The Obscenity Crisis: Tales of the Aberrant and Obtuse

Perhaps it was that my collar is too tight on my shirt. Perhaps I need a diet rich in fiber and leafy green vegetables. It could be, I think, that I am already bored with my new job.

I dunno. Something.

One thing's certain. These people are magnificently fucked up:

Here's the originals at: Dear Prudence.

Won't Say "Cheese" – This is so sweet! A holiday card, all the family members – over- and under-dressed in the same sitting – cramped up in the way-too-close pose, plastered smiles that seem to say “...just...take...the...picture...dad!” Ah, family, traditions, holidays.

Then a screeching, snotty goddamn asshole like you lands amid the family space like a giant goddamn bird dropping making a wet plop in the potato salad in the middle of a picnic.

Let us recap: In-law's holiday family tradition includes a portrait of all family, including those who marry in. You are a real bitch, and don't care about them, their tradition, lives, name, or anything else – just you. You want to decline the photo op because these people are not your family, and it just goes without saying they are beneath you and your superior breeding, intellect, and forethought.

What a catch you must have been! And hey: nothing says “Happy Holidays!” like a fucking bitch like you deciding that what a family does – a tradition that goes back a ways, you say – is simply not up to your high standards because you are not a member. You must be a total blast at reunions.

They don't need “a bigger lens,” by the way, unless it's to fit your ginormously shitty attitude. What they need is a bigger foot to break off in your ass.

Oh, forgot to say: Congratulations on your marriage, sweetness. Odd, though, that hubby-dearest hasn't become Mr. Baseball Bat with you. He must be a saint.

Now get the hell out and leave this poor family alone. I mean it. You can just get the marriage annulled real quick and leave, and nobody will think of you ever again, except to when they have those dinner table conversations they will certainly have over the years: ”Hey, Jimmy – remember that vicious, manipulative, obnoxious, vapid, horror movie of a goddamn bitch you married?” “Yeah, Bobby, I remember her. What was her name again? Oh, right: it was Kali, Goddess of Destruction. What a hag. I must have been pretty stoned. Pass the peas.”

Oh, a little truth-telling for grins: these people are not who you married, true, but they are who your husband has spent his entire life with prior to you body-slamming your snide and psychotic jackass self into their formerly-uninfected-by-a-total-bitch lives. How awful it must be for them to have to tolerate you. I am surprised they asked for you to be in the picture at all. At least they have a sense of propriety. Me, I would have asked you to cheerfully go fuck yourself.

Now, we're only hearing one side of this, aren't we. From what I read, you made no mention whether they are gigantic assholes like you. You didn't say if they were controlling, overbearing shitheads like you, either. Guess we'll never know, and in the end we won't care any more than they will after you leave. Have you started packing, by the way? I'll wait.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, you haggish, repulsive goat, and Happy Holidays, Jingle Bells, Good Will Toward Men and all that be damned, because you are, to steal your own words, “making me sick and filling me with anger.”

***

Bewildered Wife and Mom - “Bewildered” is absolutely and totally not the right name for you. Wrong, wrong. I'm thinking “Retarded Wife and Mom,” or “Stoned Wife and Mom,” or “Wife and Mom in Some Kind of Fucking Coma or Something.”

Really? I mean, really? Hoo, boy let's recap: long story short, your new bestest-ever husband and life-partner extraordinaire Mr. Right himself Photoshopped pictures of his stepdaughter (from a prior marriage) to “see what she looked like naked” and you have questions? Insult to injury: you have daughters.

I repeat: really? Questions? Would you extinguish a fire by throwing a bucket of kerosene on it, you gobsmacked spittlebrained dumbass?

As if The Very Christ Himself Nailed to the Cross Right in my Living Room, this is awful. Here's a question: how is it your itty-bitty little malformed pea-sized brain can operate sufficiently and fire enough axons for you to exhibit more than autonomic functions such as shallow breathing and a slow, irregular heartbeat?
Bloody hell - it doesn't end yet, either. The coup de gras was this – you actually asked: “Am I being paranoid?”

Better question: “Am I Forrest Fucking Goddamned Gump in a woman's body?”
How is this guy still within a thousand yards of your daughters, you puke-witted numbskull? I mean, you, all by yourself, we surmise, actually wrote the words “...the bond between a parent and child is sacred”, but you also show every sign of being utterly incapable of understanding what the hell it means. Did you simply copy it from Cosmo or People?

There is so much amazing wrongness going on here. I am mentally awash with disturbing and horrifying visions of how this can end, and a single, simple response is not possible. Not my strong suit anyway – I don't get warmed up until page 4 of a short note – but still, I'll try.

