Your Punishment: BUUUUUURN!

Whoa! Where have I been? Dude, it's summer! And not one of my two followers was knocking down my digital front door to get more postage on this blog. So I didn't really care. But I'm back. With more stories of epic childhood memories.
Call your mom - yay! Moms love me!

And I love moms.

I find it hilarious when little kids or animals are bad; relieving themselves where they're not supposed to or breaking valuable things or talking / barking back. Too funny! I probably find it to be this way because I am not troubled by either of these little creatures. (It's for a reason!!!) And further, how are you really supposed to punish a kid or animal anyway? I wouldn't hit them or yell at them ever and they're way too cute and innocent - well usually. I get lost in their awesome grub-nosed faces and it melts my rage away. For real!

I spent this past weekend at Shmenna Shmeider's house (I hope you read this 'cause you're the shiiiiit!) and her wonderful namesake bark friend, Shmapple Shmunior, must have went on the carpet, uh, like way too many times. Once is enough for me when it comes to my own home. And it was so exasperating. And it was in the same relative space so walking through this one part of the house was like trying to dodge wet mine fields (if they were real, I would have left Sunday with two stubs for legs). And the mounting tension and frustration I could feel welling up like a motherfucker in my friend, but all I could do, because it was...uh...all I could do, was think 'how bad AND how adorable Shmapple is!' because I could simply leave the house and not care beyond the day. Out of sight!

Well, kid punishments. I experienced a very few of these growing up, and definitely not like the 'go to your room', 'go sit in a corner', 'no tv for a week'. In fact, I don't even think I've ever been grounded. In FACT!, I don't think the thing that I consider to be the hugest, crazy punishment really was a punishment. But it sucked, made me want to act 'good' and lasted just long enough to make me think that life couldn't get much worse beyond that period in life: I was sent to Catholic School when I was 8.

So I used to get picked on a lot as a young kid. I think more so because I was a tomboy - born and raised (go dad) - and boys are weird. So are girls I guess. But I was the only girl playing soccer with the boys at recess. I was the only girl talking about video games. I was the only girl building shit and learning to be manly with her dad. Aside from a general interest in "boy" activities, I was an overachiever and know-it-all in class and teacher's pet, but also a weird smart ass. What I'm really trying to say is that I pissed a lot of people off in school. My parents thought it would be good to move me to Catholic School, which in turn would provide a safer, Christian-oriented structure *le sigh*

My dad and I went to our Church, Shrine of the Little Flower, enough as was. We seriously spent two days there each week. Saturday my dad sat in a little temple...maybe SHRINE, who fucking knows, for an hour doing uh, devotions? Hail Marys? I have no clue. But it was torture. And I would watch the clock and try to time the next number flipping at a minute for the full hour. Also there was a plaque under a jesus statue upstairs and it said "I love you this much" and I found out what that was supposed to mean (It's cause his arms are open wide and that's how he was on the cross - that jesus is a hoot!) We did this every Saturday. Barf city. And then mass on Sunday. Which was okay because ocassionally we'd hit up International House of Pancakes and I'd get the plate of food that they arranged to look like a cute face or Radio Shack and play Pitfall on like an Amiga or some archaic computer device thang.

I begged my dad for years to let me watch church on television.
You know, like on the cable access channels.
Never happened.

So I already had waaaaaay too much exposure to church and now I was going to go to school there. So maybe you're seeing how it was like being sent to hell. Oh! My teacher sucked soooo much ass. Her name was Ms. Mazur (I'd swear she wasn't married because she was so repulsive that no one would want to marry her, but I'm sure it's because she was a nun. Sucker!). She did three horribly awful things to me that made me want to die. But I'm sure she did them in the name of God.

- She told me I couldn't write in cursive. Not because I was spelling things wrong or my letters were off or there was a problem with the legibility. NO! She said I couldn't write in cursive because you didn't learn to write in cursive until 4th grade and I was in 3rd. Oh my god. Deathwish cometh.

- She put me on a desk island. Not even a desk peninsula! So you know how you got assigned seats yaddah daddah? well, she put out a new chart a month into the school year and I was in the far corner by myself. It wasn't like she was going to move someone near me or that there were lots of kids that were isolated from the other kids. just me. what the fuck? Seriously, i remember being really bummed about that.

- Colored stars. Fuck stars. That is the most passive agressive shitty thing you can do to a kid. I never ONCE got a gold star. Rarely did I even get a star. And I know I was close to being the smartest, nicest kid in that class. If I ever 'earned' a star, it was only blue or green which basically indicated you were capable of breathing on your own and hadn't cried in the presence of others. I hate stars.

But then I was truly blessed. God delivered me from evil and we moved our asses back to Minnesota only 2 months into the school year. Oh man. I was really thrilled. I did eventually go back to Catholic school in 10th grade (and that really was a punishment), but at least I was a bit braced for what was coming. They had these fresh baked cookies...holy shit...they really were manna from heaven.

And I only had to do a trimester - thank God.

Are you sure you meant that, Mom?

As I’ve gotten older, I can seriously appreciate the amazingness of napping.

