SHADDAP!

(Photograph copyright 2010, all rights reserved.)

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and all's right with the world. I even found a pair of pants that not only fit, they look GOOD. Amazing. I'm sure a lot of people (ok, mostly women) loathe the trouser-shopping ritual as much as I do. There is hope, though! I'm living proof that once in a while, when the stars align, you will find Them. The Perfect Trousers. And when you do.....please buy more than one, 'kay?

We're taking off on vacation this weekend, but I'll be checking in from time to time, so if you think I'm (as Tonto puts it) fulla crap, feel free to let'er rip.

You can find the letters here .

1. Oooh....this letter is candy to all of us, isn't it? I know a lot of people would like to think it's fake, but I doubt very much it is? "Why Messy", you ask, "How is this possible? Are recent college grads that mean and ugly?"

Oh, yes they are, kids. Watch and learn.

_________________________________________

Aren't you the specialist special ickle baby-girl! And don't you just deserve a pat on the noggin for being oh-so-very-clever! (That? Oh...just a mallet...No, it's just a rubber mallet, I swear! I was going to use it to....straighten out that picture, yeah, that's it, the picture!)

So you've been out of college for a grand total of a year and you know it ALL. Glad to hear it. Everyone should have a "great job doing promotions" at your age....wait a minute....does that mean that you're the nearly naked chickie that drapes herself over the raffle prizes at seedy shopping malls in the suburbs, trying to sell tickets for the station's pet charity? That was YOU? That was a ROTTEN thing you did to that oversized teddy bear!

Oh, and honey, think "wax", not "shave". Stubble collects, let's just say lint and leave it at that, shall we?

So. You know every aspect of the business and you found out some hot news that might even be a ..... scoop! Yes, that's the word. No really. It is. That big book in the corner is called a "dictionary". Use it. Maybe one of your little friends can help you with it.

SHADDAP!

So let's address your concerns, shall we? To start. The morning show host is not your "colleague". Nor is she a "co-worker". In fact, she's so far above you on the totem pole that if she notices you personally at all, it's not necessarily a good thing. Sort of like attracting the attention of Zeus, as many maidens discovered around the same time they discovered that the good old Olympian had a thing for human-flesh and making babies with them, then dumping them back in their villages.

Let's dismiss that then. You are the front-door mat under her feet. You are unworthy of being her door mat. You are the broom that sweeps the door mat under her feet. You are the dust pan that.... Got it?

Oh, but wait! She's OLD. Damn, what a revelation! Why, she's all of 30-something and she DARES to talk to college students! How could she! That should be a hanging offense! Something Should Be Done.

So, you started your little buddies on the playground chattering about her ancientness and You Made A Decision. Gag gifts at the birthday lunch! How perfect! She invites you to a lunch as an act of kindness, because she KNOWS you lot don't make enough money to foot the bill at Rotten Ronnie's, and you'll get to bitch-slap her around about her AGE!

Then everyone will KNOW HER SECRET and you'll get her job and be rich and famous and get those implants you always wanted and buy all of your friends big presents and take over their lives and never have to work for someone else again and you'll get all the hot guys and everyone will simultaneously worship you and be jealous of you and you can make them believe all the lies you tell because you're just so perfect and anyway you can give them money to shut up about it....... (*Smack* Messy, you gotta chill, woman. I know you're reading Kitty Kelley's "Oprah" right now, but this chickie isn't as smart as Oprah is, and that's going some...)

Aren't you all just so.... special?

SHADDAP! again.

Do you really believe, you vapid slut, that your bosses, don't know this woman's age? Really? They write her checks, you idiot! They have her Social Security Number. They HIRED her for the job. Better yet, she worked hard and EARNED that job! Believe me, infant-bimbo, her (and your) bosses know her age. They don't care, because she's wonderful at her job, which INCLUDES appearances at bars and college campuses.

Oh, and they NEED her. You are just a piece of Lego. A dime a dozen.

What do you think will happen at that birthday lunch? Do you think that you and all of your friends will ante in with your tacky, juvenile gag gifts and she'll just burst into tears and run away, apologizing for daring to deceive YOU - the titty-draped-over-the-Ford-Escort girl? Really, truly?

SHADDAP! yet again.

I'll tell you exactly what will happen. You little morons from whatever the lowest rung on the ladder is will come out with your stupid "gifts" and laugh your little heads off. She'll leave all right. And when you and the morons that listened to you go back to the office, your crap will be piled at the door, and you'll find that suddenly your office looks just like the hallway in the photo does above.

That's right, sugar. Closed doors. Many, many closed doors. And YOUR hallway will stretch as far as the radio and television industries go, because if you think you'll get another job like the one you have now, you are sadly deluded, little girl.

So go ahead. Knock yourself out. It's going to happen sooner or later, so why not now? Maybe you'll still be able to hook up with that football player you dumped for your big media career and convince him to marry you while he takes over his dad's hot dog stand over at the Little League diamond .....

2. Ok. I've seen the aftermath of three really horrendous, gory traffic accidents. That all by itself is upsetting. I had bad dreams for weeks after the last one, and that image is never going to leave me. Seeing human bodies tossed around like dolls and dumped into virtually unrecognizable heaps is nothing I would recommend to anyone, no matter how tough they think they are.

I wasn't on the spot, though, and you were. You got a front row seat to the whole godawful mess ON TOP of having to deal with the aftermath. I wish it weren't so. No one needs that imprinted on their eyelids.

I'm sure you know that this wasn't your fault. Let me repeat....NOTHING you could have done would have stopped this person from dying of stupid. THAT was the real cause of death, and I wish they'd put it into obituaries and on headstones. That girl had the terminal stupids and even if she had avoided the accident she died in, there would have been another with the same results at a later date.

That's a large part of your problem, but the part you dwell on is the asshole that blamed you for driving "too slow". You know that's bullshit, right? There was nothing you could have done. Not without risking someone else's neck - probably your own. Next time you think of this, close your eyes, look that asshole in the face and yell,

SHADDAP!

Then, get yourself to your therapist, tell him/her that whatever it is that you're doing once a week is not helping. Ask for a referral to someone that specializes in PTSD. Because that's what's going on with you. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and you CAN get past it. If the therapist recommends some medication, take it. It'll help you finish processing this mess and get past it once and for all.

Make no mistake. You'll never forget what happened. You WILL learn how to put it in it's place - the past - and stop blaming yourself for something you could never have controlled in a million years.

3. Are you related to LW #1? Because I'm hearing echoes of some truly ugly nastiness, here. To recap... you caught your boyfriend's buddy's baby sister and one of your boyfriend's college buddies screwing like crazed weasels on your sofa and making a lot of noise about it after a night of drunken revelry.

That got it?

Then you made disapproving noises, the guy apologized and that should have been the end of your obsession...but no. YOU want revenge! By Gawd, you aren't going to be happy unless someone bleeds for you and you have the perfect plan.....

SHADDAP!

Bitch.

See, and here's the other part of your plan. YOU want to make sure that the girl's big brother - that would be your boyfriend's buddy, all of his friends and all of his family to KNOW that the little sister is a goddamned rotten slut that probably (although you really couldn't tell what with the godawful plaid couch) dripped nasty body fluids all over YOUR precious sofa!

Yeah....that'll show that little skank what's what.

SHADDAP! again.....

Now think hard. I know it's a strain, but try. What do you think will happen if you do this? Let's see...

a) Yes. You WILL humiliate the girl. Which will ...

b) Piss off her brother, all of his friends AND their entire family mightily, so ...

c) THEY will go to your boyfriend with evidence of your psychobitch ways, and ...

d) Your boyfriend, having been thoroughly embarrassed by your behavior himself will...

e) Kick your vindictive ass out of his life so hard you'll be back in your childhood bedroom so fast the you won't even have time to register you're there until your suitcase hits you on the head.

Now, as I said above, think hard sugar. Is sofa-defilement worth all the shit that's going to rain down on your head if you're too stupid to hold back your psychobitch impulses? Are you the kind that gets splashed by a bus and demands the head of the driver on a barbecue platter with some greens and a nice mustard sauce?

