fucked with a pitchfork fuck you. You are such an idiot. I'm going to punch you in the face if I ever see you.

Erica: Mildred really? Because I want to donate to the humane society. I miss my dead dog. I want to do something good for them. And Susie? You are insane. I don't enable dog abuse. I love dogs.

Mildred: So you killed your own dog? You are so fucked up.

Beatrice: Who killed their dog?

Mildred: Erica did. She is pro dog death. She's trying to say she's a good person because she donates to the humane society. Like that makes it okay.

Susie: Wow, Erica you are a real piece of work. Calling me insane after everything you just said. Look again hun. You are the insane one.

Mildred: She's fucked up is what she is.

In addition, the r-word doesn't refer to your kid or to me unless someone is calling us that word directly. To associate us to the r-word as a way to defend us is calling us the r-word. I don't think anyone realizes that when they do it, but seriously, how would you feel if every time someone used the word "idiot" I jumped them in how it insults all the mothers of special needs people. The parents of special needs people within an ear shot of that would be insulted if I did such a thing.  Same thing follows with the r-word. Unless they are talking about your kid, to make it about your kid is calling your kid the r-word. It's insulting.

I am a firm believer that criticism is a person not calling someone else out on something, but projecting their own insecurities, worries and fears (some valid and some not so valid)… Parents of special needs who insult people for using the r-word I think are insecure about their child's special needs, in a way they probably don't even notice. They worry so much about their child being called names for their situation...  It's common. It's natural. I know. I too am a parent of a kid with special needs. You don't think I don't do the same thing? 

I am probably most guilty with this over the word fat. Every time someone belittles a person for their weight, I see my child getting belittled, and all the sudden I'm holding her feelings right there in the palm of my hands and this person is spitting on them. To steal Insane in the Mom-brain's concept, it makes me sporky. But that's my issue. It's in my head, and it haunts me even when people don't insult people for their weight. And my issue is, I have to get over the fact that my daughter is a little overweight, and yes some people are going to call her fat, just like people call me fat. Anorexic people get called fat. Everybody gets called fat. Just because I worry it might be true for one of my kids doesn't make it about her every time someone talks about fat. This is my issue. It's my fears. It's my worries. 

So I don't ask you guys to just remove the R-word from your vocabulary, but remove it from communication. If someone uses it in a way to demean, have at it. Tear them a new one. I'll be cheering you on. But demeaning people for using the word who wasn't trying to demean anyone is using the word to demean. Reread that one slower, and then try to say it real fast five times. But it's true. If you are demeaning people, you are demeaning people. I don't care whose name you do it in, whether it's autism or God. If you want to help, if you want to advocate, uplift people. Promote acceptance and understanding when you see it lacking. Save the insults for people who are actually insulting and deserve it. 

I don't expect you to be Jesus Christ and approach everything with love. I'm just saying, don't use autism or any "disorder" to hate people on our behalf. Don't use us to call someone an idiot on our behalf. You are not doing us any service with that, not at all. Autism is not the R-word. SPECIAL NEEDS IS NOT THE R-WORD. Quit telling people we are on our behalf.

And if you are a parent of a child with special needs, go find yourself a therapist. It's a tough gig. You need a place to vent. The stress, the anxiety, the lack of time for yourself, the lack of sleep, the lack of any idea of decent hygiene.... shoot all parents should go see a therapist. I never felt like I had any special needs until I became a parent. 

 

A random little rant...

All right everyone, give me 3 dollars. For what you ask? No reason. Just give it to me. It's just 3 dollars. It's not like it's a whole lot of money. Will it go to charity? Nope. I'll probably buy me some luxuries I want, though I do raise money for charity so if you want to donate to that too, go for it. Why should you just give me 3 dollars? Well, isn't that normal?

Confession: I'm obsessed with the breakfast burrito (add tomato, you have to add tomato) at McDonalds. Today I go through for my addiction, and I decide, since the hubs is home for once during breakfast, to get him a sausage egg mcmuffin ($2.75 before tax). When the woman handed me my bag with a half-assed fake smile, I knew right then she fucked up the order some how. People like that always fuck up the order.

So on my way out, I check the bag making people behind me honk at me because nobody stops in a parking lot. Sure enough, no Mcmuffin. So I then took my time clogging up the parking lot because people honked at me (never piss me off behind the wheel), and then I turned around, U-turn, off-roading a bit in the grass (which if you don't want me to drive crazy, don't honk at me), and I go back through. Yes, I could have parked and gotten out of the car and skipped the line inside because fuck ups do entitle you to skip the line, but then that defeats the purpose of driving through. You can't really skip line driving thru, so I wait for 3 cars. Pain in the ass right? Only if you have a life that day, and today I don't.

So I get up to the window (after explaining through the talker thingy), and the fake smile lady hands me a bag with another fake smile thanking me (she didn't recognize me from 5 minutes ago), and I look in the bag, and it's another breakfast burrito, with sauce, probably the guy behind me's order. I hand her back the bag and said, "It's supposed to be a sausage egg mcmuffin." She closes the window, fusses with other employees, like, "Where the fuck does she come up with a sausage egg mcmuffin?" Throwing things around like she gives up (thank God she didn't choose a career disarming bombs). Someone informs her that she forgot it earlier.

The thought of them giving the bag they just handed me that I just went through to the guy behind me was kind of grossing me out and pissing me off. Anyway, she hands me a bag with a McMuffin, finally, and this time, no smile. Grumpy face. "Sorry." Like her mommy made her apologize to a kid she doesn't like.

Now, I forget things. You can call me Ms. Forgetfulson. I forget almost everything. I totally get that other people do. I totally get that maybe she was up all night with a sick kid or arguing with an asshole boyfriend and work just wasn't something she really wanted to do today. I get all that. I don't care if she forgets. I don't care if they fuck up. We are all entitled to that. But own it.

How hard is it to sincerely apologize? Eye contact with that little, "I'm so sorry," with that sound in your voice that you truly are because you are aware I just had to take an extra few minutes from my day to help remedy your fuck up, minutes you get paid for that I don't... No, instead, I'm treated like I'm Satan walking in on sacred ground, like I'm the one who fucked up, like I'm the pain the ass, and McDonalds is totally entitled to my money without supplying the promised goods. You would think at their wages they would know the value of a dollar and why some people are not really wanting to donate to a for-profit organization.

Had McDonalds said, "Okay guys, we are taking 3 dollars out of each of your pay checks just because we forgot to give it to you," the same people who expect us to just give them 3 bucks for the hell of it, who probably make up only a small percentage of the McDonald workforce, would be pissed. Some would probably quit. Others might start a movement to Occupy McDonalds. It would make national news.

It would be one thing if this was the only time that's ever happened to me. No, this story is pretty much one that repeats itself, and I'm in a small town where the fuckups are less often than they are in the major cities. I would fucking lose my shit Joe Pesci style on a daily basis if I lived in a city.

So the fact that I did not just bitch slap some fake smiled bitch with a breakfast burrito through the drive through window this morning, seriously, McDonalds should give me a cookie, a chocolate chip cookie.