When I was little, my daycare captors forced us to take naps (holy shit, send me back to…the…future..., Doc?). I honestly wish I lived in Korea where they have “mandatory” naptime and encourage employees to take an hour to sleep in the middle of the day. Their productivity is through the roof, too! But mostly because they are Asian, so it’s not a surprise since they just instinctively kick all sorts of ass in life. I see people napping on the side of the road and they don't do shit. They say as you get older you require less sleep at night – it’s because we’re fucking napping all the time or just have to power through the day because the world hates adults. I’d actually love to nap throughout the course of the day, but I’d be afraid that I’d have a hard time discerning between reality and dreamy time. My mom is a great example of the fuckedupedness of an irregular and excessive sleep pattern.

Mom – there are fantastic things that constantly confound me with regards to your love of napping:

-Epic fucked up bed head. Because you are forever putting aquanet and hair products on your dome, your hair is almost 100 percent guaranteed to look like someone gave you the boocake from behind, then you went into a violent seizure, passed the fuck out and woke up with a crusty motley crue do.

-Until you had your lipstick and eye liner permanently fastened to your face, your mouth seemed to shift during your sleep. Now your mascara is the only thing that gets all jacked up. You are forever in a beauty recovery state because you are trying to fix your make-up and hair from your day comas.

-You are groggy as fuck. I don’t understand a damn thing you’re talking about. We’ve had many odd conversations about bullshit that you don’t even remember. However I remember much of it - sucka!

-Your hours are sooooo jacked up. I am not awake at 1am on a week night waiting for you to call me about what movie you are watching two times through on TBS. Pretty Woman can suck my dick. And for free.

-Crazy shit happens sometimes, but you let it roll off your back because you plan shortly thereafter to sleep and forget about it.

Aside from the above, I am equally intrigued how my mom can sleep anywhere at any time – she doesn’t give a fuck. You are the most not fun person to drive with because you always blast the A/C and pass the fuck out. Not cool. Pluto and Mars have to align with the 7^th house kitty corner from my block and a baby has to be born with a sixth toe and a virgin must perish in a volcano at the hands of chocolate hungry Indian peoples for me to go to sleep. Since I didn’t practice nappage as a child, I’m sure this is my punishment. And that I am forever waking up at 3 in the morning and desperately pleading that the devil doesn’t devour my sleepy little soul. Fuck my damned life.

I constantly bugged my mom when she’d be asleep. And I definitely walked in on serious parent humpage quite often mistaking her naps with ‘couple naps’. Couples do not nap together. Everyone knows this except me when I was little. Unless you had JUST gotten back from the Boundary Waters or did awful, early morning Saturday chores or just killed and buried your husband’s pregnant hooker (the family that kills a hooker together, STAYS together) you do not nap with your S/O. So my poor mom would be trying to get her 17 hours of sleep in and I would completely ruin her marathon zzz fest. Occasionally she would get a phone call from a relative or coworker that I deemed important enough to wake her for. This either resulted in her freaking out and yelling at me to tell them any lie to get them to go away OR we’d have an insane conversation that vaguely resembled a meaningful interaction about said call. My mom once requested that I call my Aunt Shenny and get her out of the pimple. She was frantic – so I thought she was awake – freaking out about her sister and how we needed to call her. So being the amazing fucking child I was, I got on that shit, but then quickly hung up once my mom demanded that I free my aunt from the clutches of an angry pore. Hmmm…

My mom also gets very, very sleepy and tells me extremely inappropriate things, which are awesome and then I put on here so an insignificant fraction of the world’s population can reap the rewards of her lethargy. Recently she said she would like to date me if we were lesbians and not related. Flattered. Really...although I have had creepy Freudian dreams about both my parents *ROAR* It just means we’re close :) …too fucking close.

My mom worked super weird hours much of my childhood so it was a real treat when we could do something together during non-vampire hours. When she could, my mom and I would go to Baskin Robbins after I got done with school since it was only a short walk from our house. Baskin Robbins – HOLY FUCK – people talk about Dairy Queen and Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but Baskin Robbins fucking rules. The son of the owner gave up the empire to pursuit healthy living and some other bullshit. I think he’s lactose intolerant and was pissed that he missed out on delicious treats and ice cream with goddamned bubble gum inside of it (by the way: best idea ever…even though I just swallow the gum immediately). They had these ice cream cones turned upside down and made to look like little clowns. They were amazing. Amazing. Anyway…*drool drool inner fat kid wants treats*

(I want to lick, lick, lick, lick you from your head to your cone)

We walk in…pick the delicious ice creams we want to eat (I almost always lost it for bubble gum or superman, and occasionally would surprise myself with coffee)…and as we’re paying for the ice cream, I notice my mom making a weird gesture with her leg. Apparently she had taken a nap in the same jeans she was wearing the previous day and at some point or other took all her bottom layers off at once. She had then forgotten to take out the underwear that she left in the pants when putting them on for our ice cream escapade. So there we were in the most wholesome place on planet oblivious and my mom has a pair of nude, silky, totally mom underwear clinging to her ankle for dear life (thank God no maxi pad was attached). And she’s holding a cone, so what the fuck is she supposed to do about it? So as discretely as one can be when they’re trying to drag along their used panties without acknowledging their very apparent existence, we trudged towards our table, maybe she went to the bathroom where she then removed them. I’m more than certain that a slew of parents watched in horror. Fortunately the kids were preoccupied with their treatsicles. I hope they read this blog so it'll ruin their day.

