College

Sweet Tea Is For Pussies Anyway.

I took beer (4 bottles to be exact) into a Baptist church today.

Now, before y’all go cashing in those bets you made about 5 years ago in the “What Year Will Steph Actually Say ‘Fuck It’ And Take Alcohol Into A House Of God” pool, just hold on and let me explain.

It’s been seriously crazy.  Some of you may recall that I started working towards my teaching degree in March.  I’m on my third class, Survey Of U.S. Constitution & Government now.  Yes, I passed my first two classes.  Hold your applause.  Jesus says I don’t deserve any accolades right now.

Good friends of ours are coming all the way to Alabama from Florida this week to see my son graduate from high school.  They informed us they would like to come to this event in January.  I’ve had five fucking months to prepare for this joyous occasion but as usual, I have sat around with my thumb up my ass for almost half a year, doing the one thing I always achieve absolute perfection in:  procrastination.

I have waited until the last 72 hours before my friend’s arrival to purchase a new sectional sofa, boost our obsolete central air conditioning unit which was installed the year I graduated from high school (I shit you not), clean like the damned Pope is coming over, order graduation party supplies (I would thank the dear Lord for Amazon Prime Shipping but he’s still giving me the evil side eye over bringing booze into his condo earlier today), this list could actually go on and on.  E accepted a new job with his existing employer, with much more responsibility, and he’s been working later hours.  All of this is snowballing – in a really great way but it’s crazy nonetheless.

My son is graduating from high school this week.  I know I’ve already written this but my mind still hasn’t completely wrapped around the fact.  I’m waiting for my mind to get its ass in gear and just let me get the meltdown out of the way.  I’d honestly rather just show you good people a picture of my ample ass than cry.  I rarely cry because:

  1.  I usually choose to not be sad.  At the beginning of both of my children’s lives, I cried enough for a lifetime, as they had numerous tubes running from their bodies for the first few months of their lives, keeping them alive in most instances.  I’m still really tired of crying from those horrible times so I choose not to now.
  2. I hate feeling like a little bitch.  I’m not saying you are a little bitch if you cry, it’s just how I feel when I cry.  I can hug it out with you if you choose to be a little bitch in my presence. It makes me a little uncomfortable and I’d rather hand you hard liquor but I usually pull my shit together enough to be a good friend.  I won’t even mention the fact that you left snot on my shoulder.
  3. Crying ruins my makeup.  I spend too much time and money on that shit to have it running down my face.

Right now, I feel like a dam that’s about to burst.  I don’t know when or where the levy will break but if you’re going to be with me in the next week, this is your heads up.  I promise not to leave too much snot on your shoulder if you promise not to judge the fact that I’m carrying my extra large flask in my purse for the next week.  I’m just a bit overwhelmed with all that’s going on in my life right now.

Which brings us back to discussing the circumstances which led me to smuggling hooch into the Lord’s house.

A good friend of mine was really stressed this week over throwing her daughter a graduation party that was held today.  She beautifully plans every event she throws and works really hard preparing and executing tablescapes you normally envy on Pinterest.  She was texting me earlier today before the party, worried over some issues.

This friend is a lovely Christian lady who rarely drinks and certainly doesn’t keep alcohol on hand at her home that I’m aware of.  She and I are the female equivalent to Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple.  I had to help this dear friend last month when she kept trying to order a Coors Light at a place that only sells a local brewery’s beers.  Finally, in exasperation, she came to the table empty handed.  I went back to the counter with her, gave her a quick tutorial on all the different brews (which most certainly did not include Coors Light).

Anyway, at the end of her text message, she added a really cute little beer emoji.  This is where I feel she at least needs to take some of the blame, okay?

Sending any kind of alcohol emoji to me when you’re in distress is like the Gotham City Police Department flashing the fucking Bat-Signal in the sky.  It’s like Timmy yelling at Lassie to go get help – except I don’t come back with a long rope in my mouth or wielding a bat shaped boomerang.  I come back with alcohol.  It’s what I KNOW, people.

Right before the kids and I walked out the door to go to the party, I packed up 4 of my beers with ice packs in my little collapsible cooler to take to my friend so she could unwind at home after the party.  As I was packing them, I even thought, “I wonder if it’s against the rules of the civic center to have alcohol on premise even if you’re not drinking it there?”  Because I’m not normally a rule breaker, y’all, believe it or not.  Jesus just raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows at that statement.

What is slightly alarming is I’ve been to this church two other times but only in the fellowship wings, where they hold parties and such.  That’s why my brain thought “civic center” instead of “House of the Lord God Almighty”.  That’s my defense and I’m sticking to it.  When I got to the “civic center” I placed the cooler under the gift table and forgot about it.

As I was  inhaling enjoying my generous sized and delicious piece of party cake, E (who had rode over on his motorcycle earlier) laughed and asked in jest if I’d actually went through with bringing my friend the beer.  It went like this:

E:  Did you bring Melissa (fictional name) some beer?

Me:  Yeah.

E:  You’ll give it to her later?

Me:  No, it’s right over there under the gift table.

E (looked over at the red cooler under the gift table while denial, then incredulity, then fear, and finally acceptance flitted across his face):  You brought BEER into a CHURCH??!!

Me (actually putting my fork down):  Holy crap (no, I didn’t curse because Gracie was sitting beside me and I also figured I was already on Jesus’ shit list by that time).

E and Gracie laughed uncomfortably while slowly moving away from me so as not to get electrocuted when the inevitable lightning from Heaven shot through my ass.

I sent my friend this text after the party.

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My friend has not responded to the text message so I can only hope she has forgiven me and that she enjoyed the beer I gave her in good faith in response to her distress text.

Also, I’m sorry, Jesus, for bringing alcohol into your house.  I’ll try to never do it again, but honestly, you and I both know that I can’t make any promises.

Lastly, can one of y’all remind me on Thursday to take my extra large flask out of my purse before I attend my son’s commencement ceremony?  Jesus also resides at the place it’s being held and I’m pretty sure I’m on a List now.  Fine, I was already on a List but today I moved way up in the rankings.

Cheers, y’all.

Learnin’ To Walk Again

I’ve been a stay at home Mom for the last 18 years.  E and I made the decision together that I would stay at home as soon as we found out I was pregnant with Landon.  It’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.  I had the blessing of being the one to change my children’s diapers, to feed them, watch them grow, rock them to sleep, hear their first words, encourage them to walk and then watch in delight as they not only walked but eventually ran.  I was there, front row.

I was the one who taught Landon to read when I had to home school him for a few years while we were working out diagnoses.  It’s still hard to wrap my head around that.  I taught him to READ, y’all.  I take great pleasure in sharing his love of everything Super Hero and Harry Potter.  I love our debates over who would win in a fight:  Batman or Superman.  I guess we’ll find out next spring when the movie comes out.

I made up a special bedtime song for Gracie when she was a baby that to this day only she and I know.  I took such joy in dressing her up in frilly things and putting bows in her hair.  I take great joy now in sharing my favorite bands with her, taking her to concerts with me, and watching my all time favorite movies together.  It makes me so happy that we have the same sense of humor.  I always look forward to giving her advice (when asked) because she’s usually surprised by what I tell her.

I cherish the time I’ve had with my kids that so many other mothers don’t have the privilege to have.  I’ve been on call 24/7 for the last 18 years.  I’ve been Room Mom, I’ve served on the PTA, I’ve been to every concert, pee wee cheerleading practice and games, parades, just about every Special Olympics event, art show, open house, teacher meetings, school pick up and drop off.  All of it.  And I wouldn’t change a thing.

But I will go back to school in just a few weeks, plowing through as fast as I can to finish my teaching degree.  It’s time.  My kids are growing up and so must I.  It’s time to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and do it.

I’m scared shitless, to be honest.  I’m scared of failure.  I’m scared of the work involved.  I’m scared I won’t be able to have fun for a while.  I’m scared that my schedule will be out of my control.  Mostly, though, I’m scared of the Algebra.  Hopefully, living with an engineer and a National Honor Society student will help in that area.  Fingers crossed.

So as everyone is making New Year’s Resolutions, I again vow not to make any.  I’m sticking to my story from last year and just vowing to do better.

And learn to walk.  For myself this time.

All my love and Happy New Year, y’all.

 

 

Bitches Gots To Learn: A Primer To Being Friends With Me During College Football Season

It’s college football season, which can only mean one thing:  I’m going to lose at least four friends before we hit New Year’s Eve if past seasons and the inherent assholery of some of my friends are any indications.

Last year, this meme was posted on my wall by different friends about six times:

Roll Mother Fucking Tide!

I’m just shocked they think I’m a classy lady all those other months.

Moving along, here is a College Football Season Code Of Conduct for friends who still want to see my Facebook statuses after January.

1.  Blood does not matter.  I have de-friended family due to their hard-ons for hating Alabama football.  Even when Bama won the game, Family Member Zeke would traipse his redneck ass over to my wall every damned Saturday (Thursday night games threw him off so I got a break on those) and point out what Saban & Co. did wrong with joyful, childlike, horrifically misspelled glee.  Zeke’s team wasn’t even playing Alabama.  That’s right, Zeke chose to be a douchebag when he didn’t even have a dog in the fight.  Zeke is dead to me.

2.  Do you go to church regularly?  Every Sunday, you say?  Well, friend, your chances of  being a total and complete jackass just went through the roof of Bryant Denny Stadium.  Church people are the worst about posting smack on my wall.  It’s incredibly difficult to follow the Minister of Music in singing “I’ll Fly Away” on Sunday morning when all your mental energy is focused on not charging the stage to rip out his spine in retaliation for blasting your team on Facebook a mere 12 hours earlier.  Church people, read the Ten Commandments before you come over to my wall to post that “really funny” anti-Bama meme.  God doesn’t like ugly, y’all.

3.  Would you like it if I shat on your team’s jersey, set it on fire and then threw it in your yard?  Yes?  You’re a sick fuck.  For the people who emphatically shook their heads “no”, this is for you.  My Facebook wall is my house, so to speak.  Do not come to my house and shit in my yard by posting a “really funny” Bama meme that you got from your Minister of Music’s wall (see Guideline 2, above).  Post what you want on your own wall but don’t you dare tag me in it.  That isn’t a loop hole, Einstein.  It’s the passive aggressive douche canoe way to do it, for sure, but it still counts as shitting on my lawn.  For my really crafty, local community college type of friends, typing my name in an anti-Bama post without tagging me in it also counts as shitting on my lawn.  You ain’t smart and you ain’t sneaky.  Just don’t do it.  I will not miss seeing your really bad haircut, pictures of your stubby toes sporting a brand new pedicure or your 4,200 calorie dinner on Facebook.  Try me, suckers.

4.  Did you go to school with me?  You have about a 99.7% chance of being a total twat waffle to me during college football season.  Former classmates, we lived in a very, very small town.  Males and females both, the following is for you:  I know what you looked like in school and I have pictures.  I won’t name names but I probably/definitely shot Elmer’s glue up your nose one day in retaliation for stealing my markers.  You used to bring the Sears catalog to school and point out which engagement ring you were going to buy me someday.  I might have accidentally pushed you off the monkey bars one day because you refused to quit pulling my pig tails even after I warned you to stop multiple times.  We stuffed our training bras together because, you know, girl unity and all that shit.  We traded Swatches in the hallway in between classes.  I was your lookout when you just had to smoke that cigarette in the girl’s bathroom.  I taught you how to kiss using the air and my own lips, bitch.  You used to listen to Sting incessantly and insisted on wearing nothing but trench coats because it “looked cool” and Sting-y.  I know who your very first kiss was, maybe even your first lay.  I helped cover for you when you were making out hot and heavy in the back of the band bus on the way back home from away games.  Do you really want to piss me off over a football game?  A game that includes the two-point conversion option, which I have had to explain to you multiple times?  I didn’t think so.

5.  Do you know someone who went to school with me and we became “friends” through witty banter on Facebook but you’ve never actually met me in real life? I’m not sure how to say this, but your chance of being the biggest ass clown in the world just went terminal.  There is no hope.  You have little or nothing at stake.  We have no past history so your dick grows ten times its normal size and you feel free to trash talk Bama at will to me.  I have lived without your ass for 44 years and I can live without it for another 44.  Tuck your tiny dick back in your pants and look up your own team’s stats for entertainment.

