This is not a "Mommy Blog"

Let's make a few things clear before I continue raving like a lunatic.

The Ridiculous Department is not merely a title for a one-woman show; it is a collaboration of understanding amongst good, sane, logical people of like minds and unlike lifestyles. The phrase was coined by Mr. C while discussing some long-ago matter of stupidity, likely a current event, when it was suggested that what we were talking about was so beyond reason that it should be filed to this department.

Here we are. These are our files. They are not constantly updated as I am the only one with any time or gumption to voice them, and as a mother of 2.5 children I have very little spare time as it is. This is now my late night project, after they are asleep and Mr. V is still at work; I cannot let it hinder my domestic duties, but it will hinder my desire to fall down Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours (I'm running out of interesting topics.)

Which leads me to my next point - this is not a so-called "Mommy Blog". I am not a "Mommy-Blogger". I may at any point lead into a tirade that involves parenting, but I highly doubt that I will become a guest blogger for any of the potently vicious parenting sites available online. I am not their class, for one; more importantly I cannot fathom turning everything I talk about into something that has to do with child-rearing. It is boring. I do not expect or wish to have viral arguments exploding in my comments about whether or not elimination communication is a viable parenting choice in major cities, or just how organic a cheese cracker has to be before it is not classified as junk food.

(My stances on these two items are pretty simple, by the by; if you are training your child via EC, you damn well clean up after your child as you would a dog on a leash. Also, you damn well tell other family members about "cues" so no one ends up with diarrhea lap. As for organic food - if you didn't grow it yourself in your own soil, you should be hard-pressed to make snobby commentary about foodstuffs. Everyone has to eat, and you cannot expect everyone to have access to the same "cow-shares" and other luxurious farmer novelties. Worry less about organic crackers at playdates and more about Freezies as snacks at daycare. Really.)

My goal here is to reach the widest audience possible via a single common denominator - humor. Every topic we cover here, even just the tiniest snippets of conversations or public happenings, is meant to be viewed as funny. Of course, there are hilarious aspects of parenting and they are covered quite well in other areas of the internet. This, however, is not an exclusive forum to parents alone, and I don't want to exclude readers.

If you want to laugh at parents because you are childless, I recommend STFU Parents. If you want to laugh at parents because you have children and understand, try The Stir. If you just want to read some ridiculous ranting about whatever happens to bother us that day, do stay here.

But, if you make the choice to stay here and entertain yourself with my words, let this be known - it is a weblog. It is meant to be mostly text-based, with very few pictorial aids. I simply do not understand why or how individuals become popular by yelling at their web camera (if you like that sort of thing, Mr. Greene is pretty boss at yelling about very particular subjects) or, ever-popular, how they do so by slapping on sixteen pounds of makeup and pressing their cleavage together while baby-talking chihuahuas about what boys say in cars. There's nothing funny about that to me; it's random douchey people talking. If I wanted to see or listen to that, I could go to a bar or a local university quad.

The only time you will ever see me grace a webcam with my presence will be to poke fun at other popular "vloggers" and there will be no editing. If I cannot say it all in one go without chopping and editing the video, the point is lost completely. I will not make up my face just to do it, and I really don't care if nobody ends up reading this. If I can't win without breasts or political shouty rants, I don't want to win. Straight up.

Thus ends today's lesson. Go in peace and keep pointing out stupidity, friends.

Extreme Couponing

I'd like to know, when those cameras are following hapless couponers through large American grocery chains, do the managers throw unadulterated hissy fits off-stage?

Do they see that fiend coming through the parking lot and break a sweat, knowing they're about to be bent over and asked about their father? Does it haunt their dreams at night that at any given moment, TLC might bust in their doors with a heavily made-up woman screeching and caterwauling over heavily-discounted Lipton's Sidekicks?

If it were my store, I'd be puking buckets of slugs every time I opened the place in the morning.

That's not to say I haven't tried to scrounge a dollar in savings from time to time. But up here, our cashiers aren't as warm and welcoming; they won't give you a high-five when you show up with your stack of fliers to price-match.

I won't even lie - the death-look I received from my cashier last night was enough to char the roots of her perfectly-peroxided mane. All I wanted was chicken burgers for 50% off! I only had one cart!

If you damned teenagers would just turn from MTV's pregnant happenstance soaps, and learn the value of a supposedly doomed dollar, my grocery trips could be just as fun as TLC makes them out to be!

... well, that is, if our coupon rules in Canada were anything like yours. Should any reader happen to think there's nothing wrong with America's couponing rules (and I can assure you, the economy is not being helped by food-hoarding for pennies on the dollar) I invite you to read the fine black-print-in-bright-yellow-box that Canadian coupons bear.

Once you're done reading them, you'll put it right back down and be totally comfortable paying full purchase price for said item, because you're scared and confused and just wanted some Oreos.

Overheads and Overheards

In line at the pharmacy behind a tan-skinned young man (dressed as a punk rocker, if it matters)

"I'm looking for lesion cream."
"Skin lesions?"
"Yeah."
"We have (trumpets blaring through medical terminology in my head)."
"Can I use it on large areas? Like, say, my shoulders?"
"I... are you trying to lighten your skin?"
"Yeah."
"Like Michael Jackson?"
"Pretty much."

... and she sold it to him anyway.

T4F: Prologue

My newest segment is short and to the point.

Every time I'm reading (gossip rags, news, Wikipedia, whatever) and something incenses me enough that I can only blurt out random obscenities, here they shall go.

I'm calling this T4F; short for "Tears for Fears". Har har - an abbreviated SHOUT-out. I'm so clever.