Regardless, these sorts of things don’t fucking happen to anyone else. Really. But to my mom, it does with some level of frequency. It's no big thing - SLEEP IT OFF, Sharrie Shorliss! xxxo MT

Ima eat the fuck out of you

After reading, re-reading, editing, a little bit of crying, worship to golden calves and bleeding dry some hens in my basement, I realize that this blog post isn’t that good, BUT I really wanted to make mention of my love for treats. Every day I try to do something nice for myself. Usually I fulfill this pledge to me Momez by getting a little treatskiedoodlepoodle. My desire to love mua (sexy) is usually muddled because I’ve just downed 300 calories worth of shit that’s going to make me tired, chubb..ier (I wanted a different suffix (y - implying I'm starting out all Barbie thin and shit)!!!) and the little money dings do add up. So maybe treats aren’t that good for me. But I want, no, NEED them! I like Mr. Jeckyll that shit and wake up in a cold sweat covered with Whatchamacallit wrappers TREATS!!!!

Never been a luncher muncher. Or breakfast for that matter. I really just love treats (anything sweet), snacks (anything savory) and dinner (please get inside me). Even as an adult I rarely get good lunch into me...my mouth. Almost every day I punish myself with a lean cuisine or healthy choice or chicken pot pie thing (anything cheap) – and ALWAYS scald the roof of my mouth because the part of my brain that controls my insatiable desire to inhale my aluminum tray processed meat treats thinks it’s the little girl that was interviewed on Oprah who can’t feel any form of pain and is constantly sticking her hand into the bonfire or spraying herself with fire extinguishers. Uh huh.

To compensate for the undeliciousness of my lunches I regularly get a colored mountain dew – because I'm white and from the suburbs – or something little and $1.19 from one of two gas stations next to my office building. If it’s raining or snowing or I’m feeling too lazy to walk far, I go next door. Their treats are meh at best. The store across the street doubles as a head shop so they have particularly wonderful treats to keep their stoner clientele happy. And Maria Momez! Funny thing is this store is ran by predominantly insane Christian young adults who blast horrible Xtian power ballad pop bullshit, an Asian chick who flat out doesn’t give a fuck about much, though she JUST finally stopped ID’ing me after a year of coming in once a week, and then the owner is a BMW driving Muslim dude who is forever stocking shelves. Weird mix. And they sell an array of Zigzags, pipes, shit with tye-dye all over it, bongs and other things I don’t understand.

I just don’t get it. So instead I get Cheetohs. MYOMYOMYOMMM I love empty calories! 420 4 lyfe - whatever that means!

There are some definite rules that govern the awesome that is treats.

TREATS are the umbrella. I love saying this word. It can be applied to like almost everything in the world, such as: candy treats (frosting on your cupcake), dog treats (bones and shit), gay sex treats (grape-flavored condoms – I think they use those), apocalypse treats (water, canned goods), vagina treats (tampons! nomnom) you get the idea.

TREATS are defined as the following:

should always be crazy delicious

something you crave and freak out for

almost always (by default) super bad for you (like Toxic Shock Syndrome…tampons are not delicious. I think.)

Bad Treat: Remember ants on a log? Fuck you if you like this. Because of you and the abundance of ant on a log supporters out there, I seriously had to miss out on snack day once a week in Montessori school. For those of you who are amazing and haven’t been tainted by this shit stick, it’s basically a stalk of celery (BARF), slathered with peanut butter in its little green canyon (BARF x 2) and then dotted with raisins (I’ve run out of barf and resorted to dry heaving - HEAVE) to resemble bug like creatures. What about this is supposed to make me hungry? My evil daytime captors not only starved me; they would also make us take naps. What I’m trying to say is my formative years fucking sucked. I get so mad thinking about these nasty things. FUCK!  - not delicious, do not want to freak out over this, although peanut butter is not really that good for you, and probably has Salmonella in it at least 6 months out of the year, this shit is too healthy to get me salivating.

Good Treat: My great grandmother, Cuca (bless your heart – you’re such a total badass), lived with my grandparents, who we also lived with, when I was in 3^rd / 4^th grade. I may be white and from the suburbs, but I was still the minority in Cottage Grove. She regularly made these orange things. You cut a little hat off the orange – but fucking keep it (haha, but fucking), and then you scoop out the innards (this really does sounds like it’s about butt fucking) and throw them in a blender with some condensed milk (I like the sweet kind), blend it fucker, then pour it back into orange, cap it and put it in the freezer. Just think about this…doesn’t it sound beyond amazing?!? It is. So I would come home from school and there would be a whole slew of these to choose from. I had a similar thing at a bus stop in Spain and it was such an epic let down. My GGMA knows what’s up! - delicious, fuck yum fuck, where did I not mention sweetened, condensed milk?

See how this works???