6.  Then there are those people who don’t get excited about college football until Alabama loses and makes a bit of room for their sucky team in the standings and then suddenly, THEY ARE ALL ABOUT THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL.  They want all the college football.  They haven’t posted once about college football all season but suddenly turn into Lee Corsos and Kirk Herbstreits right before my eyes when The Tide takes a licking or their team pulls their heads out of their asses long enough to finally pull a two game winning streak.  Football becomes EXCITING AND FUN.  I call these people “bandwagoners”.  I have gotten trash talk texts from people who have literally never texted me before, or at least in years, because Bama had a bad day.  Those people are usually the bandwagoners.   I have a new rule.  Instead of ignoring your pussy texts like I did last year, I’m going to update this blog post to include your picture then send you the link every hour, on the hour, for a full 24 hours after I receive your texts.  M’kay, sweetie?

7.  I am capable of calmly and rationally talking football with you.  If you want to engage in an unemotional, factual discussion about college football and you can resist buying into the hype and drivel the latest talking head on ESPN is spewing, let’s do it.  Just don’t try to tell me how much of a legend “Johnny Football” is (Kenny Hill just blew that two year long bullshit saga out of the water last night with his performance against South Carolina) or that Bumfuck State may be able to make a run to the big game because they have a new water boy.

8.  Know your own team.  I met a Texas A&M Aggie fan last summer.  He was in a big group of people I went out to dinner with back home and was proudly wearing his Aggie cap.  It was August and football camps had started.  He got this smug “Oh, this is cute, I’ll bash Bama football with a defenseless girl” look on his face and attempted to do just that.  It took very little time for me to discover that he didn’t even know the date of the upcoming Alabama vs. Aggie game or basic stats of the previous season’s game between our teams yet he proudly boasted and crowed about beating Bama.  He didn’t know who the Aggies were playing in the first game of the season.  I quickly relieved him of the notion that girls don’t know anything about football and I had the smug “Aren’t you cute?” look in the end.  Not to pick on Aggie fans, but I’ve also talked football with an Aggie who, although he most definitely knew who “Johnny Football” was, could not tell me the name of his Head Coach.  It’s Sumlin, by the way.  Don’t insult me by attempting to belittle my team when you don’t know shit about your own.

9.  There are exceptions to every rule.  Last year, someone tried to call me out on what they saw as inconsistency in doling out my football policy.  There is literally one person who can get away with (although I might not talk to his ass for a week or so) joking with me about Alabama football.  He is an Oklahoma Sooner fan and long before OU kicked Bama’s ass in the Sugar Bowl last season, he supported me.  He supported me as a friend because he’s certainly not a Bama fan.  He knows the emotion I have for my team because he has the same for his team.  He knows how completely gut wrenching and literally sickening it is when you lose a football game when you care so much, when your every Saturday is completely structured around your team’s game, when offseason is spent comparing recruit stats and Depth Chart Day actually means something.  There have been many times during a game when things were looking down for Bama and my friend would send me a message, pointing out Bama’s strengths and not our weaknesses, telling me and E not to go into a spiraling depression, that Bama’s “got this”, even when we didn’t believe they did.  His wife, who has family in Alabama, sent me an Alabama Scentsy warmer for Christmas.  These unseen-by-most and very rare acts of football fandom kindness earn them a bit of extra leeway.  If that means I’m a hypocrite, so be it.

10.  I’m leaving this one blank because I’m sure some dipshit will make me amend these guidelines sometime this football season.

Y’all support your teams, be your team’s biggest fan, get naked and wear your team’s colors all over your body on game day and please send me a picture if you do that.  But play nice.  Stick to your own wall and don’t shit in someone else’s yard.  I’ve done it, I’m not innocent but the last several years have really opened my eyes to what “friendly joking” is and isn’t.

Being an Alabama fan has provided me with lots of opportunities to boast.  Many, many times, I could have retaliated by posting memes and jokes on friend’s walls after Bama pummeled their team, after that friend had posted trash talk and memes on my wall the whole week before the game.  Some won’t believe this but I get the greatest satisfaction from winning by remaining silent.  If you have a huge dick, you don’t have to shove a tube sock down your pants.  Feel free to make that your Inspirational Quote Of The Day but be sure to credit me.  Oh… and ROLL DAMN TIDE!