I know you'll do it. And there WILL be one positive outcome. You'll be out of your boyfriend's life and he can go find himself a woman instead of a vindictive, rat-faced bitch.

4. You're bored by your husband's hobbies. You even go so far as to ask "(i)s caring about him sufficient reason to just suck it up and feign interest?"

SHADDAP!

YES.

And the fact that you feel the need to ask that question in the first place tells me that you don't love the poor man in the least.

Moron.

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Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

SHADDAP!

(Photograph copyright 2010, all rights reserved.)

Woo hoo! I can finally say it's Spring! If you want proof, then just go over to my other blog here for proof. See? See? Blue sky, leaves and flowers... SPRING! (And about bloody time, too.)

There is a down side to this, of course. Allergies. After that walk, and after taking the drugs, I thought my head was about to explode. Same today. It put me in a cruddy mood until I decided to just...take more drugs. Headache gone, mockery enabled....let's go! The original letters are here .

(Note: Click on this link , listen to the song and ask yourself. "Does this sound like the LW would think it's a good vacation idea?" If the answer is "yes", then you have proof that the average person who writes to Prudie really IS dumb as a stump.)

1. Wow. Lady you have got some issues, you know that, right? What is all this shite about your "first love"? Tell me, please? I can tell you want to insert "and only" into that phrase and don't have the guts to do it. Kinda rough, though, what with the husband and all. Tell Aunt Messy, I'm right aren't I?

SHADDAP!

I see from The Fray that a lot of people claim to have prophetic dreams, we have some mind readers over there, and a whole buncha other nonsensical twaddle. Whatever. Most of the time when they're "right", the whole thing is open to so much interpretation that nothing was "proved" anyway.

Here's an example:

....I had a dream.....a vivid dream...... I dreamed that I was sitting at my desk and my ass kept getting bigger and bigger.....and there were parties...... OH MY GOD, my ass is GOING TO EXPLODE! (Or I've been indulging in too many damned cookies at the office parties and this is my ass's way to tell me to get off it for a change.)

However. You saw his head explode in a car. Are you CERTAIN that his head didn't explode from frustration at getting yet another damned phone call from some desperate married chick who's clinging to him like a limpet? No?

You ask "... how can I share such a sickening dream with someone who has been offered a job after months of unemployment?"

Ok. I get it. I've met people like you. You say you've been speaking to him about his job search for months. No doubt he unburdened himself to you, told you about his insecurities and cried on your shoulder. I get it. He did that, and it made you feel helpful, useful and (admit it) JUST a teensy bit superior to him.

Because that's what people like you do, right? ALL of your friends need help, or are in a jam, or have terrible problems, don't they? Some might even be deathly ill. Whatever their problems, you seek them out, because only around broken people do you feel whole. You aren't interested in being around happy people that have their lives under control and are having fun. There's no fun in that for you, is there?

Once your "first love" gets a real job and is a happy camper, you're going to drop him like a hot rock, right? Just like (I'm guessing here) the girlfriend that had the cancer scare, or the other one that almost died in that car accident and took so long to recover. Everyone has met someone like you. You're the "crisis friend". You convince people that you only want to help, that you'll do what you can, then you dump them when their lives get back to normal.

So go ahead. Tell your "first love" about the dream. If your wildest hopes come true, he'll refuse to take the job and you'll be able to provide that shoulder again. Not. You know that's not what'll happen if you DO make this huge dramatic announcement.

It'll give him a good laugh when he leaves for work overseas. You know. Where he'll have a stopover in Paris, meet a gorgeous and much-younger woman who doesn't look like you in the LEAST and decides to stay there and make babies with her and live a life of comfort and ease never speak to you again.

Get over yourself. Quit spending your time on the phone with sad single men and START spending time with your family.

2. You silly bitch. What a jerk you are. You see a kid a couple of times a month, you don't talk to him and from that you've decided that you don't LIKE him? Really? Then again, why should he like you? You think kids are stupid? Do you sincerely believe that this poor little bugger doesn't KNOW that you wish he wasn't around?

