Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
- William Shakespeare
There's just no excuse for this. An index of one hundred and eight degrees?
Global warming, depleted ozone layers, receding ice pack: I will forgo any vapid and untrained comment on the matter and allow NOAA scientists and the ever-brilliant Rush Limbaugh to argue the validity of these issues. It's hot. For fuck's sake, my air conditioning can't keep up with it.
Here in the south the humidity tends to be legendary, evidenced this past weekend when I hosed off my rear patio at about Noon Saturday and found it still soaking wet that night...not that it was cool enough to sit out there anyway. Anyhoo, this make these 97 degree days hellish, and I hate it.
Little matter, in the end: the mortgage company said I can't have a modification. Pay or quit, seems to be the message, and frankly I must quit. They need this place, it seems, to add another unpaid line item to their already red ink-limned books. Baffling.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stated they were going to allow major restructures on loans which reduces the principal and bring the home into alignment with current prices, up to 30%. My mortgage servicer isn't buying that, and legally doesn't have to. They stated they were building a new 40 year loan at 3.2 percent with the last known balance plus about twenty to thirty grand in fees. The monthly payment will tumble. That's nice.
What's not nice is that make my mortgage principal a total of $100,000 more than this place is actually worth, which means this loan would be twice as suspect as an ARM or one of the other asinine financial instruments the banks and mortgage brokers used to get us all here in the first place. I'm like, meh.
They say the market will come back. I say taking that kind of hit means there is a very real possibility that I will not live long enough to see any equity value in this house, and given I run a home business my write-offs are damn near as good from an apartment. So...
In the end, I am not worried about not being to sit on my patio. Because it seems I will be sitting on a patio somewhere else this time next year. Somewhere I am renting.
Somewhere cooler, I hope.
DP's are formulaic and predigested as usual, with a nice theme to sink my claws and fangs into, so here goes. Originals here.
***
1.) I dropped out of college to take care of my ailing mother. I borrowed $4,500 from my father to pay for my expenses during that time. She died, he got insurance and other compensation, and now he wants the money back.
Missing Mom – Lets start with the two and a half years of your life that you “gave up.” You did not surrender these to the winds and lose them, chum. You took care of your mother until she died. That's not a waste, nor a poor investment. Change your thinking.
Next, your old man is a fucking cheese-dick of the most vile imaginable sort. Regardless, I suspect either a.) you have never confronted him in any clear and compelling way that would help him understand that you weren't blowing the $4,500 on trips to Vegas and a mild meth habit, or b.) understanding this, he simply doesn't care and just wants his money.
Either way, he's being a big fat douche face.
I have a few options for you. Tell him:
a.) “Fuck you.”
b.) “Fuck you, dad.”
c.) “You know, I sure do love you dad, but fuck you.”
Some variation on this theme. You get it. Good luck.
***
2.) My husband is an only child, and his parents gave him a gift of a generous amount of money for the down payment on our home. His parents have decided to move into our home instead of getting their own place. Bonus: they wish to move into the master bedroom—and my husband has agreed to it! What the fuck?
Wife Without a Home – I'm thinking either this is really weird or it isn't, but that's a cultural distinction I suspect, and unless you're writing this letter from somewhere outside the US borders I will fall in step with rather more local ideals. Meaning: maybe they do this kind of shit where he's from.
I can't say what vexes me more about this, the concept of ownership, as in the house itself; or the concept of a gift, as in the money his folks gave him. The idea that my folks could give me a big fat gift of a 50% down payment is unthinkable – even if they'd had the money it wouldn't have happened. In Fantasyland, had they actually done so, that gift would be just that: a gift, not an expensive apron string. Given without expectations.
I know a family, though, who are completely different about these ideas. Money is just money to them, and there is no definitive line of ownership of it, except to say that the parents are the biggest shareholders and the kids (now in their 50's) are therefore both entitled to it and completely indebted. The parents in this case lost a house their son built for them (he was a contractor) and made him surrender a house to them he'd built for himself. He moved into an apartment, then a shitty little dump which was all he could afford at the time.