Bad school snack. At the end of high school I was kind of an art room hermit. I think I spent at least 5 hours a day in there and only left to get a Gatorade or Fruitopia when my throat juices had expired. Oh – and remember in previous posts how I used to be popular (so weird and not making of the sense, but it does somehow), well a lot of those people had dropped off my radar, but for some reason I had a ton of big truck driving / cowboy gear wearing / muscle-bound hillbilly friends (if you do know me, you know that is not how I look or really the people I associate with, but they were fucking awesome and liked to make fun of shit with me so we bro’d down a lot!). Well I almost only got a Gatorade, UNLESS I stole lunch, which I did whenever I chose to eat at school. Because no one should have to pay 3 bucks for a square piece of pizza – hexagonal if it’s Mexican (!!!), or corn dog nuggets or whatever. My good girlfriend, Schmishmelle Shmarson, stole lunch every day, too, and taught me real good, especially when she was pregnant (she was a senior and in love…so it’s cool). She must have walked out with 10 bucks of crappy, fried food every day. And she’d share :) with the baby :(

So me and my brodawgs were sitting at our cool table talking about NASCAR or fat chicks or something I don’t know what, but I went to the line to go steal something (I had only stolen a Gatorade and was feeling a bit hungry – not pregnant, not pregnant) so I left my G-rade with them and spent a couple minutes at the line. I remember they were selling like chow mein and eggrolls that day – no Asian pizza (I imagine it would be circular and you could play Chinese checkers with the sausage). When I came back I sat and ate my corn nugget dog things not good for you (sort of good snack actually) and chugged my blue Gatorade. I noticed that the blue was a little darker than usual and it wasn’t until I was only one sip from finishing it that I noticed my redneck buddies were freaking out, dying laughing because they had put a shit ton of soy sauce in it. I guess..more electrolytes?

It’s called salt, people. Electrolytes are salt. Little did they know that salt is a snack and a snack is a TREAT and I go fucking gonzo for treats. So their attempt was a failure (until I had a stomach ache the rest of that afternoon). What the fuck is Soylent Green??? Basically, Gatorade with more salt is delicious! More ramen 4 president.

eat the treat DO IT DO IT DO IT

Hitting the Snooze is for PUSSIES

Hey! Hi! Watch out!

One thing that’s very true about my family, before my generation, is that they’re super capable and amazing and it makes me feel such self loathing because my accomplishments compared to theirs' are fucking nothing after 28 years of life. My mom’s side of the family were agrarian types in the Dakotas and my dad’s side has a very rich cultural heritage. And both sides were really book smart and went through many higher levels of education. Which kind of pisses me off because I have very little patience for putting forth physical effort and I really don’t know all that much aside from a deep well of unimportant facts. And I’ve been finding that actually a lot of people know the things that I thought I was only aware of. Not helpful. Not special. Great, so I could earn a Masters in ‘Who Gives a Shit’ and then not apply it to anything. I’ve already done that with my Undergraduate degree..a BS no doubt. I’m noticing a trend when I look back at my blog: I’m upset about the series of choices I’ve made in my life – especially in my adult life. Given that I am an only child and my parents put all their energies into my development and happiness, I recognize that they did want me to be smart and work hard AND I should kick ass given all the nurturing and one-on-one time I was given. Maybe I did 'make it' or I am 'making it' in life with respect to my education or work life, but it doesn't really matter - I don't notice, because what I remember most as a child is my dad raising me to not be a pussy.

When I think of a manly, non-pussy traits, I should point out that I define it as the following:

1. manly traits like a beard and you talk brusquely and you walk different and can swear and touch your junk

2. do shit that makes you sweat. Like building shit. Or carrying heavy shit upstairs that you just built

3. you don’t feel the need to go get a band-aid if you cut yourself. Just put gorilla glue on your thumb and you’re good to go

4. no crying allowed, pussy!

5. take care of shit before having fun

6. you might not have to take a shower, but that’s cool because being dirty and filthy is part of being a man, dammit. and chicks dig it

Okay…phew. Apparently I feel that Lumberjacks are hot and manly. They are. Except for their carrot-fingered hands. WTF seriously?

My dad, Moo Momez, is real manly. And he doesn’t fuck around neither. It’s funny because he dresses somewhat effeminately, is super articulate and well spoken, makes sure to groom himself nicely, has nice things...in Generation Y am I here again? he would be considered a total metrosexual male. He likes incense. Gross. But he wasn’t ALWAYS like that…it’s gotten worse as he’s aged. Strangely enough, I always figured once you made it past a certain point in life, that was your cue to not give a shit anymore. ‘What, I’m 50? I don’t have to wipe my ass anymore. Fuck you!’ (I pray it’s like that when I get there. Half way half way.) But not my dad. He’s sort of a badass because he can balance the two pretty well. *CREEPY COMMENT* if my dad weren’t my dad, I would totally try and date him. Don’t tell my therapist. Save your money…she already knows. Since I couldn’t date him (I live in Minnesota…we’re just not that kind of people), I always thought I would try and model myself to be a vagina clad version of Moo.

But when you’re a kid you just want to play and do nothing, and rightfully so because all kids should enjoy their lives before the world saps their tiny bit of joy reserves with mounting bills, a mortgage, kids, arthritis, questionable oral sores, etc. So I sort of didn’t end up like him. But I look just like him. That’s good because my dad’s sort of handsome. Haha but my dad did a fantastic job of impressing his values of manliness on me.

Every Saturday we’d have to wake up at a reasonable time. Like for my whole life. There was absolutely no sleeping in. And it’s not hard to wonder why my dad would always fall asleep watching the Tigers in the afternoon…, but that’s his shit. Not mine. So…a ‘reasonable’ time is like 8:30, or earlier. I’ve never been huge on sleeping in, but that’s probably because he fucked it up for me at a young age. We usually had to get up and first clean the whole house. And it would really be me cleaning the ENTIRE house when I was 7. And if it looked damn good, I got a whole buck. Thanks, Dad. You also taught me to be really fucking cheap. We had a toilet in the basement of our house – with no other bathroom amenities – just a scary ass toilet (they’re all for asses) - that was like painful to go clean. I imagined that there were goblins / trolls / debt collectors down there and would psych myself out and would basically cast a spell with the toilet wand inside the bowl and haul ass back upstairs to the normal zone.

We had this enormous blanket. Seriously big enough to play that parachute popcorn game that they do in gym classes when the teacher forgot to write an agenda and need to keep a bunch of rug rats occupied for the next 50 minutes. The popcorn game was really fun, so it worked out for me. Exercise 4 real: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uW04rXFORA enjoy them chicken nuggets, children. Anyway, we had this blanket and I would get so desperate to escape my dad’s cleaning clutches that I would roll myself up in a ball in the blanket on top of our couch or on a bed and laid still so it just looked like the blanket was all rolled up. Surprisingly it NEVER worked! That was the extent of my being creative given I led a sleep deprived childhood. zzz

After we (I) finished cleaning, we’d go to Ace Hardware, because everybody knows that men and their manly followers (Me Momez) spend time with tools and shit for building shit. We’d buy tubes and wires and plate covers. I would actually spend the whole time looking at arithmetic books and stickers and other novelties they sold to keep kids occupied when they were dragged along.

Then we’d hit Meijers and do our recycling and grocery shopping (I still have to fix that earlier blog. Sorry, two followers).

Anyway, you get the idea. This shit was boooooooring. And we did stuff like this every weekend 4 lyfe. But it prepared me for a number of instances that required me to find my manly center and not be a total pussy despite my pussy inclination to be a pussy. Some of the most memorable:

*totally fucking throwing up some fried rice that my dad made with baby shrimps. I was like ‘fuck it. They’re just little shrimps. I’m going to put this away!’ 30 minutes later I puked super hard, maybe coughed up a kidney, too, and then went back to playing FF3 like nothing happened.

*even to this day, my dad and I almost always spar and kick each others’ asses at family gatherings.

*we installed a screen door for my mom on mother’s day and when we tried to lift it, the corner landed on my knee and left a super deep scar. My dad actually said ‘don’t be a pussy and cry’. And I was 10. Nice.

*we would go on bike rides when I was little and I rode in a passenger seat on the back. Every time we’d reach our destination, my dad would crash the bike and lean it on the ground, me in it, and leave me there both laughing and whining to get out for at least a minimum of 5 minutes.

*at the age of 6 or 7 I was riding a boy’s bike, hit a split in the sidewalk and took out my vagina hard. I can still feel it. That’s gross.

*I got kicked in the vagina square with a toe and actually did cry (pussy). But for this to happen, it required two boys to hold me back and another to kick the coot. It’s cause I’m a badass with a very sore vagina.

*my dad made me hold a super thin dowel rod still while he made a cut with an un-mounted circular saw. My fingers were less than an inch from the blade.

*I made dinner for my boyfriend right after college and was trying to cut a bag of frozen pesto open and almost cut off the entire top half of my thumb. I was more concerned with having bled all over my jigsaw puzzle – thousand piecer of M&Ms (super tough) – rather than getting to urgent care.

*I was helping my parents paint their trim molding in college and stepped down square on the back of a hammer and had a hole the size of an inch right in my heel. All I said was ‘dammit’.***

***While my mom stood with her mouth open in horror, my dad gave me a slap on the back to reinforce the manly moment and overcoming the urge to be a wuss and said ‘See, I didn’t raise Maria to be a pussy.’ You sure didn’t, dad.

Told you!

F+ You! + 2

In parte une (I don’t speak French, I’m not going to pretend any longer. My grandmother and I had some fake French food the other day and throughout the meal she regaled me with her extensive linguistic arts. Dear World, Generation Y has failed you yet again. We’re generally poorer than you, dumber than you and less technically savvy on many, many levels because we never had to go to war and in turn have dismal work ethic. You’re going to have to deal with this. Love, The Losers You Created: Y), I gave you a brief summary of Ms. Patti Cisewski, my horrible, awful, horrible 6^th grade teacher who I hated, still hate, and will continue hating until I lay waiting for death, gasping for my final breath of toxic death air in the year 2063. I’m not a real hater of people, but this one person gave me no reason to like her, find her endearing and she actually made me a worse person by serving as a prime example.

A list of specific things that pissed me off about my 6^th grade teacher, Ms. Patti Cisewski, who still works in the Washington County Public School System in Minnesota. Find her. Hate her with me. Drink the hatorade.

She encouraged, and noticeably preferred, students to call her ‘Queen Cisewski’ – who does this seriously? She even rewarded my buddy, Davarrah (my spell check does NOT recognize this name…hope you’re making it in life, buddy...), once with a kitkat – my most favorite candy bar in the known universe – for calling her by this ridiculous name.

I’m not a math and science wizard…in fact, all I learned in 10th grade geometry is something about how a crow flies, but then when I tell people who took geometry (and passed) about it none of them seem to know what I’m talking about. So I guess I didn’t learn anything. We got to make weird multi-faceted orb fractal things and hang them from our class’ ceiling though. Kind of cool. Any way…the 6^th grade teachers all handled different subjects aside from the basics. Ms Cho-CHESS-Q (this is how my dad pronounced her name on purpose because he also hated her) taught science. We did some hypothesis paper thing and, no shit, she gave me an F+ . What the fuck is all that noise? So I failed,…but really well!?!? Even at the age of 11, I was already developing a strong bullshit detector and it was beeping motherfucking hard on this one.

I went on a winter skiing retreat, with my friends buff-aaaay and muff-aaaay and Chadwick. Just kidding. About the names.

Yes, Maria Momez can be quoted saying she went on a skiing retreat, Wolf Ridge(?), for a week with my class. For the poor souls that were not lucky enough to go with, they had to stay behind and spend 5 more days of their lives than I did with ChoCHESSQ. Bummer. But maybe Shmara Schmidt (name changed like in Dragnet) shouldn’t have gone with. She got her first period on that trip and everybody new she was a woman upon her return to school. Haha god that sucks. Not as much as mine. Haha…will be saved for another self deprecating day. While we were gone, Queen Bitch told everyone how happy she was because the class was noticeably quiet without Davarrah, Anthony (my not then boyfriend - fuck you and your fake lifesavers) and me.

She wasn’t my home teacher, but Ms. Something sort of Hispanicy sounding…gave me a warning thing because I was stretching my hand all complicated like while it was cramped. She decided I must have been throwing gang signs to all my homies in class – “Meet me by the old oak tree at 3:00; we’re going to kill ChoChessQ, Ese. Oh, and where is Nigeria located, Mang?” I ended up getting all these little dings for no good reason from both Hispanic Geography teacher and my own and at the end of each week would have to have my parents sign an acknowledgement of my blunders, then shamefully returning it to the sociopaths receiving immense satisfaction in embarrassing children. I found a way around this by starting an autograph book! I first got my parents’ signatures and that was all. So then I would trace over their names so that they’d never have to deal with the form again because I was being helpful!!! I think it worked for about 2 or 3 weeks. And then I got my ass whooped by my dad shortly after its discovery. His signature is worthless to me. Why didn’t you have me during Generation X? I’d be so much more capable...and probably wouldn't have gotten caught.

Okay, so many, many more things happened and I eventually broke down and told my parents I was having issues with my teacher, because they became increasingly concerned with all my warning dings, who then subsequently told the principal and they all had one big sit down altogether. Over the next few days I felt like Ms. Cisewski was nicer and pleasant and thoughtful, but it didn’t last. Obviously. Because this blog isn’t done. Not really my style. Life hates me. It’s awesome. She eventually went back to her wildebeest ways and I tolerated it since the end of the school year was peeking up over the horizon.

I extra lucked out because my family was going on vacation in advance of school’s end so I would miss another torturous week with her. Yes yes yes yes! We got our yearbooks the day before I left for vacation. In my peers’ books, I'm pretty certain that I wrote something horrible next to each of Ms. Cisewski’s pictures. One statement comes to mind: ‘Rejoice, the evil bitch has died and gone to hell.’ Quite poetic for an 11 year old. I told you I was sort of smart… Apparently not so.

When we got back from our trip 3 weeks later, I was really excited to go to the post office and pick up my report card. Despite my stupid fucking F+, I was hoping for some good grades, which in turn I was hoping to use as leverage for getting a new pair of Girbaud jeans or Pumas or an Esprit bag or something to make me noticeably cool when I got to junior high. This did not happen. I opened the manila envelope thang and notice a couple photocopies of my year book and dismissed them since I was so hell bent on finding my report card. We get home and I dink around getting settled back into our house feeling really good about my grades when all of a sudden my dad yells in his scary voice (All dad’s have a scary voice. It’s impact can range depending on how soft your dad was, but my dad’s scary voice ESPECIALLY coupled with the evil eye (oh my god oh my god) was something that terrified me more than the present thought of waking up at 3am and Satan devouring my soul, which really scares the shit out of me and my buddy, M2. We talk about it often and I don’t know why because it really psyches the shit out of us. We just talked about it yesterday, too. Why am I mentioning it now? Evil. Scary!) “Maria, get your ass down here”. I didn’t need to see him to know shit was going down. Apparently ChoCHESSQ had seen what I wrote in the books and made a copy of my best, dumb friend Darcy’s yearbook and sent the copies with my grades. What a whoreface! I knew it would suck to have both Darcy and Patti in the same room as me. My mom knows nothing! Her signature is also useless.

So I got the shit beaten out of me. Yayyyyy…”Generation X would have never done that!”

In 7^th grade, I was able to blend in with a whole new group of sophisticated, amazing kids. 7^th grade was probably one of my most favorite years of school in that so many things happened that I associate with the transition from childhood to adulthood. Or in the case of Michaela Cisewski, baby trollhood to adult, talking wildebeesthood. 7th grade was the time I got to finally meet Michaela, who I knew little about, though she knew much about me, since her mom had definitely shared our strained past with the beastly shit kicking creature known as her 'daughter'. I will save that for a totally different blog. So you’ll have to come back and see what life was like at Oltman Junior High. I learn that my dad was called as slightly more accurate racial slur, my aunt and I have the same taste in dolls, I have classes with *gasp* asian kids and that I wasn't cool in 3rd grade. I really thought I was.

F+ You!

You’ll always remember that one teacher who made you what you are today.

