no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Heh, that reminds me of a philosophy I have: dental cleanings are like massages for your mouth. I have changed a tampon wearing spanx! I AM FEARLESS, basically.

My only experience with Spanx is with the Power Panties, of which I am a fan. I find them perfectly comfortable to wear; the getting up/down is a bit of a PIA, true, but also I am a camel and do not need to pee very often.

Movers just left. Young, nice but clueless guy asked me why I didn't have a husband and why one person would need so much stuff.

Argh. I'd have thrown my hands up, acted fake flustered and cried "oh noes! No husband? Whatever could I have done with the box where I packed him?" And then insist clueless went back to check for *more* boxes. Sigh.

Gross. What a tool.

i was helping a friend move a few years ago, like heavy lifting and such, which i actually enjoy doing bc it's so physical and gives my mind a kind of yogic break (plus i like helping friends), and her dad was helping out too and later speculated to her that perhaps i didn't have a husband because i'm too independent

so take these comments with about 1000 grains of salt

ooof. Some Dads get a little bit of a pass because they're those sorts of Dads, but this guy was about 22.

Not trying to be cap'n save a dad, but for our parents' generation, most women did have to give up a lot of independence when they got married (I'm thinking of parents who got married in the 60s/70s). It was just expected that women would set aside whatever they were into and focus totally on their families.* I'm sure his meaning was more "She can't attract a man because men don't like independent women" as opposed to "She chooses not to be married because of what she would have to sacrifice," but the latter could be really accurate in some cases.

*I took a grrrrreat class in undergrad called Motherhood in Culture and Politics and in one of our books there was an essay by a second wave feminist who had a epiphany while making tuna salad her for family one day. She was making it the way her husband and children liked it when she realized she had no idea how she liked her tuna salad, because her preferences were irrelevant. So she left her husband and children and never made tuna salad again.

the funny thing is that my friend is super independent too, ah but she was moving in w her fiancé... whatevs.

I think that guy is just a pre-dad mainstreamer

It sort of reminds me of a time I was helping a friend move (that's coincidental but kind of funny) and her mom grabbed my shoulders and looked carefully at my face, and then shook her head and said, "I was hoping you'd talk to (Friend) and tell her to wear eye makeup but you don't wear any either."

haha that is random! and hilarious

I was helping the friend move stuff from Boca Raton, FL to Boulder, CO in the summer and her mom wanted us both to wear eye makeup for the occasion! Her mom also spoke wistfully of "table setting" classes she took when she was younger and thought her daughter and I were savages because we didn't own napkin rings.

BTW this thread has totally made me appreciate my mum even more in that I don't remember her ever commenting on my looks or anything ever, and I'm gonna tell her when I see her this weekend.

<3 awwww yay.

OH SHIT I was supposed to call my mom yesterday and totally spaced it. Gah. I'm winning the Olympic gold medal in the Worst Daughter event.

hahaa
the only time I've cared abt napkin rings is when I've seen cool art-deco-ish ones in antique/second-hand shops. But I've never bought them. Maybe if I had a HUSBAND. and a real table.
xp

And napkins.

I have some real napkins!
which I totally use just like all the time... lol

We have cloth napkins that we use all the time (for the environment man), but we eat sitting on the couch in front of the TV 98% of the time so napkin rings just don't seem necessary.

I this point I would like to cross-ref this thread w dirtbag style thread

At this point I mean.
I mostly use kleenex for everything...

I'm sure this will change once I have a husband.

joeks

Yeah, then you'll use your bath towels.

or my husband

carl, i would be more than thrilled to gift you the napkin rings i received for christmas from a well-meaning relative 10 years ago

Thank you. But I will pass. Unless they are cool and I could make earrings out of them.

they are gray and v uncool

Sounds like a good thing to put in the thrift store donation box, IMO.

Xxxp v good dad-related points Carl.

The only thing my Dad cares about is that I keep my hair long. Not because of femininity, but because he is an HIPPIE - his hair is longer than mine, after all.

My Mum used to have these really cool napkin rings that were made of filaments of clear plastic of some kind - they were great because I could connect them end to end to conduct experiments in how fibre optics transmit and bend light and the like.

I am sick today so I am probably not making much sense.

mom used to really get onto us doing anything to our hair. dying, cutting, it was all bad.

when i was in high school i looked like a mennonite (this is poss inaccurate) cause i wasn't allowed to cut my hair. at 18 i cut it to my shoulders and thought i was a huge rebel

Ugh, I cannot believe that at my advanced age, I still need my mom to wade in and break it up when my sister starts acting like a total tosser, ie. acts all outraged that anyone would have the audacity to hold her to normal human standards of behaviour.

wow what kind of stuff does she do

Between us, we were awarded $2500 by a relative's estate. Sister dearest was holding my half for when I needed a plane ticket, but helped herself to this money without asking permission when she was 'between paychecks' (if she had asked permission and explained her circs, I'd definitely have allowed it, NBD). She's never been able to pass a cookie jar without thrusting her hand into it. As luck would have it, I needed some of this money last week and asked her to wire some of it. She couldn't, blamed being 'between checks' again. Between the lines of my messages one could read 'well, you could have asked permission and if you didn't STEAL we wouldn't be having this conversation'. Cue all sorts of bad deflection/puffed-up entitlement ie. CAN'T YOU SEE I AM TRYING TO RUN A BUSINESS HERE/I WORK SO HARD/STOP TREATING ME LIKE A TWO YEAR OLD. Also, I am rude because I never ask how she is or make small-talk when we're in this situation. RAGE.

Additionally, all under-duress communication from my sister must include (possibly by statute) overuse of exclamation marks and at least one incidence of 'could of'/'should of' in each small paragraph. DOUBLE RAGE.

OK that last bit alone would make me punchy let alone the rest!

oh man, that is not okay. i'm really sorry, suzy.

Between the lines of my messages one could read 'well, you could have asked permission and if you didn't STEAL we wouldn't be having this conversation'.

honestly, it sounds like you handled this pretty controlledly. i think i would have been incoherent with rage and yelled at her.

It was via the magic of Facebook messages so there was no opportunity for DECIBELS.

My MO for dealing with her incoherent messages is to a) use multi-syllabic fifty-center vocab words or shoehorn in a correct 'could have' in any response and b) go into total Vulcan mode. After 20+ years of this crap (she has stolen from my mom to gamble in the past) she is very, very lucky there are approximately 4000 miles between us.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GUY WHO HELPFULLY ANNOUNCED “DAAAAAMN BITCH, YOU FAT!” TO ME IN THE TARGET PARKING LOT THIS MORNING

You probably think the only place I belong is wherever you can’t see me, ideally in the dark, behind closed doors. You need protection from having my big old fat self out there polluting your visual landscape, like I think I have a right to go anyplace I want, like I think I have a right to force people who find my body offensive to look at me. How you must suffer. Allow me to break out the world’s fattest violin.

I love Leslie Kinzel. She's hilarious and OTM.

Right. On.

Yeah, Leslie is great. She rocks some awesome manicures too.

I never learn, do I?

:-(

some douchebag called you fat in a parking lot, too?

No, it was just a vague sigh of disappointment with myself for acting like a bull in a thread where dude-bros were having fun waving their favourite flags.

you are an Aries, though, right?

I sure am. ::makes devil horns sign::

so don't let whatever dude-bros say bother you

I'm not bothered by what they said, I'm bothered by my inability to contain my snark sometimes.

n/m