I Heart My Little A-Holes Read online

  I’m gonna wash that gray right out of my pubes

  Tis the season to let your bush grow. But the other day my friend invited me over for a Girls’ Night Out in her hot tub and she invited me like five days in advance so there would be plenty of time to lawn-mow my bikini line. Usually she invites me at the last minute which means I don’t have enough time to groom “down under” (shout out to all the Australians reading this!) so I make the ladies close their eyes while I’m getting in and out of the hot tub. You think I’m kidding but I am not. I have good friends who are willing to do this for me, and I know that none of them have peeked yet because none of them have thrown up or turned to stone.

  You see, basically I don’t have a bikini line. I have hair shorts. I mean they’re not like hair Bermudas or anything, but if I don’t shave it looks like I’m wearing Daisy Dukes that are made of hair. FYI, please do not write me a letter that you are so thankful you are NOT one of these people and that God/genetics gave you wonderful blonde hair in all the right places and none of the wrong places. And if you feel the need to say shit like this to me, please include your return address so I can come kick your ass. And steal your bush so I can have it surgically implanted on my hoo-ha.

  Anyways, while the kiddos were napping I locked myself in the bathroom (as opposed to what? When they’re not napping and I lock myself in the bathroom?), and I lined up all of my instruments on the counter. Razor, tweezers, sticky wax sheet thingies I found once at Walgreens and have never been able to find again, an electronic device that spins really quickly and rips the hair out (nahhhh, it’s not painful if I imbibe the right mix of vodka and Oxycontin) and a lawnmower. And then I started the painstaking process of grooming my bearded clam.

  About halfway through, this happened.

  ME: Agggggghhhhhhhh! WTF is that?!

  Holy shit, my midlife crisis was finally legit. OMG, OMG, OMG, I tried to remember the breathing techniques I once learned in baby class, but I hadn’t paid much attention because I was too busy laughing at words like vagina and anus. As I sat there in my bathroom looking down, I realized that one of my worst fears had come true. There he was. A little rat bastard standing there staring me right in the face. A gray pube. A mother F’ing curly little gray pube.

  And if you’re wondering why I’d get so hung up on one measly little hair, I’ll tell you why. Because do you know how horny gray hairs are? They’re like F’ing bunnies. You go to sleep and when you wake up they’ve multiplied. I know this from the ones on my head. I fully expect to have a totally gray bush in the next two months.

  But I gotta wonder, when they come in “down there,” how will they come in? Will they be haphazardly scattered throughout the field? Or will they come in on the sides in gray patches like Mitt Romney’s sideburns? Or maybe there will be one gray streak down the middle like Stacy London on What not to Wear.

  STACY LONDON: I tell you what, honey— that gray hair on your pink taco is what not to wear.

  But alas, does it really matter how it comes in? The bottom line is that one day soon the carpet will not match the drapes. Like Samantha said in Sex and the City, “I have AARPussy.” I usually don’t like to steal other people’s shit, but there’s no better name for it. My pussy is officially on the do not resuscitate list.

  I’m F’ed. Or maybe I’m not anymore.

  A lot of shit you don’t need when you’re having a baby

  So you’ve just walked into Babies R Us for the first time ever and one of the employees (who either had a lobotomy or needs one) hands you this little booklet that has a list of allllllllllll the shit you’re going to need for the upcoming arrival of your little poop machine.

  And that’s where the fun begins. And by fun I mean the crazy torture of going up and down each and every aisle trying to figure out whether you need F’ing nipple shields or Butt paste. The correct answer is yes and yes.

  With that said, man did we buy a lot of crap for Baby #1. Baby #2, on the other hand, got all hand-me-downs. Yup, every single little thing. Yes, even the diapers. And no they weren’t cloth. I don’t care how good cloth diapers are for the environment, there ain’t no way I’m putting turds into my washing machine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Except for the fact that you’re putting turds into your washing machine. But I digress.

  So here goes. A bunch of shit I bought when I was having a baby that I now know was a total waste:

  1. A fancy bedding set

  Like two seconds after you tear open your fancy bedding package a BabyCenter email appears in your inbox. Ding! Bumpers killed 9 million babies last year (FYI, I like to exaggerate, it was only like 7 million). Okay then, no problemo, you just won’t use the bumpers. And then you’re reading your What to Expect book and it tells you what to expect in the first year: expect your baby to die if you put a blanket in his crib. Okay then, you’ll just throw the quilt on the back of the nursing chair for decoration, which totally doesn’t work because then your head is all shoved forward when you sit in the chair. So basically you’ve just spent a bazillion dollars on a single fitted crib sheet. A single sheet that is about to be destroyed when your newborn poops his brains out the first night home from the hospital. And I don’t care how much Shout you use, that shit stain ain’t coming out. So you have two choices. A. Don’t buy the totally adorable bedding set to begin with. Or B. Buy a set with a lovely brown amoeba pattern all over it so the shit stains blend in.

  2. Clothes that go over a newborn’s head

  Have you ever tried to put clothes on a newborn? F’ing impossible. You’re all like my new baby has a really strong neck until you’re pulling that really cute onesie over her head to take her home from the hospital and suddenly her neck is like Jello and her head falls off and you’re screaming, “NURSE NURSE!” and she’s walking in all cool and collected like they see this shit all the time. Well, at least that cute leopard-print onesie with the Burberry trim is soooo adorable maybe no one will notice that your child is headless.

  3. A wipes warmer

  Yeahhh, that’s what you want to do, let baby get used to having his royal ass cleaned with a wipe that’s been heated to the perfect temperature. ’Cause then do you know what happens? You’re out in public trying to change his diaper and he throws a conniption because your wipes in the diaper bag are freezing and his ass has turned into a total pussy (wait, that’s not right). Besides, do you think someone like the Fonz had warm wipes when he was a tike (tyke?)? No way, no how. Because people who have warm wipes as infants turn into douchebags. No, I don’t have any examples, but it seems pretty damn obvious. So unless your Mum is Kate F’ing Middleton, no one’s heating your stupid wipes.

  4. Shoes for your newborn

  Newsflash, babies can’t walk. Plus, if you stare really hard at your baby’s feet you can literally see them growing, kind of like how if you stare really hard at a clock without blinking you can see the minute hand moving. So basically putting a newborn’s growing feet in shoes is akin to Chinese foot binding. Yes, I know those two-inch Air Jordans are like the cutest things in the whole wide world but maybe I forgot to mention, BABIES CAN’T WALK much less dunk a basketball. Except maybe those roller-skating Evian babies.

  5. Expensive baby clothes

  This one’s pretty much the same as the last part of #1. Just buy a lot of cheap shit from Tarjay or once again, buy everything with a brown amoeba pattern on it.

  6. A fancy stroller

  If you’re the kind of person who bought your house outright without a mortgage, I hate you. Wait, no, that’s not what I meant to say. If you’re that kind of person, by all means, buy a fancy delancy stroller. I remember standing in the middle of a high-end toy store while a woman half my size demonstrated the Bugabooger to me. “Push this button, then this one and voila it’s so compact it fits in the palm of your hand.” And then I remember this. Standing in the middle of the F’ing parking lot at Scabies R Us and I couldn’t get my damn fancy stroller to collapse because it had like
9,000 doodads and buttons and levers and thingamajigs. These days I’m like just give me a simple umbrella stroller, and if I want something fancier I’ll buy it for half the price on Craigslist. You know, in case I decide to chuck it across the parking lot and then drive over it with my minivan.

  7. A baby bathtub

  Guess what, your house already came with one. WHAT?! The realtor didn’t tell you?!! Hello brainiac, it’s called a sink. But wait, my sink doesn’t look like a cute whale or a duck! No, it doesn’t. But it also doesn’t cost an extra $30. Or come in a weird ass shape that doesn’t fit in any logical place in your bathroom. And guess what, your kiddo’s not thinking, “It’s not fair, Javier down the street has a bathtub that looks like a turtle and I don’t.” All he’s thinking is, “Aggghhh, who the fuck is pouring goddamn water on my head?! I’m gonna scream as loud as humanly possible until they stop!”

  8. Car seats

  I mean, WTF is it with everyone getting these things?! Nahhhh, just kidding. Seriously, I’m kidding. Awww, shit, how many people just read this and stopped reading because they hate me now? Definitely buy a car seat.

  9. The Bumbo seat

  There are all these companies out there that make stupid products to help your kid hit some milestone they’re gonna hit anyway, like the Bumbo. In case you don’t know, this is a little seat that props your kid up before he can actually sit up on his own. You’re gonna hear all these jackasses, I mean really nice moms, say that their kiddo wasn’t sitting up and then she got him the Bumbo and whatta you know, two weeks later the kid was sitting up. All because of this magic chair. Ennhhh, wrong. Your kid is sitting up now because he’s two weeks older. Not because you forced him to use his Bumbo and work his muscles into a damn six-pack. Who do you think you are, Jillian Michaels?

  10. Pee pee teepees

  FYI, pee pee teepees are just a cute present people buy because their gift only came to $15 and they needed a $5 item to make it expensive enough. Oh, and they’re always people who never had a boy so they have no idea that pee pee teepees don’t stay on, but of course, you never realize it’s fallen off until your kid starts spraying you with urine and some of it gets in your mouth.

  Are you F’ing kidding me? You wake up screaming at 3:15 in the morning and need to be rocked back to sleep for like thirty minutes, but you can fall asleep in downward dog or whatever the F yoga pose this is right before lunch? Kid, you’re cute, but you suck.

  Oh Dear Lord, WTF is that?

  How did you find out you were preggers? Most people pee on a stick and wait for it to show two blue lines, but the second blue line has to be as dark or darker than the first, and the longer you stare at it the more you wonder whether it really is darker or whether your mind is just playing tricks on you. That’s the way I found out the first time when I was preggers with Zoey. But not the second.

  There I was standing in my closet when suddenly I noticed something. That’s weird, my boobs are leaking. Got milk? Yup! All I needed now were some Oreo cookies. I know you’re probably thinking, “Big whoop, my boobs gushed like Old Faithful when I was breastfeeding.” But here’s the thing. I had stopped breastfeeding Zoey over eight months ago. Eight months!!! So why the hell were my nipples leaking?

  As I was standing their staring at my leaky boobs wondering whether I needed to call an F’ing plumber, I had a guess about what might be going on. And then four positive pregnancy tests later, I was positive. Yup, I was preggers. And what a weird-ass pregnancy symptom, right? Leaky boobs.

  Sometimes I hear feminists call God a She and I’m like dude, I am all for equal rights and equal pay, but there is no F’ing way God is a woman with all the shit our bodies go through when we’re preggers. No woman would design us this way. Like sometimes I think if God has a wife, she’s probably like are you F’ing kidding me, G? WTH were you thinking? I mean, finally I have the rack I’ve always wanted but it doubles as a vending machine for this little poop machine (gesturing to Jesus). And my sense of smell is like so bionic I can smell Saint Peter’s breath from two clouds away and he clearly had banana peppers for lunch. And what’s up with the constipation? I’ve been sitting on the porcelain throne all day to squeeze out a miniscule rabbit turd. WTH were you thinking when you created this body?

  But I digress. At least it’s a religious digression, though, right?

  So lay it on me, what’s your weirdest pregnancy symptom? That strange dark facemask thing? Cankles? A swollen vajayjay? ’Cause guess what, I’ve got you beat. Nope, not the leaky boobs. Weirder than that.

  Back when I was preggers for the first time with Zoey, I was showering one day when I noticed a little bump on my porno-sized boobs. Not a lump. A bump. But being the crazy hypochondriac I am, I was positive it was cancer so I wrote it on my mile-long list of shit to talk about with the doctor when I saw her. She didn’t seem too alarmed, but she sent me to a dermatologist “just in case.” Translation: it’s probably cancer and you’re going to die and leave your clueless husband all alone to care for this little rug rat all by himself.

  As I waited on the exam table in my sexy paper gown, I prayed it wasn’t cancer and that it was a clogged pore or a keloid, whatever the F that is. But nothing could prepare me to hear the two words that actually came out of the doctor’s mouth when he examined the bump.

  DOCTOR: Supernumerary nipple.

  ME: Come again?

  DOCTOR: A supernumerary nipple.

  Uhhhhh, WTF? Did I hear him correctly? I think my shocked/embarrassed/confused/about-to-blow-chunks look made him explain further.

  DOCTOR: Sometimes these things happen to pregnant women. It’s nothing to worry about. Just an accessory nipple.

  Are you F’ing kidding me? Nothing to worry about? Earrings, purses, headbands—now these are accessories a girl can appreciate. But no one walks into Bloomies and says, “Excuse me, but I’m looking for a nice third nipple.” I mean WTH was I supposed to do with this thing? Embrace it? Get it pierced? Slap some pasties on it? Too bad they only come in two packs. At least I assume they do. I’ve never actually bought pasties so I’m just guessing.

  Anyways, as much as I HATED my thripple, eventually I learned to appreciate it. When I gave birth and it went the F away.

  Wanna know what it feels like to have a hemorrhoid? Go get a grape and put it in your tush hole. Now leave it there and walk around with it all day. Wait, and put some Tabasco on it before you put it there so it burns. Welcome to hemorrhoidville.

  Just connect A to B and N to J and L to R and V to F and K to G and J to Q and Q to B, and that’s how you put a breast pump together

  Dear Medela,

  So it’s been three months since I had my baby and here’s the shit that’s gone through my head in the past two minutes. Is it hot in here? Where did I leave my keys? Wait, no, where did I leave the baby? Who the hell turned down the temperature in here? Agggh, I am seriously going to kill my husband, like for realz this time. I can’t remember what my birthday is. Shit, is it hot in here? I think I might have just been sleeping standing up. OMG, did I just answer the door with my top off? Whatta we live in an F’ing igloo? It’s freezing in here.

  In case you don’t get what I’m saying, I’m saying that my hormones are bouncing off the walls like they’re in an F’ing pinball machine that’s being played by a kid with ADHD and a roll full of quarters. My point is this.

  This is pretty much what your Medela breast pump looks like online:

  And here’s what it actually looks like when it arrives and you open it up:

  And here’s how you put it together:

  I remember opening mine up about a month before I had to go back to work, taking one look at all those tubes and doodads and valves, and breaking down into a pile of tears and snot. Thank God my husband was home to scrape me off the floor.

  HUBBY: Let’s tackle this later, okay honey?

  ME: (sobbing uncontrollably) Nooooo, she’s going to starve to death if I don’t start pumping RIGHT NOW.

&nbs
p; So here’s my request. Can you pleeeeeeease start packaging the pumps assembled? Is it really that difficult? I mean I know that personally I will never forget how to put a breast pump together, but there are thousands of hormonal women who are going to open up their breast pumps for the first time tomorrow and they’re either going to give up on breastfeeding or they are going to murder someone. Maybe their husband. Maybe their baby. Maybe some poor unsuspecting soul who’s walking below their building when they chuck the whole damn breast pump over the balcony.

  Yours truly,

  Baby Sideburns

  Sometimes I give my kid the finger through the baby monitor for all the shit she put me through that day. It just makes me feel better.

  Chugga chugga typhoid

  Before I had kids I had no F’ing idea how many times I would have to take them to the doctor’s office. I mean, you go to the doctor once a year, right? Well, twice. Once to your regular one, and once to the one with the stirrups. Giddy up.

  But apparently babies need to go like 9,000 times a year. And that’s just for wellness checkups. Which they’re always F’ing well for. And then the second you get them home they’re like pulling at their ear or barfing up their spleen or some shit like that and you’re dragging them back to Flutopia because they caught something when they were there for their wellness checkup. It’s a vicious cycle.

  Anyways, here are a few things I think about the pediatrician’s (holy crap is that a hard word to type) office:

  1. Okay, so imagine yourself ordering a cup of coffee from the barista at Starbucks and they’re all nice to you and smiling and they hand you your coffee and then out of nowhere they stab you with a needle. That’s basically what it’s like to get shots when you’re a baby. Two nurses come in and they’re super sweet and smiling at you and wearing cute outfits with smiling bears or some shit like that and then since you have absolutely no F’ing clue what’s about to happen because you were just born, all of the sudden from out of nowhere they jab you with needles. In order to prepare the baby for what’s coming, I think it’d be so much better if the nurses would come in like total assholes and yelling and stuff and then jam needles into the baby’s limbs. “ROOOOOAAAARRR, we’re gonna stab you with BIG F’ing needles and it’s going to hurt like a bitch!!!” At least then the baby would be expecting something bad to happen.