They took you on: an underprivileged inner city kid from an impoverished school district. And despite the hardships you faced within your broken home and with an ill-timed pregnancy, that very teacher encouraged you to sing and write and study and challenge the fate to which all believed you were condemned. Wait, no, that's the plot for Dangerous Minds and I distinctly remember Michelle Pfeiffer not being my Home Economics teacher. But Mr. Hirschbottom most certainly was! He taught me to braid my hair real good and make brownies and drive cars that hump the ground. Too bad he eventually ended up completely bald and on Celebrity Fit Club, ultimately retiring from life’s passions. I took ADVANCED CORNROWS 2 my junior year and even though I felt at the time like I deserved a better grade, I only managed to earn a B+. That was a particularly humbling moment, but he recognized the same fire within him, in me. From there on he rode me hard and never let me get away with a half-assed effort. I’ve since forgotten how to make even a simple friendship bracelet, but many a life lesson I learned in that semester long class.

Okay, maybe Mr. Hirschbottom was really Coolio. If you didn't get it, please, go to youtube and just watch videos of adorable kittens; this blog is clearly not intended for you. Your mom may stay. My mom: I know you didn't get any of that last paragraph so you will have to leave. You're pretty.

I’m not going to lie, I was a pretty smart kid. My parents had me tested a whole bunch when I was in elementary school in desperate hopes of finding out I was the next Jesus, or Bobby Fischer (I have no idea how to play chess and always liked to move the horsemen (they’re on horses so I think that’s what they’re supposed to be called…?) because they’re cool looking like those Pepperidge Farms cookies). I must have drowned my brain in Juicy Juice and Fruit Roll-Ups because my IQ exams clearly stated I would not turn out to have a strong foothold in the world of academics. You may refer to my 10^th grade report card for further evidence that my brain could not process fairly simple concepts such as - math. I do know that normal = plain. Actually, vanilla is so delicious. Um, duh, treats, duh. Let’s go to the mall! I did graduate from high school, nominated by my peers as ‘Future Picasso’. That’s taken me very far. I'm so glad I earned their encouragement and respect. Kill meeeee.

Even though I ended up being normal (curse you genetic smarts skipping my generation, coupled with an influx of very distracting video games and cartoons and pizza rolls), I had a great deal of support and encouragement by my similarly duped teachers during my formative years (thank you, Montessori school, for helping me build up my investigative skills – I’m what some call a ‘prober’).

From time to time, probably more often than I realize, I fondly look back at one teacher, one special fucking teacher who left on me an imprint the size of her colossal ass and encouraged me to be something no other teacher in my life had encouraged me to be up until that point: A huge asshole.

Thank you, my 6th grade teacher, Ms. Patti Cisewski (chih-SEWH-skeeeeeeeee / alternate pronounciation: KUH-uhnt) I hope my two followers find you on the internet and spam the fuck out of your school district inbox. We'll help you get a penile implant on your face.
I I I I I I I I I hate you.

Wildebeests, fortunately, cannot unite in 47 of the 50 United States, Minnesota included. So she was single at the time she taught my class. She had a hideous little wildebeest, troll child named Michaela Cisewski (amazing, my spell check recognizes ‘Michaela’ as a real word / name – if you are named Michaela, Monica or Desiree, your life is guaranteed to be total dogshit mostly due to the fact that the people who raised you gave you your crappy ass name. And you run around like a chicken with your head cut off, or a chickenhead (more likely), on the outskirts of an already miserable suburb (Cottage Grove, MN) whose major exports are meth, high school dropouts, and meth babies. I know what you’re thinking: rent must be cheap!

Ms. Cisewski was a notoriously evil, 4-legged teaching abomination. I was on vacation in Florida the summer before 6^th grade and during that time the class rosters were announced to students and their parents. My mom had to call me with the bad news. I freaked out at my Tia Angelita’s house on one of her plastic covered sofas. Tia doesn’t speak a drop of English so she couldn’t figure out what was going on nor console me. If I remember correctly, the best she could do was serve me some fried steak and whole avocadoes swimming in olive oil and salt...and the ensuing heart failure brought me a sense of calm. But THEN, my mom tried to make it better by telling me my best friend Darcy was in the class, too. No amount of Darcy or Mickey Mouse was going to make this better.

Her breath was a combination of cigarettes, black coffee, halitosis aaaaand spoiled milk. And I’m sure she kept her mouth closed all day so that shit would stew in there so that she could literally reek havoc (pun master moment, muthafucka) on the unlucky soul called to her desk for a session of downwind scolding. Oftentimes me! Lucky me! I wish – I WISH – I would have had the balls to offer her a cert or a stem of fresh basil.

When we continue F+ You! parte deux, I’ll explore the deeper reasons behind my hatred for Ms. Cisewski and how I got that bitch real good. But then she got me real good. But then life got her real good because it looks like someone dumped a vat of syphilis on her head.

But , sweetie, she smelled.

