WTF Friday: Volume 7

January 11, 2013 by UndercoverL | 21 Comments

Can you believe it!?  This should be my sabbatical WTF Friday!  But you know what they say: no rest for the wicked…. and we all know they were talking about me, specifically.  Today has been quite the week.  As you can tell, since last week, some of my pieces have lost their savor.  I’ve been a bit blocked with the whole “writing fiction/keeping it impersonal” thing, and the two migraines didn’t help much.   But I persevered.  Having said that, my nail wasn’t so lucky.  Without further ado, the seventh installment of what has now become a week-long obsession to find new things to  bitch about.

Preamble:

I found out this week that my big brother had his first son (second child) this week.  I’ve made several in-passing comments about him and how we just don’t interact.  My  brother hates me; he always has done based on my memory.  At first, that realization kind of sucked.  It  made me sad.  Now I love seeing the shock on people’s faces (or imagining it as they read about it).  Yes, my brother and I sort of circle around our family like two very distant planets revolving around their solar system center.  We are part of the same galaxy, but have no influence on each other.  I am not going to bitch about it for a minute longer  because I really don’t care.  But I do have to give him kudos for giving me a couple of  my WTF’s this week.

1)  There is a word out there right now that seems to be on the tongues of everyone.  That word is ‘bully.’  I don’t get bullying.  I never have.  If I can be accused of  being a bully it only applies to the bullying I did to people who were  bullies.  I never have had patience for people who pick on weaker people.  They are, what I like to call, “cowards.”  My brother is one of these people.  Now, I am going to disclaim this comment from the start:  my brother was not the kind to give kids swirlies in the bathroom.  No, he just likes to pick on people one-on-one.  Weaker people.  Younger people.  Girls.  Me.  You would think that my brother would have grown out of this.  Nope, he didn’t.  He grew into it.  He bullies now on a much higher, more sophisticated, and more detrimental level.  My brother likes to kick me when I am down.  Case in point:  I had not seen  my sons in six weeks.  This was early on in the custody battle and I was still crying at random times when I remembered that I was missing their lives.  I was trying to keep my two attorneys happy and steadily draining my (current) husband’s savings account to try to keep from losing them.  Affording weekly plane trips to see them was getting expensive.  As I was driving up to see my boys, I get a phone call from my brother.  He proceeded to call me every name under the sun, then commented that I am the most selfish person in the world and that I had no right to be raising my sons.  Then he told me that he hoped I would lose custody of them.  Ouch.  (Did I mention that he drove the car that took my kids away from me in the middle of the night?)  Do you still wonder why I changed my phone number and don’t give it out?  So, kicking people when they are down…  WTF?!

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2)  Another reason my brother and I have fallen out is that he likes to cause undue drama.  When I was 12 years old, I found out from my health teacher that girls mature two years faster than boys.  This put me and my big brother on a level playing field.  While he would continue to brag that we was smarter than me (he even took and IQ test when we were adults so that he could send me the results to prove his point– mine was higher by two points, but I didn’t tell him that), I would continue to tell him that it wasn’t his fault I was more mature.  But I held that knowledge in my heart because you can’t argue with idiots… or men.  At about 14 years old, that lesson sunk in and I pretty much began ignoring my brother.  I didn’t argue with him, I didn’t give advice, I didn’t give input.  I just left him alone.  I didn’t care enough about causing more  battles (we would actually throw punches at each other), so I stayed away from  him.  (Not to the extent I do now, I just let him be.)  Unfortunately, he did not follow suit.

The last real attack I made on my brother was when I was 15.  We were both getting ready for the prom and he was going to drive into town to get his girlfriend’s corsage.  My boyfriend’s boutonniere was at the same florist, so I asked him to pick mine up.  He ignored me, and when he returned, I didn’t have a boutonniere to give my date.  I screamed at him for being such a jerk and then I called my mom to ask her if she would go into town and get it.  While I was on the phone with her, my brother hung up the phone so I slammed the phone down on the receiver (and on his hand, which I didn’t mean to do) and broke his middle finger.  He ripped my phone out of the wall and threw it at me.  That was our last fight.

