No Time for a Nervous Breakdown

Maybe it’s bad karma. Or a disability. Or raging pre-menopause hormones. Maybe it’s my meds or lack thereof. Or this unnecessarily dramatic midlife crisis I nurture. Maybe I should consult an astrologist or a hypnotherapist. Or a pharmacist. Either I am easily overwhelmed, exhausted, and spent, or I just whine about it more than anyone else does. Others seem to manage life so much more deftly than I do.

I will start a day with the best of intentions. A solid, ambitious plan. And more often than not, the plan goes out the broken window and everything gets swept up into a shitstorm. Like every item on my to-do list becomes a turd that gets thrown one-by-one into an oscillating fan. A whirlwind of clusterfuckery beyond my control. I feel pulled in 73 different directions and all I want to do is go back to bed until I desperately need to pee. I juggle candles that are burning at both ends. I bite off more than I can chew. And fight off more than I can do. I have too much on my plate and no dog under the table willing to help me eat it. Like I’m driving drunk with no steering wheel. In reverse. Blindfolded. Every once in a while, I will remember to breathe. Other times, an involuntary gasp reminds me. Not only do I have no time to wipe my ass, I have no time to take a shit in the first place. I know I am not alone. My girlfriends and I often share the Thelma and Louise escape fantasy. But with my luck, if I were to go for a flying drive off a cliff, I would survive in a persistent vegetative state until my family put me out of their misery.

I would love to schedule a nervous breakdown, but too many people depend on me. Maybe I could call it a vacation, but who has time for a vacation when there is so much minutiae to take care of? I have to be a part-time mom, de-clutter in time for the housekeeper’s visits, sometimes feed the dog, and keep the pantry and fridge alphabetized. There are toilets to plunge, spiders to kill, plants to water, dishes to wash, laundry to fold, kids to yell at, a husband to nag, errands to run, and shoes to buy. Then there’s all the household paperwork management. It is a fire hazard. In this digital world, I am amazed at how much paper crap still comes at me from every corner of my life. Daily. I dread going to the mailbox for fear of getting yet another piece of paper I don’t know what to do with. Sure, the junk mail goes right into the trash, and magazines and catalogs are set aside to read at my leisure (which is why that stack is four feet high and the clothing advertised in the ones at the bottom are already out of style). Then there are birthday invitations to respond to (and get a gift for), bills (to pay or dispute), insurance forms (to get the new liability proof from then file away somewhere), health care questionnaires (to consider filling out only to trash them later), receipts (some to keep, some to throw away, some to record in a register somewhere, some to look up online so as to figure out which account that money came out of and what the hell it was for even though it is dated yesterday), septic maintenance notices, post office “package to pick up” slips, Amazon packing slips (for things I may need to return but most likely not), kids’ school notices to read and calendar, order forms to fill out and write a check for, assignment sheets to review and sign, progress reports, report cards, Boy Scout and Girl Scout forms to fill out and e-mails I printed out for whatever reason that I never look at again, permission slips, reminder notes (that I always forget to look at), story ideas on scraps, songs to remember to download scribbled on Starbucks napkins, songs to remember to delete from my iPod scribbled on business cards, oh, and business cards (either mine or someone else’s), work ideas on Post-Its, letters to respond to, client-related forms, potential-client paperwork, board-member agendas, printouts, spreadsheets, ads for summer camps, forms for basketball sign-ups, salon or spa brochures, coupons, coupons, coupons, phone message notes, to-do lists, grocery lists, newspapers, newsletters, quasi-newspapers or newsletters . . . These are just the things that dropped out of the side of my head in the past five minutes.

Where do I put this or that so I can prioritize and be efficient? Who has time to get organized? I once wasted four hours online looking for a good time management program. I get e-mails from some website that is supposed to help me stay organized, but do I even open them? Hell no. I hardly have time to delete them. And don’t even ask about how disorganized and overloaded my three different e-mail accounts are. At least those are virtual. Getting on top of any workload is not easy when you have no organizational or time-management skills. This deficiency is compounded when adult-onset ADD makes me want to go shoe shopping rather than buy groceries because I can’t find the damn list that I scribbled on the back of a receipt that I just spit my gum into before it fell into the chasm between the driver’s seat and the center console to meet an errant French fry. (And because, well, I always want to go shoe shopping.)

No single thing is ever daunting on its own. It’s the cumulative effect of one nagging task on top of another. Things that should be at the top of the totem pole are mixed at random with things that would probably take care of themselves if I just left them alone. (And you can bet I will.) I am forced to put things on the back burner (if they are even on my figurative stove) while I want to stick my head in the oven. It’s like suffering from hemorrhoids or diarrhea while riding a rickety roller coaster. (Mind you, I have never had hemorrhoids, but I liked using two ass-related words that contain the rare “rrh” sequence of letters. Hemorrhage is another “rrh” word, but I chose not to use it in relation to the anal area, for obvious reasons. [Insert gory visual here.] But I digress.)

Some people make things happen. Others let things happen. I, however, get paralyzed and make sure that nothing happens. (Unless I have a deadline with consequences. Or unless it will make me some money.) The striving for intestinal fortitude and mental strength weakens me. (By the way, intestinal fortitude can get painful.) Perhaps my character is building and one day, I will be able to use my energy to keep everything together rather than use it to pretend I have it all together. I would clone myself to get things done, but I’m afraid the other me would really get on my nerves. She’d always be one-upping me and insulting me in her clever yet caustic way. Plus she’d want to borrow my clothes, my kids would like her more because she’d pay attention to them, and my husband would want to sleep with her. Bitch. Then again, maybe she could get me organized while I go on that vacation.

Dirty Words

In 1972, George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television was a scandalous hit. Even though most of the words can be heard regularly on many cable TV channels now, they are still considered inappropriate. Why certain combinations of letters that make certain sounds are deemed “bad” has always concerned me. But as a writer, I know that words are powerful. Especially words like the original seven: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. He also mentioned Fart, Turd, and Twat as contenders. I capitalize them to give them the authority they so richly deserve. I have a few to add as well. Mostly because I have stories to go with them.

I’ll address each word in order. A lot of parents forbid their children from using what they call the “S” word. Stupid. In our house, the “S” word is Shit. Much more expressive. (With our kids, we have so many other words worse than stupid to contend with, we tend to let that one slip by. We’ve told the kids that it’s not so bad to refer to a thing as stupid, but you shouldn’t call a person that. Unless it’s true.) Shit is one of my favorites. I like it because it is one of the few words whose meaning changes simply by putting the word “the” in front of it. If something is called Shit, it is just that: Shit. However, if something is referred to as The Shit, it is great. Note the difference: “This pie is Shit, Mom.” And “This pie is The Shit, Mom!” Shit is also a great synonym for the word “stuff.” I overheard my daughter and a friend of hers talking about how much they miss their bus driver and that they hope he’ll be driving their bus again the next year. I thought, Isn’t that sweet… Until my daughter said, “Yeah, he was nice except for all that foul language…” So I asked what she was talking about. She didn’t want to say the word. I said, “It can’t be any worse than what you have heard your dad and his friends say.” She said, “Or you. But hello? He’s a school bus driver.” She decided spelling it would solve the problem. She told me that one day he yelled at the kids to get their “S-H-I-T” out of the aisle. Good for him, I say. I am also fond of Shit because it is especially entertaining if I hear it uttered by a child or an elderly person. Years ago, a friend’s son (I think he was about six then) got into trouble for saying something relatively harmless like butthole. His mother’s punishment of choice was to put Tabasco sauce on his tongue as he stood in a corner. His response from that corner: “I guess I can’t say Shit either.” Brilliant. After my grandmother had a stroke, she lost her ability to speak. But she could still say “Shit!” Goddammit. I would too, if I had a stroke. I’d be pissed.

That brings us to Piss. It just means urinate, for Christ’s sake. Like pee or tinkle. But for some reason those four rather onomatopoeic letters make it a so-called bad word. During a rather trying visit to a truck stop restroom, I overheard a mom who was potty training her son. As I waited for an available stall, I heard this hillbilly meth-head say, “Come on, Li’l Earl, take a good piss for your mama.” Now, I’m not sure if she was indeed a hillbilly meth-head, and I also wonder if that description is a bit redundant as many hillbillies are probably meth-heads, but of course, not all meth-heads are hillbillies. They just look like them, what with the toothlessness and all. I’m also not sure if the kid’s name was Earl, but it was something redneckish like that. But I digress. I had never heard an adult say that word to a kid before. It was oddly refreshing. But poor little Earl didn’t have a chance. I venture to guess that learning a bad word was the least of his problems.

The next word on the list is probably everyone’s favorite. Fuck. So fun to say, right? So fucking handy. There are few things funnier than pre-schoolers using foul language that they clearly picked up from their parents. When my son was about four years old, after frantically searching the house for his little cowboy boots to don with his Pull-Up and hat, he looked at his grandmother and matter-of-factly in all his naiveté, asked, “Gabba, where are my fuckin’ boots?” He knew that that’s how you describe something you’re looking for in our household. When my nephew was about three years old, he told my mother, “I was going to say Fucking hell, but I didn’t.” We kept asking him, “What did you say???” And he kept repeating it, with a straight face, in his sweet soft little toddler voice. I swear, the Q & A went back and forth a good three or four times before we realized that indeed that was what he was saying. Then we kept asking him repeat it several more times because it was so damn funny. What else can you do with that? The word Fuck is the most important part of one of my favorite expressions: Bum-Fuck, Egypt; more commonly known simply as BFE. It is my generation’s parlance for “far away.” When I tell someone that we had to park way out in BFE, and they don’t know what I mean, depending upon whom I’m talking to, I either feel young or old. Usually old. The first time I said it to my daughter, I had to explain not only that Egypt itself is far away, but also that any place called Bum-Fuck, anywhere, is, by definition, far away. Therefore, Bum-Fuck, Egypt is doubly far away. She seemed to understand. Or else she was simply mesmerized by my saying the word Fuck to her when she was only seven years old.

