election

Things to Talk about at Thanksgiving Besides the Election

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

Trump is an asshole, and his supporters are (insert any expletive of your choice right here). That being said, there are literally families being torn apart over the election and its potentially life-altering, apocalyptic consequences. With Thanksgiving coming in just a matter of hours, I thought I’d bring you a fairly comprehensive list of topics to discuss with assholes you have to share a table (and the bathroom) with.

Whenever the topic shifts to the unpleasant, I advise you to pull a Mrs. Forbidger. She was the lovely elderly woman who supervised my internship, and she had this amazing habit. Whenever anyone entered the room with nasty workplace gossip, she would shut it down by looking down at her outfit and finding some article of clothing to comment on. Then she would smile brightly and say, “Do you think this blouse matches my skirt?”

The speaker would blink and stammer for a second, obviously thrown off by the sudden turn the conversation was taking. They would halfheartedly agree and then launch back into their angry tirade, only to have dear Mrs. Forbidger say, “I wasn’t sure I had anything to match it in my closet, but it was on sale for just eight dollars! I couldn’t pass that up!”

Typically, all parties in the room–including me–would look at the poor woman as if she was teetering on the edge of Alzheimer’s, until the day she caught my eye during an exchange of this kind and winked. That crafty woman. So here is your own prepared list of Mrs. Forbidger-style topics; seriously, if things get ugly, just literally blurt out one of these things and shift the conversation towards squid penises and your poop biome.

Below is a list of “safe topics” that can be blurted out right in the middle of someone’s rant. Proceed with caution, though, as the potential for it to only fan the flames is mentioned in parentheses. Those with an asterisk are especially useful for families that don’t serve alcohol at these functions.

  1. Did you know you can make frisbees out of cornstarch, water, oil, and a microwave? * (DANGER! The old “kids today are spoiled, they’d never play with a frisbee unless it was made out of an iPhone” rant.)
  2. Speaking of history, George Washington wore a size thirteen shoe. (WARNING! Could lead to a screaming match about Pence getting booed at Hamilton!)
  3. The rearview mirror was invented for Indy Car racing so they could shed the extra weight of carrying a guy to face backwards and tell them when to change lanes. * (BEWARE! This could trigger someone who’s lost his job to a Mexican (not really) to scream about downsizing!)
  4. The sun’s core temperature is 73 million degrees (CAUTION! This topic could lead to an argument on clean energy and climate change! Tread carefully and guard the sharp objects!)
  5. Paper towels were invented by mistake when some rolls of toilet paper came off the line too thick and wavy to be used. * (WATCH OUT! Your crazy aunt is going to complain about your uncle never changing the toilet paper roll!)
  6. McDonald’s actually sends its managers to Hamburger U in one of eleven different locations. (DANGER! Potential Trump U tie-in which could lead to a knocked over glass!)
  7. Having one blue eye and one brown eye actually isn’t all that uncommon. It happens in about one out of every 500 people. (DANGER! For some reason, this will make someone think of Muslims, even though I don’t know why!)
  8. Forget reading tea leaves…I’ve been seeing a scatomancy expert, and his ability to tell my future just by looking at my poop is uncanny. (WARNING! Potential precursor to a spewing diatribe on why we need to eliminate Eastern religions!)
  9. People who live in the Andes Mountains have two to three more quarts of blood in them than the rest of the people in the world. (DANGER! Be prepared for a response pertaining to “and this is why we need to hurry up and build that wall…to keep those extra-bloody Hispanics out” even though the idiot brother who said this doesn’t know that people in the Andes aren’t Mexicans!)
  10. A newborn baby’s brain grows at a rate of 1.5mg per minute (DANGER! Possible lead towards a plate-throwing tirade about women’s reproductive rights!)
  11. Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first. * (BEWARE! Could lead to loud proclamations on NASA wasting money looking for water on Mars!)
  12. The Natives Americans offered the Pilgrims lobster from the bay, but the Pilgrims wouldn’t eat them because they thought they were bugs. * (DANGER! Potential spark of gas-fueled fire towards a discussion on the Dakota pipeline!)
  13. Did you know Hitler was– (ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! Do not mention the name Hitler around that bunch of Nazis! Holy crap, it’s like you’ve never even met these people! They’re CRAZY!)

The Hilarious Story about the Time I Had a Late-Term Abortion

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

The original title of this post was “Oh, You’re Pro-Life? Here’s A Primer on Why You’re a Douche.” I decided after much soul-searching and two bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill to change it.

Since late-term abortion is a hotly contested issue in this election, one that is currently dividing the nation like nothing but racism, pussy grabbing, and Trump U can, a few women have come forward to publish the heart-wrenching stories of their own late-term abortions. Their intentions were to clear up the misconception that the JackassOP is sharing, this notion that women can change their minds a week before their due dates and demand that their doctors rip the fetus limb from limb and suction the pieces out into oblivion.

These women shared very legitimate reasons for late-term abortions, namely, that something had gone horribly wrong and they had to terminate their pregnancies to save their own lives. They eloquently made the very valid point that no one is having a late-term abortion the week before her due date simply because she’d changed her mind about the whole thing.

Except I’m here to tell you that I did. Literally. Like, an actual week before my due date. Here’s how it went down.

I was happily married and already the mother of a wonderful, precious baby girl. My husband and I decided to go for two, and we ended up pregnant again. This is where I need to stop and make sure the rabid pro-lifers in the audience are keeping up, since I don’t want to go too fast or use any big words that they can’t understand.

Moving on. I’m pregnant, it’s a week before my due date, and I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve literally changed my mind. It’s not that I didn’t want another baby, but I just couldn’t stand being pregnant anymore. My clothes didn’t fit, I couldn’t reach the gas pedal when I drove because I had to scoot my seat way back, it was all just a giant fiasco. Plus, Thanksgiving was coming up and I just didn’t want to hear my in-laws’ asinine jokes about checking my timer to see if I’d popped yet.

I went to my doctor on a Monday and begged her to end it. She checked me over, smiled sweetly, and told me to fuck off. (Not really, but pretty much.) The “thing” I was carrying inside me was officially her patient as well, and the bitch wouldn’t do anything to upset that little parasite.

So I cried all the way home–while leaning the seat way back to reach the gas pedal–and got online. I Googled all the different ways I could just make this happen on my own. And let me tell you, they were pretty gross. The only one that didn’t sound painful or like it would cause permanent injury was to walk a lot, so that’s what I did. I went to the mall, purposely left my wallet in the car so I wouldn’t buy anything, and walked for hours.

By Wednesday, it kinda worked. I felt this terrible ripping pain across my abdomen, a sure sign that I’d managed to abort my own baby in the food court. I immediately called my doctor, who told me to meet her at the hospital. Once I got there, they hooked me up to all kinds of machines (none of which, I later found out, make you have an abortion…the shit heads…) and discovered I was having contractions. It worked! Those home abortions tips really worked!

Then it stopped. Nothing. Nada. Not even a flutter of escape. But fortunately, my doctor must be some kind of immoral baby-killing guru because she looked at the printout and measured me, then declared me ready to have this baby. She told me to get a good night’s sleep–yeah, like that’s gonna happen…lack of sleep is the whole reason I’d changed my mind on being pregnant in the first place!–and said to come back first thing in the morning and I could have my abortion. She mentioned that I’d be there for at least 48 hours afterwards, and that I had to pack a few things for the fetus to wear home. She also mentioned something about needing a DOT-approved car seat for the fetus to ride in, but I wasn’t really paying attention due to the euphoria of successfully changing my mind.

The next day, sure enough, they hooked me up to some stuff, gave me an IV and an epidural (fuck you, all you haters who think I should have had to writhe in pain for being such a godless, leg-spreading whore who got herself pregnant and then didn’t want to have it), and thirteen hours later, the procedure was done.

It was really weird, though: there were no steel hooks driven into the back of the baby’s skull, no vacuuming machines, no limbs being ripped apart. It was actually a whole lot like the first time I gave birth.

AND THAT’S BECAUSE IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE FIRST TIME I GAVE BIRTH, YOU HATE-MONGERING TWAT-WAFFLES! DO YOU SERIOUSLY BELIEVE THAT WOMEN ARE “CHANGING THEIR MINDS” THE WEEK BEFORE THE DUE DATE, SO THE DOCTOR KILLS THE BABY?! NO, YOU NASTY CRAPAHOLIC! THE DOCTOR DELIVERS THE FUCKING BABY BECAUSE IT’S A LIVING BABY! WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU RIP IT APART WHEN IT’S A SEVEN-POUND-SEVEN-OUNCE HUMAN FUCKING BEING?!

Whoa, sorry. I don’t know what happened. I haven’t been that ragey and hormonal since the last time I was pregnant and ended it all a week before my due date. I’m kidding.

Now, in all seriousness, this mostly-true story (true about the not wanting to be pregnant part, not true about getting rid of my kid; she’s amazing and turns fourteen this month) is meant to illustrate the sadness I feel for pro-life douchebags who’ve been lied to by someone with an agenda and then don’t have the intelligence to discern fact from fiction. There are horrible, life-destroying reasons why a mother has to terminate a pregnancy near the end, and none of them are ever because the woman simply changed her mind. But small-minded assholes believe the bigger assholes who told them this, and they struggle every day under the weight of their own stupidity.

Please, people, be sensible. Think it through. Listen to the medical facts, not the political rhetoric. And if you wanna have your own abortion–at any point along the way–get some advice that doesn’t come with a dose of Bible verses and some slut-shaming. You’re welcome.