The Bloggess

Dear charitable organizations who inexplicably keep sending me money:  FUCKING STOP IT.

Is it just me?  I get all these letters asking for money but there are pennies and nickels glued to the requests and I guess that it’s supposed to prove that it only takes 9 cents a day to not kill cats or something, but I’m not going to give you money because CLEARLY YOU SUCK AT HANDLING IT.  You need money and you’re sending it to me.  WTF.  I don’t want money from orphans or dogs on death row.  I’ve gotten probably six dollars in guilt change this year and it only serves to remind me not to donate to you anymore because 1) this feels super manipulative and 2) is the money I gave you last year being used to send guilt change to everyone else?  Am I part of the problem?  Because that money has to come from somewhere.

Also you all stick the coins on the letter with this grey goop that I have to scrape off and I want to just throw it away but I can’t because my grandmother said throwing change away is bad luck so I have to open the envelope and wash the gunk off your guilt change, and then there are pictures of orphans and disappointed Jesuses glaring at me while I do it, like, “So you’re going to just take the money from orphans?  Really?”  And yeah, I guess I am because you certainly can’t be trusted not to throw it into envelopes to give to people who clearly don’t need it.   Also, pennies are germy and gross me out.  They live in the bottom of purses until they gets stuck to lose hard candy and then they get covered with a layer of sticky lint scum and then eventually you get grossed out when the pennies get stuck to your keys and then you throw the whole purse away.  Pennies are garbage money and everyone knows it.

Also, while I’m being bitchy to people who are trying to help others can I just add that I don’t want anymore notepads reminding me how many people die of starvation each day, or cards with cats having some sort of lobotomy.  I don’t want that.  NO ONE WANTS THAT.  (Also, PETA, you’ve sent me the cat lobotomy cards twice in the same year and it’s starting to lose its shock value, although actually I can’t complain too much because I totally used one as a Christmas card to someone I don’t like.)

Conclusion: I am a terrible person and I’d like you to stop sending me money proving that.

Hugs,

Jenny

This week Hailey went to a bullying workshop at her martial arts school and I sat through it and agreed with most of what was said, except that it was missing the one thing that all bullying talks seem to miss.

They get that most people will be bullied in their lives but you almost never see them point out that almost all of us will bully others ourselves.  We talk about it like bullies are these horrible hobgoblins creeping around in corners because it’s easy to forget that we are the bullies.  We all have the capacity to be cruel and horrible.  Sometimes it’s because we’re young and stupid and scared.  Sometimes it’s because we think we’re doing something noble or brave.  Sometimes we’re screaming terrible things at people, but really we’re screaming those things at the ghosts that haunt us.  And those people scream back.  At us, and at their own invisible ghosts standing in front of us.  Sometimes it’s done inadvertently.  So much so that we don’t even recognize it.  We don’t see that we step on the small tender pieces of others.  We don’t recognize how unaware others are that they are stepping on us.  We fight back because we have to stand up for ourselves and for others.  We fight back at others because others are fighting back at us.

When Hailey comes home from school she sometimes tells me awful stories about kids being horrible and I try to help her.  I tell her middle schoolers are a bunch of assholes.  I tell her it’s good practice to ignore them because people are assholes all over.  I help her with the ones she can’t handle on her own.  But I do one thing that I hope other parents do as well.  I remind her how easy it is be horrible ourselves.  I tell her to be mindful of others.  I tell her to be kind.  And that is not always easy, as evidenced by the fact that my first response is to call middle schoolers “a bunch of assholes.”

Hailey found the bully seminar helpful though and was telling Victor about a few of the things she’d learned, like when you see a kid just about to get pummeled you can go up to that kid and say, “Hey, the principal told me to come get you.”  That way you remove the kid from the situation and you have a reason to leave too.  And they taught about how to protect your head in a fight, or how to deescalate it.  And Victor said that all sounded good but if someone was pushing him around in middle school he’d just say, “Hey.  You ever see a donkey-faced person get kicked in the mouth?” and I was like, “THAT’S TOTALLY NOT WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO” and Victor was like, “I didn’t say you should actually kick them in the face.  Just…you know...ask the question.  It’s not illegal to ask questions.”  And Hailey was like, “Yeah.  That sounds like a good way to get sent to the principal’s office,” but Victor was all, “Well, if your principal calls me in I’ll say, ‘Hey.  You ever see a donkey-faced principal get kicked in the mouth?'” and then I yelled, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?  YOU ARE A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE,” and he shrugged and said, “I’m just asking an innocent question.  I really want to know‘.”  And then we had to leave Red Lobster because I was yelling too loudly and Hailey couldn’t stop laughing.

I sort of lost track of this blog post but I think the main point is that you should be kind.  And tell your kids to not be assholes.  And don’t have loud disagreements at Red Lobster because they’re really sensitive about that shit.

I don’t have a good image for this post so here’s an angry otter: