Archive for July, 2009

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My husband is mad because he’s chubby and I accidentally let everyone know.

July 31, 2009

After our summer vacation, I posted picture of our family at the beach on my Facebook page. We were in our swimsuits, and my husband had no shirt on. He saw it and is now furious with me. He’s very sensitive about his weight, and I just wasn’t thinking at the time that this would effect him that much. He’s so upset he’s not speaking to me. I’ve apologized, begged for his forgiveness, and deleted the photo, but he’s still very upset. In our nine years of marriage, I have never seen him so upset at me. I don’t know what I can do. I told him I just wasn’t thinking, I was just happy to have a family picture of us together at the beach on our first vacation. Any words of encouragement or advice?

Give him a big hug and say you’re sorry, tell him how sexy and attractive you think he is, and then hand him a wrapped box of little presents you’ve assembled for him. Inside the box, put the following:

  • some Kleenex and a pacifier so he can wah wah some more and then comfort himself since he’s not speaking to you
  • a gift certificate for a Weight Watchers membership
  • some Q-tips so he can clean out his ears and then maybe he’ll hear you if you decide to apologize for the 473rd time
  • a re-touched copy of the photo in which you’ve put his head on top of Ryan Reynolds’ body; on the back, write, “With a little hard work, you can look like this in real life instead of just in my imagination!”

That should make things better.

p.s. I was totally on his side until you got to the not speaking, begging for forgiveness, etc. He’s blaming you for the fact that he’s unhappy with himself, and that’s just bullshit.

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Can I ask someone to invite my mom to her wedding?

July 30, 2009

My sister-in-law (my husband’s sister) is getting married. She has asked my son and daughter to be the ring bearer and flower girl in the wedding. We are very excited, but I’m having a problem with my mother. She lives with us, and will chat with my sister-in-law when she calls, and whenever my husband’s brother and fiancee come over, of course they spend time with my mother, too. The problem is that my mother has not been invited to the wedding. She wants to go, she feels like she should have been invited, and keeps asking me to talk to my sister-in-law about it or have my husband ask his brother to invite her. I don’t feel comfortable with this but my mother is driving me crazy about it.

Your mom is kind of right in that she should have been invited. She is not right in pestering you to be rude.

There are a million possible reasons why she hasn’t been invited, (pushy, annoying, and can’t take no for an answer) but whatever the reason, it’s not your place to question it. We paid approximately $1.5 billion dollars for our wedding, in part because I couldn’t say no to anyone. Oh, your college mariachi band is in town? Sure, you can bring them. You recently joined the FLDS and now have 13 sister-wives? Okay, well, I guess so. You’re on a reality show where you have to be chained to an entire baseball team for a month? All right, we’ll get a long table for you.

Please don’t do this to the poor bride. I’m sure if she wanted your mom there, she would have asked her to be. Just tell your mom, as gently as possible, “I don’t feel comfortable asking Judy if she’ll invite you to the wedding. I think it’s a pretty small event, and only immediate family will be there.”

Then stick to your guns, and maybe try to be like this with your mom across the board, especially if she’s living with you. She’s probably bugging you so much because you usually give in.

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Who gets to choose what we listen to in the car?

July 30, 2009

My boyfriend and I fight constantly when we’re in the car because we like to listen to different music. It actually goes beyond that, though–we actively hate each other’s taste in singers and types of music, and we can’t even agree on the volume. My boyfriend thinks the person driving should be able to choose the music, but he usually drives, which means I would never get to listen to what I wanted. Is there any way to resolve this?

Yes, there is.

Grow up and take turns.

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Should I let my husband go to a bachelor party?

July 29, 2009

Do you let your husband go to bachelor parties? I’m usually pretty relaxed about what he does with his friends, but I’m a nervous wreck about this. I just have a feeling something is going to go wrong, or something bad is going to happen. I also don’t trust a couple of his friends and am afraid of all the strippers, drinking, and potential for trouble they present. Should I let him go?

I am not going to use this opportunity to express my opinion about how juvenile, disrespectful, pathetic, and depressing it is when men have nasty hooker-strippers at their bachelor parties. I’m not going to point out how ridiculous it is to celebrate the end of your single life by having a woman with fake boobs jump up and down in your lap while wearing a red pleather bikini.

What I am going to point out is that, despite my distaste, of course I let my husband go to bachelor parties. (He would angrily point out right now that he’s his own man and I don’t LET him do anything because HE DOES WHAT HE WANTS. And I would pat him on the head and say, Yes, honey, I know. Now don’t worry your pretty little head about it and go back to watching The History Channel.)

I let him go because I trust him. Do you trust your husband? If you do, then of course he should go. If you don’t, then maybe that’s something you should address. There’s no point in being married to someone you can’t trust.

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Motivate me to clean my house.

July 27, 2009

I really need to clean my house, but I just don’t want to. I have cleaned out my email, facebooked until I caught myself cruisin’ for new friends, and read the past two months of “tochea” archives. I am running out of procrastination tools and my house is a disaster. I have the day off and I dread my husband may ask, “what did you do today?” I hate admitting that I thought about cleaning, but we both know I’m lazy and didn’t want to, so I have this beautiful computer tan instead. I not only cannot afford a maid, but I would be embarrassed to invite one into my home. I can just see myself saying, “Really, it may look like we have not vacuumed in two months, but we have freak sandstorms in our home – weird, right?” The only thing that ever motivates me to clean is inviting people over so I have no choice.  Is that wrong?  Should I have a party or do you have any way to make cleaning fun or rewarding?

I’m touched that I’ve been used as your procrastination tool. Thank you.

You’ve clearly never been to my house, because otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me this question. I live by the standard that if you can walk through my kitchen without your shoe sticking to the floor and getting pulled off your foot, it’s clean.

I hate cleaning and my husband sucks at it even more than I do. We had to get a cleaning lady. When she arrives, I follow her around the house for an hour explaining that I forgot she was coming, that I usually don’t let the kids spread peanut butter all over the kitchen table and sprinkle raisins in it and then leave it there for three days, and that the green stuff in the toilet is actually a pre-wash that I put there for her to prep it for scrubbing. She is very kind but I think when she’s on her cell phone yelling at someone in Portugese, it’s her therapist who is helping her through her Tuesday morning nightmare which is my house. I feel bad about this, but not bad enough to clean before she gets there. I tell myself I’m stimulating the economy.

I’ve gotten better, though, since my kids came down with the ebola virus from something in my refrigerator, so here are some cleaning tips for you:

1. Sell some eggs and help an infertile couple while simultaneously earning money to pay for a cleaning lady.

2. If you must clean, listen to something good. Super-loud music, NPR podcasts, David Sedaris books on tape, your mom on the phone. Distract yourself. Also, wear rubber gloves. I do much better when I wear yellow rubber gloves.

3. You don’t need an excuse to have a party, ever. But I do caution you that any party will result in a dirtier house. Better to clean your house every time you go to a party, because being hungover in a clean house is much more pleasant.

4. Get your husband to clean half the house. If you both work, there’s no reason you both shouldn’t clean.

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My friends think their shih-tzu is as adorable and entertaining as my granddaughter.

July 27, 2009

I have three wonderful children. My husband and I are retired and so spend more time with friends. When we go out we naturally speak about our children and grandchildren. They are our whole life. I have friends who have no children or grandchildren and they never ask how is your family, what are the grandkids up to?  So we never bring our family into the conversation.  But we do feel uncomfortable sometimes.  Oh, and all these people want to talk about are their pets- what is wrong with people who think animals are like humans?

1. The man who lives next door to me once angrily knocked on my door, holding a bag of rocks in his hand. These were rocks he had collected from his yard. Apparently, during one of my many playdate-turned-Mommy-winefest afternoons, the unattended kids were chucking rocks over the fence. My neighbor was super angry and was like, “These could have hit my children! It really would have hurt them! They’re only eight pounds a piece!” And I was thinking, who the hell lets two 8-pound babies loiter by a fence in the backyard all by themselves…and then I realized that he was talking about his dogs. His dog children. I immediately decided to discount everything else he ever says to me because what’s wrong with those people is that they’re bored and lonely and their spouses have ceased to provide adequate entertainment and affection, and they’re desperate, so they get it from their dogs.

2. Do your friends ask about other things in your life? Do they ask about your sailboat, or your salt and pepper shaker collection, or your tango lessons? If they do, then they either hate children and don’t want to hear about them, or they’re oblivious and it never occurs to them to ask, since they don’t have kids or grandkids of their own. If you think it’s the former, don’t bother talking to them about your family, because they don’t want to hear it: they’ll only roll their eyes and think nasty thoughts about your family (probably in much the same way you roll your eyes every time they talk about their pets). If it’s the latter, feel free to talk about your family all you want…as long as you don’t talk about them constantly. Then you’ll be just as bad as my neighbor and his bag full of rocks.

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Should I stay home or go back to work?

July 27, 2009

My maternity leave is almost over and I’m feeling very emotional and a little crazy about it. I like my job and I have worked hard to get to where I am in my career. I’m not ready to step away from my professional life, but the thought of leaving my beautiful, sweet 3-month-old daughter with a nanny all day makes me cry. We are not rich but with a few sacrifices I would be able to stay at home. I am just not sure I want to. Which makes me feel guilty. Do you see the problem here? I’m going nuts.

If you leave your child in daycare or with a nanny all day, she’ll grow up to be a sociopath at worst, and at best she’ll be that kid in the high school cafeteria who sits alone with her hair hanging in her eyes, eating the middles out of 13 slices of white bread and occasionally laughing hysterically for no reason.

If you’re a stay-at-home mother, your daughter will grow up to think the world revolves around her, and will end up angry and bitter when she realizes that life isn’t going to always go the way she wants. She’ll get hooked on paint thinner fumes and heroin, and write an angry memoir about you and your smothering ways when she’s in her 20s. You’ll become the cautionary tale for an entire generation of parents who raised their kids to be awful, spoiled people.

If you go to work, you will be fulfilled professionally, but your family life will be a big gaping hole of resentment and sadness.

If you stay at home, you’ll have terrific kids, but you’ll morph from an intelligent, interesting woman into someone who wears elastic-waisted pants and talks about poop all day.

See? You can’t win. Do what feels right. It’s going to be okay.

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Unsolicited Advice #7

July 24, 2009

To the people who wander around small towns where they’ve gone on vacation calling everything “cute” and parking your car in the middle of the street because you think the locals are somehow from a bygone era when people could just park their cars wherever they wanted: Screw you.

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My 20-year-old thinks my house is a dorm.

July 24, 2009

Should I kick my son out of the house? He’s twenty years old and home for the summer from college. He couldn’t find a job, so he spends the day sleeping and playing video games and is out all night. Sometimes he brings friends home in the middle of the night and they’re so noisy they wake my younger children, and we fight about it a lot. He’s too old to be grounded and I worry about kicking him out because he has nowhere to go.

You don’t have to kick him out. Make him miserable! Listen to the Spice Girls at 6:30 am on full volume. Have no food in the house except lentils and brussel sprouts. Teach your little kids that Lamb Chop song, “The Song that Never Ends,” and encourage them to follow their big brother around singing it. Give him chores that involve dog poop and weed pulling. Don’t let him use your car, don’t give him money, and “accidentally” spill a diet Coke on his X-Box.

I bet a job will magically become available.

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My sister’s boyfriend is a douchebag. Part II.

July 23, 2009

Apparently, my previous advice on this subject was not enough for everyone. Here’s more.

My sister just brought her new boyfriend home to meet our family for the first time. We hate him. Everyone hates him. Even the dog and my other sister’s baby hate him. He’s not mean or rude–he just has a bad personality. He laughs at his own (terrible) jokes, erupts into song for no reason, and tries to horn in on every conversation and private family joke that clearly has nothing to do with him. He tries so hard that it’s painful, but I don’t feel bad for him because the reason he has to try so hard is that he sucks so much. I’ve been avoiding my sister’s phone calls since they left because I know she’s going to ask me what I think of him, and I don’t want to tell her, but I don’t want to lie. What do I say? Should I tell her the truth?

No! Bite your tongue. She’ll only get mad and then stubbornly date him for six more years just to prove to you and the rest of your family that she’s a big girl and can make her own decisions.

If he mentioned that he might have a slight problem with stalking people and his last girlfriend had to get a restraining order, sure, you can say something. But laughing at his own bad jokes? He’s probably laughing at them because it’s more comfortable than sitting there in stony silence while your entire family gives him the collective stink-eye. Bursting into song is annoying, I’ll give you that. Maybe the next time he does it, join in and sing louder, in a falsetto, and try to startle him into stopping. Or just put your hands over your ears and scream, “NOOOOOOOOO.”

You sound like a tight-knit bunch, and while Sir Douchey of the Knights of the Douche Table might truly suck as much as you say he does, put yourself in his shoes for a minute. Imagine being slightly uncomfortable with yourself to begin with, and then meeting a group of people who are predisposed to disliking you–everyone from the dog right up to Grandma. It must be hard for him. Try to be compassionate.

And when your sister asks what you think of him, be creative. Say, “He has a wonderful sense of fashion,” or, “It’s so amazing that he knows the lyrics to the entire Phantom of the Opera,” or “Mom sure didn’t appreciate that joke about her teeth being grayer than her hair, but I can see how in a different setting that would have been a riot.”

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