And did Schuyler The Cat have a very merry Christmas? Oh yes, he did. The kids were awash in wrapping paper and packing peanuts and wonderfully fun and exciting – albeit affordable – gifts that continue to entertain them for hours. Mrs. Schuyler The Cat – otherwise known to you as “Schuylers Kitten”, got a shopping spree – although not a high-dollar shopping spree – at a local department store which she favors, which she then employed to buy a pair of riding slacks which tuck neatly into brown boots and a sweater of just-so cut and fit. The resulting effect of this outfit causes Schuyler The Cat to get watery eyes and have to sit down rapidly.
And I spent the day listening to records.
Pink Floyd (DSOTM), Miles Davis (Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue), Stravinsky (Firebird, 1911 version, Cleveland Symphony, 1979), Frank Sinatra (In the Wee Small Hours), Kiss (Destroyer). Records. LP's Talking Machine Plates. If you don't remember or never experienced these curiosities: they are just like CD's, only bigger, black in color, look funny when they spin around on a turntable, and they sound delicious.
My wife found a very clean 1972 vintage Thorens TD-160 turntable on Ebay, snatched it up, wrapped it, and stuffed it under the tree. I have never in my life been so completely pleased by a Christmas gift, ever. Thank you, Mrs. Schuyler The Cat, my little kitten.
I trust and hope all Flysters had as fulfilling a Christmas as I. And it is in that spirit that I booted up this day, and remembered “oh, yes: it is Thursday, and shipments, entire warehouses full of morons have plied Prudence for advice this day. I shall see to them.”
Bloody hell. I have.
The originals can be found HERE.
***
Job-Stealing Friend – Are you male or female? Can't tell from your letter. No matter, in the end: you're still a shitheaded fucking asshole of elephantine proportions. If I was your “friend” I'd go after you with a goddamn baseball bat and slowly beat your sorry ass to death. And then I would spit on you.
Meanwhile, I hope you get the job, and this situation haunts you for all eternity. I hope you wake up in the middle of the night every night you work there in a cold sweat, screaming, after another dream of her creeping into your room with a syringe full of battery acid which she plunges into your brain, causing it to slowly expand until your head explodes in a bloody gush of gooey, bloody lather and pus.
Oh: By the way, first round interviews are tricky. I have found relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga are very helpful when performed prior to interviews, like many other stressful events - you may want to look into those methodologies. There are a lot of helpful web sites with job interview advice available as well – since you are soon to be a “fresh out of school” graduate I have to assume your interview experience is limited, so be careful and patient, get that good advice rolling, and most of all: relax! Even though this is an important event, you need to find a way to get yourself calm and confident. When you set out to totally fuck up another persons' life with malice aforethought, it pays to be confident and calm, especially in the middle of that tricky interview (about the time the “tell me a little about yourself” questions go off) when drops of sweat run down your sternum and spine and you realize that she's probably waiting in the closet at your home, poised to leap upon you and cut your throat and stuff your worthless bloody fucking corpse in a freezer, you cheese dick.
Anyway, best of luck in your new career!
***
Accepting My Loss – Losing a parent sucks ass – so sorry to hear about your mother. And besides, it's a bloody shame you are such an idiot.
Now don't get all huffy – I don't mean that in a mean, nasty, way. I mean it in a...well, I guess I mean it in a mean nasty way after all. You carry the cards, bonehead. You are the dealer in these conversations. You are the one claiming to be comfortable while everyone you talk to is not quite aware how you are handling this thing, and even though you can just skim the deck and hand over the aces and kings, you keep giving everyone deuces and fours.
Too metaphorical? I go like that sometimes. Here: people think you're submerged in grief, you goddamn dolt. They don't understand you are moving on. You need to clue them to it. Hell, maybe you are still deep in grief, but I will assume you are stupid instead, because it's easier, and besides, it's fun for me.
So! We turn to the tried and true “Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Say O-Matic!” Please note that this is not to be confused with the ever popular “Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Do O-Matic.” Your results may vary. Not to be used in conjunction with prescription medication or during sexual intercourse. Do not operate heavy machinery while using the Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Say/Do O-Matic. Side effects include headache, nausea, revelation, and sudden uncontrollable bowel movements. You must be at least this tall to ride the ride. All rights reserved. Patents pending.
Disclaimers aside, here's how it works: I give you three optional things to say to the idiots you hang out with, and you pick one, even at random, then use it during conversations. Ready? Great! Let's fire this beyotch up!!!
1.) “Gee, Virgil (or “Pliny the Younger”, or “Tiger”, or whatever your fucking stupid hipster friend's name is), I feel that I am dealing with my mother's death pretty well, so please don't worry about hurting my feelings when we talk about my mom. It's okay, really.” (This is what a smart person would say, so I have to give more examples in your case, because...well...there you go.)
2.) “Listen asshole, I'm not six fucking years old any more, and I can deal with the fact my mom shuffled loose this mortal coil and all that, but what I absolutely cannot fucking stand is your kid glove, pedantic, asinine treatment of me, like I'm going to fucking break into shards and chunks just because we talked about her, so knock it the fuck off or I'll pin you to the street and double-fist your ass until you scream and beg me to kill you. You got that, dad?”
3.) “Oh look! A unicorn! I just love unicorns!”
And I'm spent! Ah, another day steering and guiding the lives of ginormously and profoundly lost people...ahh. Bliss.
***
Doting Dad – Jesus, the noise! What the hell is that noise? It seems to be coming from you...a massive cacophony of sound, like a thirty foot tall wall of...
...Whining! Yeah, that's it! Whining.
Go here. This is for you. It's something I wish I had invented, but I didn't. It's called the Give-A-Fuck-O-Meter. See the needle, all the way at the bottom? Get it? I thought. Let's move on.
A digression is in order: when I win the lottery, or inherit millions, or encounter whatever method I do when I find myself rich beyond the very brightest dreams of the greedy and the avaricious, I am going to go to every major city in America (for starters, anyway – I'll work up a deployment for Pac Rim and EMEA after a few stock splits) and open a store in each. It'll be a fairly small footprint retail establishment, since it will only have one product: testicles. Yes, I, Schuyler The Cat, am gong to open an entire chain of Testicles-R-Us stores coast to coast.
And when I do, you get your flailing whiny fucking ass in there and buy some, you simpering little butt-rubbing, nose picking, semi-pubescent blobbet of crotch cheese. May I recommend the “A-Cup” model for starters, because balls, you see, sometimes have a little horsepower to them. I fear you wouldn't be able to handle B's or bigger. You can grow into them later, after you learn to handle the power, the force, the sheer outrageous awesomeness that is testicles.
And check it, Sonny Jim: This is not a dis on your wife. Not at all. This is a dis on you and you alone. Yeah, I think her fears are unfounded and a little superior-sounding, but this is her child and that's how parents roll. They worry needlessly sometimes. We're good at it.
And here you are, and you said something intelligent. Fuck me! Intelligent? In a Dear Prudence letter? The walls they will come a-tumbling down, O Lord, for I fear the universe cannot abide this news! It's like a goddamn black hole or something, rolling through the milky way, eating everything in it's path and converting the matter it encounters into a misty spatter of subatomic particles! It's the end, the end I tell you!!!
What? Oh right, sorry – you said “If he ever wants to find out things about his biological family, I think it would be helpful for us to have had at least limited contact with them throughout the years.”
You said that. And all the while you are completely unaware that you answered your own goddamn questions weeks before you ever wrote this infantile goddamn letter in the first place.
What a fucking rube.
Oh! I forgot: Testicles-R-Us is a strong supporter (pun!!!) of “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Since your wife obviously has some balls – probably the only ones in your household – maybe you should ask her to borrow them for a little while? They can be tricky, but she can teach you to use them, I suspect. Idiot.
***
Flowerless – Oh, la la la. I picture, in my head, scenes from movies that feature a moment in time when someone makes a mental connection, and comes to a remarkable realization. The actors seem to begin to glow – I'm thinking of Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump,” and Alistair Sim in the old version of “A Christmas Carol.” Very different movies, but what Hanks' character realizes he can walk to Jenny's apartment – rather than wait for the bus – he seems to levitate, and the look of marvel and joy on his face is absolutely beatific. Same with Sim, when he awakens after the spirits have left him cowering and clutching the bedpost. An amazing awareness, it seems, comes over him, and he is transformed.
You sound so astonishingly and extraordinarily stupid that I suspect you have never looked like this, ever, in your entire life.
When I have rolled out all my Testicles-R-Us stores, and after I have made a million-willion dollars, I think I will create a series of facilities for people like you. They will be indoors, with lots of windows to see out (and for curious onlookers to see in), bright and cheerfully painted, furnished in soft, comfortable things like pillows and bean bag chairs. I will offer low-cost access to the families of people like you, and they can just drop you off for a few hours, like the ball pit in Ikea. Once there, you can just dodder around and look at the pretty things, safe and blithely happy amid the broad, cushioned spaces. There will be televisions which loop “My Little Pony” commercials endlessly in the background. Big stuffed teddy bears to cuddle and nap with. You can waddle to and fro, free and without a care, unless you have to make doody, and don't you worry about making doody, sweetheart: I'll have trained staff there to wipe your stupid fucking ass for you, brainless.
Sorry about all that nonsense above – it's how I deal with life. You make a good, unwitting source too, because you only understand about a third of it.
Listen up, now – eyes front, sit criss-cross-applesauce, and no giggles. Stop picking your nose. Listening? Got your thinking cap on?
Okay. Here we go!
He doesn't buy you flowers because he's just using you for sex.
Okay then!
Now you go on back to your Spongebob show, and the rest of the world will continue on it's course, racing around the sun and revolving away without a worry for you, as it is completely unaware that somewhere here in America, an unimaginably intellect-deficient 32 year old mother of a teenager has, for the first time in her entire life, come to an amazing and bona fide realization, and has perhaps gotten “that” look on her heretofore slack-jawed face.
Cheerio!
***
I dunno about New Year's. It's not my favorite “holiday”, if one can call it that.
This year was a high-low affair for many: Bambam got the nod for the White House, and immediately set about disappointing everyone on the planet (I say he's coming on stronger for round 2, but I am an optimist who prefers this disappointment to any single day of the previous 8 years of mis-administration under The Psychotic Savant from Crawford, Texas), financially everyone took it in the shorts (except bank executives) and H1N1 got me and a few people I know, though none of us died. It's one of those New Years when all I can say is “hell, it HAS to be better than 2009. Right? I mean...right?”
I will ring in the new year by digging deeper into my freshly unpacked records collection and finding the gems I have waiting roughly 20-odd years to listen to. Dire Straits. Julie London. Count Basie. Jimmy Lunceford. Ambrosia. More Pink Floyd. Maybe Led Zeppelin, but I think I gave all those away in 1989. Jaco Pastoruis. I have about 400 or so, and I've yet to inventory them.
One last “huzzah” to a foul-weather year that can't end soon enough; me, Schuyler's Kittens, my talking machine plates and a bottle of Korbel or two, waiting for the fireworks and a cheerful – if not entirely understandable – Dick Clark to say “Happy New Year” for the 46th time in my life.
And so, in the spirit of the season: Happy Fucking New Year, Flysters!
May your worst day of 2010 be better than your best day of 2009!
May your paychecks all cash out as fortunes!
May the work you do be an adventure!
Don't catch your weenie in your zipper!
Salud,
STC =^oo^=
A case of the "ho ho ho" to you, ho; or, the Xmas-Files.
In the spirit of the season, given that I have watched three or four different versions of “A Christmas Carol” (curious, they all end the same, except the musical) I have, for whatever reason, softened a bit toward this week's letter writers, rather than bristled. It's a cold place here in the Northeast, snowbound hearts are as frozen as the streets, and a good dose of charity and kindness is in order.
With that, I present a New and Improved Schuyler the Cat: Nice Guy Holiday Edition, V2.0.
And God Bless us, every one.
Original Dear Prudence letters can be found HERE.