SHADDAP!

Let's review. This kid's parents are divorced. Check. BOTH of them have met someone else, BOTH of them have new babies, so where does that leave him? Everyone's having fun with their respective babies while HE gets shuffled around between houses like used lawn furniture and you're SURPRISED he's not a happy kid around you? Duh.

I feel for your boyfriend. He should have known better than to reproduce with an unholy, screaming, selfish, trashy bitch like you. Now the poor bastard's stuck with you and your squalling brat for eternity and you're going to make sure he knows it, aren't you?

What do you expect your boyfriend to do? Drown the six-year-old so you don't have to deal with him any more? Sell him to a road crew somewhere overseas? Tell the kid that he can't be his Daddy any more because wifey number two is a.....bitch with entitlement issues? The hilarious thing is that YOU are reconsidering marrying HIM. Gawd that's funny!

Listen, moron. If you marry that man YOU ARE THE KID'S STEPMOTHER. You won't have a choice about having him in your life. That means that you have to act like a PARENT to that kid. I won't even BEGIN to go into the fact that you should have been doing that already. It never sunk in with you that a kid can never get too much love, has it?

No. I quit. People like you can't be reasoned with. You're like the kid that hides all of her Barbies behind the wallboard so that even YOU can't play with them, just to keep them away from everyone else.

Make a decision. Make it fast. When you leave, sign all of your parental rights for your own child over to it's father. Do it now. At least then YOUR kid won't have to deal with you not liking him/her just for being in the same room as your exalted self.

3. So you had to sit through a boring etiquette seminar. Ok. Those things are not designed to be fun. There were some things said that you didn't seem to grasp, though, so naturally you chose to take offense instead.

SHADDAP!

This will be a short seminar. Then you can go home and bitch about me. Hell, you can even bitch TO me, just post your comments below, you idiot.

Managers arrange these seminars for a bunch of reasons. They've got a few people in the office that are...slobs. They dress badly. They smell. They show too much skin. Could be a lot of things. Management is afraid of offending people by singling them out so they subjected everyone to the same lecture.

Here's what they were REALLY saying:

a) It's NOT acceptable to "snow" all over the place. Someone in your office has horrendous dandruff and THIS WAS A HINT.

b) It's NOT acceptable to wear clothes that let the cottage cheese hang out all over the place. Someone in your office is wearing clothes that make them look like a pudding stuffed into a sock and THIS WAS A HINT.

c) It's NOT acceptable to wander around with skin looking like the dark side of the moon with big zits dripping pus all over the place. THIS WAS A HINT.

d) It's NOT acceptable to greet every human being you meet with a surly expression on your face. NOR is it acceptable to greet people with dirty, rotting teeth ( I'm assuming that your company has dental) and breath that smells like the newly opened two week old grave of an unembalmed leprosy victim after a heavy rain. THIS WAS A HINT.

e) You are totally making up the gray hair thing. MORE likely, there is someone (or a few someones) who not only don't wash their hair more than once a year, they don't even bother combing it from time to time. THIS WAS A HINT.

Oh, and tell your colleagues of color that the term "good (meaning light) skin" has NEVER been something that white people use. Only black people use that phrasing. That's something that black people say to other black people in the context of, "Oh, what a lovely little boy! And he has such good skin!"

Tell them to get over themselves. They're hunting for trouble where there very likely is none.

Got it now? Someone Up There wants the staff to start taking care of themselves and make a better impression on clients. You ladies need to get a grip, pay attention to what was said and make the changes. Do it now. And...

SHADDAP!

4. Yadda yadda.... you're broke, the bride bullied you into her pay-to-play wedding and you don't WANT to be a bridesmaid but you're too much of a chickenshit child to refuse...

SHADDAP!

Tell the bride to piss off. You don't have a job, and that means you have no money. TELL HER THAT. She's supposedly your friend, right? So? You don't talk to your friends?

Grow up, concentrate on getting a job and dump this so-called "friend". You aren't doing yourself any favors by keeping her around.

Yeesh.

