OH, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Politicians like to say that ejuice companies are marketing to children with flavors like Bubble Gum and Cotton Candy.

How stupid would that be? They say children and they are right. Children, (like) 4-11 year olds go ape shit over any type of candy. They are actual kids. However, in this instance they show you pictures of teens.

Lets just get around the psychology of that for a second. 

"~~I am a teen ager. I am contemplating smoking, with all the other cool teenagers in the smoke pit. (the cool is perceived, but I am dumb, I am a teenager) But now there are new things out there (I do not live under a rock and I am a teenager, I WILL try it) called ecigs. I have one and approach the smoke pit with it. There are other vapers there. ~~"

"Hey, (other cool kid) What flavor are you vaping?"

There is not a teen on this planet that wants to say, "Oh its Bubble Gum!" They might as well wear a sign that says, "Ridicule me mercilessly until I puke!"

I can say that I am vaping bubble gum...I am an adult and no longer give a shit what others think is cool. I vape it for the flavor not for the stupid name. Some of it is nostalgic.

So, cutsy flavors are appealing to the 4-11 year olds, but they have no money so who cares? THEY CAN'T BUY IT, THEY HAVE NO MONEY! And if you are an adult and have said 4-11 year olds living in your home with your kid-appealing ejuice flavors, it is on you to police that shit. Not me.

"De minimis non curat lex"

- the law does not concern itself with trifles.

I beg to differ.

Take this ridiculous news story that is making the rounds. Like something out of a sitcom.

A 12 year-old Quebec girl sues father over grounding.

And they wonder why kids are the way they are today. It is because today's tree-hugging, politically correct society is teaching kids that there are no consequences for their actions.

And now they want to make it illegal for parents to discipline their children. These people that are supposedly in place to protect children, I wonder.

Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law (FCYL), that worked so doggedly to make it illegal for loving parents to spank their children is the very same group that successfully worked to make it legal for a stranger to sodomize a 14-year-old!

Do they even read their own memos?

I don't even know what this idiot is trying to say.

The comments posted by a great many readers in reference to the anti-spanking bill suggest that physical punishment has been the personal experience of many adults during their own childhood. The common sentiment is that it can't be so bad if they turned out OK.

We did turn out ok. And I bet you that anyone who tells you they were spanked as a child, can also tell you that they can count on one hand how many times they got spanked, and have fingers left over.

That is because spanking taught us that there were consequences to bad behavior.

For a supposedly educated group of people, they don't seem to be able to recognize the difference between discipline and abuse. I didn't go to college, but I can tell you I know the difference.

Is there such a shortage of work in the legal profession that they have to take on a 12 year old kid having a snit fit?

The lawyer, Lucie Fortin, defended her decision to take this case by claiming the camping trip — a common year-end activity across the country for students in their final year of elementary school — was a rite of passage. “This was something that would never happen again in the child’s life. And for me that was really important … This was not a question of going to the movies or not, or going online or not — because obviously, I wouldn’t have intervened in that.”

Obviously, cuz that would be stupid. Are you kidding me? I don't know about you but I can smell a cheap publicity stunt a mile away. It's a freaking camping trip, not a moon landing.

And just how does a 12 year old get a lawyer? Why her brain-dead mother takes her to one, that's how. Congratulations, Mom, you have all the future makings of a crack whore right there. Never mind that she is posting lewd pictures of herself on the internet, let her express herself however she feels fit. Take a bow.

I hope for that child's sake her father does get custody of her, cuz I can tell you her mother is not doing her any favors.

If she even makes it to high school without an STD, she can look forward to ending up like one of these idiots.

Teen ‘pregnancy pact’ has US town reeling in shame.

This one almost makes me laugh. Cuz I can see the future, and those kids are getting the best punishment ever. "Well you got pregnant when you were 14, Mom, I don't see the big deal."

That is karma, Baby!

Summer vacation is over. Thank Fuck!

Sometimes the boy will ask a question I know the answer to, but don't. Does that make sense?

Mostly he will ask me questions that he knows I don't have the answer to and could never know.

"Why is the sun yellow?"

Ok, I could probably find out the answer to that, but I am busy catching up on live feed updates for Big Brother and I don't give a fuck why the sun is yellow. He does this, I realize, just to get on my last fucking nerve. I can not wait until school starts.

He sees that I am reading something, so he starts.

"What is Labour day?"

"It's a holiday for workers."

"But why do schools have it off?"

"Teachers work."

"But why..." I know he really doesn't give a flying fart about any of this, he is just trying to bug me. I should have called the little bastard Butt Why, he says it enough.

"Why are you wondering about this? You have Google, don't you?"

So, here it is. Everything you ever wanted to know about Labour Day.

Have a good one.

Not a rhetorical question.

What exactly are you thinking?

Girls who post semi-nude pics of themselves on MySpaces. Or a strip-tease on YouTube.

Ya, you might think it is cute now, but have you ever thought of running for office? What do you mean, no way? How can you know that at 15? Well, I guess you have pretty much screwed yourself anyway. Suffice to say that at this point you would be laughed off any ballot except for the Marijuana party. You can kiss the republican nomination good bye.

What about having children? Ever think of how you would feel if you stumbled across a picture of your mother on Plentyofish, spread eagle on your living room couch? (Suppose you could tell Junior that it was the Super Bowl and that's a V for victory. Ya, he'll buy that.)

Unless you are planning to go into the oldest profession, never have children or become the oldest stripper on the planet, you need to think this shit through.

And guys, you are not off the hook. Shocking your parents by having a swastika tattooed to your forehead might seem like the thing to do right now, but unless you are planning a career as a carny, you need to wake the fuck up!

Technology and pop culture today makes it too easy to fuck up your life at a much younger age than ever before.

Another reason The Boy will need therapy.

I was reminded of a story.

I have to tell you another story first, like a setup. Otherwise this one won't make sense.

When The Boy was about 3 I was trying one day to get his attention. Calling his name over and over and he was completely ignoring me. Finally he turns to me with the snootiest look on his face, like some kind of royal prince and said, "You will address me as Chuck." I kid you not.

For about a month, he would answer to no other name and referred to himself in the third person. "Chuck would like a cookie." Or, "Chuck will be watching TV in his room." Always using that same snooty tone. He would also not wear certain clothes, saying they were not his, they were The Boy's. That sort of thing. He was three.

Eventually he got bored and dropped it.

Fast forward.

When the boy was 6 or so he was being a real demon. Spouting shit like he didn't have to be a good boy. I was not the boss of him, and I couldn't make him do anything. If I touched him he would call the police. (Even then he watched too much Oprah)

Anyway I was about at the end of my rope. When I finally grabbed a hold of him by the front of his shirt, pulled him close so we were face to face and said in my best Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry voice, "You used to have an older brother. His name was Chuck!"

The look on his face was priceless. I could see that he vaguely remembered a mention of someone named Chuck, he just couldn't remember where.

He was an angel....for about a week.

Cheaper by the dozen.

Angelina Jolie should just
buy an orphanage
and be done with it.

Licensed to Kill Drive.

Took the boy for his learners permit the other day. Just the initial written test. With this permit he can learn to drive.

He passes. The written test. And then thinks I will let him drive home.

"Boy, all you are qualified to do at this point is draw us a map home."

I will see how he does in an empty parking before putting my life in his hands on the open road.

Careful what you wish for.

My friend Bunnie was wondering why she never makes the blog. To tell you the truth, I could have a whole other blog with nothing but Bunnie. The material from her day to day could fill three blogs. She is what you would call a huge personality. Everything it huge with her, dramatic. Her work, her health, stress level, kid trouble even going for coffee is a drama. (I will have to remember to describe that whole experience.)

I don't know how else to describe it but its huge, grand, dramatic. The kind of stories you have to tell in an Italian accent with a lot of hand and arm movement. Just BIG. I don't know if I can do it justice in print. You really need to hear it with the voices. She actually whines, not the annoying kind of whine but the one that makes you go, 'awwww that is so pitiful'. And then laugh your ass off. It is a good thing that she doesn't take herself as seriously as she seems to. She does understand that she sounds pitiful and can laugh about it. Well hopefully she can.

But we will leave Bunnie out of this (mostly). Tonight it is all about her daughter. She calls her The Lump.

Anyway. Last night The Lump was sick and had to be taken to the emergency room. In our neck of the woods it is called The Out Door or Out Patients.

Right off the hop, you knew she was sick. Judging from the way she was dressed leaving the house. She is 16, she does not take a dump unless she has makeup on. And around here, you just don't go to the out door unless you are near death. It is just not the place to be. It's not like the TV show, you could be there for days. Unless you are bleeding from the jugular, and even then they will ask you to try not to make a mess on the floor.

At one point a woman walked by us carrying a toothbrush. She entered one of the rooms, (I peeked) she looked like she had moved in. She had probably been there so long they foreclosed on her house. I looked at Bunnie and nodded. "Lifer."

The Lump had been throwing up since early that morning and I was having a little trouble with it myself. She hadn't eaten all day, so there was nothing to throw up. I wish I could describe the sound. The best I can come up with is the Lion from Wizard of Oz. Not so much a roar as a gurgle. Yuck! I hate hearing anyone lose their lunch. I am the most unsympathetic person you will ever meet in that situation. Hell, I used to have to get my mother to come over if the Boy threw up. I see vomit, and I vomit. Suddenly its the restaurant scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. "Part VI: The Autumn Years"

Unlike the TV show no one is ever rushing. EVER. Nurses, doctors, orderlies, all moving at a snails pace. Like the floors were just mopped and they were scared they might slip and break a nail or something. I think their policy is, if we leave them alone long enough one of two things will happen. One, they will get better or Two, they will die. Either way we won't have to do a fucking thing.

At one point they had taken the Lump off the IV and over to x-rays, and left her there. Finally I said, Fuck it and wheeled her back myself. Mind you she did not enjoy the ride, it was my first time driving one of those big-ass beds, so I did knock her around a bit. But we got there in practically one piece. And no one noticed.

Bunnie and I went for a smoke. Surely by the time we came back, her IV would be back in? After all, didn't they make a big deal about changing it. Made is seem like a miraculous concoction of potassium and sugar. Like a banana split, only gross. Surely they would rush to have her back on this wondrous drip?

NOT. We were starting to get the feeling that we would have to treat this like a buffet, cuz the service sucked.

We return from our smoke and the IV is standing at the end of the hallway. Did I mention that all this was happening in the hallway? No room for the Lump. She had to be sick as a dog in the hallway. The poor thing was hacking up a lung every 10 minutes. How do I know it was every 10 minutes? Well at one point the nurse says, "Ya, we were around the corner timing it." Oh, so you were at least doing something productive. Can I get in on the pool?

So, I walk up to the IV and loud enough for one of the three nurses standing around having tea to hear. I start handling it and say, "I could probably hook this shit up myself. How hard could it be?" I get nothing from the nurses. Maybe they thought I would actually attempt it, thus saving them from having to do anything. That's when Bunnie snapped. She walks up to one of the nurses and says, disgusted, "Uh, the doctor wanted that hooked back up." That got the bitch moving.

An hour later she is feeling a bit better. When the IV goes back in the Lump begins to whine that it is hurting her. This is when I start to mess with her a little. After all she is feeling better, and I am getting bored. I start inspecting the IV, reading the instructions and inspecting the tubing for bubbles.

"Hmm, is there supposed to be so many bubbles?" Her eyes fly open. "Relax. I was told there had to be 6 inches of air before it would ever kill ya. I wonder if they meant 6 inches total or...?"

Then I drop the tubing and she squeaks. "Owww, don't move the tube, it hurts." That is when I recall Bunnie telling me about how the Lump had pulled a horror show the other day and was verbally abusive with her Grandmother.

I pick up the tubing again. "That's for being mean to your Grandma."

She looks at me and says, "She deserved it." I drop the tubing. "OUCH! Oh my God, Mom, where did you find this psycho?" I pick up the tubing again. Florence Nightingale I am not.

Finally the doctor shows up, I think it was hour 5. He is old, and looks like he was rode hard and put up wet. The best he can do is say it was 'flu like'. If she gets better, she gets better. If not, he lets the sentence trail off. We waited 5 hours for those pearls of wisdom.

THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR WHILE BARFING YOUR GUTS UP IN THE ER:

"Oh my God, Lump. Look at that boy, he is gorgeous!"

The cleaner walks buy, she has a quizzical look on her face. She begins talking to herself. "What is that smell?" If you don't know, I don't know who does.

When asked what the diagnosis could be, the nurse replied, like we had asked her the meaning of life. "Who knows, who really knows?" Well, Bitch, since you are the medical professional we were sorta hoping it was you!

Hour 3 a nurse walks by the retching Lump. "She doesn't look that great." Is that your professional opinion, asshole? If that is how you feel, maybe you should do something? Apparently not, she didn't even stop for a closer look.

Upon hearing the ambulance sirens approach the nurse says, "Listen to that. The bastards." Ya, they might ask you to actually do something tonight.

Ok, Bunnie, your next.

There is a special place in hell for thankless children.

-from 2002, repost for carnival.

