Quirkee.com

We went to a hot sauce festival.

In Texas.

In August.

With the rest of the morons who couldn’t seem to get enough torture from the Texas heat in August..

Here is some perspective if you’ve never done anything that approaches the idiocy of that move...

It’s like walking into a party in the ninth circle of hell and standing in line for two hours until you get to the front.

I need a raise - not because I want more money, but because I want to work less.  As a self-employed comedian, that goal is somewhat obtainable.  To put it quite simply, all my life, I've wanted to do absolutely nothing.  Now that I have this job down to forty-five minutes per night I'm getting closer to my goal.  Most people would balk at the idea of getting up on stage and telling jokes to a roomful of strangers, but when they learn about the comic's work schedule, some of these fools actually dare to attend an open mic night or two.  It's the ones who show up for a third time that are in serious jeopardy of throwing away their lives at a chance for stardom.

I am not a fan of practical driving.

Stick me in my car with the moonroof open and the windows down, music blasting, my foot on the gas, ALONE (“I can pretend I’m single and childless?”), and with time on my hands, and I’m A-Okay.  I’m a regular super-silly slap-happy bitch at that point, oh yes.

But everyday driving?  Can suketh my ballseth.

(Okay, technically I don’t have balls, but I really like to say stuff like that, so let’s just let that slide, alright?  Oh, and while we’re on the subject, I also tell people to suck my dick, but that’s different, because I really have one.  And it’s bigger than yours.  Just sayin.’)

This disdain for humdrum driving has not always been in my nature.  ANY kind of driving when I was a teenager was like winning the Gee-Golly Lottery.  To the bank, store, work, school, whatever – I was THERE.  It was ON.  From age 14 on, I would have driven over to the mailbox to get the mail if I had been allowed to do that.  Hell, I might have even taken a daily beating to be allowed to drive myself to school.

As the warm days of summer wind down, millions of people are spending what little money they have left after gassing up the car on corn dogs and elephant ears at county and state fairs. The people who run Weight Watchers are probably giddy when they think about the new business that'll come waddling in next month.

I myself spent eight hours at my local county fair trying to sell my new book, Not Guilty by Reason of Menopause. So instead of indulging in a sugar rush of cotton candy and caramel apples (which I have to cut into bite size pieces so I don't pull off a crown)... Instead of riding The Zipper and The Screamer until my back reminds me that I'm an adult now and there's not enough ibuprofen in the world to make whiplash worthwhile... Instead of petting sheep and goats and ponies oh my and then washing my hands over and over like Monk to make sure I'm not harboring Mad Pony Disease or Billy Goat Flu... Instead of any of those fun things, I spent all day sitting on a hard plastic chair people-watching.

Which, come to think of it, may actually be the most exciting thing to do at the fair.

Our sales manager came back from a party with a bunch of lawyers and told me that the lawyers loved the Edition but that one said he didn't want to read about my "navel flint." I laughed scornfully. So now these lawyers say that I'm writing that I have a flint in my navel. So now they claim that I say that I can press the sides of my belly button together and produce flame. What a joke. As if I'd try to pass off such a transparent lie. Lawyers make extravagant, nonsensical statements, so they assume everybody else does too. But I'm telling lawyers: Don't include me in your little world! I've got plenty to deal with in the real one!

Then again, our sales manager might have mispronounced the word "lint" as "flint" while relating this incident to me. The more I consider it the more I think this is the likely explanation, since our sales manager is kind of . . . well, you know . . . a sales guy. "Navel lint" makes much more sense within this context as the lawyer may have been referring to my habit of speaking about personal matters in this column. I would like to state here that I have never once written a column about my navel lint, though I have written about lint screens in dryers, which might easily have confused this lawyer. Yes, I know it seem ridiculous to confuse a dryer with a human navel, but this is a lawyer we're talking about, not a rocket scientist. Try to have a little compassion.

I'm a mommy to the two coolest little boys in the world. Jackson is my smartypants sweetheart, he's almost nine.  Noah is an adorable and talkative age four.  I feel really lucky to have sons because the entertainment is almost nonstop.  We laugh a lot, and I've come to know that laughter is key.  Especially to maintain the little bit of sanity I still have when they are driving me nuts, and they do in fact drive me nuts, a lot.  It's always interesting though, no matter what.  So, a long time ago I started writing down conversations we have, because for posterity sake, this stuff is like gold.

The most overlooked disease facing Mothers today is Loser Mom Syndrome. LMS is a constant threat, a dark storm cloud lurking on the horizon that threatens to undermine any fleeting feelings of control and peace a mother can create for herself.

You may think you are impervious to LMS. You may think you have none of the risk factors. After all, you researched the safest car seats, threw away the Nalgene water bottles, and returned the permission slips way before the deadline. But you forgot to purchase the end-of-the-school-year gift for the Kindergarten teacher's aide. You didn't even know that was the protocol, but it doesn't matter that you never saw it coming. You're a loser. You have LMS.

The risk factors for developing LMS are being female and having children. These are the biggies. Without these two risk factors present, almost no one develops LMS. But if both of them apply to you, watch out.