I Heart My Little A-Holes (10 page)

Once when Zoey was little I took her to the bathroom at the zoo, and when we were next in line one of the stalls opened up to reveal an itty-bitty potty just for little girls like her. I swear the angels sang in the heavens when she saw it. She had the most wonderful potty experience ever. Then it was my turn.

ME: Okay, let’s go find Mommy a potty.

ZOEY: No Mommy, use this one.

While I really wanted to find a normal potty for myself, two things went through my head:

1. You know how that first person in line right now is all filled with anticipation because she’s next? I’d have to go out there and burst her bubble and tell her why I’m allowed to cut in front of her because I already waited in line and now I need a different stall with a normal-sized potty.

2. Zoey’s always using my big potties. It can’t hurt to use her little one just this once.

What the hell, why not? So I dropped my pants and crouched down to go. Way down. Wayyyy down. I’m not exaggerating. This is how low this potty was. You know how you can see people’s feet beneath the stalls? Nikes, Pumas, Crocs, someone’s big ass, Adidas, Keds. I wish I were kidding.

Okay, the other night I’m out for drinks with a friend when she tells me something that’s been going on in her house and I’m like, “Nooo,” and she’s like, “Yes,” and I’m like, “Noooooo,” and she’s like, “Yessssss, I couldn’t make this up if I tried.” This is her story (retold by me because she didn’t make it funny enough and didn’t use enough curse words):

So last week she was going to the bathroom and enjoying her People magazine, la la la la laaaa. She had two pages left to read in an article and unless it sounded like her kids were playing with guns or building WMDs outside the bathroom door, she wasn’t getting up for anything.

Kabooooom! Awwww shit, of course the second she thought it they did it. WTF was that? Someone’s head? A Molotov cocktail? The cat in the microwave? Fine, she said, and started to get up. Which totally sucked because now she couldn’t finish her People magazine article and she’d have no idea WTF happened at Jessica Simpson’s baby shower. How ever would she go on living?

So she reached to get some toilet paper and whoaaa, WTF is that? No seriously, WTF WTF WTF? You’re not going to believe what she found. There they were sitting right there in the middle of the clean white toilet paper. Five haphazardly-placed shit dots. Holy. Crap. Five brown shit dots.

FRIEND: Woody!!!!!!!! Get in here!

WOODY: Hi.

FRIEND: What is this?

WOODY: Toilet paper.

Duh.

FRIEND: No, what’s ON the toilet paper?

WOODY: I had to check.

FRIEND: Check what?

WOODY: To make sure I’m clean.

FRIEND: Uhhh, you’re not.

Anyways, in case it isn’t obvious, her four-year-old had been learning how to wipe himself, you know, back there. But how the hell do you teach a kid how to wipe enough? It never occurred to my friend that she would have to explain these things in intricate detail, but they’re kids. How else are they supposed to learn? “You take some toilet paper and you wipe and then you fold it and find a clean section and you wipe again, and you repeat this until the TP comes back clean or until you run out of room and you need to rip off some more toilet paper.”

So since my friend didn’t tell her son EXACTLY what to do in explicit detail, he came up with his own method. You wipe and then you use your finger like a dipstick in your tush to see if it comes back clean. Only it never comes back clean because you’re not even four and can’t wipe worth shit.

See, kids have no clue unless we tell them these things. Like here’s a story about my other friend’s kid. So one day his mom walked into the living room and he was having total itchy butt and was dragging his ass on the carpet like a dog with worms, so she asked him what was wrong. Apparently he had stopped wiping.

JASMINE: (with alarm) Why aren’t you wiping?

ITCHY BUTT: I didn’t know how many squares of toilet paper to use.

WHAT???!!! This cracks me up for all sorts of reasons. Knowing my friend, she was all nice to him and casually took her kid into the bathroom to show him how many squares to use, but if this were my child, here’s what I would have said.

ME: Okay, kid, I get it. This stuff can be confusing. But are you kidding me? Zero squares? ZERO?! Ennhhh, wrong! I think we all know ZERO is NOT the correct answer. Like if this were on a multiple-choice test:

How many squares of toilet paper do you use when you take a dump?

One

Three

Five

More

See? Zero isn’t even an option.

My point is this. Whoever says potty training can happen in three days is lying their ass off. Potty training takes YEARS. Sure, they might be peeing in the potty right away. But some of them won’t poop in there. Some of them won’t do it at night. Some of them won’t go on a public potty. Some of them create beautiful Jackson Pollock-like urine paintings on the walls. Some of them don’t know how many squares to use. And some of them wipe brown shit dots on the toilet paper for their mom to find. Awesome.