One very cool part about being a kid is that this is the only time in your life when you are allowed to have odd, small pets without being ostracized by your peers. But don’t feel special. Your parents only allow vermin into their home to deflect the possibility of getting a dog, which requires way more attention and money. And besides, rodents, birds and lizards are easy to replace when they inevitably croak. I am the pun wizard! Actually, I didn’t mention amphibians. Shit. Can you even remember how many times have you gone on a date and thought you were going to get all fucking sexy with some guy or girl, start making out on the couch and suddenly your olfactory is choked up by the stench of ferrets in the next room over? So then you go to his / her bedroom to getcha, getcha, getcha freak on and afterwards, when you turn on the lights, you realize a boa constrictor in a three-fold fused aquarium was watching you the whole time from 5 feet away? No, no you don’t. Because none of this shit would ever have gone down…because adults with animals like this in their homes don’t go on sexy dates. Back to the Renaissance Festival with you, you freaks! Keep inbreeding. So if you don’t get your chance to have a stupid, useless pet as a kid, remember your life is fucked if you want to make up for lost time as a 32 year old. Unless you live in your mom’s basement and play WOW all day long. ‘Mom, keep the mountain dews coming!’

And in elementary school, the teachers always dumped off their science creatures with some unsuspecting parents. I got 2 hermit crabs, which were actually pretty cool because you don’t really have to feed them or clean them or hang out with them. And when you’re sick of them, you can just throw them in the garbage because they have no souls. I remember my friend, Darcy, took care of a duckling after she raised it for a trimester in highschool. Seriously, a duck? What the hell are you going to do with a duck in the suburbs of Minnesota? They have souls, well, at least half a soul, so they’re really difficult to dispose of. And it stank. But you’re supposed to overlook that because it’s cute and fuzzy.

Well, my favorite useless creature – with a full soul - was a guinea pig, which I got when I was 7. She was really cute. If you have never had a guinea pig or the esteemed pleasure of eliciting heightened emotions from one, know that they sound amaaaazing. It’s is a quick high squeal, typically succeeded by a thousand more squeals, all..day..long! I attribute this to them extremely being happy / content or scared shitless. So given this one thing that they are able to do better than anything on earth, I named my piglet Beepers. Cause she beeps. Note: my friend, Maria, has drawn Beepers and has a sassy MS Paint portrait on her blog. I have two friends. If you can't find her, you are too stupid for this ride.

Beepers and me, man…we did all sorts of no shit together. I’d feel bad and take her out to play once in a while, but you really can’t handle a guinea pig all that well. And you definitely don’t want them running around because they’d leave little brown rice-like dumps everywhere. And they have super long Mandarin nails like the evil dude in Big Trouble In Little China (my boyfriend) and are constantly foraging with their Nosferatu teeth so eventually they would bite you prompting their immediate return to their eternal death chamber / aquarium, stocked full of toilet paper rolls, half eaten carrots and wood chips. What a good life. Really. Best $4.95 my family ever spent at Meijer’s.

We had a cat, too, Bonkers – because she was bonkers (I’m into obvious names for my four-legged companions). Bonkers was so into Beepers. I found her once sitting in the aquarium just chilling and with seemingly no intention of eating the piglet. In fact, Beepers was beeping a bunch. I’m sure she was so happy.

My family is originally from Minnesota. The first summer I had Beepers, my parents sent me back to stay with my grandma for a month. My grandma (Aba) is the shit. She kicks ass for days. So this was a welcome retreat, but I was kind of bummed that my stinkfriend couldn’t come with. My parents promised to keep her company, so it was all good. While I was in MN, I got Tetris, which changed my life forever and now I deal with severe OCD issues when placing groceries on the conveyor for check out.

It had been a month and I had a great time in MN, but it was time to get back to Michigan to my family and beloved animals. I get home and run to my room to check on Beepers and the tank is gone. My mom used to be like a meth head compulsive cleaner so she also painstakingly scrubbed the carpet where the tank had been to remove signs of something resting in that space. So I really couldn’t tell how long the tank had been gone. Then they came in…to have a talk with me. Apparently my mom and dad had a little meeting while I was away – like Day 1 of ‘Operation Get Maria Momez Out of the Fucking House so We Can Do it a Lot This Summer’ – and had decided that Beepers stunk. They thought it would be a fabulous idea to put Beepers in the dank, dark, old home basement for the month to contain her flavor. And then she died on Day 2 of Operation ‘GMMOOTFHSWCDIALTS’ of hypothermia. Poor Beepers.  I cried and cried and cried and cried aaaand cried. And then it was a half hour later and I drank some ecto cooler before carrying on with living.

Never after her untimely passing had I expressed the desire for another guinea pig. Not because Beepers was a singular entity in this world and she couldn’t be replaced. No, she was just a guinea pig. It sucked she died, but I wasn’t going to hold vigil and stop eating for 31 hours. When it comes to Somalia, that’s another story. Hot. It just so turns out that my mom carried guilt about this incident for a good long time.

I worked at a bank during college and lived at home…must have been 21 at the time. I was really adult and had a new boyfriend and just thought I was cool as hell. One day I get a call from my mom saying ‘I’ve got a surprise for you waiting at home…’ At this time in my life I didn’t really think I could be surprised with anything cool that I couldn’t buy for myself. WRONG. I get home, walk upstairs to my room and discover that she bought me another goddamned guinea pig. And it’s cage was monstrous and it was just chillaxin in my room beeping and going ape shit. ‘Surprise, I got you another guinea pig to make up for killing Beepers!’ (14 years ago – no, 2/3 of my life ago) Holy shit. Do you know how not excited I was? I was hoping to be all sexy with this new guy, but really couldn’t get it in with something scurrying at the end of your bed, clomping their teeth on a water bottle and beeping whenever your junk touched. I felt like I was failing at a game of Operation.

Thank you, Milton Bradley.