SHADDAP! Because it isn't just Prudie any more!

(Photograph copyright 2010, all rights reserved)

Right. Let's try this again. My description of my computer travails are in the second comment below, and let me tell you, it was a nightmare. Let us all clap our hands for the nice folks at Apple, who, for a honkin' big fee, spent the time to walk me through this.

Sigh. I AM a bit tired of some of the patronizing attitudes I get, though. I have to tell the little darlings that when they spew out a mouthful of tech, I have NO IDEA what they're saying. I literally need to be told what button to push. I am NOT a computer geek and I don't want to be. Ever. I just want the damned thing to work and obey me when I tell it what to do.

See, Apple has one very interesting quirk. There are NO INSTRUCTIONS. None. There are no troubleshooting guides. There are no lists of shortcuts, and you have to be fucking psychic to know what to do when something goes wrong. All they do have is a blog. You are forced to go to random strangers on the Internet to beg for advice - which may or may not be good. Generally, unless you're a blog-buddy with them already, you don't even get an answer. You have no way of knowing. They may be deliberately screwing with your machine and there's no way to find that out. Period.

Grrr. In any event, if you try and send Apple an e-mail (they do have a suggestion box of sorts), you won't get an answer. I suspect that the "suggestions" never even get read. Must be nice to be a behemoth company with no accountability.

________________________________________________________________

But that's not why we're here. Slate has a column called Friend or Foe that has me a little bugged. It used to be just on XXX, which I never bothered with because commenting was a pain and let's face it, it was for "chicks", not adult women.

It's a basic agony column, really. The problem (or the fun part) is that it's all about female-only friend-on-friend drama. It's painful to read. The whining, the junior-high antics of supposedly adult women, the - well, it has to be said - bullshit!

So, since Prudie's been so deadly dull recently, I find myself unable to resist this parade of idiots...

1. Ok. You and your friend communicate only by e-mail. Cool. You give a long and tedious exposition about your friend with the bad breakup. Got it. She didn't date because of that for a decade. Ok. THEN you rabbit on for a couple of paragraphs about how she had an unrequited crush on a random handyman and got pissed at you when it when you told her it was stupid (the only smart thing you did, here). Gotcha.

THEN we get to the juicy bit. She is now dating your ex-boyfriend. She doesn't want to talk to you about that relationship.... There is angst....

SHADDAP!

Oh, fertheluvamike, you moron! Quit fucking whining for one second willya? Yeah, I know you SAY you're "happy for them", and maybe you even are. So what's your problem? What? She won't tell you every little thing they do and say when they're together? She asked for privacy?

SHADDAP, again!

Do you REALLY want chapter and verse on her relationship with the guy you used to sleep with? Really? Think hard here. I know it hurts to do that, but give it a shot. For me. What makes you think you have the right to demand that information?

Has it occurred to you that "real" friends don't necessarily tell all, all the time? That maybe there are things that just aren't for public consumption? Did it occur to you for even a millisecond that your ex-boyfriend sees you as a nosy, manipulative bitch with an unhealthy curiosity about HIS life? It's possible that he told your friend that he wants some things to be private, too.

So are you going to dump her for this? After all, how DARE she not tell you about her every zit and bowel movement! Friends don't need boundaries, do they? Moron.

Grow up, and consider this. Maybe she's just sick of YOUR oversharing and she's trying to set an example.

2. Ooh... this one made my teeth ache. Also my neck. Let's just say I had to pour myself a glass of wine and hug a cat to lower my blood pressure enough to deal with this shit.

To summarize. A woman in her late 20s has two friends. One of them used her computer to mess with Facebook. She didn't close it. The LW snooped and found - are you ready? The LW found that her two "good friends" had been swapping nasty private messages about HER! Oh, the agony! Oh, the angst! Let's drop in on this life and death situation, shall we?

Friend One told Friend Two that I have........ Cooties!

(See what I mean? My brain hurts just thinking about it!)

WAAAaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHADDAP!

No, seriously. Shaddap or I'll lock you in a room with no computer for a week and take away your soap operas, too.

Can you hear yourself? Seriously? Because it sounds just like a bunch of elementary school kids fighting with each other, making "frenemies" (whatever the hell that means) and tattling on each other.

How old did you say you were? Late 20s? Don't you have, like, a job to worry about? A boyfriend (yes, or girlfriend)? How do you get through the day? Is Facebook the only thing you do when you get home from work? Is hanging out with these two people your life's work? No?

So what's the problem. You say "...I feel uncomfortable socializing with them." Gee, I wonder why? Could it be because they're....NOT your friends? That maybe their brains stopped developing before puberty?

I'll give you instructions. Follow them for a happy life. Don't follow them and be a miserable, whining, lonely idiot with no social life unless you can convince someone to feel sorry for you and let you serve punch at THEIR social events as long as you don't look prettier than she does. Ready?

a) Don't talk to these people again. Even if one or the other of them protests that they're rilly rilly rilly your, like, bestest friend in the whole wide world and they want you all to move to New York together and become, like, dancers on Broadway, ... why do you want to hang out with a couple of gossiping assholes like this?

b) Make grownup friends. If you want to know whether they're grownups, ask them if they have Facebook accounts. If they say "no", you have met a grownup.

c) Cancel your Facebook account. NOW. Seriously - NOW.

d) If you can't bring yourself to do that (stupid pastime anyway), then unfriend them, don't take their calls and delete their e-mails. How stupid do you have to be to be willing to hang out with people who are that nasty about you?

e) Get laid. Thoroughly and frequently. That should cure your desire to hang out in the vipers' nest for good.

Oh, and lose the guilt. If I had to guess based on the maturity levels of your so-called "small-but-close group of friends", then the silly bitch left her Facebook account open on YOUR computer on purpose because she doesn't have the guts to tell you that she's moving on to other things.

Duh.

3. So? Whaddaya think so far? Are these letters epic stupid or what? Worthy of mockery? Oh, I think so, my friends. I think so. On to the last.....

Your friends are always late. ALWAYS. They have finally gotten on your last nerve because they TOLD YOU that they went shopping on purpose when they were supposed to be at your place already. They arrived almost two hours late and you fed them anyway?

SHADDAP!

What is your major malfunction, dolt? Don't you have enough to get on with - two kids and a job - that you permit yourself to be abused by these two jerks?

(Note: I've said it before and I'll say it again in case anyone gets owly with me. "Jerk" is gender-neutral.)

Ok, here's the thing. You claim that your friend "Ellen" "...loves and respects me."

Riiiiiight. Sure she does. And she shows you this how? Oh yeah. By accepting invitations and not showing up anywhere near on time for them and THEN not apologizing (in any meaningful way) for it? Yup. Sounds like "love and respect" to me. Sure it does.

So tell me. If she hit you with a stick every time she saw you in person, would you still think you have her "love and respect"?

See, this chick doesn't even TRY to accomodate you. She has never once showed up on time for anything, and she doesn't care how that makes you feel. If she did, she'd at least TRY to be on time once in a while. She's just counting on you taking her shit for eternity. That's because she sees you as....ready?... a doormat.

You say that "...(p)art of me doesn't want to continue this friendship..." It's nice to see that at least on some level it's starting to sink in that this so-called "friend" has been wiping her filthy Reeboks on you for the entire time you've known her.

So where do I have to lead you? She abuses your hospitality. She doesn't respect your time or effort. You KNOW that "...this lateness is not going to change or stop...." and THEN you wonder, "Am I being too harsh?"

Hmmm. Seems to be a disconnect there. NO, dippy. You are not being too harsh. Stop inviting them to anything for awhile. I suspect you won't hear from them ever again. If all the effort is only on one side, then you never had a friendship.

Quit being a patsy. Grow the fuck up. Demand respect from everyone around you. Earn it by being respectful. Dump these assholes "friends" and your stress level will literally plummet.

Duh.

Oh, and for those people who are telling you to lie about the time, or not feed them when they finally do show up? Don't bother. You have plenty of precedents proving that these people are a couple of rude...assholes...