***
Waiting in the Cold – Sisterly differences are a thing to behold, I say: I have 3 older sisters, and there was always a missing sweater that was “borrowed” or a boyfriend that was less than accepted around the house, and good lord above there was always a period happening – every day of every month – if my mother was thrown in the female fray that was my childhood. It was like living in a horror movie where all the women threatened to kill me every day of my life until I was 16, and then the threats slowed, yet never completely stopped...
My dad and I became professional ninjas – we could disappear swiftly and silently into the shadows and ride out these 28 day storms with skillz madder than the best TF2 team leader on a sniper mission.
Anyway, your problem here is a silly one, to outsiders anyway; a snippy spat of minor magnitude, although I understand you emit rising fumes over it, because I am fully aware that sisterz can do that to a person. Just as you, possibly unaware, are doing it to her.
I say you have a case of big-sister-itis.
Solutions are as simple as the diagnosis here, and revolve primarily around communication, a tool missing from many a sister's toolbox out there. In your case, a simple chat could solve it all, but beware – this little tiff could erupt into something bigger if you force your view. To her point, shipping was the alternative to a visit anyway, and let's face it: it sounds like you and hubby can afford the cost of freight.
I think you should let this little fire burn itself out like a well-used yule log and enjoy the spirit of the holidays, then do as she asks and ship the gifts after. It helps, I have found, to make part of the gift selection criteria include “small” and “shippable” as well as affordable and appropriate to the recipient: my grandson lives 3000 miles away in Canada, and shipping is a premium. No big heavy presents for him.
So de-Scrooge yourself, shrug it off, and enjoy the splendor and happiness of holidays, silly! Never mind you're a self-indulgent nit-picking fucking bitch of the worst goddamn kind. “Wah, my sister's a big lazy weenie and I can't take the fucking precious time to ship a gift to her!” my ass, you egotistical froth-spewing goddamn hag. If you were my sister I'd duct-tape you to your bed in your sleep and Nair your hair right off your empty fucking head. Run out of Pamprin, Princess Menses? What a snotty twatburger.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Nix the Gift – Hmm, this has peril written all over it. Secrets and “don't tell this person that thing happened” are not good ways to begin a relationship. I wonder about the intentions of the gentleman involved, and more deeply wonder about the intentions of your woman friend.
Mostly, though, I wonder about your place in the scheme of things. It seems, my friend, that you have a few things of import to say that may not be any of your business, regardless your relationship with this woman. Even gently suggesting returning the gifts, or donating them to charity: these suggestions presume an awful lot about her relationship with this married man who may simply be a gift-giving type, and you making them states clearly to me that you are skirting the issue, which, I am afraid to tell you, is possibly jealousy.
Not that jealousy is a horrible thing: it's a natural response to humankind's possessive nature, and it frequently tells us there is something unsafe about a position we find ourselves in, and in your case I think you are receiving a very important message about the nature of this woman and any potential relationship you may have with her.
I mentioned the “gift giving type” above – we both know that's not what you are concerned about, don't we? I fear so.
So you find yourself here, but the situation is of your own making, believe it or not: your conversations with her have not been related to the right or wrong thing to do. Rather, you are suggesting actions based upon conjecture, which she could only interpret as negative insinuation, and there is no trust, no good basis for a new relationship, and this cannot proceed or end well.
Just tell that sleazy fucking whore to fuck off, and go find a new girlfriend. What, are you completely stupid? Guys like you make the rest of us look like fucking idiots: you get involved with a manipulative bitch with an agenda that likely includes sucking off married men in the church parking lot after services, then you act all wounded and weepy later and try to control the situation through manipulation of your own. like taking in a rabid dog then kicking it in the head when it bites you on your lazy stupid ass, Doofus McDickless. What a moron. Thanks for fucking things up for the rest of us, too.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Appropriate Christmas Cards Only, Please – Oh, bother. This is just plain silly and an exercise in bee-in-a-bonnet poofery.
There is a focus in your letter upon two things: politics and appropriateness.
First, politically, the rift in stance between you and your wife's aunt in not only predictable, it is a statistical inevitability. If we take an example of a single nuclear family consisting of a mother, father, son, and daughter, we can likely find that together they present a somewhat singular front in Politics – that is, until the kids grow up and realize there are choices, and later in life you can have that same family presenting four discrete, separate, differing views on not only politics but each and every single itty-bitty issue politics reportedly represents. Makes for thrilling Thanksgiving dinners, yes it does!
So it may be obvious, but you will always have aunts and uncles and in-laws and cousins and whatnot who are “that” party, while you are “this” party.
Some people, methinks, carry it juuust a little too far.
Adding a line like that to a Christmas card is, indeed, inappropriate. Especially so amid a family where political beliefs are usually understood and out there for all to see – that makes it a bit of a jab at you in this case.
But – and there's always a “but” in politics – this is also a time of charity, and kindness, and forgiveness. The holidays are such a fine time for families to set aside their differences – even if some family members cannot do so. You and your new wife should simply smile and face the Christmas tree together and toast the good health and hopeful future the season holds, let this issue go, and have a safe and happy Christmas together, awash in the warmth of knowing you, at least, have done a kind thing.
Your New Year's resolution could be to send them a letter, stating:
“Dearest Aunt Edna and Uncle Charley,
You stupid fucking neocon poop-lickers: private healthcare is the most profound failure of human service in the history of homo sapiens. “Private” obviously translates to ”for profit,” you goddamn retarded fuck-knuckles, and “healthcare” cannot succeed when profit is the primary motivating factor: it's like paying someone in water for supporting a fire in the hearth: you get one or the other, you jerkoff dinglepuss asswipes. It sickens me to have you in my family, and speaking of sick: I hope you get truly sick and spend a little quality time enjoying your “healthcare”, while they deny your claim because hey: lung cancer isn't covered, loser, because you had lungs before you got sick, obviously a preexisting condition. Then you can pay the bills yourself – along with your continued insurance premiums – and then you have the privilege of losing your retirement and your house and everything you worked hard for. Total financial fuckholery, and the more stupid people on the planet – like you fucking monkeys – have bought into it while the rest of the country suffers. What a bunch of inbred, toothless imbeciles you are. Go shove Sarah Palin up your ass, you dickweedeaters, but do it gently, 'cause if you push too hard you're going to cause a rectal tear and have to go to the doctor, and your insurance company will deny you because let's face it: Sarah Palin is a preexisting up-the-ass condition on a good day, to be sure.
