"HA HA I'm Dumb"

So, guys, I've been thinking... (oh, by the way, today on Twitter, in response to my "I don't know about you guys but anarchy is looking pretty good to me right now," somebody took offense at my use of the word "guys," because, as a woman, she doesn't like to be called that, and she said "Every time we assume masculine as the standard, we uphold the structure of patriarchy." I don't know her at all, and I assume she's a nice person just stating her opinion, so I went with the non-ridicule response option and I said that I call everybody "guys," men, women, kids and cats alike. However, since probably the majority of my readers here are female, I'd just like to profoundly apologize for the part I play in upholding the structure of the patriarchy in today's sexist society, with my use of this potentially pejorative term. Please accept my humble gratitude for your continued viewership, despite everything I've said that has subjugated you.)

So, guys, I've been thinking.... I can't help but notice that the posts of mine that you guys tend to like the best are the ones where I'm talking about some boneheaded thing that I've done. I figure that's because it bring us all, you guys and I, closer together as human beings. We realize, in the sharing of these farcical and sometimes humiliating stories of mine, that you guys and I are all just human beings, making our way through this life of ours (your guys' lives, and my own) and that nobody is perfect. You guys and I can laugh at the absurd, but when we do it together, we realize that we're not really actually all that alone on this big, dark, lonely planet of ours.

No, that's horseshit, of course. Really it's just funny to laugh at the crazy lady with the curly hair when she does wacky things. And I completely agree with you! And I realize that a lot of you guys are relatively new readers and probably haven't read any of my old stuff, but I've been talking shit about myself since day ONE! And so, as a present from me to you guys, I have created a new tag and called it "HA HA I'm Dumb" and have painstakingly gone through every fucking post that I've ever written, looking for the posts about my stupidity, and have applied that label to old posts that I think you guys might enjoy reading. There are 20 of them. TWENTY.

And THEN, guys, I started thinking that, I mean, really, I've been doing crazy shit much longer than I've been blogging about it. In fact, probably about once a day for much of my adult life I've found myself in a situation where I'm screaming at myself inside my head "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP TALKING NOW!" And I went back through the pasta strainer that is my memory and came up with a few more stories for your enjoyment!

And so, I present to you guys.... HA HA I'm Dumb.... Through the Years.

Guys.


1986: I was 16 years old and had just started driving. I was pulling out of some parking lot, and this dude started honking at me. Well, I was 16 and hot shit (and not one to be held down by the patriarchy) so I was like "fuck you, honker!" and drove off. But he kept following me, and he kept honking, and I was like WTF??? until he pulls up alongside of me and told me that I had left my wallet and all the rest of my belongings on top of my car and had been leaving a trail of wallet items behind as I smugly drove down the road.

1992: I had just met my now husband. At the time I had one of these funky alarm clocks with this really big snooze button on top, so that when it went off all I usually had to do was just to flail my arm in its general direction and hit the snooze button. One morning we were sleeping and the alarm went off. I guess I wasn't used to sharing a bed with somebody, and I was facing the wrong way, and instead of reaching out and smacking the top of my alarm clock, I reached out and smacked my eventual husband (really hard) on the top of his head. His response? "Thanks." Almost 20 years later and that still makes me giggle.

2009: It was the last day of school for Child 1; it had been kind of a rough year. I had made enemies throughout the district, including the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, the Public Information Officer and, well, pretty much anybody that worked at the school district, really. I was walking through the hallway on that last day (I'm not sure why I didn't have Child 1 with me, since school was all over, but for some reason I didn't) and as I'm walking I spot ahead of me the Assistant Superintendent, who I can't fucking stand. For the purposes of this story, let's call him Mr. Smith. So, I spot Mr. Smith coming towards me, he says "hello Ms. Smo" and I say "uhhhh. yeah..." or something equally awesome, and before we're able to pass each other, I duck into the classroom of a teacher friend of mine. You know... to hide! I go up to her and I say "GOD. Mr. Smith is out there, I fucking hate that guy!" And then I see her face, and she's looking over my shoulder, with this kind of expression:

And I turn around to look and... of course... Mr. Smith had followed me into the room and had heard what I had just said about him. I mumbled something or other and bolted from the room. Oy.

2010: Child 1 hates the Food Network for some reason, which sucks because we used to watch a lot of it. One day he came into the room while we're watching Rachel Ray put EVOO on things and insisted that we turn it off. I ask him what he wants to watch, instead, and he says "kickball." Do they even have that on TV? I flipped through the channels looking for something sportsy and I see that the Stanley Cup is on. Thinking that the Stanley Cup is soccer, I say "Let's watch soccer! It's just like kickball!" Everybody is happy until the commercial ends and we quickly learn that the Stanley Cup is, in fact, hockey. I say "oh, it's hockey, not soccer. Well, it's kind of like kickball, except they don't kick stuff and there's no ball."

I'm sure there are more stories, but be glad that I even came up with four of them. My mind is like a steel trap that somebody has riddled with bullet holes. It's like a fishnet stocking. It's like swiss cheese. It's like.... oh, that's enough.... you get the point.

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