My son calls me yesterday. Wants to know if I can get paid early? Someone at the skate park is selling his board for $30 and he wants it.

"You have a board."

"Mom! My board is crap, this one is worth $100 and he"s selling it cheap."

"I'll see what I can do"

Well I know how much he loves skateboarding and I get all mushy inside. I go ask the boss if I can get paid early, no easy task since I spent the better part of that morning in a screaming match with him. (it was a draw)

Now I leave work, check in hand, and head to my friends house to see if she can cash it for me since the banks are closed. Half way there I realize that I am nearly out of gas, running on fumes. If she can"t cash the check I am walking home.

Twenty minutes later I am on my way back to town, bank card in hand. I get the cash and call my son on his cell phone.

"Never mind Mom, the kid sold it to someone else. Later" Click.

GOOD GRIEF! Your welcome.

I am still sore from baseball last weekend, hobbling around, dragging my old bones home at last, its 6:15pm. I walk in the door, and I want to cry. I am by no stretch of the imagination an even mediocre housekeeper, but my son lost his mind today, and quite possibly his life when he gets home.

Before me lay clothes, papers and miscellaneous sporting equipment strewn in a path from the front door through the kitchen and living room all the way back to my bedroom. I can"t believe that that kid had the nerve to ask me for money.

One hour later my son comes rushing in, "Mom, can we put that $30 in the bank so we can save for a new board?" When he says "we" he means me. "Fine" I tell him, I"ll give you the $30, you clean the house."

That"s when he really lost his mind. He starts to rant and rave and go on. His head starts to spin and he starts spewing pea soup. (ok that isn"t exactly accurate, but pretty close)

"I have to do everything around here, I can"t clean the whole house, God, I am only 11."

My turn to lose my mind, "What all, exactly, do you do around here?"

He looks at me, "I take the garbage out to the basement and then to the curb." He is serious. He thinks he has won the argument.

"Ok, when you took the garbage to the curb last time, how many bags were there?"

He is not sure where I am going with this but he raises his eyes to the ceiling, thinking, counting on his fingers, "6 whole bags!" he says. He seriously believes that this is a huge number.

"Lets break this down. The garbage truck comes every two weeks, so in 14 days you have taken out 6 bags. So if you only took one bag out on any given day, you would have 8 days where you did nothing. Hmmm. If it takes you, say, 30 seconds to take the bag out of the house, and another 30 to take each bag from the basement to the curb. That"s a minute a bag. $30 for 6 bags, $5 per bag per minute?"

"Sounds right." He doesn"t really want to do the math, so he concedes.

"At $5 per minute, you want me to pay you $300 per hour. How do I get THAT job?!!!"

He is speechless now, and I am cleaning the house myself. I finally get to the end of the papers and I turn around, I can"t believe it, he has actually dropped his coat in the middle of the living room floor.

At that moment I understood how people, who were not wise to begin with, could kill their own children.

Calmly I look at him, "Just how long do you imagine I will consent to live this life? Where I go to work each day to a job I hate, so I can feed and clothe you and buy you skateboards when the whim takes you, getting nothing but shit on in return? Hmmm?"

I leave him to ponder this as I lock myself in the bathroom, just in case the urge to kill him truly takes hold of me.

Stop me if you've heard this one.

(Thought I blogged about this before, but I did a search and I guess I never did.)

When the boy was about 6 or 7 he was a holy terror. He would push me to the brink. I totally understood why some people who weren't wired right to begin with, could kill their children.

Anyway. This one particular day, I remember he was like some sort of Chinese water torture, he would not stop no matter what I said, or how loud I screamed. I snapped.

I slammed out of the house and kicked in the door to the basement. I was routing around in there and was being pretty loud, the boy came out to investigate. Finally I emerged with a shovel. He looked worried. He demanded to know what I was doing. I ignored him and proceeded to survey the lawn. By that time I was calm. I had a purpose.

I walked back and forth with the shovel, testing the ground. Finally I found just the right spot. From his vantage point on the deck he had a perfect view of the spot I chose.

That's when I started to dig. He kept taunting me, "Hey crazy lady, what are you doing?"

After about 30 minutes I had a pretty good hole dug, about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. (although not very deep, but you get the idea) Every so often, I would look up to where he was watching me as if I were measuring him.

He would not stop screaming at me, even then. Going on and on about whatever it was that he had been mad at me for to begin with.

Finally I was finished. I stuck the shovel in the ground, looked at the hole like I was satisfied and headed for the house.