The next word is arguably regarded as the worst combination of four letters ever put together. The “C” word as we call it. I personally like to say it anytime I get the chance just because the sound of it is so shocking. And it fascinates me that a short one-syllable word can arouse such angst, especially in women. I own that word. That word is my bitch. I learned to own it when I went to see Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. There is a short monologue called Reclaiming Cunt that really spoke to me. It is short enough to quote here:

I call it cunt. I've reclaimed it, “cunt.” I really like it. “Cunt.” Listen to it. “Cunt.” C C, Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come--closed c--closed inside, inside ca--then u--then cu--then curvy, inviting sharkskin u--uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u--then n then cun--snug letters fitting perfectly together—n--nest, now, nexus, nice, nice, always depth, always round in uppercase, cun, cun—n a jagged wicked electrical pulse—n [high-pitched noise] then soft n--warm n--cun, cun, then t--then sharp certain tangy t--texture, take, tent, tight, tantalizing, tensing, taste, tendrils, time, tactile, tell me “Cunt cunt,” say it, tell me “Cunt.” “Cunt.”

See, if you say it enough, it starts to lose its power. A girlfriend of mine coined a word for her belly. Gunt she calls it. When your gut extends down to your cunt to form one continuous body part. A gunt is a lot like cankles or even thankles. But again, I digress.

This brings us to Cocksucker. Saying that word just makes your mouth feel good, doesn’t it? Repeat it: COCKSUCKER. It is best said in all caps when you are especially angry. My 70-year-old mother recently announced that she plans to take up frequent use of the word Cocksucker. She figures that at her age, she can finally get away with it. I tried to explain that I have been getting away with it for years, but she is from a kinder, gentler generation.

Next to COCKSUCKER, Motherfucker is near and dear to my heart. You can describe people, especially men, as Motherfuckers, and you can describe other things, such as pain via the employment of a simile. Like this: “My sunburn hurts like a Motherfucker!” It is highly unusual to describe a woman as a Motherfucker, but she can be described as, for example, a Motherfucking Cunt. (I also like to use the word Asshole for women just because it is so unexpected. I think it adds an extra dimension to the insult.) Motherfucker can also be used as a term of endearment if spoken in the right tone. One night as I walked with my husband and another couple down Sixth Street in Austin, a dreadlocked, Rasta-beret-wearing, patchouli-scented dope smoker cruised between us on his Pee-Wee-Herman-style bike. As he weaved between us, he looked us up and down, smiled broadly, and asked, “Whassup, Muthafuckas?” It was epic. Men use it as a compliment as well. Especially when referring to another man’s machismo. As in: “He is one tough Motherfucker. Don’t Fuck with that guy.” It’s quite a versatile and poetic compound word.

Why Tits is on the list is beyond me. Another powerful four-letter combo. It makes boobs pornographic. And I’m all about porn. I have always liked the phrase Titty Bar for those euphemistically-termed Gentlemen’s clubs. Excuse me, gentlemen, but you are being bilked one dollar at a time by some clever women who are capitalizing on the fact that a large portion of this nation’s population of gentlemen is willing to part with a significant portion of the paycheck they just cashed to see some bare Tits. Unlike most of the other words on the list, Tits or any derivative thereof is a word that a child should never say. It is one thing for a kid to say Motherfucker. Now that’s funny. But something about the word Tits coming out of a kid’s mouth is just wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that they probably just finished breastfeeding. At least I hope so, if they are able to talk about Tits. If they are still breastfeeding, and I hear them say, “Hey, Mom, I’m thirsty. Gimme one of your Tits!” I might throw up in my mouth a little bit. Speech impediments can come in handy for some unintended inappropriate words coming out of kids’ mouths. My daughter had a playmate who could not make the K sound. She would replace it with a T. So Hello Kitty became Hello Titty. And she sure did love Hello Titty. I know because we asked her about it all the time just to hear her say it. She would also use the D sound in place of the letter G. One time I heard her say, “Dod-dammit,” and I wondered if God would hold that against her even though it wasn’t really his name.

Carlin’s last three words were extras. Fart, Turd, and Twat. Fart? Seriously? My mother-in-law calls Fart “the F word.” I don’t have the heart to sit her down and tell her what the real F word is. The word Fart doesn’t usually sound nearly as bad as the Fart itself. What’s worse is Shart. When Shit and Fart combine, that’s where the real bodily function magic happens. Shart sort of brings us to Turd. Turd is a cute little word for fecal matter. If Shit is the adult word for feces, Turd is the kids’ version. When I hear the word Turd, I always picture one floating in a punch bowl. In my lexicon, people who invite drama are known to “Stir the Turd.” Turd-stirrers piss me off, except for the fact that it gives me an opportunity to say, “Stop stirring the Turd, you dumbshit!” Turd is also used to describe a difficult person in a more lighthearted way. As in: “My grandmother won’t take her medicine. She is such a Fucking Turd.” The last word, Twat, in my opinion, is worse than Cunt. Erotic women have Cunts. Slutty college girls have Twats. A Twat is more likely to have an STD. Scientific fact. Because of this, calling a woman a Cunt is one thing; referring to her as a Twat is indeed much more highly offensive. Keep that in mind for the next time you need to insult a woman.

I have a few more “dirty” word stories to tell (along with any related tangents) so here they are:

Bitch is not necessarily such a bad word, but it is frowned upon in many social circles. And frowned upon when kids say it. Because our son was such a cowboy when he was little, my husband thought it would be nice to watch John Wayne’s The Cowboys with him. For the most part, it was kid-friendly. There was only one line we had a little trouble with, but we thought he didn’t even notice it. We were wrong. The next day, our sweet little cowboy lost his temper with me. He looked at me and in all seriousness, said, “Mama, you son of a bitch!” He cried when I laughed at him. Years ago, a teenage friend of my brother said his mom was yelling at him and called him a son of a bitch. In all of his teen wisdom, he looked her up and down and responded, “You got that right!” Ouch. I think he missed an Iron Maiden concert for that one.

I have a love-hate relationship with Boner. It is a word that makes a hard penis both funny and threatening. I like Chubber, as well. Chubber makes a hard penis cute and cuddly. Woody makes it splintery. A Boner came up one day in my office. During some light chatter after a serious conversation with a client and another attorney, I discovered that the client had played clarinet in the Army band. After I mentioned that I was a really bad clarinet player, my associate said, “I was a tromboner … er, trombonist.” I have found that nephews are a great source of inappropriate talk. My kids and their cousins were playing in my mother’s hot tub when we discovered my four-year-old nephew sans pants playing with himself in a rather blatant and pornographic manner. My sister told him to stop, explaining that he can investigate his private parts in private, but not in front of people. He threw a temper tantrum that rivaled any I had ever seen in my local Walmart and kept screaming, “It’s my wiener and I want to play with it!! It’s mine and I can play with it if I want to!!” Such a little man. The audience of immature adults could only stifle tears of laughter. It would have been a lot funnier if he had called it his Boner though.

Another nephew came up with this little gem: When we gathered with relatives on a vacation, an 18-year-old previously baby-faced cousin showed up with a goatee. In mock shock, I asked aloud, “What is that on Cameron’s face?” My nine-year-old nephew didn’t hesitate to say, “I don’t know, but it looks like a Beaver!” Of course, one of Cameron’s buddies mumbled, “He wishes.” I am not sure when or why a woman’s external genitalia were named after an aquatic buck-toothed dam-building mammal. I would Google it, but I fear the image results. I pity the man who coined the term, because the woman who inspired it must have had a most unattractive Pussy.

The Beaver incident reminded me of a lovely song I was subjected to at the closing ceremony of my daughter’s Girl Scout camp a few years ago. The event was all very sweet. The flag-raising, the recitation of the Girl Scout Oath and Girl Scout Motto (I will never know which is which), the singing of the Girl Scout signature song “Make new friends/but keep the old/one is silver and the other gold…,” blah, blah, blah, the picnic, then a nice tape-recorded playing of Taps as the flag was lowered at the end. It was entertaining to see so many little girls all happy and dirty in mismatched clothes, laughing with their friends and performing for their parents. (I’d say it was as American as apple pie, but that concept was tainted –in my dirty mind- by the movie American Pie.) Anyway, at some point in the show, the girls lined up to sing and act out another song. This is where (for me) it suddenly became awkward and inappropriate. The cuteness came to a screeching halt and I giggled like Wayne and Garth or Beavis and Butthead:

The Beaver Song

Beaver one, Beaver all, let’s all do the Beaver crawl (pretend to crawl)
Beaver two, Beaver three, let’s all eat a Beaver tree (pretend to climb)
Beaver four, Beaver five, let’s all do the Beaver dive (pretend to dive)
Beaver six, Beaver seven, let’s all go to Beaver heaven (sway with hands in prayer)
Beaver eight, beaver nine, stop
It’s Beaver time, go Beaver, go Beaver (rapper/hip-hop moves)
Beaver ten, Beaver ten, let’s all do the Beaver again!


Beaver dive? Beaver heaven? Really? Oh yeah, do that Beaver again. I then pictured a burlesque team of the grown-up scout leaders (most of them rather burly women) taking it one step further, and I wanted to poke my eyes out. Maybe I am simply immature. There is an adult chip missing that would keep me from attributing dirty meanings to anything that could possibly be interpreted in any sexual way. Sometimes I think I should exorcise this teenage boy who has taken up residence in the basement of my mind, but I like him. He’s hot.

Speaking of Beavers, my daughter, who was probably seven years old at the time, picked out a package of panties with cute little silkscreened animals on them. (Actually, she caused me to accidentally shoplift them, but that’s another story.) When I unwrapped the package to put the panties in the laundry, I was confronted with one pair that said “Absolutely Purrrfect” under a photograph of an adorable kitten. Another pair depicted a cartoon monkey eating a lollipop and saying, simply, “Yummy!” Do pedophiles make these panties or do I just have a sick mind? But I digress.

One of my favorite words is Ass. So versatile. Asswipe, Assmunch, Asshat, Assface, Asshole, for example. My daughter became quite adept at spelling so-called bad words. She told on her brother once by saying, “He called me an A-S-S-W-H-O-L-E!” I gave her extra credit for creative spelling. When my son was about six years old, he called his three-year-old sister a dumbass. When I reprimanded him (even though he was absolutely right, because, let's face it, three-year-olds can make some uninformed choices) he corrected himself and said, “I’m sorry, but she’s a stupid-bottom.” That was the first time he had used that other “S” word. Shit, I thought, I can't punish him, because it was true.

Legal Briefs

This is a combination of random crap I have posted before at various times. I thought I would see if it worked together. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I also don't much care. This one may or may not make the cut for my book.


I don’t like to advertise that I’m an attorney. Can you guess why?

1. No one believes it’s possible because

(a) I’m a “blonde”
(b) I’m never serious enough
(c) I have only a superficial understanding of world history and current events
(d) Any combination of the above
(e) (b) and (d)

2. When they find out and see that I don’t make any money at it, they must think

(a) I’m a sucky lawyer
(b) I’m a lame businessperson
(c) I have no drive or ambition and “why did she bother going to law school?”
(d) I’m so honorable to have given up a lucrative salary and high-powered career for the sake of my family
(e) All of the above except (d)

3. I think I’m scamming people because

(a) It sounds ridiculous to me, too
(b) I feel like a girl in a costume who says she’s a princess
(c) I feel like a stripper who tells everyone she’s a ballerina
(d) I feel like a ballerina who is really a stripper
(e) (d)

4. I may miss out on some lawyer jokes I haven’t already heard

(a) Like that’ll ever happen,
(b) Then I have to chuckle politely at a light-hearted attempt to offend members of my profession when the only thing that really offends me is the jokester’s negligent use of a trite and insipid riddle,
(c) At which point I will be forced to reach into my handy freight car full of witty and sarcastic comebacks that all-too-often will hurt some unsuspecting jokester’s fragile feelings,
(d) And then my audience will mutter to each other things like, “See what a bitch she is? I told you she was a lawyer.”
(e) This one is not multiple choice.

When people ask me if I work, where I work, what I do, or why did you write me that nasty letter, I hesitantly say that I’m a lawyer. I have been an attorney for over 20 years and that word still sounds strange coming out of my mouth. It’s a big part of my life and it takes up a lot of otherwise barren real estate in my mind, but it’s not who I am. My heart is in it, but only to the extent that it satisfies my desire to analyze and to write and to make my enemies suffer in abject shame as I expose their unscrupulous and heinous acts with my superior intellect, my unparalleled legal research skills, and my sly ability to threaten blackmail by distributing non-existent hidden-camera video, and (oh yeah) to help people.

*****

I do a fair amount of seminar presentations in my line of work. The conference organizers always want to add a little bio/resumé on the presenters. (This is where I am referred to as “Esquire,” which makes me sound medieval, which is cool. It also reminds me of “Bill S. Preston, Esquire” from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Clearly more of a dumbass than any sort of real lawyer.) The bios are always eye-glazingly boring and full of “look-how-smart-and-successful-I-am” crap. Here’s a little taste of mine:

Jill Mitchell earned a B.A. in English from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1988 . . . . She then spent a year at the University of Paris (La Sorbonne) where she earned a polite notice that she had failed miserably. (At least she thinks that’s what it said.) . . . . In 1991, she passed the Texas bar exam on her first try, by one point. True story.

She is a member of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Bar Association, the National Organization of Veterans Advocates, the Texas Bar Association . . . and a variety of loosely-organized literary and social groups. She is the longsuffering wife of an active duty combat veteran, and through her children, she maintains minimal involvement with the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America. . . . . She was also a member of the Texas Young Lawyers Association until she got too old.

Since 2000, aside from occasional wills for friends, her own traffic tickets, and nasty letters to insurance companies, she has limited her practice to veterans’ law, and works all alone in a posh, luxurious office. In her free time, she enjoys reading one novel per year, shopping at flea markets, and practicing yoga -- but not simultaneously.

A handful of otherwise bored seminar attendees thanked me for this refreshing pile of bullshit. If this lawyer gig doesn’t work out, I may start a resumé service.

*****

Actual notes from clients’ medical records:

“Patient sports a narcissistic moustache.”

“Patient cheerfully admitted to excessive smoking.”

“Q: What do you do to relieve stress? A: Try like hell to have sex.”

“Refer to Dr. Weiner for urological exam.”

“Q: What were you doing immediately prior to the accident? A: Drinking beer.”

Actual voicemail I received from a veteran: “Miss Jill, I really need your help with my VA claim. Long story short, ma’am, they just kinda shitted on me real good. Now you have a blessed day.”

*****

Because I am a moron and a masochist, and because no good deed goes unpunished, I took on some pro bono cases a few years ago. Just out of the kindness of my heart, to put some good karma back out there in the world, and in hopes, of course, of signing up the good cases later for a fee. Since I lost my conscience in law school, you can bet that any philanthropic act on my part will someday benefit me one way or another. And I mean financially. One of my new pro bono clients had the nerve, the absolute gall (after I had put in a good four or five hours reviewing his file and writing an important letter for him for free) to ask me for an advance on his potential award. As if: (1) I would ever do that, (2) I have the spare money to do that, (3) I am a sucker to give him free legal advice, so I must just be a sucker in general. Needless to say, that file went straight to my back burner. My assistant reminded me, “Don’t give away what you can sell.” (That’s great sex advice as well.)

*****

Speaking of giving away what I could sell, several years ago, I spent three days in a dank American Legion meeting hall dispensing free legal advice. The place was inundated with almost 300 disgruntled veterans. I heard one horrific and heartbreaking story after another in this fluorescent-lighted, linoleum-floored, smoke-smelling dungeon. After years of this practice, nothing shocked me anymore, but the listening drained and exhausted me every time. Normally, my consultations took place over the phone so I never saw the faces behind the stories. But for those three days, virtually nonstop, I sat across a table face-to-face and looked into tearful eyes of grown men and women broken physically and/or mentally by combat or by the mere preparation for it. None of them felt sorry for themselves. Many had earned Purple Hearts or various medals for valor or gallantry. Most of them had spent far more years fighting the VA than they spent fighting for our country. By day three of this event, the attorneys and other volunteers were appropriately shell-shocked. A media photographer (a middle-aged woman I had met only two days before and with whom I had until then only exchanged pleasantries) approached me as I sat alone during a rare quiet moment. In a serious voice, she whispered, “What kind of anti-depressant are you on?” Taken aback, I probably gasped before letting out a laugh not unlike those I offer in response to my own jokes. I replied, “Does it show? Can you really tell?” She said she was only half joking. She said, “Honey, anyone who does this kind of work has got to be on something.” Then I told her what I take, and as I am wont to do, proceeded --in my “TMI” way -- to share the litany of chemical crutches and (dare I say, maybe even life-saving at times) “happy pills” I have tried with varying success over the years. She said, “Forgive me, but I knew you had to be on drugs.” As I turned to go, I told her, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go shoot up now.”

Maybe if I found another line of work I wouldn’t need medication to keep the depression and anxiety away. Maybe if I found another line of work I would be more efficient and more organized and a better housekeeper. And maybe if I found another line of work my life would be full of butterflies and rainbows. Maybe so, but I wouldn’t be able to impress and befuddle people with the fact that I’m a lawyer.

Verbal Abuse (new & improved)

One morning, my son told me, “I play this Nintendo game good.” I said, “No. You play it well. Well is an adverb, adverbs modify verbs, and to play is a verb. Good (in this instance) is an adjective. Adjectives modify nouns.” After I realized (again) that I sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher to him, he asked, “Why aren’t they called adnouns? Shouldn’t adjectives modify jectives?” He totally missed the point.

The majority of my friends, acquaintances, reader(s), and healthcare providers are well-aware that I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Hell, spelling ability was one of the top five reasons I married my husband or even dated him in the first place. And I’m proud to say that both of my children know the difference between “your” and “you’re” and the difference between “its” and “it’s,” which is a lot more than I can say for most adults I know. I have convinced my family that the only thing worse than misplacing my keys is misplacing a modifier. They pretend to know what a gerund is so as not to upset my fragile psyche. And they know all-too-well that dangling a participle in front of me is an open invitation for my unbridled wrath to rain down upon them. I don’t care what you say, as long as you say it, spell it, or punctuate it correctly.

If someone were to write me a note that said, “go to hell bitch.” I would return it to them with red marks showing that the word “go” should be capitalized, the word “hell” needs a comma after it, and the word “bitch” needs a capital “B” (because it refers to Me). I might also suggest that the statement end with an exclamation mark instead of a period. I once saw this painted on the side of a truck: “Quality at it’s best!” All I could think was: punctuation at its worst. I guess not everyone can care about apostrophe misuse the way I do.

Then there are the commonly mispronounced words and phrases. My peeves are the butcherings of the words mischievous and supposedly. When I hear “miss-chee-vee-ous,” I throw up in my mouth a little bit. When I hear “supposably,” I roll my eyes until they get stuck. And why does 90% of the American population say “sherbert” when it is spelled and pronounced “sherbet?” There is only one R in it. I don’t much care for sherbet anyway, but when people mispronounce it, I really have no use for that shit at all. And why do so many people pronounce “asterisk” as “asterick?” Does it have anything to do with the phenomenon that causes some people to say “aks” instead of “ask?” I am also plagued by commonly misspoken phrases like these:

“At your beckon call" is incorrect. The operative phrase is actually “beck and call” (this mistake is almost forgivable because the word beckon actually means “to summon” and in fact the word beck is simply a shortened form of beckon.) Come to think of it, “beck and call” is a bit redundant, isn’t it? However, I will often respond to a call, but I shun becks at every opportunity. One similar but unforgivable and dry-heave-inducing error is “For all intensive purposes.” It is actually, “For all intents and purposes,” which is also somewhat redundant. Even if a trite phrase is ridiculous, it should still be uttered accurately. The worst offender of all misspoken phrases has got to be the transmogrification of “all of a sudden” into “all the sudden.” That one puts me into such an internal tizzy that I usually have to run to the nearest restroom. I once heard someone say, "He takes me for granite." Seriously? Well at least he doesn't take you for Formica. And when did it become acceptable for people to use “of” instead of “have”? As in, “I should of?” It is especially offensive when paired with the wrong verb, as in, “I should of went with you.” Oh, you mean, you should have gone with me? Well, I’m glad you didn’t because you can’t talk. A phrase I hear a lot that makes no sense: "I miss not seeing you!" What? You miss not seeing me? Gee, thanks. I could say that to a lot of people who are up in my face far too often, "Hey, you who won't leave me alone, I really miss your absence." A couple of French words or phrases that Americans can never say correctly are armoire and coup de grace. I don’t mean that they should be pronounced with a French accent. That would be pompous. (No offense to my pompous friends.) They should just be pronounced the French way, but in American English. Armoire is not “arm-wah” and coup de grace is not “coo-day-grah.” The French do say the endings of some of their words. The bottom line with me is if you can’t pronounce coup de grace, use some other phrase. I even saw it spelled somewhere like this: cou de gras, which I think kind of means neck of fat. Not really the meaning they were going for. There is one mispronunciation I like and intend to employ at every opportunity. I once heard someone say anticdote when they meant anecdote. I think that pronunciation might be more apt when the anecdote involves antics of some sort. I don't care for anecdotes without antics, ergo, I prefer anticdotes and decided right then that I would henceforth pronounce anecdote that way. Any dull anecdotes I hear will not be referred to as anticdotes, but rather, antidotes. As in: "that story was a real buzzkill, the ultimate party-mood antidote."

And don’t get me started on inadequate spelling. I live in a relatively large city with its share of under-educated and irresponsible people. (This may seem off-topic, but stick with me.) It is a known fact that too many animals are having unprotected sex. The combination of spelling-challenged adults and sexually indiscriminate dogs leads to signs like this: “4-Sell: Brown Chi-Wa-Wa’s” and “Free Doxen puppy’s.” I would have taken pictures of these gems, but that’s just the sort of obscenity I can’t abide. I’ll have porn on my phone before I’ll carry around misspelled and mis-punctuated words. I once saw a grocery-store cake emblazoned with fancy blue lettering that said, "SUPRISE!" As in, "Surprise! We misspelled the sentiment on your cake because we're illiterate, but that's okay because so are you!" I doubt anyone noticed it. Had I ordered a cake and arrived to find a misspelled word on it, I would have sent it back for a correction. Not just for my own peace of mind, but also to take an opportunity to offer a helpful spelling lesson and to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

Because I don’t trust my children’s teachers, I take advantage of every opportunity to train my kids to respect, revere, and regularly employ basic grammar rules. If any other children (or adults for that matter) are within earshot, all the better for them. One of my biggest challenges over the past few years has been drilling it into the kids’ heads that “me” cannot be the subject of a standard sentence. Here are some examples:

My son: “Me and him were making up jokes about our nuts.”

Me: “Me was doing what? . . . Him was do-ing what?”

My son: “Making up jokes about our nuts.”

Me: “You should say, ‘He and I were making up jokes about our nuts.’”

. . . .

My daughter: “Me and Lily and Maddie are so hot for Brance.”

Me: “Me is so hot for whom?”

My daughter: “I don’t know whom you’re hot for, Mom, but we’re hot for Brance.”

. . . .

Likewise, “I” cannot be the object of a sentence:

My daughter: “Take a picture of Brooke and I.”

Me: “Take a picture of I?”

My daughter: “No, she and I.”

Me: “Take a picture of she and take a picture of I?”

My daughter: “No, of me and Brooke.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Now, I don’t pretend or profess to be the World’s Greatest Expert on the English language. (Well, sometimes I do pretend to be.) I only got a bachelor’s degree in English. It’s not as if I did something crazy like get a Ph.D. in grammar:

“Oh, you have a Ph.D.? So you’re a ‘doctor.’ Doctor of what, may I ask?”

“Thanks for asking. I have a Ph.D. in English grammar. I’m a grammar doctor. Can I edit something for you?”

I believe my linguistic superiority, whether it is real or imagined, can be somewhat off-putting to anyone who wants to speak (or God forbid, write) in my presence. I wonder if they bite their tongues lest I mentally edit each word they utter. This, of course, works to my advantage because (1) I don’t have to listen to other people talk and (2) I get to talk more. And let’s face it; wouldn’t most of you rather listen to me?

As I have stated before, any so-called errors I may have made (or may make) in this book are actually intentional examples of the poetic license I am entitled to by virtue of my obvious genius in this unpopular and endangered arena.

I know what you’re thinking:

(1) How pathetic is she that this is her only talent?

(2) Why must she try to make herself feel important by mocking and looking down on those less grammatically fortunate?

(3) Why does she abuse her children this way?

The answers:

(1) I have other talents that I am not as proud of,

(2) Therefore, I need to boost my self-esteem at the expense of others, and

(3) My kids will make me look good later when I can tell people they have Ph.D.s.

Jesus H. Christ (expanded version)

Jesus Christ and his mom, the Virgin Mary, have been known to visit keen observers when they cause their likenesses to appear in the most unlikely of places. Apparently, only those who believe can see the images clearly. Sightings of these religious simulacra (as they are called) are often the result of what scientists refer to as pareidolia: The imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist. This phenomenon is attributed to the human mind's over-sensitivity to the perception of patterns, especially that of a human face or figure, where it would not normally be seen. I assume that when the image of someone’s aunt or third grade teacher, for example, materializes in, let’s say, a bowl of tapioca, it just gets eaten before any pictures are taken. Only the images of Jesus or his mom get such attention. And rightly so, I guess. I’d be afraid not to alert the media for fear of cosmic repercussions.

One time, the national news showed us the face of Jesus discovered on a moth. First, no one knows what Jesus looked like. So really, the image on that moth could have been that of the bearded white hippie dude who modeled for all the pictures we are so familiar with. When I saw the face on that moth, I thought it could just as easily be the face of the devil. (He has a goatee, right?) Just before the moth story, I remember seeing something about someone finding Jesus on a cross-shaped Cheeto (known in popular culture as “Cheesus”). Do these stories really make the news simply because of the alleged Jesus sightings, or is it more about pointing out the depths of gullibility hidden in so many pockets of future Darwin victims all across this fruited plain? I think it shows that the human race is full of doubt and a deep need for reassurance. I know that when I feel like God has abandoned me, nothing would be more comforting than to see the image of a bearded, long-haired man or a woman in a veil. Especially if I saw it in a food product (such as Cheez Whiz) or at the bottom of my sixth glass of wine.

Here are some places the images of Jesus and/or his mom have allegedly appeared: on a tortilla, a quesadilla (yes, another tortilla, but this one with cheese), a grilled cheese sandwich (the American quesadilla), toast (kind of like a grilled cheese but without the cheese), a pizza (I think he likes cheese), pita bread (I bet he felt more comfortable on something Mediterranean), pancakes, a potato, a potato chip, a pretzel, a french fry, (he apparently has no fear of carbs), a fish stick (I wonder how many he fed with that one fish stick?), a banana peel, an orange slice, peanut butter, shrimp, a glass of chocolate milk, the bottom of a coffee cup, a teabag, a Kit Kat bar, and a random piece of chocolate (no word on whether it was Dove brand). I think they like to show up in food maybe because of the whole communion idea. I’m sure the people who ate these images (if they did not freeze-dry and lacquer them and put them in a shadow box) felt extremely blessed and had no ill side-effects such as indigestion or diarrhea. If they did have diarrhea, it was just the evil spirits being cleansed from their bodies.

This crazy pair of Bible big shots has also deigned to appear in: driveway oil stains, a Walmart receipt, chipped paint, a scorch mark on an iron, a dog’s butt (Not kidding. Google it.), a bruise, water damage (was it holy water?), mold stains (I guess that’s what the water damage image morphed into), a toilet seat lid, moss, a dirty car window, a dirty sliding glass door, shower wall soap scum (would scrubbing bubbles be strong enough to defeat the power of Jesus-infused soap scum?), a garage floor, and an ashtray (Jesus hates it when you smoke!). It is not surprising that they would make appearances in such unsavory ways. How better to reach their target audience? Sinners are so unclean.

And they have shown up in rather neutral unexpected places as well, like: a frying pan (probably the one that cooked the above-mentioned quesadilla or grilled cheese sandwich), wood grain (Seems like he would steer clear of lumber after that whole cross experience, but nope. He’s fricking Jesus, bro.), a sonogram, an x-ray, an MRI, (Which would make me wonder: Is he healing me, or coming to get me?), a bottle cap, a telephone pole, chewing gum, a curtain, a velvet chair, a guitar, and a garage door. Do the appearances in these everyday items mean that he and his mom are just common, everyday kind of folks? I hope so, or I am so screwed. Surprisingly, there have not been a lot of sightings in nature. They have been spotted in: sand dunes, clouds, fire, a rock, a granite slab, tree bark, a tree stump, a turtle, and a cat’s fur. I guess he figures nature alone is signature enough, so showing up there is kind of redundant.

I think I saw Jesus in my dryer’s lint screen one time. I probably could have sold it on eBay, but I was afraid it would get damaged in shipping, and how do you insure something so priceless? So I hand-delivered it to a local Catholic church in exchange for a few dispensations. Even though I’m a Presbyterian. What if it really was Jesus trying to send me a message? Like maybe I need to engage my good/bad filter, or maybe I need to shed some unnecessary “fuzz” from my life. Or maybe he was just trying to tell me that I should clean that thing out more often. (Speaking of eBay, when I would get depressed, I used to look at the feedback people had left for me there. Here’s my favorite: “This eBay Superstar may be proof that the Second Coming has already happened!!!” That right there is some high praise.)

I am reluctant to make light of these so-called simulacra if in fact they really are God’s clever way of communicating with us. (What he is saying, I’m not sure, other than probably, “Hey, here I am, don’t forget me or I will smite you when you least expect it!”) We should welcome these subtle messages lest he decide to get louder. Given the choice between a talking burning bush and a face on a quesadilla, I’ll take the quesadilla.