You're a Douche Bag!!

While I was down for the count in the last month, it seems like the universe held a parental douche baggery convention. And I missed it.

Can't quite fit back into the killer bunny slippers to kick some heinie yet, but that's ok. My left foot looks like it's wearing a shar-pei. Even the sole of my foot has loose folds of stretched-out skin which is really really freaky. Who needs a scary slipper when the real thing is hideous on its own?

Anyhoo, thought I'd introduce a few douche bags to the hall of shame since it's been awhile...

Your daughter and her friend take nekkid pictures of themselves with their cellphones over the summer. They send a photo to one of the girls' boyfriend. A photo "accidently" gets sent to the cell phones of the entire football team (whether via the boyfriend or one of the girls' phones wasn't made clear).

Someone anonymously sends a copy of the picture to school officials, who suspend your daughters from the cheerleading squad because their actions violate the code of ethics.

So you sue the school for damages (amongst them is negligent infliction of emotional distress and outrage), because it's "obviously" their fault that your daughters are Suzi Slutpanties who can't control themselves.

You're a Douche Bag!

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Your child is at an age where he wants everything he sees on TV. Kick-Me-In-The-Head Elmo. Brite-Lite Barney with the Kung-fu Grip. Now that the holidays are approaching, toy manufacturers are stepping up the promotions during their biggest season of the year and your kid's Santa wish list is getting bigger, longer and backbreakingly expensive.

Do you:

1). Limit Bratleigh's TV time so that Power Rangers with thermonuclear lunch boxes aren't constantly dancing in his head? Make him read a book instead? Go outside and play in the yard? Bake cookies or do some other kind of activity together?

or do you:

2). Use this as an opportunity for teaching life lessons? Such as, "life is full of disappointments, and we don't always get everything we want. How about looking at the list and picking out the one or two presents you want the most (if it's a young child) or rating each item as to wantability (if it's an older child)."

Life isn't going to hand them everything just because they want it. Better they learn that early at home so they can be prepared for the real world as adults.

Unless of course you really want your kid living in your basement when he's 30.

or do you:

3). Band together with 1400 other wussyboots and contact toy companies to ask them to stop advertising so aggressively during the holidays because you're unable to tell your cupcake "no" or keep the little dictator away from the TV.

If you picked number 3, then You're a Douche Bag!!

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It's a rainy day. You're dropping your kids off at school and the only available parking space in the loading zone is the one reserved for the disabled. And you're in a hurry, dammit.

Who's going to notice? You'll just take a minute to walk your cupcakes inside the building.

When you come out another father is waiting to talk to you. He is the parent of two children, both who have MS. He's waiting to use the disabled spot and asks you not to use the reserved space in the future because they are needed for families who have children who have physical disabilities.

Instead of apologizing and high-tailing your soccer-dadding-mini-van-driving butt out of there, you decide to give him a good talking to. "Just because you have a hard life doesn't mean the world owes you everything."

It's seems like you forgot that YOU ARE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT'S SPECIAL EDUCATION DIRECTOR!

And a 5-star Douche Bag!

The Ode to Douche Baggery

Ok, I know I've had a regular feature here on my blog called "Stupid"---with a graphic that reads "Did You Eat a Steaming Bowl of Stupid for Breakfast?"

I've posted and commented on examples of people who do willfully stupid things, but aren't cognitively impaired. "Stupid" is actually a bad word in our house, and one we don't use.

With this whole Tropic Thunder movie thing that I've gotten my heinie in a twist about with the t-shirt and tag lines that say "Never Go Full Retard", I started thinking about this particular feature in my blog.

I guess it would be hypocritical of me if I continued to use this, simply because I've made a definite stand.

Along with the words "retard" and "fucktard", Little Guy has also been called "stupid", and although I don't use the term in my blog to refer to anyone with disabilities, it could be considered a hurtful term by those who've had it flung at them, especially if they're new readers and don't know where I'm coming from.

My kid's disability isn't a movie punch line to him or to others. As a result, I know I can do better.

So, I'm retiring the "Did You Eat a Steaming Bowl of Stupid for Breakfast?" and introducing "The Ode to Douche Baggery" instead.

If you're a Douche Bag, and if you feel that I'm marginalizing your experience, please feel free to write to me and I'll reconsider. I try to be an ecumenical commenter/insulter and only pick on those my own size.

So with no further ado, let me introduce my first Douche Bag...

It's me! Yes! Yours truly!

I'm a Douche Bag.

A couple of days ago I wrote about our meese problem.

We live up in the mountains in a very very dry area. There was a huge fire that devastated our state and we were on the fringes of it and had to evacuate for a few days several years ago.

Once in a great while we have days upon days of intense rain. Which of course cause flash floods, mudslides, washouts, etc in areas that are usually dry because there is nothing in the soil holding it all together.

And as I said in my last post, it fills up the vole holes. So they run for cover to the closest structure available. Sometimes they like what they've found and decide to set up a compound instead of trying to reclaim their old dirt homesteads. They move lock, stock and barrel into places like the trunk and hood/engine space of Hubby's vintage Mercedes convertible (also known as the black-hole that sucks our retirement fund away) that he's only able to drive 3 months out of the year.