And don't ever come within a thousand yards of my home, or I will set my dogs after you, you goddamn fucking morons.
Love and kisses,
Bill and Betty.”
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Loki – you are a mischievous devil, you certainly are! This year my daughter will be getting the nesting “box in a box in a box” treatment: I wrapped and tagged and put bows on eight different sized boxes that she has to open to get to her big gift. Taped the heck out of them too. I cannot wait for her to open it! I a very silly daddy.
This, however, is my daughter I'm talking about. She's eight, and for the moment she's crazy about me (we'll see what 12 to 14 brings, won't we?). Your girlfriend's mother – a possible future mother IN LAW, I might add – is already disapproving, and you tread very deep and dangerous waters here, my friend. All that huff-puffery about financial standing and whatnot is just sauce for the goose she may be cooking for you, as well.
I certainly have to see your issue in a broader sense, too: early into a relationship may not be a good time to be a prankster, yes? But if you don't prank her, she may feel slighted by that, and there is your Catch-22: damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
This is a lighthearted thing, this goofy pranksterism, but you must read the terrain carefully before you forge ahead, you nutty little joker, you. Follow your girlfriend's advice on it, and move cautiously.
And may I ask: did you put a big greasy pile of fresh dogshit in the box you welded shut for her? I mean, it's a mother's prerogative to take exception to a boyfriend, but come on already: tell that fucking battle-axe to lighten the hell up or fuck herself. You say she cannot stand you: that implies she's completely in denial that her daughter, only hours before a visit, may have been straddling you cowgirl fashion wearing a latex and stainless steel bondage rig and screaming “yeah, baby! Twist my nipples like radio dials! Spank me!” Who does Mommy Dearest actually dis when she gives you the cold shoulder but her own daughter?
What a hideous slimy witch you have on your hands there, lucky boy. To think she may attend your kid's christening some day, as well. I'd rather shove bamboo barbecue skewers through my scrotum than spend a minute with a future Mother in Law like that...yet despite the fact she's your own personal future Marybeth Tinning-in-law, you do persist, don't you? What an idiot. Shake this bitch up or walk away a free man, lover boy, 'cause she ain't singing hymns of praise about you any time soon., regardless how you wrap her stupid fucking Christmas present. Idiot.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Funny thing: speaking of Sarah Palin, I was just ruffling my son's hair on the way to get a cup of coffee, and noticed he was watching a cartoon about dinosaurs who were celebrating Christmas.
Dinosaurs. Christmas. Dichotomy? Hehehehe. Makes you want to go rogue, huh? And whatever happened to Road Runner?
Today is Thursday, the 24th of December, and I am expecting a house full of guests tonight: a simple little cocktail party, short lived, with snifters of cognac and Grand Marnier, a decent red wine, beer for me (Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA, or perhaps Stone Brewery Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale), treats for the kids like popcorn balls and yummy lemon muffins, and simple little gifts to exchange. Then we open our traditional Christmas eve presents: we all get new pajamas for Christmas morning.
And then tomorrow morning the kids will be screaming at 6:00 to get up, get up, Santa was here! The carrot sticks and grape juice we left out is gone! He left this note, too:
“Dear R and C,
Thanks so very much for the carrot sticks and grape juice – that rascal Dasher got to the carrots before I could stop him and ate them all, but it's just as well, since he's out front with Rudolph and works hard. The grape juice was much appreciated – all that milk gives me indigestion.
I hope you like your presents this year, 'cause you've been VERY good!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Santa Claus”
My wife got me something special this year, too. I suspect a Kindle, wrapped in a big box with a bunch of books and stuff in there for extra weight to trick me. I'm on to her.
Just so: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Good Kwanzaa, and great happy days and nights to all of you and yours, from Schuyler the Cat to all of you.
Everyone, with me: “Merry Fucking Christmas!!!”
Toodles.
STC =^oo^=
With that, I present a New and Improved Schuyler the Cat: Nice Guy Holiday Edition, V2.0.
And God Bless us, every one.
Original Dear Prudence letters can be found HERE.
***
Waiting in the Cold – Sisterly differences are a thing to behold, I say: I have 3 older sisters, and there was always a missing sweater that was “borrowed” or a boyfriend that was less than accepted around the house, and good lord above there was always a period happening – every day of every month – if my mother was thrown in the female fray that was my childhood. It was like living in a horror movie where all the women threatened to kill me every day of my life until I was 16, and then the threats slowed, yet never completely stopped...
My dad and I became professional ninjas – we could disappear swiftly and silently into the shadows and ride out these 28 day storms with skillz madder than the best TF2 team leader on a sniper mission.
Anyway, your problem here is a silly one, to outsiders anyway; a snippy spat of minor magnitude, although I understand you emit rising fumes over it, because I am fully aware that sisterz can do that to a person. Just as you, possibly unaware, are doing it to her.
I say you have a case of big-sister-itis.
Solutions are as simple as the diagnosis here, and revolve primarily around communication, a tool missing from many a sister's toolbox out there. In your case, a simple chat could solve it all, but beware – this little tiff could erupt into something bigger if you force your view. To her point, shipping was the alternative to a visit anyway, and let's face it: it sounds like you and hubby can afford the cost of freight.
I think you should let this little fire burn itself out like a well-used yule log and enjoy the spirit of the holidays, then do as she asks and ship the gifts after. It helps, I have found, to make part of the gift selection criteria include “small” and “shippable” as well as affordable and appropriate to the recipient: my grandson lives 3000 miles away in Canada, and shipping is a premium. No big heavy presents for him.
So de-Scrooge yourself, shrug it off, and enjoy the splendor and happiness of holidays, silly! Never mind you're a self-indulgent nit-picking fucking bitch of the worst goddamn kind. “Wah, my sister's a big lazy weenie and I can't take the fucking precious time to ship a gift to her!” my ass, you egotistical froth-spewing goddamn hag. If you were my sister I'd duct-tape you to your bed in your sleep and Nair your hair right off your empty fucking head. Run out of Pamprin, Princess Menses? What a snotty twatburger.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Nix the Gift – Hmm, this has peril written all over it. Secrets and “don't tell this person that thing happened” are not good ways to begin a relationship. I wonder about the intentions of the gentleman involved, and more deeply wonder about the intentions of your woman friend.