With my sister and their newborn daughter.
Fuck that. My folks were apoplectic. I remain baffled to this day, especially when he (my brother-in-law) said he “owed” his folks that.
What kind of fucked up guilt game is that? A bad one, I assure you, and my sister turned to the Jehovah's Witnesses seeking an escape from the tyranny. She's never been the same. I miss Christmas with her.
You, little dearie, may have married into that kind of family. So it gets weirder and weirder than just a down payment and a house and a bedroom (which, incidentally, he surrendered without your input, or is that an incorrect assumption?), but it becomes a family matter that would make me beyond uncomfortable. Your experience may vary, but there may be a lawyer in your future. Or a Kingdom Hall.
***
3.) I am divorced and live in a condominium complex. There is a man we run into at the pool constantly who is of no interest to me. This past weekend he asked me to lotion his hairy, acne-covered back. I was all like, ew. What do I do?
Baffled – see, this is a case where the letter writer's name is ideally suited. Baffled, indeed.
I am not baffled, nor should I be. I suspect a very large percentage of the planet's population would be completely not baffled as well. Forrest Fucking Goddamn Gump would not be baffled.
No. Just you. Jesus wept.
I mean, really: you had me with “hairy, acne-covered back.” You're telling me you didn't get all squidgy and moist and horny just thinking about that? Really? I am stunned.
And speaking of backs, I think I have a solution for you: a spine. A real, human spine, complete with 33 vertebrae and a cord and nerves and those little disc thingies and a system of muscles and other fibrous tissue which holds the whole gloppy, lumpy mess erect and allows we humans to get face to face with other humans and say things like “dude, I am, like, so totally not interested in you” and that sort of thing.
Any other questions?
***
Note: Schuyler The Cat already has a chain of Testicles-R-Us stores across the nation – look out for the new “Spines-R-Us” stores, coming to a strip mall near you!
***
4.) I recently signed up for a walk to help raise money for a worthy cause. I'm delighted with the amount I've been able to raise, and for those who have not donated, I understand that it's not everybody's cause, finances are tight, people don't like to donate online, etc. I resent the shit out of these people though, because I bought crap from them before. Should I send a reminder e-mail or say something? It feels so petty, but I'm having trouble letting it go.
Favorless – the common thread in all these stupid letters today is one of boundaries, ownership, and reciprocity.
You are perfectly at home here among the other LW's. Because you need to learn a lesson about these very subjects.
I learned in middle school If a girl drops a pencil on the floor and you pick it up for her, this does not mean she owes you a blow job. Later, I discovered that if you open a door for a girl, it does not mean she owes you a blow job. Taking a girl to a movie? Oddly, this does not mean she owes you a blow job. Buying her a drink? It sure helps, but no, it does not mean she owes you a blow job.
A little single minded, I know (I really like blow jobs, could you guess?), but the point here is this: what you do to the world is never an indication that the world will likewise do back to you. Karma is a fickle, funky little superstition that has no rules, selects no favorites, and overall just makes people feel better for believing in it. Really lovely, caring, giving people get mowed down by gunfire for no reason every day. It's a happy place, Earth.
And where this all intersects boundaries, ownership, and reciprocity is this: buying shit from a bake sale is not a goddamn investment vehicle that earns you some kind of exchangeable currency of kudos and back-pats. You give when you feel you ought, and you ask when you feel you ought: anything else is a demand, and that's a good way to get otherwise reasonable people to say things like “fuck you” and “no” and “who are you again?”
Having trouble letting it go? Tough shit. Life is hard. Blow me.
***
It's been a year of Old Canadian Bands for us – last year we got cheap tickets to see Rush at an amphitheater here in Charlotte. Sound was bloody awful – as usual the Amphitheater was built years before a nearby block of apartments which then complained about the noise, and there you go. Still a great show – I love those old guys.