I was heading for the house when he screamed, "What the hell is the hole for." (Yes, he was 6 and he said Hell. I am not kidding about the holy terror thing.)

As I passed him on the deck, I didn't even skip a beat. I just smiled at him and said, very calmly, "It's for you."

Not surprisingly, he was as good as gold the rest of that day. And I kept that hole for a long time. With this shovel stuck in the ground, and when he got really obnoxious, I would go outside and dig it a little deeper.

Who's your friend?

I picked up the boy from his friends house the other week.It was 10:30pm and he had been there all day.

He got in the car and I almost choked. I could taste the cloud of body spray that surrounded him.

I start hacking and spitting, very dramatically. Opened the window and tried to hang out. He is looking at me very sheepishly.

"Dude, don't ever do this to me again."

"What?"

I roll my eyes. "Do I have moron tattooed to my forehead?"

Silence.

"You know that shit makes me sick...and I can still smell the pot."

I don't know why he thinks he can or has to hide it from me. We have had the discussion. I know he smokes pot. We talked at length about pot vs pills. I drilled it though his head that I will not tolerate pills of any kind. We talked about the fact that you just don't know what people are putting into the pills these days.

Back in my day, we knew exactly what was in everything. One of my friends brothers was in pharmacy school when we were in high school. He would make the shit for us. We never had to worry about what they were cutting it with. (I swear our actual conversation was more profound, but I am paraphrasing for time here)

Anyway, cut to today. I go to pick the boy up at the bus stop and he is not there. Not a big deal, sometimes he decides to go to a fiends after school, and he can't really call me. He usually messages me at work to tell me where he is.

Tonight I had no word. Great. I work myself into a migraine and leave work early. I walk in and the place is dark.

I open his door and he is lying in bed. He is awake, no tv, no computer. He is just lying there. I start to talk to him and he sounds like I woke him. I turn on the light. His eyes are completely bloodshot. I ask him how he got home, he says he walked.

"Why would you walk, your father lives in Who-ville. Why didn't you call him?" It's 15 below zero outside.

He says, "I had a dollar."

"What? Who the hell cares if you had a dollar."

"He does." With that he points to something behind me. I start looking around, maybe he thinks his friend is here with him. There is nothing. It was like talking to someone who was still asleep.

Then he looks at me as if it is the first time he has seen me tonight and says, "What?"

Great, can't wait to find out, what the hell he was on.

Grandma in training.

The Boy has a brother and a sister. The best kind, the kind I personally didn't have to give birth to.

He doesn't see them all that often, although he sees them a whole lot more often than he sees his father. Now that his little brother Liam is a little older (he's 5 now) he comes and stays overnight. He and his brother are a lot alike. The good news is, they never act up when they are at houses that are not their own. That said, his little brother is a complete angel when he is here and I just love having him.



I have seen him in his natural habitat and I have witnessed him during a full blown fit. I looked at his mother and said,

"Oh my God, if I close my eyes, that could be Boy. You know what this means don't you? It's the 'Surname' gene."

It is nice to know that I am not the only one who gets to experience these fits. My son has one daily and since the only common denominator is his father, we can blame it all on him. ( I just love it when that happens)

But I digress, yesterday Liam came to visit. Later in the day he asked if he could stay over. He is so cute and talks like he is from Jersey, so you just can�t say no to him. So we load into the car and head over to meet his mother. She of course agrees and Liam yells,

�O day, yets doe. Det dome moobies and dunk!� (translation�Ok let�s go, get some movies and junk) He is too cute. I think half the reason he likes to come to our house is because I load him up on all the junk his mother doesn�t let him have.

One time he told me that I shouldn't buy him candy. I asked him why and he said , �duz my mom dunna let me had candy.� (I could just eat him) I look around dramatically, under the car and behind him and say, �Do you see your mother anywhere? I don�t see her.� Then he flashes me a devilish grin and we head into the store for the candy. Mind you he never eats much of it, but it�s fun anyway.

Well on the way home tonight, he mentions that he had a birthday, and I missed it. (I felt really bad, no one even mentioned it to me), �Dats oday,� he says, �you diddin no.� After a comment like that I, of course, had to take him to the mall and buy him a toy, and one for his sister since I missed her birthday too. We load up on toys, pick up some movies and junk and head home. He didn�t eat any junk and only made it through half of the movie.

This must be what it is like to have grandchildren, spoil them, load them up on sugar and then send them home.