Sometimes they actually find a way into the house and try to set up shop. Immediately.

Most people aren't prepared. When we get 3-4 days of straight rain and go into the local stores, all of a sudden they have a run on mouse-traps, etc and there aren't any left. After the last time this happened a few years ago, I went online and bought a case of Victor Quick-Set traps. No snappy-things to catch your fingers.

Anyhoo, as I wrote, Little Guy has a bad habit of leaving the walk-out basement door open a crack or more in the summer. The basement is solid concrete slab, with no cracks/fissures/etc, and no food source, so we've never had a meese problem down here. Until the other day.

Big Kid was up late a few nights ago and woke us up with his screams because he "heard" something moving around in the basement while he was in the office and on his computer. So I set up some traps.

He went away for a couple of days, and I had all this other stuff going on (along with pulling my back out), so I wasn't down here monitoring anything either. He got home late Monday night and went straight to bed.

In the wee hours the next morning, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I decided to try to make my way down the stairs and check my email and stuff instead of rutching around in bed and bothering Hubby.

3 meeses dead in traps. After a little while, I couldn't stand the thought of them being there, and found a paper bag, emptied the corpuses in it, folded it up, and set it on the chair next to me.

Which is Big Kid's chair.

I didn't want to set it next to me on my desk, and I didn't want to set it on the floor, in case I forgot to take it upstairs to put in the garbage for the next morning's trash pick-up. I wanted it somewhat close to grab where I didn't have to bend down (my back!) or feel skeevy about it. The way the office is set up, the closest and most convenient thing is the chair.

At about 5am, Big Kid came downstairs and threw himself into the chair. I had completely forgotten about the bag of dead meeses until I heard the crackle under his butt (these ARE the pre-coffee hours).

"Did you sleep bad?" he asked, as he wiggled around and settled in.

Crackle Crackle. Gak!

"Uh yeah. My back has been bothering me and I couldn't sleep."

I thought about telling him to get up so I could remove the bag, but then I'd have to answer questions. At 5am, if he started screaming, he'd wake everybody up like he did a couple of nights ago.

"Can you make me some coffee?" Ground his butt in a little more.

Crackle Crackle.

"No, I'm not going to make you coffee! It's 5am! If I make it now, it will be total sludge by the time your dad gets up! Why don't you go back to bed!"

So he did. And when I finally went upstairs, I took the (butt-smashed) bag of meese bodies and threw them in the trash to go out later.

In the afternoon, the kid just started really getting on my last nerve. His online classes had started, and he needed to do a few easy administrative things (like print out his assignments/schedule and introduce himself in the discussion/message forum to let his instructor know that he was present and accounted for). Big freaking whoop.

"I'm just not feeling motivated! I'm tired! Can you do it for me? I have to take a nap!"

Are you freaking serious? By the way, that pile of washed and folded laundry on the couch over there is yours. Could you put it in your room on your way to taking your nap?

"*&%*$$&&!! How come I have to do everything around here? And how come I don't see any clean underwear in the pile?"

Well, if they're still laying on your bedroom floor, they aren't going to get washed. You have to actually throw them down the laundry chute.

"That isn't fair! And can you take me down into town to buy cigarettes? I only have 2 left!"

Do you have money to buy them?

"Well, no. I thought YOU'D buy them for me!"

Whatever made you think that? (this is an old and tired argument in the Atilla house). If you want to earn some money to support your habit, here is a list of things you can do.

"You KNOW I hate to unload the dishwasher. You KNOW I hate to take the garbage out. This is SO UNFAIR!!! Can't you give me something reasonable to do? Like bringing the coffee cups that have been sitting for a week in my room and putting them in the sink for YOU to soak and scrub out? Or moving my leaking tube of hair gel 6 inches on the counter so somebody ELSE can clean up the big dried-out crusty puddle it left? Now THAT would be fair!"

::sigh::

If you get your schoolwork done for today, then I'd be willing to talk about what is fair.

"But I'm AFRAID to go down into the office! I heard something move around last week. Don't you remember?"

Don't worry. The meeses are dead (and it certainly hasn't stopped you from running down there 3 times today to check out your MySpace page).

"How do I know that? Did you kill them in the traps? When? And how come Little Guy got to have quesadillas for lunch? (Little Guy made them for himself by himself) How come nobody thought to make some for me? Nobody ever considers what I might like!"

I'd just had enough. Enough.

I told him about the dead meeses. And asked him if he remembered sitting on that crackly thing when he flopped down in his chair in the early hours of the morning.

He remembered. So I informed him what was in the bag.

Gak! He turned totally white, screamed like he was Janet Leigh in the shower scene of Psycho, and I had to grab him, because I thought he was going to faint.

It's damn hard to tell when he's manipulating and what is real with his illness. He's a smart cookie and milks it for all it's worth. I'm so tired of it all that I just don't know how to tell or have enough energy to try to even figure it out any more.

I was feeling petty and acted like a total Douche Bag.

My bad.

And I feel like an even BIGGER Douche Bag because I still can't stop laughing about it.

Yep, I know it. Going straight to hell.