Mostly, though, I wonder about your place in the scheme of things. It seems, my friend, that you have a few things of import to say that may not be any of your business, regardless your relationship with this woman. Even gently suggesting returning the gifts, or donating them to charity: these suggestions presume an awful lot about her relationship with this married man who may simply be a gift-giving type, and you making them states clearly to me that you are skirting the issue, which, I am afraid to tell you, is possibly jealousy.
Not that jealousy is a horrible thing: it's a natural response to humankind's possessive nature, and it frequently tells us there is something unsafe about a position we find ourselves in, and in your case I think you are receiving a very important message about the nature of this woman and any potential relationship you may have with her.
I mentioned the “gift giving type” above – we both know that's not what you are concerned about, don't we? I fear so.
So you find yourself here, but the situation is of your own making, believe it or not: your conversations with her have not been related to the right or wrong thing to do. Rather, you are suggesting actions based upon conjecture, which she could only interpret as negative insinuation, and there is no trust, no good basis for a new relationship, and this cannot proceed or end well.
Just tell that sleazy fucking whore to fuck off, and go find a new girlfriend. What, are you completely stupid? Guys like you make the rest of us look like fucking idiots: you get involved with a manipulative bitch with an agenda that likely includes sucking off married men in the church parking lot after services, then you act all wounded and weepy later and try to control the situation through manipulation of your own. like taking in a rabid dog then kicking it in the head when it bites you on your lazy stupid ass, Doofus McDickless. What a moron. Thanks for fucking things up for the rest of us, too.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Appropriate Christmas Cards Only, Please – Oh, bother. This is just plain silly and an exercise in bee-in-a-bonnet poofery.
There is a focus in your letter upon two things: politics and appropriateness.
First, politically, the rift in stance between you and your wife's aunt in not only predictable, it is a statistical inevitability. If we take an example of a single nuclear family consisting of a mother, father, son, and daughter, we can likely find that together they present a somewhat singular front in Politics – that is, until the kids grow up and realize there are choices, and later in life you can have that same family presenting four discrete, separate, differing views on not only politics but each and every single itty-bitty issue politics reportedly represents. Makes for thrilling Thanksgiving dinners, yes it does!
So it may be obvious, but you will always have aunts and uncles and in-laws and cousins and whatnot who are “that” party, while you are “this” party.
Some people, methinks, carry it juuust a little too far.
Adding a line like that to a Christmas card is, indeed, inappropriate. Especially so amid a family where political beliefs are usually understood and out there for all to see – that makes it a bit of a jab at you in this case.
But – and there's always a “but” in politics – this is also a time of charity, and kindness, and forgiveness. The holidays are such a fine time for families to set aside their differences – even if some family members cannot do so. You and your new wife should simply smile and face the Christmas tree together and toast the good health and hopeful future the season holds, let this issue go, and have a safe and happy Christmas together, awash in the warmth of knowing you, at least, have done a kind thing.
Your New Year's resolution could be to send them a letter, stating:
“Dearest Aunt Edna and Uncle Charley,
You stupid fucking neocon poop-lickers: private healthcare is the most profound failure of human service in the history of homo sapiens. “Private” obviously translates to ”for profit,” you goddamn retarded fuck-knuckles, and “healthcare” cannot succeed when profit is the primary motivating factor: it's like paying someone in water for supporting a fire in the hearth: you get one or the other, you jerkoff dinglepuss asswipes. It sickens me to have you in my family, and speaking of sick: I hope you get truly sick and spend a little quality time enjoying your “healthcare”, while they deny your claim because hey: lung cancer isn't covered, loser, because you had lungs before you got sick, obviously a preexisting condition. Then you can pay the bills yourself – along with your continued insurance premiums – and then you have the privilege of losing your retirement and your house and everything you worked hard for. Total financial fuckholery, and the more stupid people on the planet – like you fucking monkeys – have bought into it while the rest of the country suffers. What a bunch of inbred, toothless imbeciles you are. Go shove Sarah Palin up your ass, you dickweedeaters, but do it gently, 'cause if you push too hard you're going to cause a rectal tear and have to go to the doctor, and your insurance company will deny you because let's face it: Sarah Palin is a preexisting up-the-ass condition on a good day, to be sure.
And don't ever come within a thousand yards of my home, or I will set my dogs after you, you goddamn fucking morons.
Love and kisses,
Bill and Betty.”
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Loki – you are a mischievous devil, you certainly are! This year my daughter will be getting the nesting “box in a box in a box” treatment: I wrapped and tagged and put bows on eight different sized boxes that she has to open to get to her big gift. Taped the heck out of them too. I cannot wait for her to open it! I a very silly daddy.
This, however, is my daughter I'm talking about. She's eight, and for the moment she's crazy about me (we'll see what 12 to 14 brings, won't we?). Your girlfriend's mother – a possible future mother IN LAW, I might add – is already disapproving, and you tread very deep and dangerous waters here, my friend. All that huff-puffery about financial standing and whatnot is just sauce for the goose she may be cooking for you, as well.
I certainly have to see your issue in a broader sense, too: early into a relationship may not be a good time to be a prankster, yes? But if you don't prank her, she may feel slighted by that, and there is your Catch-22: damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
This is a lighthearted thing, this goofy pranksterism, but you must read the terrain carefully before you forge ahead, you nutty little joker, you. Follow your girlfriend's advice on it, and move cautiously.
And may I ask: did you put a big greasy pile of fresh dogshit in the box you welded shut for her? I mean, it's a mother's prerogative to take exception to a boyfriend, but come on already: tell that fucking battle-axe to lighten the hell up or fuck herself. You say she cannot stand you: that implies she's completely in denial that her daughter, only hours before a visit, may have been straddling you cowgirl fashion wearing a latex and stainless steel bondage rig and screaming “yeah, baby! Twist my nipples like radio dials! Spank me!” Who does Mommy Dearest actually dis when she gives you the cold shoulder but her own daughter?
What a hideous slimy witch you have on your hands there, lucky boy. To think she may attend your kid's christening some day, as well. I'd rather shove bamboo barbecue skewers through my scrotum than spend a minute with a future Mother in Law like that...yet despite the fact she's your own personal future Marybeth Tinning-in-law, you do persist, don't you? What an idiot. Shake this bitch up or walk away a free man, lover boy, 'cause she ain't singing hymns of praise about you any time soon., regardless how you wrap her stupid fucking Christmas present. Idiot.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
***
Funny thing: speaking of Sarah Palin, I was just ruffling my son's hair on the way to get a cup of coffee, and noticed he was watching a cartoon about dinosaurs who were celebrating Christmas.
Dinosaurs. Christmas. Dichotomy? Hehehehe. Makes you want to go rogue, huh? And whatever happened to Road Runner?
Today is Thursday, the 24th of December, and I am expecting a house full of guests tonight: a simple little cocktail party, short lived, with snifters of cognac and Grand Marnier, a decent red wine, beer for me (Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA, or perhaps Stone Brewery Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale), treats for the kids like popcorn balls and yummy lemon muffins, and simple little gifts to exchange. Then we open our traditional Christmas eve presents: we all get new pajamas for Christmas morning.
And then tomorrow morning the kids will be screaming at 6:00 to get up, get up, Santa was here! The carrot sticks and grape juice we left out is gone! He left this note, too:
“Dear R and C,
Thanks so very much for the carrot sticks and grape juice – that rascal Dasher got to the carrots before I could stop him and ate them all, but it's just as well, since he's out front with Rudolph and works hard. The grape juice was much appreciated – all that milk gives me indigestion.
I hope you like your presents this year, 'cause you've been VERY good!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Santa Claus”
My wife got me something special this year, too. I suspect a Kindle, wrapped in a big box with a bunch of books and stuff in there for extra weight to trick me. I'm on to her.
Just so: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Good Kwanzaa, and great happy days and nights to all of you and yours, from Schuyler the Cat to all of you.
Everyone, with me: “Merry Fucking Christmas!!!”
Toodles.
STC =^oo^=
If they were beer, I'd gratefully teetotal.
Okay already!
I got letters for the last two weeks, berating me for not publishing Room to Swing a Cat.
Wow: I apologize to those who actually read my stuff and had to wait, and frankly, I am humbled and honored that a few of you wrote to tell me to get off my ass and get something written. They like me! They really like me!
And off I go into Prudieland. Ready? Set? As Peter Pan said...”C'mon everybody! Here we goooooo...”
Original letters found HERE.
***
A Loyal Friend? – Watch soap operas much? Crap, dude, you need to take a quick trip out to Lifes-R-Us and pick out something a little less daytime dramatic in your size. Recap: your very good pal is a pukey fucking skankaraptor who is blithely banging the bejeezus out of his ex-squeezola while his poor unknowing wifey is home, barefoot in the kitchen, with two suckling children working her breasts, and he threw you into a big bonfire by using you as a fake alibi without asking so he could play a little slap and tickle on the side. To top things off, you are a profoundly cowardly wonderwuss of the worst magnitude. I just guessed that part, because you didn't bother to include it. I like to keep it real.
Well, Professor Pussy, you have some thinking to do. It'll be hard 'cause it means you have to attempt the use of what appears to be a puny fragment of atrophied marmot brain. Frankly I cannot imagine someone as stupid as you actually capable of scratching your own ass without a Boy Scout around to show you how, but we gotta try. I'll make it simple:
One, carry the lie forever and continue to do so for his future trysts. Sure, this is a viable option. Go for it. Seriously. Or don't. I don't know.
Two, you could buy, rent, or maybe grow your very own pair of fully functional big-boy testicles and tell him that next time he throws you to the goddamn wolves you're going to break your foot off in his ass right after you tell his wife the whole story. Note that with this option you could give the asshole a freebie for the lie he already force fed you...or maybe not. Your call. Which makes me think...
Three, and this is the best option: blackmail the bloody hell out of him. Follow him around a few times when he's off getting the strange and get some pictures, keep details and notes, and present it to him in a big manilla envelope with a threat: ask for some awesome sum of money “...or all this goes to Wifey Dearest, beyotch! Sweet ownage, fucker!”
Oh, and whatever you decide to do, please, please do not forget that you're an idiot. Good lord, man. Seriously.
***
Two Dads, Two Kids, One Problem – Congratulations to you! Buuut... Recap: you and your partner are adopting twins, and you want to raise the children in medieval fashion, rolling in their own urine and fecal emmissions and smelling like a pair of oily desiccating two-week dead-yaks, the precious little darlings. You also want to save the planet one little child at a time by using organic clothing made courtesy slave labor in Honduras, and, oddly enough, you want only real wood toys, as you are completely unaware that this wonderfully counterintuitive idea contributes to deforestation. Buy offsets, fast, or you might burn in hell with LW1's boy.
These issues are not the actual problem, either. The problem is you do not know how to use The King's own English to perform basic communication, or at least do anything but write to Dear Prudence. It appears you cannot get across, in some known human language, to your shower guests that gifts containing plastic, non-organic materials, diapers, or anything that was invented after 1647 is unwelcome and will be discarded posthaste. Or possibly traded for air freshener, because you will need lots and lots of goddamn air freshener, asswipe. Hey! “asswipe!” That's a pun! I so the funny, I is, truly truly. Asswipe. Huh.
Well, I'll fix it for you. Cut and paste this into your shower invites:
“Hi, everyone. Gerald and I, apart from possessing IQ's half a tick under arctic temperatures, were somehow left un-screened and thus are celebrating the impending adoption of formerly normal and healthy twin children, which we will immediately proceed to destroy with every action we take and word we speak, no matter what that action or word is, and no matter how we try, because we have “ideas”. Hoo, yes, we so totally do have ideas. We know fuck-all about kids, though. Anyway we are simply in heaven. Bring on the poop!
Meanwhile we need you to understand that we will throw or give your stupid fucking gifts in a dumpster if they do not meet the following criteria:
1 – NO FUCKING DIAPERS! THEY ARE EVIL, THE DEVIL'S WORK! BRING OF THE POOP!
2 – NO PLASTIC TOYS, GODDAMNIT! ONLY WODD TOYS! WHAT, YOU THINK WE NEED THOSE STUPID TREES? TREES SUCK ASS!
3 – NO ITEMS THAT DO NOT HAVE THE “CERTIFIED 100% ORGANIC” LABEL. BRING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT ORGANIC AND WE'LL STICK IT RIGHT UP YOUR ASS.
Thanks in advance, and we really look forward to spending a fun and exciting time together opening the gifts you bring us!
With much love,
Bob and Gerald, the two most fucked up parents-to-be ever!”
Poor kids. Better keep sharp or projectile-firing things away from them later in life. These kids will definitely go Menendez on your stupid freaky goddamn ass when they grow up, and no court will convict them.
***
Disappointed – I just. Well. Uh. Shit.
Good God, people! What, did a buncha big giant fucking UFO's invade Earth and drop off big millions of fucking crates full of goddamn retarded people all over the place? Geebus wept!
Oh, sorry about your mom.
All right, witless, here's the story: Mom died, you had foot all the bills, your favorite Aunt, Ms. Greedy McSteal, got lotsa donations but didn't share the booty. You want to know what to do.
You. Want. To. Know. What. To. Do. Ooooooo-key dokey.
Um, this might be hard, but I have to ask: what the bloody fucking hell do you WANT to do? I mean, does anything come to mind? Anything at all? You know, you need a mind for anything to come to in the first goddamn place. I'm having a yiddish moment. Oy fucking goddamn vey. I'm almost verklempt. Gimme a sec.
(heavy sigh, and a 1, and a 2, and a...)
Listen up – I have fired up the Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Do-O-Matic, just for you. Yee haw! Let's see what happens.
ONE: Call her and bust her ass on it.
TWO: let it go.
There it is! And I'm spent! I should get paid for this shit, really.
***
Christmas Dilemma – This is not a dilemma. A dilemma would be, like, you know, something meaningful, like running out of toilet paper after the effects of a big beefy-bean burrito with extra salsa and sour cream on it. Or realizing, just as you make out the words “Ford” on the grille of the car two feet from your head and closing, that you just ran a red light and you have no insurance. Or maybe waking up in an alien spacecraft with cold medical instruments stuffed into all your orifices and a little greenish-grey guy giggling at you every time you scream.
This? A dilemma? Recap: your parents have purchased a wonderful Jesus and are preparing to celebrate that misidentified pagan December holiday to honor his birth, even though theologians assure us all he wasn't really a Capricorn. You yourself have a somewhat less feature-rich Jesus but he's certainly good enough to meet mom and dad's standards for a Jesus, and your brand is easier on your budget and sex life. You also have a major tweak happening for that hunky, super-duper guy who you plan to wed someday, but he has no make or model of Jesus in his possession, because he is very odd and doesn't believe in Jesus, and probably not the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or any of the other fairy tales he's been told, but he can afford to put gas in the car because he's not beholden to tithe away his earnings. Weird guy, huh?
Root problem? He won't go to church this Christmas with you and your parents, and they will be likely to un-friend him for that, 'casue he's going to roast, screaming in eternal agony and damnation of the unforgiven, deep in the sulphury screaming bowels of fiery and furious hell itself. Or some sorta shit like that.
Solution? Dump him and get a new guy who has some kind of Jesus or other. You have little choice. Mom and Dad are going to condemn and banish any Jesus-less guys, so bite the bullet and go find yourself a good 'thumper, girlfriend. Besides, sounds like your Jesus is low maintenance and high forgiveness, and you can get a new guy – with some decent Jesus happening – for show, and do the wang-bang-zola with the atheist guy on the side whenever you feel the need for the good stuff.
And if you get caught, you can get all Edwards/Sanford and announce God will forgive you. Total bonus, Christian babe! So lucky.
And you know what? I am so glad I don't know you.
***
And it is here, my friends, that I leave you. Thanks all for reading, and thanks especially for those who gave me the massively so awesome ego stroke by writing to me to ask me to get back to work. Awesome, indeed.
Ciao Bellos and Bellas.
I got letters for the last two weeks, berating me for not publishing Room to Swing a Cat.
Wow: I apologize to those who actually read my stuff and had to wait, and frankly, I am humbled and honored that a few of you wrote to tell me to get off my ass and get something written. They like me! They really like me!
And off I go into Prudieland. Ready? Set? As Peter Pan said...”C'mon everybody! Here we goooooo...”
Original letters found HERE.
***
A Loyal Friend? – Watch soap operas much? Crap, dude, you need to take a quick trip out to Lifes-R-Us and pick out something a little less daytime dramatic in your size. Recap: your very good pal is a pukey fucking skankaraptor who is blithely banging the bejeezus out of his ex-squeezola while his poor unknowing wifey is home, barefoot in the kitchen, with two suckling children working her breasts, and he threw you into a big bonfire by using you as a fake alibi without asking so he could play a little slap and tickle on the side. To top things off, you are a profoundly cowardly wonderwuss of the worst magnitude. I just guessed that part, because you didn't bother to include it. I like to keep it real.
Well, Professor Pussy, you have some thinking to do. It'll be hard 'cause it means you have to attempt the use of what appears to be a puny fragment of atrophied marmot brain. Frankly I cannot imagine someone as stupid as you actually capable of scratching your own ass without a Boy Scout around to show you how, but we gotta try. I'll make it simple:
One, carry the lie forever and continue to do so for his future trysts. Sure, this is a viable option. Go for it. Seriously. Or don't. I don't know.
Two, you could buy, rent, or maybe grow your very own pair of fully functional big-boy testicles and tell him that next time he throws you to the goddamn wolves you're going to break your foot off in his ass right after you tell his wife the whole story. Note that with this option you could give the asshole a freebie for the lie he already force fed you...or maybe not. Your call. Which makes me think...
Three, and this is the best option: blackmail the bloody hell out of him. Follow him around a few times when he's off getting the strange and get some pictures, keep details and notes, and present it to him in a big manilla envelope with a threat: ask for some awesome sum of money “...or all this goes to Wifey Dearest, beyotch! Sweet ownage, fucker!”