This Sunday we will go see Heart at a different – again outdoor – venue. The ladies don't look worse for wear, although M.A.C. Cosmetics are a major sponsor and I suspect Ann and Nancy take much advantage of their product. I saw them 30-odd years ago, and I hear they still have enough energy to give a good show.
Weather forecasts say mid eighties (WAY cooler than yesterday and today) and scattered thunderstorms. That's what rain ponchos are for, I believe. I will report.
And so it is adieu, my dear Flysters, Stay cool!
STC =^oo^=
Home, home again. I like to be here when I can.
Lawyers spend a great deal of time shoveling smoke.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
A week out of the country does good things for a body, even when I have to continue to work while away. This is especially true when one can get up from one's borrowed desk, take off the headset, then wander lazily to the northern edge of the Saint Lawrence River and watch sailboats meander quietly along their way, stop for an ice cream cone, and revel in temperatures roughly 25+ degrees lower than the ugly swelter visited upon us back at home.
And arriving home, everything was just as we left it but clean, as our house-sitter spent her time cheerfully scrubbing and making tidy the house. And a bonus: we had purchased a case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the trip, but it didn't fit in the car, so it was here waiting for me in my garage fridge, calling to me, “drink us, we are SO much better than Labatt's!” And they are.
Today I am feeling nominal but uneasily back at my old bad habits: sitting too long staring at data on a screen, hoping it will all fix itself for me. It never does, though. I stand up and my ankles hurt, and this is not healthy. Sigh.
It is good to be home. Now I need to get up and move around a bit.
Prudie this week = omfg+wtf+stoopid. Seriously.
Originals here.
***
1.) Twenty years ago, I had a child out of wedlock. I was banging two different guys. We did a DNA test which proved the father was not my daughter's father, it was the other father who wasn't the father who is her father. Now my daughter wants to meet the un-father who is. What do I do?
So Ashamed – As a man, I have never had this problem: if a woman I have sex with becomes pregnant, I always know who the mother was. To the best of my knowledge, I have only had two biologicals (which are currently in the background fighting over a Zhu zhu), but I had to take a DNA test years ago because my ex-girlfriend said “it could be yours, but it could be this guy's or this guy's, too. Oh, and it could be my step-brother's, maybe” which fucking creeped out my shit. In the end, it was a fifth guy's baby, and there you have it, but in the end, where was I going?
Oh, yeah – she was always the mother. No doubt.
As are you, I assume. So why all this shame? Are you having that “oh, gee, I was sleeping with TWO guys, and that's just, you know, awful and makes me a whore” thing going on?
Let's start with that possible, albeit unseemly, issue: I have been involved with more than one woman at a time. I do not feel like a whore. You were involved with two men at a time. You have the choice. If that's an issue, get over yourself, Sister Sally Straightlaced, 'cause unless you have some Catholic (or other ill-guided) guilt hanging over you, it's only the big deal that YOU make it out to be.
Second, and probably the real reason you have this shame thing happening: your daughter knows you were a slutty goddamn whore, humping every guy in a fifty yard vicinity and not keeping track of the condoms.
Speaking of which – are you serious? It was roughly 1990 when you took to the bedroom with the dynamic duo. Ever heard of condoms? Are you fucking crazy?
Let's move on: so your daughter knows you were sexually active with two guys in a short period. She's also over 18. Do the math. I got ten bucks says she knows the score. If she's going to gig you for anything it should be the condom thing, you stupid dipshit, and hopefully she'll learn a lesson from it before she makes you either a grandmother or a victim.
***
2.) I am a female law student who is employed for the summer (and potentially for the school year) at a small firm that I'm really enjoying. I am surrounded by men who act like they're living in a frat house and it's pretty gross. The work environment is becoming so unpleasant that I wonder how long I can stand it. What should I do?
Livid but Lost Law Student – Terrible place to be, Realityland is. Assholes everywhere, doing and saying asshole things and generally refining their overall assholishness like the assholes they are.
And poor little you: just a little lamb among those big, bad wolves. Meh.