Shall we?

Taylor Momsen: PUT ON SOME FUCKING PANTS.

Nobody likes dirty magic underaged hookers. Oh, and get over not being in Twilight. I HAVE to point this out - you got to fake-bang Ed Westwick as Little J. Not looking emaciated and sparkly. You honestly want to tell me that one hot British guy is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH because he's NOT Robert Pattinson? Don't you have parents?!

(Editor's note to the Momster: Jenny Humphrey was supposed to be an awkward, chunky brunette girl. Since you don't feel so blessed to have been given her role, I could suggest someone more willing - myself. ALSO I KNOW HOW TO WEAR PANTS AND SMILE.)

Michael Lohan: SHUT THE FUCK UP.

SRS BSNSS. JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Perez Hilton: I don't believe you.

People who care about "Sister Wives" for any reason: YOU ALL KNEW POLYGAMY EXISTED. YOU ALL KNEW TLC WAS THE DEVIL. YOU SHOULD'VE FIGURED THAT OUT WITH THE GOSSELINS.

Frankly, I applaud the multi-wifed man. How does he deal with 3 blondes and a brunette all menstruating together?

That is all in T4F for today.

Social Experiment Wrap-Up

Marks are in on Wednesday, so I'll remain 18 until that time.

We'll see what kind of actual advice I can glean from my data-mining; it should be a few weeks.

Happy Grade 12 Diploma day, faithful bitchcake readers. <3

Recent Facepalms

1. Black student walking out of quiz on To Kill a Mockingbird - citing that the book was racist. No, son - characters in the book are racist. The narrator, and ultimately the moral of the book, are not. If the story was told from the view of a 7-year-old bigot in Alabama in the Dirty Thirties, I'd burn it myself. There's your subtly bold statement of the day.

2. Deliberately avoiding the adult education centre washroom in favour of the hairstyling school washroom, only to find urine all over every single toilet seat. Ladies, pay attention! I was counting on you!

3. "If I've shaved my legs and am wearing panties underneath, is it acceptable for me to leave the house in your boxers, in this heat?"
"Knock yourself out. You'll still be covering more of your ass than the pregnant teenager we saw last night."

4. Despite being rather educated, I'll be in high school on my 25th birthday. Which is tomorrow. Send me chocolate. Also send me central air conditioning. Kthx love you!

Editor's note;
I'm not sure which is more disturbing, #1 or #3. Regardless, I left the house in his underwear.

Continued Education

In 2003, when I was meant to graduate, I fucked up. I really fucked up. I admit, however, that I fucked up, and seven years later made a final effort to resolve my serious issues. So I currently attend an adult learning centre, as the more polite people might refer to it.

It's an old French school, taken over by the Catholic school board, and overrun with all the types of people who just don't cut it to their first high school graduations. Now, don't get me wrong. This institution caters a lot of services to a lot of different kinds of people, and it's a useful and important facet of society. In turn, the people who choose to attend this place of their own accord deserve measured respect. I'm not putting the school down.

I'll just continue on to tell you that I was not surprised in the least when my English teacher today told me that the book we're presently reading is often the only book her students have ever completed in their lives. I was not surprised, and that fact disturbed me more than anything else. In jovial fashion I replied that if this book was the only thing they could say they'd read next to magazines and sports statistics or price tags, then she should consider her job done. We had a laugh, and off I went.

We're reading To Kill A Mockingbird.

Originally, I had been incredibly distraught at being "forced" to read, and have read to me, a book that had been in my possession for the last decade. I made a point to sleep or draw through this class for the first few weeks. After hearing her admit what she did, however, I plan to thoroughly enjoy discussing my favourite book for three hours every day until June.

Because I can.

Perhaps you might tell me that I'm full of myself. I'm no Rhodes scholar, you could say, and here I am acting like I'm the queen of England herself. That's fine, that's perfectly fine - you can go read Perez Hilton, for my meager blog of silly is wasting space on your iPod screen. Until Project Gutenberg puts up Harper Lee, it seems I will be part of a dying breed. That's fine too.

Small satisfactions.

Now, on the other hand, if you actually enjoy reading - go thank whomever it was that taught you to read. Thank them. They gave you a gift that you have not squandered. It's really polite to thank people for giving you very useful gifts.

Any of our other staff members (particularly Mr. V) can tell you how judgmental I can be towards random strangers - any of the following will come out of my passengerial observations during car rides:

"Holy shit lady, bleach your goddamn roots!"
"PROSTITOT!"
"I didn't know Derelicte fashion was a real thing."
"Do you suppose you could stop fawning in your rearview long enough to GO, BITCH?! YOU'RE NOT THAT CUTE!"
"Did she wake up and decide to just poke her feet into some dead otters?"

But those are people who will not hear the insults from behind the closed window of a car speeding by. IRL, if you will, when I am meeting new people and doing my weight and measured, the rules are different. I don't pass judgment on a lot of things in social interactions, mostly just how I'm being socially interacted with. I certainly don't pass judgment on people who were never given an opportunity to enjoy reading, and you can tell who those people are.

BUT PEOPLE WHO JUST DON'T LIKE READING BECAUSE IT'S BORING AND SOMETHING BETTER IS PROBABLY ON TV N TALK LYK DIS ALL DA TIME N DONT KNO HOW 2 RITE PROPR SENTINSIS CUZ DEY ONLY EVR TALK ON DA INTRNT OR DEY CELLIES, AMiRITE????

Those people can rot in hell.

That's all. As you were!