Oh, and whatever you decide to do, please, please do not forget that you're an idiot. Good lord, man. Seriously.
***
Two Dads, Two Kids, One Problem – Congratulations to you! Buuut... Recap: you and your partner are adopting twins, and you want to raise the children in medieval fashion, rolling in their own urine and fecal emmissions and smelling like a pair of oily desiccating two-week dead-yaks, the precious little darlings. You also want to save the planet one little child at a time by using organic clothing made courtesy slave labor in Honduras, and, oddly enough, you want only real wood toys, as you are completely unaware that this wonderfully counterintuitive idea contributes to deforestation. Buy offsets, fast, or you might burn in hell with LW1's boy.
These issues are not the actual problem, either. The problem is you do not know how to use The King's own English to perform basic communication, or at least do anything but write to Dear Prudence. It appears you cannot get across, in some known human language, to your shower guests that gifts containing plastic, non-organic materials, diapers, or anything that was invented after 1647 is unwelcome and will be discarded posthaste. Or possibly traded for air freshener, because you will need lots and lots of goddamn air freshener, asswipe. Hey! “asswipe!” That's a pun! I so the funny, I is, truly truly. Asswipe. Huh.
Well, I'll fix it for you. Cut and paste this into your shower invites:
“Hi, everyone. Gerald and I, apart from possessing IQ's half a tick under arctic temperatures, were somehow left un-screened and thus are celebrating the impending adoption of formerly normal and healthy twin children, which we will immediately proceed to destroy with every action we take and word we speak, no matter what that action or word is, and no matter how we try, because we have “ideas”. Hoo, yes, we so totally do have ideas. We know fuck-all about kids, though. Anyway we are simply in heaven. Bring on the poop!
Meanwhile we need you to understand that we will throw or give your stupid fucking gifts in a dumpster if they do not meet the following criteria:
1 – NO FUCKING DIAPERS! THEY ARE EVIL, THE DEVIL'S WORK! BRING OF THE POOP!
2 – NO PLASTIC TOYS, GODDAMNIT! ONLY WODD TOYS! WHAT, YOU THINK WE NEED THOSE STUPID TREES? TREES SUCK ASS!
3 – NO ITEMS THAT DO NOT HAVE THE “CERTIFIED 100% ORGANIC” LABEL. BRING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT ORGANIC AND WE'LL STICK IT RIGHT UP YOUR ASS.
Thanks in advance, and we really look forward to spending a fun and exciting time together opening the gifts you bring us!
With much love,
Bob and Gerald, the two most fucked up parents-to-be ever!”
Poor kids. Better keep sharp or projectile-firing things away from them later in life. These kids will definitely go Menendez on your stupid freaky goddamn ass when they grow up, and no court will convict them.
***
Disappointed – I just. Well. Uh. Shit.
Good God, people! What, did a buncha big giant fucking UFO's invade Earth and drop off big millions of fucking crates full of goddamn retarded people all over the place? Geebus wept!
Oh, sorry about your mom.
All right, witless, here's the story: Mom died, you had foot all the bills, your favorite Aunt, Ms. Greedy McSteal, got lotsa donations but didn't share the booty. You want to know what to do.
You. Want. To. Know. What. To. Do. Ooooooo-key dokey.
Um, this might be hard, but I have to ask: what the bloody fucking hell do you WANT to do? I mean, does anything come to mind? Anything at all? You know, you need a mind for anything to come to in the first goddamn place. I'm having a yiddish moment. Oy fucking goddamn vey. I'm almost verklempt. Gimme a sec.
(heavy sigh, and a 1, and a 2, and a...)
Listen up – I have fired up the Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Do-O-Matic, just for you. Yee haw! Let's see what happens.
ONE: Call her and bust her ass on it.
TWO: let it go.
There it is! And I'm spent! I should get paid for this shit, really.
***
Christmas Dilemma – This is not a dilemma. A dilemma would be, like, you know, something meaningful, like running out of toilet paper after the effects of a big beefy-bean burrito with extra salsa and sour cream on it. Or realizing, just as you make out the words “Ford” on the grille of the car two feet from your head and closing, that you just ran a red light and you have no insurance. Or maybe waking up in an alien spacecraft with cold medical instruments stuffed into all your orifices and a little greenish-grey guy giggling at you every time you scream.
This? A dilemma? Recap: your parents have purchased a wonderful Jesus and are preparing to celebrate that misidentified pagan December holiday to honor his birth, even though theologians assure us all he wasn't really a Capricorn. You yourself have a somewhat less feature-rich Jesus but he's certainly good enough to meet mom and dad's standards for a Jesus, and your brand is easier on your budget and sex life. You also have a major tweak happening for that hunky, super-duper guy who you plan to wed someday, but he has no make or model of Jesus in his possession, because he is very odd and doesn't believe in Jesus, and probably not the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or any of the other fairy tales he's been told, but he can afford to put gas in the car because he's not beholden to tithe away his earnings. Weird guy, huh?
Root problem? He won't go to church this Christmas with you and your parents, and they will be likely to un-friend him for that, 'casue he's going to roast, screaming in eternal agony and damnation of the unforgiven, deep in the sulphury screaming bowels of fiery and furious hell itself. Or some sorta shit like that.
Solution? Dump him and get a new guy who has some kind of Jesus or other. You have little choice. Mom and Dad are going to condemn and banish any Jesus-less guys, so bite the bullet and go find yourself a good 'thumper, girlfriend. Besides, sounds like your Jesus is low maintenance and high forgiveness, and you can get a new guy – with some decent Jesus happening – for show, and do the wang-bang-zola with the atheist guy on the side whenever you feel the need for the good stuff.
And if you get caught, you can get all Edwards/Sanford and announce God will forgive you. Total bonus, Christian babe! So lucky.
And you know what? I am so glad I don't know you.
***
And it is here, my friends, that I leave you. Thanks all for reading, and thanks especially for those who gave me the massively so awesome ego stroke by writing to me to ask me to get back to work. Awesome, indeed.
Ciao Bellos and Bellas.
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