The way I see it, you have three options. These are options based upon the reality that surrounds you which you appear to not yet comprehend to the full extent. Here goes:
One, you can sue those fuckers. You're a law student, right? Fuck 'em! Hire a lawyer, and sue those lawyers in a big fat conflagration of lawyerly lawfulness and get what you can. Better hope for a big payoff, too: you may never work in the field again, when future employers find this out. If I were a senior partner at a law firm, I'd see you as a liability. Reality.
Two, do nothing and it'll go away. It might, you know. And a herd of wildebeest are currently roaming my living room, fattening up on candy and pastries before they start their trek to the bathroom, where they will be transformed into pretty unicorns that poop yummy Kit Kit bars and sing all the songs from the goddamn “Tinkerbell” soundtrack, you brainless dipshit. Not reality, but you get the point, I hope.
Three, you can fucking say something. Face down the skeezy guy without the subtle hints and throw down your feelings on the matter. If a man faces a woman and makes inappropriate comments, she's obviously within her rights to face him down and take him to task, and you should have already done that, rather than demurely drop hints that probably egg him on. He's a non-issue in the long run. The gay bashing in the background, that's easy to handle if you speak up to the ringleaders. Last, there is no shame in approaching your immediate superior with a simple statement that you're grossed out by the overtly crude male-ness in the office. Expect nothing for this effort. Reality.
Regardless what you do, realityland is open 24/7, holidays and weekends, always ready to serve you a steaming dish of shitty life lessons. Take a bite. Might learn something.
***
3.) My dad wants to friend me on Facebook, but I don't like him all that much and besides, I trash talk on Facebook. What should I do?
Facebook Challenged – Mother McCree and her silver fucking hair, I tire of this Facebook bullshit and the idiocy of it's users.
“Dear Prudie, I was on facebook and posted that I let my little dog Sniffles lick my butthole and my mom saw it and now she's like all mad and weird to me, what can I do? Signed, Puppybutt.”
“Dear Puppybutt, what kind of fucking asshole posts that stuff on Facebook?”
I realize that it's fun for people to get on their computer and pretend to have a new life there, but for some perspective, I was in a discussion with some people I know who were on Prodigy in the 1980's, and back in those days all three people you knew online were polite, to a degree.
The 1990's happened and a third of the online global population became a fucking asshole.
The 2000's came and rule 34 had already evolved: if it exists, there is porn of it somewhere.
So here we are, 2010, and you still don't get it, do you? Lemme help: you are an online presence. You can be more than one, of course, by creating throwaway accounts and trolling the shit out of /b/ and Digg and Reddit and generally acting like an asshole, all the while blissfully unaware that any post you make is subject to a certain amount of both scrutiny and rebuke, and if you aren't careful you can be found, anonymous or not.
In the end, though, if your name is “Jenny J. Smith, 3232 Boogie Woogie Avenue, Humperdump, NY 12345” and that's also your Facebook account persona, then you are no longer protected by any form of anonymity whatsoever. You may as well be standing in the town square with your tits out, begging people to point and laugh...except on Facebook you can pick your tormentors and un-pick them later.
There are 400 million users on Facebook, give or take a few. You can friend them all if you want to, every single one, or not.
But this is the world today, snookums, and secrecy is fast becoming – if it hasn't already become – far more relative to what you write on your status, not who sees it. Cope.
***
4.) I am engaged. This is the second marriage for us both. We don't fight much. Is my new relationship doomed because my fiance and I don't take part in those little squabbles?
To fight or Not To Fight? - You're fucked. My wife and I fight all day, every day. That goddamn bitch is a controlling, manipulative hairbag who can't seem to get enough tormenting me.
Feel better? Me neither.
Truth is, my wife and I have dustups about once every six, maybe eight months. They are typically minor. We do not see this as an obstacle. We seem to see it more as an understanding: if you agree on things, generally you don't fight. She and I agree on things, mostly.
Was that so hard? I wonder if maybe the two of you are both in the same low IQ range, and simply too dumb to find a subject to disagree upon. Sheesh. If it's that big a problem, go find an asshole and be happy.
***
And I am spent! Alas, the data I am staring at has not fixed itself, so I have to fix it, dammit. At least I have a job.
Cheers, Flysters!
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
A week out of the country does good things for a body, even when I have to continue to work while away. This is especially true when one can get up from one's borrowed desk, take off the headset, then wander lazily to the northern edge of the Saint Lawrence River and watch sailboats meander quietly along their way, stop for an ice cream cone, and revel in temperatures roughly 25+ degrees lower than the ugly swelter visited upon us back at home.
And arriving home, everything was just as we left it but clean, as our house-sitter spent her time cheerfully scrubbing and making tidy the house. And a bonus: we had purchased a case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the trip, but it didn't fit in the car, so it was here waiting for me in my garage fridge, calling to me, “drink us, we are SO much better than Labatt's!” And they are.
Today I am feeling nominal but uneasily back at my old bad habits: sitting too long staring at data on a screen, hoping it will all fix itself for me. It never does, though. I stand up and my ankles hurt, and this is not healthy. Sigh.
It is good to be home. Now I need to get up and move around a bit.
Prudie this week = omfg+wtf+stoopid. Seriously.
Originals here.
***
1.) Twenty years ago, I had a child out of wedlock. I was banging two different guys. We did a DNA test which proved the father was not my daughter's father, it was the other father who wasn't the father who is her father. Now my daughter wants to meet the un-father who is. What do I do?
So Ashamed – As a man, I have never had this problem: if a woman I have sex with becomes pregnant, I always know who the mother was. To the best of my knowledge, I have only had two biologicals (which are currently in the background fighting over a Zhu zhu), but I had to take a DNA test years ago because my ex-girlfriend said “it could be yours, but it could be this guy's or this guy's, too. Oh, and it could be my step-brother's, maybe” which fucking creeped out my shit. In the end, it was a fifth guy's baby, and there you have it, but in the end, where was I going?
Oh, yeah – she was always the mother. No doubt.
As are you, I assume. So why all this shame? Are you having that “oh, gee, I was sleeping with TWO guys, and that's just, you know, awful and makes me a whore” thing going on?
Let's start with that possible, albeit unseemly, issue: I have been involved with more than one woman at a time. I do not feel like a whore. You were involved with two men at a time. You have the choice. If that's an issue, get over yourself, Sister Sally Straightlaced, 'cause unless you have some Catholic (or other ill-guided) guilt hanging over you, it's only the big deal that YOU make it out to be.
Second, and probably the real reason you have this shame thing happening: your daughter knows you were a slutty goddamn whore, humping every guy in a fifty yard vicinity and not keeping track of the condoms.
Speaking of which – are you serious? It was roughly 1990 when you took to the bedroom with the dynamic duo. Ever heard of condoms? Are you fucking crazy?
Let's move on: so your daughter knows you were sexually active with two guys in a short period. She's also over 18. Do the math. I got ten bucks says she knows the score. If she's going to gig you for anything it should be the condom thing, you stupid dipshit, and hopefully she'll learn a lesson from it before she makes you either a grandmother or a victim.
***
2.) I am a female law student who is employed for the summer (and potentially for the school year) at a small firm that I'm really enjoying. I am surrounded by men who act like they're living in a frat house and it's pretty gross. The work environment is becoming so unpleasant that I wonder how long I can stand it. What should I do?
Livid but Lost Law Student – Terrible place to be, Realityland is. Assholes everywhere, doing and saying asshole things and generally refining their overall assholishness like the assholes they are.
And poor little you: just a little lamb among those big, bad wolves. Meh.
The way I see it, you have three options. These are options based upon the reality that surrounds you which you appear to not yet comprehend to the full extent. Here goes:
One, you can sue those fuckers. You're a law student, right? Fuck 'em! Hire a lawyer, and sue those lawyers in a big fat conflagration of lawyerly lawfulness and get what you can. Better hope for a big payoff, too: you may never work in the field again, when future employers find this out. If I were a senior partner at a law firm, I'd see you as a liability. Reality.
Two, do nothing and it'll go away. It might, you know. And a herd of wildebeest are currently roaming my living room, fattening up on candy and pastries before they start their trek to the bathroom, where they will be transformed into pretty unicorns that poop yummy Kit Kit bars and sing all the songs from the goddamn “Tinkerbell” soundtrack, you brainless dipshit. Not reality, but you get the point, I hope.
Three, you can fucking say something. Face down the skeezy guy without the subtle hints and throw down your feelings on the matter. If a man faces a woman and makes inappropriate comments, she's obviously within her rights to face him down and take him to task, and you should have already done that, rather than demurely drop hints that probably egg him on. He's a non-issue in the long run. The gay bashing in the background, that's easy to handle if you speak up to the ringleaders. Last, there is no shame in approaching your immediate superior with a simple statement that you're grossed out by the overtly crude male-ness in the office. Expect nothing for this effort. Reality.
Regardless what you do, realityland is open 24/7, holidays and weekends, always ready to serve you a steaming dish of shitty life lessons. Take a bite. Might learn something.
***
3.) My dad wants to friend me on Facebook, but I don't like him all that much and besides, I trash talk on Facebook. What should I do?
Facebook Challenged – Mother McCree and her silver fucking hair, I tire of this Facebook bullshit and the idiocy of it's users.
“Dear Prudie, I was on facebook and posted that I let my little dog Sniffles lick my butthole and my mom saw it and now she's like all mad and weird to me, what can I do? Signed, Puppybutt.”
“Dear Puppybutt, what kind of fucking asshole posts that stuff on Facebook?”
I realize that it's fun for people to get on their computer and pretend to have a new life there, but for some perspective, I was in a discussion with some people I know who were on Prodigy in the 1980's, and back in those days all three people you knew online were polite, to a degree.
The 1990's happened and a third of the online global population became a fucking asshole.
The 2000's came and rule 34 had already evolved: if it exists, there is porn of it somewhere.
So here we are, 2010, and you still don't get it, do you? Lemme help: you are an online presence. You can be more than one, of course, by creating throwaway accounts and trolling the shit out of /b/ and Digg and Reddit and generally acting like an asshole, all the while blissfully unaware that any post you make is subject to a certain amount of both scrutiny and rebuke, and if you aren't careful you can be found, anonymous or not.
In the end, though, if your name is “Jenny J. Smith, 3232 Boogie Woogie Avenue, Humperdump, NY 12345” and that's also your Facebook account persona, then you are no longer protected by any form of anonymity whatsoever. You may as well be standing in the town square with your tits out, begging people to point and laugh...except on Facebook you can pick your tormentors and un-pick them later.
There are 400 million users on Facebook, give or take a few. You can friend them all if you want to, every single one, or not.
But this is the world today, snookums, and secrecy is fast becoming – if it hasn't already become – far more relative to what you write on your status, not who sees it. Cope.
***
4.) I am engaged. This is the second marriage for us both. We don't fight much. Is my new relationship doomed because my fiance and I don't take part in those little squabbles?
To fight or Not To Fight? - You're fucked. My wife and I fight all day, every day. That goddamn bitch is a controlling, manipulative hairbag who can't seem to get enough tormenting me.
Feel better? Me neither.
Truth is, my wife and I have dustups about once every six, maybe eight months. They are typically minor. We do not see this as an obstacle. We seem to see it more as an understanding: if you agree on things, generally you don't fight. She and I agree on things, mostly.
Was that so hard? I wonder if maybe the two of you are both in the same low IQ range, and simply too dumb to find a subject to disagree upon. Sheesh. If it's that big a problem, go find an asshole and be happy.
***
And I am spent! Alas, the data I am staring at has not fixed itself, so I have to fix it, dammit. At least I have a job.
Cheers, Flysters!
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