The Smart-Aleck Thread
A picture on the SPF thread reminded me of one of the best smart-aleck comebacks I've ever made in my life, and I have to admit my portfolio is stuffed with them. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, either, so I thought it'd be fun to drop our remembered comebacks/putdowns here for everybody to applaud. Because as you know, you never get proper recognition from someone as you're shutting. their. ish. down. 
I was hugely pregnant with Birdie Sue, my first pregnancy. I was miserable and lashing out at everybody and everything in my path. In my eighth month, I'd finally come through the last of the morning sickness, only to be met with heartburn that made me want to claw my throat out. This mean sleeping was impossible in any position, so aside from feeling bloated, whale-like, and ugly, I was exhausted. I would go to bed at 9:30 p.m. and get up at 8:00 a.m. with barely a 2-hour stretch of decent sleep in the middle.
One night I waddled into the bedroom of our apartment. I'd had a ridiculous bath where I'd almost got stuck and had to have Mr. T pull me out, and I was determined to go to bed to save him from having to interact with me at all again that night.
As I walked into the bedroom, something up near the ceiling caught my eye. After a moment it moved, and I could see clearly what it was: a giant spider. A giant spider right over my half of the bed. A giant spider right over my half of the bed that I had a difficult time sleeping in anyway, and this wasn't going to help.
"Honey," I called. I was in such an angry mood to begin with, but this had tipped the scales entirely. I was full-on PregHulk. "Please bring me the broom."
"The what?" came the reply from somewhere on the other side of the apartment.
"The. Broom."
I could hear him walking closer to the bedroom. I was not in the mood for a conversation or feigned ignorance or JUST ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT A FUCKING BROOM. For the love of...
"You said a broom? Why do you need a broom?" He shuffled into the doorway, frowning.
"I thought I'd whip down to the corner store for a jar of pickles and a quart of ice cream and the car moves too slowly!" I yelled.
I pointed at the spider on the ceiling.
Mr. T's eyes popped open wide. I was not a yeller. But there I was, hair wet and straggling in my face, the hodge-podge assortment of pajama pieces that still fit me clinging to my wet, pregnant belly. My pointing finger drew his attention to the spider above my side of the bed.
"He's going to keep an eye on you while I'm out," I ended. Then I burst into tears.
p.s. He did a spider check every night for the rest of that pregnancy and all through the next two.
30 comments posted: Friday, June 3rd, 2016
Best non-religious books on setting boundaries?
I have a friend in need of a book to help him learn how to set boundaries in his life (parents, friends, co-workers, etc.). This isn't infidelity-related but I know readers here will have the best recommendations from a wide assortment of titles.
Can you please suggest a few titles to me to pass along?
7 comments posted: Saturday, May 21st, 2016
The hardest I ever laughed was...
This is normally an icebreaker game, but it's always fun to hear someone else's story and I thought it'd be an amusing thing to do here.
I'll start:
The hardest I ever laughed was...
... when I was 16. I went to a very small Christian high school of about 100 students. At the start of my junior year, a new guy joined my class and he was cute. I'd already made up my mind not to date any classmates (24 of us) and made a self-imposed rule not to date any schoolmates period (slipped up on that one ONCE, hence the rule). But this guy... oh my word, he was dishy. DISHY. And he was kind of shy and sweet, and he sat next to me during the very first class of the very first day. I was the class clown/kid sister, so I took him under my wing and volunteered to guide him through his first week or so.
I really was trying not to have a crush on him, that instant puppy-crush thing we tend to do when we're 16. I thought maybe befriending him would help with that. 
Near the end of the second day, I was walking down a large stairwell with him. We were chatting as we kind of meandered, and people were passing us up and down the way. As we neared the landing, I pointed to the door at the bottom of the stairwell and said, "Your next class is out that door. Take the first right hallway and your room will be on the left."
"Aren't you coming, too?" he asked.
"I have a study hall, and I told my friend M---- I'd wait here for her to join me so we can go in together."
About that time, a commotion started at the top of the stairs, around the corner on the landing just above us. Suddenly, this blur of strawberry-blonde Aqua Net bangs and an acid-washed skirt came rolling downhill at us. The mess stood up once it landed at our feet, then tripped again and went down the next set of stairs. I stood there with my mouth open, horrified and unable to speak. Everything had happened so quickly, and it had looked so utterly bizarre I wasn't able to formulate a thought.
"What... was that?" he asked. His eyes were huge.
"That was M----."
And then I lost it. I'm pretty much the worst friend ever, I guess, but I could see her standing back up at the bottom of the stairs and I could hear her saying, "Damn it, I JUST SPRAYED MY HAIR. Now look at it!" And sure enough, one side of her forehead had hair standing straight up while the other side was smashed flat as a pancake against her skin.
I sat down and laughed and laughed, and she crawled up the stairs to sit at my feet and she was laughing and cussing and fixing her pantyhose toes, and he just stood there looking like he'd been poleaxed.
He made it to his class on time. M---- and I just stayed there in the stairwell laughing.
He became a good friend, by the way, and they got married a few years after graduation. 
But I have never laughed so hard in my life either before or since.
36 comments posted: Thursday, February 18th, 2016
