humor – Page 11 – FibroM.E.-Awesome

This is something I did today. While driving across the causeway in my 2004 green corolla, I blared Justin Bieber’s “Baby” really loud and sang pretty near the top of my lungs, hitting all the high notes while staying in my lower register. It felt really good. So then, I blared Lady Gaga “Born this Way” and again, belted it…awkwardly making loud generic sounds at the parts where I didn’t know the lyrics. That turned out to be fun so I played some Edward Sharp and continued giving a free live show to all of Lake Ponchartrain. Then, I put on one of my favorites; Lil Wayne. Because nothing makes a scrawny white girl driving a corolla feel cooler than belting the lyrics to “Lollilop” or basically any song from Tha Carter III. Another great one by Wayne, (that’s what you call him if you’re tight with him) is “I’m Me.” It makes me feel like being a loser is really cool. “You can love me or hate me, I swear it won’t make me or break me.” Yeeeeah…take THAT ~~America!~~ Bill O’Reilly!

You know what bothers me? When someone starts singing along to a song, but they start singing really seriously. Like the look on their face is really emotional and you’re like “Should I stop telling the story about my brother sharting on himself?”(Real story) Anyway it always makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m all about singing to the Heavens while you’re in your car, but while you have passengers? No. No, no, no. It’s like they’re performing a show for you that you never planned to attend. And sometimes they carry on a little too long where you feel like you’re supposed to say “Wow, you have a great voice!” But if there’s a third person in the car, they’ll usually say “Who sings this song?” And the person singing too loudly will say “Mariah Carrey.” And then the third person will say “Yeah, let’s keep it that way.” This usually upsets the performer and prompts her to sing louder just to annoy passenger three. If there’s a fourth passenger, he’ll yell something like “Yeah, DON’T quit your day job!!” and then high five passenger 3. I am passenger 2 in this scenario, and I’m rolling my eyes. Because I hate both of those phrases, probably even more than emotional sing alongs.

While we’re on the subject of…whoa I haven’t even stuck to what I titled this. I’m going to have to change it. But what I was going to write is that I hate when girls get married and then start referring to their husbands as their “hubby.” And then their FB status is all “Can’t wait till my hubby gets home and we get to pick my elbow scab!” Or something equally fun. I just wonder how that terminology began, because I see the transition unfold before my eyes. Before the wedding: boyfriend. After the wedding: hubby. Ew! But you know what I LOVE?! Looking at people’s wedding albums on Facebook. Oh God, I could do that all day. I don’t even have to remotely know the person. And here is a creepy thing I have done. I typed in a girls name that I went to high school with because I hadn’t heard about her in a long time. She kindof has a generic name. But, the first name that popped up, was this different girl, a girl who lived in Shreveport. (A girl I didn’t know.) She was pretty and I saw that her profile picture was of her and her hubby (see what I did there?) at the alter. I clicked on her profile to see that 1. her profile was public and 2. she had gotten married a month earlier. DING DING DING. I looked through like 150 pictures-all of them- wedding party, father-daughter dance, and the old grandma busting a move (classic). Then I thought about just how creepy it was what I was doing and my phone rang and I took it as a sign that I should stop. So I did. And now, for some INSANE reason I’ve shared that with the world. You’re welcome. Well, sorry. But more, you’re welcome.

Health, Happiness, CREEPERS

Let’s talk about curse words for a second. Because I love talking about those fuckers. Oopse!

Don’t you love how someone will say “What a BITCH! Pardon my french…” It’s like, that..was not french…and you don’t actually sound very sorry for saying it. I wonder how that started. But not enough to actually google it. Anyway, I bring up the subject of curse words because I used a bunch of them in my car this morning as I was stuck going 35 miles per hour on the Causeway. (For you Yankees, the Causeway is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world, and runs across Lake Ponchartrain connecting the North Shore to New Orleans. Fun facts yaaay.) So this morning there was thick fog, and that means the normal 65 mph speed limit (which is actually more like 75 mph, let’s get real) was dropped to 35 mph. It seems like overkill to me, but I’m trying to talk about curse words here so why don’t I stick to the DAMN subject. I was headed to New Orleans to take my nursing school entrance exam, and at the rate of traffic I was never gonna make it. Thus, the curse words ensued…

I don’t know what the satisfaction is in saying curse words, but it seems like whatever point you’re making, it adds the perfect amount of emphasis. It makes funny things funnier and angry things angrier and unimportant things seemingly more important. For example: Who ate all the corn flakes? Vs. Who ate all the Fucking Corn Flakes? See how that works? Anyway I started thinking about curse words and a conversation popped into my head that I had with my grandparents around the dinner table a few years back. The conversation had died down a bit and out of the blue my soft-spoken, conservative grandpa asks me “Mary, would you ever let a boy talk dirty to you?” I started to choke on my meatloaf immediately and washed it down with lemonade. I clear my throat. “What do you mean?” He went on to tell me that on the golf course that afternoon, a couple was playing near him, and the man kept cursing in front of his wife. “Even the F word,” he raised his eyebrows at me. “You wouldn’t let a man talk like that in front of you, would you?” I shook my head no, I lied. But for what it’s worth, I prefer people not to curse. Unless you’re alone in your car on a bridge. It was right after this that my Grandma (also named Mary, I’m named after her) said something extraordinary. “You know, I have Never used that word in my life, and I never will.” I know what you’re thinking–she’s lying. But if you knew her, you’d know that 1. she doesn’t lie and 2. it’s totally believable that she’s never used it. She’s as pure and innocent as they come. It really struck me when she said that. I had said it that morning just brushing my hair.

Another memory pops into my head concerning curse words. My dad was another one of those pure souls. Never did drugs, hardly drank, and never cursed. He hardly even raised his voice. He was similar to my grandma in that way. And he didn’t refrain from those things in some kind of stick-in-the-mud fashion. He was a TON of fun. He was a lot of people’s best friend. (At his funeral there were six eulogies. Six.) Anyway, it was about a year after he was diagnosed with cancer that the six of us were getting ready to go out to dinner. He had just gotten home from work at the grocery store. We rarely ate out, so it was always kind of an occastion when it happened. We were all waiting outside our enormous Chevy Grey Van (with carpeted walls) when my dad went back inside to get something. When he opened the front door, our 110 pound labrador retriever burst through, wiggled through my dads hands and took off down our neighborhood street. My dad, the smiling, mild-mannered sweet man, transcended. Something snapped. He was NOT going to let Bacchus get away with this. Off he went, running, no— sprinting down Wilson Court, still in his suit, with his tie flapping behind him, yelling after Bacchus. “You son of a bitch!” he yelled. At one point he began picking up rocks off the street, hurling them toward the dog. “You son of a bitch Bacchus!” Zoom, another rock. The dog, barely visible at this point, was miles ahead of him. Bacchus may have been a fat son of a bitch, but he was fast. My dad never stood a chance. The four kids and my mom stood in front of the van stunned with our jaws dropped. Who was this man? When he got to the stop sign, he gave up, slowly turned around and started the defeated walk home, panting. The five of us watched. I remember feeling uncomfortable because I had never heard him curse before, but suddenly I noticed, my mom was laughing, followed by the other three. One of those group laughers that starts small and bubbles into breathlessness and strange sounds. Something about it was incredibly refreshing. By the time he made it back he was laughing of too, of course. Through his diagnosis and the grim prognosis-6 months- he had always kept it together. Finally, our fat fast dog running down the street got him to lose it, just a little. Just for a moment. It was great.

I thought about these things as I finally made it to the end of the bridge. Turns out my test wasn’t until 9, not 8:30 like I had thought. So I was going to make it. All those F bombs for nothing. Maybe next time instead of saying that word when I’m upset, I’ll say what my grandma says: Fiddle Faddle.

Health, Happiness, and $%@!