I guess he hasn’t had enough though, because he still likes to find reasons to call me up and lay into me.  He used to yell at me for things I wrote on Facebook, so I unfriended him.  Then he would call and yell at me about what he had heard I had written on Facebook, so I unfriended my sisters.  Then he would call and yell at me because of conversations I had with my mother, so I changed my number and didn’t tell him the new one.  Yes, friends, this is all true.  See why I am Undercover L with my blog?  So, fighting for the sake of fighting… WTF?!

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3)  I have a serious problem with tin foil (aluminum foil, or al-you-mini-um foil for your Brits).  Every single time I get in the drawer to pull out foil, plastic wrap, sandwich bags, or straws, I get attacked by the little serrated edge on the aluminum foil.  I shouldn’t call it little.  It’s like a well-hidden weapon of mass destruction cleverly disguised as a kitchen convenience.  Those bitches are wicked with the havoc and mayhem they create.  You could probably perform an autopsy with one of those flimsy little pieces of savagery.  Have you ever been cut by one?  They make paper-cuts look like wrinkles.  Beware the diabolical metal edge in the drawer, it will cut a bitch.  Aluminum foil serrated edges… WTF?!

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See the blood blister under the nail? Not just about ugliness…

4)  We are on the war path with WTF-ery today, kiddies.  I am going to give a special little shout out to breaking a damned nail.  When men hear about women doing this, they are all like, “Oh, boo-hoo, I broke a nail!  Oh, cry, cry.”  Maybe they think that it is only about inconvenience or vanity of appearances.  But, let me tell those of you who have not experienced this little PITA (Pain In The Arse) of womanhood:  it blows to break a nail, and it has nothing to do with vanity.  Does this look like merely a “shoot, my finger looks awful” kind of inconvenience?  I did this trying to push in a door nail that was wiggling out of my front door.  Yes, it was a stupid idea to attempt this without a hammer, but I am not the smartest person all the time.  A lot of the time, yes.  This time, no.  My finger slipped and the door nail caught my fake nail and POP!  Ouch.  My finger was positively throbbing for the next 8 hours.  I only just took off the band-aid to see the totality of the damage.  So much of my real nail was ripped off that I won’t be able to have it fixed for probably two months.  There is a paper-thin layer of real nail covering the tender nail bed underneath.  Even putting my hands under hot water burns like hot pokers in my eye balls.

To give you an idea of what it feels like, men:  Imagine someone taking a set of pliers and ripping your nail off, starting at the left side.  Then, they only do it half-way, so you either have to suffer with a nail that flaps and catches on everything, or you have to grit your teeth and finish the job yourself.  So, you finish the job yourself.  Then, you decide to go about your day and every five or so minutes, you take a hammer and hit yourself on the nail again… just because that’s what happens when you hurt a delicate appendage: it just keeps getting hurt.  (Stubbed toe, anyone?)  On top of that all, it looks ugly.  Now you know.  I am not being dramatic.  Ask any women who’s had fake nails.

Amirite, girls?

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5)  My final WTF this week is dedicated to Fancy Nancy who not only has to go without the blissful annoyance of an Ice Cream truck, though she lives in the heart of the desert, but also lives in the one caveat situation in which the postal service will not deliver: the heart of the desert.  ”Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow (but the middle of the desert is another matter, entirely).”

Fancy, I am sorry that you don’t get the ice cream truck and the postal service.  Part of me thinks that’s what you get for moving out to BFE, but the other part of me thinks that if anyone deserves such service, it’s you.  If you live in the desert near me, I will fill my Expedition with ice cream and beer, and I will drive by your house blasting some kind of music out my windows.  You can have a free ice cream sandwich and a Sam Adams on me.  But then you have to take my husband rattle-snake hunting because he wants to do it and I won’t go with him.

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If you see something this week that makes you think (or actually say) ”WTF?!” let me know.

I will jump up on your soapbox, champion your cause in my installment next week,

and I will send my 10.8 readers to your blog.

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For more WTF-ery, check out:

WTF Friday: Volume 1

WTF Friday: Volume 2

WTF Friday: Volume 3

WTF Friday: Volume 4

WTF Friday: Volume 5

WTF Friday: Volume 6