First, you need to get as far away from this motherfucker as possible, now. Just go. Get the pictures on disk and take them to a lawyer while you're at it. The stepdaughter was likely over whatever legal age (you said the shots were from her wedding day, I have to assume...and what a weird fucking wedding THAT must have been) so he hasn't done anything illegal...that you know of...but it'll help if you end up in a courtroom during the divorce, especially when you speak, which will confirm the fact that despite all evidence you have an IQ somewhere measurably below the “nominal” bar, you evidently reproduced on purpose and have girls to worry about, as if enough blood ever gets into your brain in order for you to worry in the first place.

After: put your children up for adoption, because you are entirely and grotesquely too goddamn stupid to raise them. Seriously, if all this happened, and you need to ask these questions, it's not a stretch to assume you are lacking the mental and emotional capacity to do the things required to protect, care for, and properly raise your children.

And please, PLEASE get your tubes tied. The world is populated by the likes of Sarah Palin, Octomom, Balloon Boy's folks, and Carrie Prejean: we don't need any more mentally bereft, clearly daft people like that blithering about this planet when they can easily be avoided through a simple and very safe surgical procedure.

***

Note: This is getting scary. I don't read the letters then comment on all of them – I take them one at a time. These two are clear and compelling evidence the human race is failing at evolution, and that's not a course you take. Supposedly it just happens. Oh, woe.

***

Undying Love – like the previous letter writer, you are not named correctly.

We'll get to that in a second. Short recap: you work in a non-medical capacity in an Oncology office and have the hots for a terminal patient. You want to have a relationship with him. You wonder if this is a good idea, not from the “I want to date a guy who as a mortal curfew” standpoint, 'cause there's nothing wrong there...mostly, but from a “is this ethical in the professional sense” standpoint. Also: You want to email with him, but don't know what to say, because “Hi Jim, it's me, Becky, the receptionist at the Doctor Melanoma's office. How's that big-ass inoperable glioma of yours doing?” is probably not a good opener.

I could spend days talking about the things that are and are not right about a starting relationship with a terminally ill person. Hopes can be raised and dashed, time can be short or long, and like I said, your handle, “Undying Love” is obviously a misnomer. If there is any accuracy in his diagnosis at all he will die.

Wait. Then again, so will I. And so will you. He's just got a shorter wick, that's all.

In the end I can't see any reason in the world, and at the same time can see a million reasons, why someone shouldn't get involved with a terminally ill person.

It's your call. Let's face it, you know how this story will end: you work in an oncology office, right? One day a patient misses an appointment, and in rather short order no questions need to be asked.

Oddly, I think you're crazy, and then again I don't.

As for ethics: life happens. If your office has a policy, then no. If your office doesn't have a policy, then off you go. I am thinking of that old one liner about “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” but hey: maybe you're a decorator at heart. Good luck.

***

Extremely Concerned – One simple issue, one simple answer. Recap: Turkey Day is at your place this year, and both families are coming. Your uncle, a latter day Yosemite Sam, who you did not invite but is coming anyway will be bringing a gun, because he brings guns places. You want him to leave the weaponry at home, and fear he won't.

Huh. The issue is pretty clear, but I am baffled why the answer isn't. We will go to the Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Say—O-Matic. Here's how it works:
Schuyler The Cat gives you three options of what to say and you pick one, even at random. Then you call the gun-nut uncle and say it to him.

And awaaaaaay we go!

Option 1.) “Hi Uncle Sam. I am really looking forward to seeing you this Thanksgiving. Thing is, I know you like guns and all, but we are really, terribly uncomfortable with the idea of having guns in our house. If you must carry one, I'm afraid we cannot have you to our home for thanksgiving this year. I hope you understand.”

There they are, three fine options! So off you go - now: make your choice!

Huh? What do you mean, only one? Lemme look here.

Well I'll be. There is only one.

Gee. Wonder what THAT means, you fucking genius.

***

I am fine as a fiddle and right as rain and firing on all eight cylinders and full of beans and standing tall and all that crap after my miraculous survival of H1N1, which wasn't actually miraculous at all, 'cause it was, you know, “the flu.” Bad flu, but there it is.

And so I enter this weekend ready for the symphony tomorrow: Eroica, one of Beethoven's more powerful pieces. No other exciting things, save a trip to the store for sundries and time with my kids while my wife studies.

You know: normal weekend.

There you go.

Cheers all,

Schuyler The Cat =^oo^=