Ordinarily when I catch a glimpse of my naked self in the mirror I have a few reactions:

I throw up in my mouth a little but then swallow it (you’d think after seeing my naked body I’d fully throw up to expel a few calories)

I look around for a black Sharpie to mark up my body so I can fantasize that I have an appointment with Dr. 90210

I want to eat my muffin top

But for the past 40 days (between Thanksgiving and New Years) I’ve had a completely different reaction. Who gives a shit how I look right now because come New Years Day, I’m going on a health kick. And come to think of it, it’s not just about eating. By February I plan on looking like a tall skinny blonde who’s hairless from the nose down, minus the tall and blonde part. Plus like a million other things I want to change too. So here goes. Twelve New Years resolutions I plan on breaking the shit out of:

1. I will no longer eat my kids’ leftover French fries, chicken nuggets, bagels, sandwich crusts, ice cream cones, cake frosting, pizza crusts, etc. etc. etc. Because last year I was basically a human food disposal. I might as well have just tipped my head backwards over the sink and let people scrape their plates straight into my mouth. It would have been less degrading than the way I cram ten French fries into my mouth as we’re packing up to leave a restaurant. And then ten more while I’m pretending to double-check the table for anything we forgot. I fail to notice that we’re leaving behind my kid’s favorite sippy cup, but oh shit, look what we did forget. Ten greasy ass French fries.

2. One night a month I will try to wear a sexy nightgown to bed. I mean without putting on fat pants and a disgusting long-sleeved t-shirt over it, even if it means shivering all night long and having to warm my hands between the blubber of my thighs.

3. Speaking of blubber, from now on when I undress at the end of the day and my husband drools and says, “Yeah yeah yeah,” I won’t roll my eyes and look at him like he must be insane.

4. I will no longer turn into Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction when my daughter won’t put on her shoes. Zoey, put on your shoes. Zoey, put on your shoes. Zoey, put on your shoes. ZOEY, PUT ON YOUR FUCKING SHOES RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF AND LEAVE YOU AT HOME WHILE WE GO TO DISNEYWORLD WITHOUT YOU!!!!!! Just so it’s clear I didn’t actually say the word “fucking” to my kiddo. I just wrote it in there to illustrate how much I was yelling. In real life I speak with giant pauses while I think the curse words in my head.

5. I will stop throwing giant fistfuls of Cheerios out of my kid’s car seat into parking lots. I know they’re biodegradable but before it rains some poor schmuck is probably going to step on them first and that’s just annoying. Believe me I know. I step on Cheerios every goddamn day of my life so I’m like an expert at it.

6. I will finally unsubscribe from Pottery Barn, Toys R Us and Michaels emails, but I will try not to feel like a loser if my inbox is empty when I wake up in the morning. Why in God’s name it makes me feel popular that World Market emails me at three in the morning is beyond me.

7. I will check my magnification mirror daily to make sure I notice my one-haired goatee BEFORE someone else does.

8. There are 1095 meals in a year (not including midnight snacks, brunches, and drunken moments when I shovel handfuls of bacon bits into my mouth). I promise to stay seated for the duration of one of those 1095 meals. Just one.

9. I will not forget one key item every time I go grocery shopping. Do not forget the buns. Do not forget the buns. Do not forget the buns. And then I’m standing in the parking lot loading the bags into the car and guess what I F’ing forgot. The buns. But the kids are already loaded in and I would have to unload them and reload them which is worse than being water-boarded, so I guess we’re having sloppy joes without the buns. The unintentional Atkins diet.

10. I will remember that the three-second rule cannot be lengthened to thirty seconds or thirty days, even when the Oreo I find under the table is fuzz-free.

11. I have heard that if you spend less than $50 at Target they don’t make you sign for it. It’s one of those suburban myths. I will go to Tarjay and attempt to spend less than $50 to see if it’s true. Attempt.

12. I will no longer lick my finger and clean my kid’s face. Replacing the chocolate with saliva does not make it clean even if you can’t see the saliva.

Awwww shit, it’s that holiday again. All in favor of adding February 29
^th
to the calendar and taking February 14
^th
away, say aye! Because seriously, do we seriously need a frigging holiday to tell us to express our love?

As far as I’m concerned, I tell my kiddo I love him every time I change his disgusting poopie diaper. Would I be up to my elbows in his green dinarena if I didn’t love him? I think not. And do you see this chair that looks like a giant piece of dookie?

Would I let my husband keep this in our house if I didn’t love him? (side note, by the time of publication the chair was gone) And well, the fact that I don’t kill our 4-year-old every day is the biggest token of my affection you can get.

So here’s the thing. It’s not just me. I’m willing to bet that Valentine’s Day sucks for more than 50% of the population. No, I didn’t do a scientific study, but I’m making an educated guess. Based on what? Based on this shit. Here are the top ten things that suck about V-Day: