Texts from This Year: Paul Is Exposed

Don’t get too excited when you see “exposed”. It’s less like nudey Judies and more like “Hey Paul, isn’t it about time your dirty texting laundry was aired for the world to see instead of mine?” And he was like “Oh? Mmkay…” and here we are. Please enjoy Paul’s foray into the public eye, and respond enthusiastically so Anya can start sharing the hot seat!

First, the real live screenshots that Anya fully intended on continuing and then...didn’t.

Wednesday, March 20   5:57pm
I guess grandma had to go to the dentist to get new bottom teeth and a. She hasn’t had teeth for the past 2 days while they were fixing them and then b. This just happened:
GRANDMA: The dentist don’t look so good.
MOM: Ma, you haven’t seen him for 15 years!

Wednesday, March 20   6:20pm
Donna’s talking about “jezelle(?)” who looks like Lady, but taller, and longer, and bigger.
DAD: Jezelle doesn’t get along with Lady.
MOM: Jezelle doesn’t get along with anybody.

Wednesday, March 27   12:03pm
Watching [sweet old co-worker] “get into it” with [obnoxious old co-worker]. Frazzled Feminist is “mediating”

Wednesday, March 27   6:19pm
DAD: I’m telling you, wilted bacon dressing is the best. Hoffman House had a wilted bacon dressing to die for.
MOM: Hoffman House? What’s Hoffman House??
DAD: ...the place where we had our wedding reception.

Saturday, April 6   2:15
Lol that’s what I get for deleting his texts. They always know.

Tuesday, April 9   10:07am
On the last unit of my driver improvement course. Shit's getting weird.
"Bicycle lanes are for bicycles. Pretty obvious."
"School buses carry our most precious cargo (our children)."

Saturday, April 20   12:43pm
Frantic Friend canceled her (half) marathon... for the sake of sensitivity?

Sunday, May 26   5:14pm
That drug den skillet is not sitting well in my stomach

Tuesday June 18   2:04pm
sometimes i wish that you weren't dating someone, just so that we could use you as a tool to destroy other people's lives more often

Tuesday July 23   4:30 pm
I can’t hear ‘This Girl is on Fire’ without inserting ‘Bride’ in. I always kind of laugh and kind of hate myself at the same time. I wish I knew whether or not she was a huge cunt.

Thursday July 25   12:15 pm
I applied for a job at a Holocaust Museum. It’s in the gift shop though, and I’m honestly having kind of an ethical dilemma about it.

Sunday July 28   6:37 pm
The neighbors brought your parents wine?? Are they swingers?

Saturday August 3   8:25 pm
Da ya evah think to yaself “If eye fucking were an olympic sport...”?

Ending on a spectacular note with a series of texts that a sleepy Anya got from an increasingly drunk Paul who was out with this parents on this weekend away.

Sunday August 4   6:00-10:30 pm
Lol shit’s gotten really weird. My godfather’s wife asked if I ever “felt my grandfather’s spirit” in the house.
The Libertarian is good. It super weirds me out, but he’s different in a good way, like persimmons.
I picked the wrong beer. I’m drunk as a rude skunk.
No yay. i’m a rabid mammal
Izzit? I’m trying not to puke in front of my parents.
No biting, just hugging?
Ya, Im fime, just drunk
When are we going to watch the canyons?

Dealing with Dream People

Admittedly, we can occasionally be a smidge unreasonable. We generally feel that because we’re aware of our flaws, we’re a little bit ahead in the game (and we are so very aware of our flaws, both real and imagined). This blog serves many purposes, one of which being a medium for us to discharge some of our shit into the ether. We do not expect this to incite any change within ourselves, nor for anyone to identify with our bizarre “problems.” We are literally just throwing it out there, hoping that someone can at least be entertained by the weird crap we have to (choose to?) live and deal with.

Today, we are delving into the depths of our subconscious minds. Yes, dear reader, we are once again entering the realm of dreams (this time sans prophecy). We have never really mastered the art of lucid dreaming, and the dreams that we remember, more often than not, seem to take us down a rather unpleasant path. We’ve lost track of how many times we’ve come into work in the morning, shared the fucked up fragments of our upsetting dreams and mused over why nobody has invented some kind of magic pill to stop you from remembering your dreams (something more sustainable than getting super drunk every night).

Forget-Me-Nows are also not a great long-term option.

Even when we have good dreams, we’re left feeling cheated that we’re not actually on a beachy vacation with Matthew Crawley. No matter which way you spin it, at the end of the day, dreaming is a bitch. If not always, too often to be worth it.

These guys know what we’re talking about.

Now, we’re not going to rant about our nightmarish visions of swimming with sharks or chewing on tinfoil. These are things we can deal with, feeling safe in the knowledge that neither of them will ever actually happen with us. The dreams that actually cause us the most strife are the ones inhabited by terrible (sometimes terribly realistic) versions of people we know IRL, our family members, exes, friends, significant others, and random acquaintances. You know the kind, where you wake up crying because you’ve upset your mother or your girlfriend cheated on you...right? Just us? Great.

The thing is, we have this bad habit of carrying those feelings with us for the rest of the day. If Anya dreams that The Libertarian left her alone in a scary room full of alligators because he had to save his dog, she’s a little grumpy with his real life counterpart until he apologizes for his dream self’s actions. Totally rational. If Paul dreams that he was on an island full of people from high school and they cannibalized Anya for the sake of survival, she’s grumpy about that too. At least in these cases we can debrief in the morning, pour out our dream angst (often revealing deep seated fears) and go about our day.

Whatever gets you through the day.

We’re going to feel really, really alone if this has never happened to anyone else, but we’ve both had those dreams where we see someone we once knew, someone who fucked up big time and is now blacklisted, comes back to either haunt us or apologize. Somehow, it’s equally terrible either way. You wake up either half in love with some asshole who ripped your life apart and left you stress puking for months, or freshly wounded and pissed as hell. GOOD MORNING! TIME TO GO TO WORK!

For example, the other week Anya had a dream that literally combined every lifelong fear she has with her worst recurring dreams into a nightmare smorgasbord that couldn’t have been worse if it was concocted by her own self-hating alter ego. It was truly creative mixture of banal anxieties and deep seated fear rooted in life choices, involving the Cheating Bastard, an unwanted pregnancy (there’s no other kind ‘round these parts), and trouble navigating the subway. How are you supposed to recover from that shit when you can’t even roll over and say “Babe, I dreamed you were an asshole, fix it please?”

Reason number 153829 we need this shit.

Spending hours or even days in a funk born of an unfortunate nocturnal encounter with a ghost from the past is just not even fair. We’re trying to move on with our lives, deal with our shit, etc. and our goddamn subconscious just can’t let it go. Feeling a little guilty over x, y or z? Here, have a dream about how all of those things are ruining the lives of people you love. Maybe all of these shitty dreams are actually good for us, allowing our minds to work through some of our emotional baggage or current life challenges, but last time we checked, dream science wasn’t exactly a concrete field, so, for the time being, keep it.

Tell us we are or are not crazy?

The Economics of Friendship

Today we’re tackling a topic that has torn asunder many a relationship. Friends, family, that “girl” that has been catfishing your ass on the internet for the past two years...whoever. What is it? Ca$h money. Or checks. Or electronic transfers. Fine, just currency.

Man, get.it.together.

If you’re old and internet savvy enough to have found our little blog, you’ve probably had some run ins with various financial scams in your day. Maybe you’ve overheard your parents arguing about whether or not to make another loan to some deadbeat in-laws. Maybe you’re always the one buying pitchers and shots at the bar from your deadbeat friends. Maybe you are the deadbeat friend but the only reason you aren’t buying rounds is that you loaned your small fortune to a Nigerian prince in trouble. He’ll totally pay you back bro, just give it time.

All of those situations can be tough and awkward, but nothing is worse than trying to extract money from friends/siblings/roommates that owe you, but have conveniently forgotten about their debt. Or worse, feel that they don’t owe you any money because of some mystery x factor that allows them to go through life never paying for things that they really want, or worse, “need”. Many’s the time Anya and her sister have each been keeping a secret mental tab of who put gas in the tank when, and how far they drove. They are both one hundred percent sure they are getting cheated by the other person’s wanton disregard for fueling the vehicle as needed, and yet it only comes to a head once every six months or so in a fight that would put most reality television show reunions to shame.

Let’s face it, some people are “tighter than bark on a tree” as parents might say, and don’t like coughing up the cash for anything, even if it’s their third of the electric bill. When Anya and Paul lived with Swiss Miss, she was so averse to putting out the dollaz for anything, that by the end of the term, she owed Anya over $100 for everything from her share of the monthly internet bill to pet care supplies. Hints to people trying to get out of paying what you owe to your roommates:

1) Don’t fucking do it. Don’t be that person!

2) If you are going to insist on doing it, you can claim that they actually owe you for things like “half of the gas that time you kept me company on a two hour long car ride back home to pick up my prescription” or “those shots I bought on your birthday that were really just a loan.”
Oh here, let me vomit them back up on you!

Taking interest into account, you now owe me 2.36 shots.

3) Vanishing off the face of the earth and refusing to take their phone call and emails is an option. This is decidedly less effective if the person you’re avoiding is a blood relative or coworker. Usually.

4) A tip for siblings: take credit for buying things that mom and dad actually paid for when tallying up the credits on either side. They gave you money for a tank of gas? YOU bought it. They purchased some vegan meals for you to eat for lunch and your sister took one? Bitch owes you five dollars. This is particularly helpful if you are the favored sibling (or the more manipulative one).

5) Roommates: Always advocate for grocery shopping together and splitting the bill. There is no easier way to cut corners on paying your fair share than to make an equal purchase and take more than half of the goods. Squirrel snack foods into your little hidey holes and munch away while your roomie is at work (someone has to support your food addiction!). If they suggest buying food separately, call them wasteful and point out how quickly the milk will spoil.

Unfortunately for your wallet/stomach, we’ve got a handle on fuzzy fractions.

Be prepared for the money lender you’ve crossed to take revenge in invisible but seriously disgusting ways. If you think we’ve never strongly considered peeing on someone’s toothbrush, you know nothing Jon Snow. So here’s our list of hints for those who are owed money by one of the miscreants taking the tips above:

Don’t fuck with wildings, their moral code is twisted, sister.

1) For the high maintenance: Dump out their eyelash glue the day of an important event. We have reason to believe it will not clog the sink, and they’ll be forced to go au naturel, which is apparently a serious challenge for some people. This is not acceptable if said person has alopecia, unless they are a seriously huge bitch. Alternatives including hiding bronzer, watering down mascara, and melting lipstick.

2) For the germophobic: Sneeze on their donuts, infect their contact solution with your pink eye germs (or those of a friend who has a very conveniently timed but disgusting infection), don’t stop your boyfriend from farting on their pillows (we know a lot of disgusting people, evidently. Not that ANY of this has EVER happened to ANYONE we know). Towels in shared bathrooms are also fair game.

3) Find a way to get the money back on your own, whether that means robbing their secret cash stash or selling their belongings on Craigslist. If they didn’t want their family heirlooms stolen out from under them, they should have paid you back for that birthday gift and the card you both signed.

4) Turn off the air conditioning in the unit until further notice. You maybe have to break off the switch of smash the control pad. Tough shit! Nothing would make us cough up money faster than life in an apartment that feels like the butterfly house at the zoo. Literally put them in hell until they pay you back. The trick here is making it look like the a/c break is an accident, while still sending the message that the solution is to pay their debts. We suggest writing on the fog that will be permanently cast over all glass surfaces in the house.

5) Be the bigger person and use normal, adult techniques like speaking directly to them about your issues. We tend to go with this option, and haven’t regretted it...much.

Texts From This Year Part 1: Anya Is Never Getting Married

Once again, welcome to this creepy portal straight into Anya’s brain, now in 2013! Besties that we are, she often fires off missives to Paul that get at the especially ridiculous, weird, and inane shit that pops into her heard (Anya’s spelling. I’m unsure if it’s a typo or a new word to describe the ever-confusing combination of one’s head and heart, that extra “r” was an accident, but now it’s staying), and we’ve collected the highlights here for you. Catch up on past editions of this particular series here, and enjoy a journey through the last few years of pop culture, family drama, and outrage that are the running themes of our correspondence.

This edition runs the gamut from TLC’s descent into madness, to our co-workers descent into madness, to our descent into madness. So really a wide range! Enjoy, until the next installment:

Wednesday, January 2  7:13pm
Hahaha I’ll do a dramatic rendition of any quotes you bring back next time we’re at the bar. Soul Sister lost her shit about the 9/11 one. “Well my eighth grade class was supposed to go to New York for our trip but somebody had to go and ruin it for us!” “You mean terrorists?”

Sunday, January 6  12:03pm
Love of my life, light of my world, why hast thou deserted me?

Wednesday January 9  6:22pm
Thinking about getting out of sweatpants is soooo hard

Tuesday, January 15  10:25pm
Oh god extreme cougar wives is the greatest

The handfasting ceremony is what really did me in.

Tuesday, January 15  10:36pm
I would go so far as to say this is where TLC crossed the line

Thursday, January 17  6:21pm
I need to make a body cast of me now to remember how hot I was

Friday, January 18  5:41pm
I mean, Tel Aviv, right? That way if one of us is disappointed we’ll easily be able to find a #yolo Jew to fuck

Sunday, January 20  11:57am
Ugh my mom is already arguing with me about inviting the cousins to my wedding and then said “well let’s not even talk about it, it’s not like you even have one in the offing”

Thursday, January 24  10:16pm
When are we watching prosecuting Casey Anthony on lifetime?

Saturday, January 26  1:03pm
Yeah I figured that would be best. I hope Paul and Paul are actually there to amuse us with their complete lack of pretension (Oddly, these neither of these are *our* Paul, they’re the gentleman owners of a local wine bar that makes a big fuss about how COMPLETELY UNPRETENTIOUS it is. NO WINE SNOBS HERE, FOLKS)

Sunday, January 27  9:46pm
Most harrowing snow/sleet infested drive ever. Ever. I was about to call you with my last will and testament.

Sunday, January 27  9:54pm
Guess I should write that letter now that I’ve had a near death experience

Sunday, January 27  10:15pm
Single ladies dance?! You go you 65 year old minx

Sunday, January 27  10:16pm
Talk about vertigo

Wednesday, February 13  6:13pm
Teary about the friend zone. Just kill me.

Thursday, February 21 10  10:53am
Highlights: 2 hours and 20 minutes long. Big Boss uses the Internet in front of us and uses the word “sexy”. Frazzled Feminist tries to give a presentation. Faded Hippie expresses her extreme skepticism about all of it with facial expressions. That Guy claims Project A as his great achievement of the year, I claim implementing it as mine, unintentionally shame him while provoking laughter from everyone else.

Extreme skepticism.

Thursday, February 21  11:21am
Aaand Frazzled Feminist just dropped a 50 shades of grey reference. And Edge of Retirement is wearing her fighting cock brooch.

Thursday, February 21  10:14pm
“whose dog is that where the lips are falling off?”

Sunday, February 24  7:19pm
Anne Hathaway what in the fuck. Are those nipples or seams?

Honestly, Annie, get it together.

Monday, February 25  5:47pm
Haha if you give a mouse the benefit of the doubt

Monday, February 25  5:50pm
Eating my leftovers all alone now because my family is slugs

He Said/She Said: Our Weekend Away

Even apart, we’re together. Last weekend, we both had spontaneous and separately planned mini vacations to the same small resort town, Paul with his family from Thursday to Sunday and Anya for camping from Friday to Monday, because that’s just how melded our lives are. Welcome to He Said/She Said!

Vacationing with family is always...something...but this weekend we got extra lucky with the straight up crazy being thrown our way. No amount of texting “save me!” in the world really made this okay, but we’re reunited and it feels so good. Also, ready to publish the notable quotables, because why else do we do these things if not for blog fodder? Also, we love our families. Usually.

Weekends with the family rarely end well.

HIM

My grandma is almost 93. She is deaf, mostly blind, barely able to walk, diabetic, and slightly demented. She is thus unable to care for herself, but thanks to a heaping dose of Catholic guilt, she goes back and forth between my parents’ house and my mother’s sister’s house, desperately avoiding being tucked away in “the home.” Last week my mother made the three-hour trek to my aunt’s in Small Resort Town to drop my grandma off at my aunt’s. Upon realizing that my aunt’s husband (AKA Universally-Hated Uncle) was out of town, she decided to stay for a few extra days and convinced me to drive up and visit. My aunt has a child who is six and a hyperactive Hell fiend. My mother does not often swear, but upon my arrival, I was greeted with:

MOM: Between the young one and the old one, it’s a fucking zoo.

Which accurately set the tone for the trip. Highlights include fixing the lawnmower from the at-home tune up the ever unhandy Universally-Hated Uncle attempted, listening to my grandmother’s half-assed threats of suicide (remember the Catholicism), and an in-depth discussion about my mother’s first period at my super foreign great-grandmother’s house when she was ten. Further points of amusement/contention/sadness include:

GRANDMA: Paul, while we’re alone, I wanna ask you something.
ME: Okay?
GRANDMA: How come you don’t have a girlfriend yet? I’m not being nosy or anything, but you’re old enough now that you should be looking for one!
ME: Haha...
Extra great because for awhile Grandma thought that Paul was sowing his wild oats with both Anya and Swiss Miss. We are discernibly different to her based solely on our hair color.

GRANDMA: Where’s my purse!?
MOM: We’re looking for it!
GRANDMA: I don’t see anybody moving!

GRANDMA: I didn’t bring my comb; I look like a wild (adjective as noun) from Borneo.
AUNT: Ma, it’s a casino, nobody cares!

I will close with the exchange that I can only imagine occurs biweekly:

COUSIN: Do you still love me?
AUNT: I don’t like you.
COUSIN: But do you love me!?
AUNT: Not right now.

HER

I love my boyfriend and his family, but sometimes they kill me. The family is this insane combination of the nicest, most giving and generous people you’ll ever meet, and a pervasive and willful blindness of their white privilege that I have never before seen manifested in person. Not to mention what I would call problematic political and religious views. You’ll find yourself nodding away in sympathy as they’re telling a story, and then it takes a sudden political turn that veers into the “holy shit stop moving your head in agreement territory”. Worst case scenario, it’s fucking offensive, best case scenario there is some serious oddity going on. We decided to take a camping trip up to Small Resort Town to visit with the family, where a lovely time was had by all, minus, of course, these moments:

THE UNCLE: I guess she still wants to be a doctor. I think she should do radiology, being a radiologist is a good career for a girl that’s going to get married and have kids, you can just work Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

All you can hope for a daughter...

THE MOTHER: Oh yeah, their milkshakes are really good but I think they cook with some kind of weird oil, because last time I went there it was...not...good...digestively you know? So I would stick to the desserts.

THE FATHER: Well, we have running water in here, but it’s a limited amount, so just don’t use too much of it?
THE MOTHER: Otherwise we have to go get some and we really don’t want to do that, so maybe just use very little.
THE LIBERTARIAN: I mean, I could go get some more.
ANYA: I’ll just use the showers that are like twenty feet away?

THE UNCLE: For the past ten or fifteen years the crops haven’t been ready at quite the right time. It’s always something!
*ten minutes later*
THE UNCLE: Yeah, I mean look at this weather! Ha, global warming...right.
ANYA: *under her breath* it’s called goddamn climate change.

Tell it to this guy, asshole.

THE UNCLE: I can’t believe that they never really released his birth certificate, and it just took so long. I think we should impeach him with two weeks left in his term, just to send a message, you know? That we’re not taking this crap.

I close with an excerpt from a typical conversation:

THE MOTHER: This woman worked with me, and she was just not quite right. Like during her second wedding. Third wedding? Second wedding, third long term boyfriend? Anyway, she like couldn’t walk she was so drunk. She used to put alcohol in her coffee every morning, but she worked with kids! And her license was always getting taken away. But then I drove her sometimes because I wanted to be nice, but she was like addicted to working out. Once I was on the treadmill next to her, and her mother was having surgery and there she was at the gym! And tanning. All the men liked her, but I think she started doing cocaine too. Where was I going with this?

The Impossible Trifecta

Last week, we told you about our friend Swiss Miss, who thinks she’s basically the greatest human to live in recent history. It’s not a stretch to say that if you asked her, she would tell you that she’s prettier than Natalie Portman (because who likes brunettes? ugh), she’s smarter than that one guy who studies shit in space (because who cares?), and she’s nicer than anyone else she knows or has heard of, including Mother Teresa (just because she’s a nun, it doesn’t mean she’s the kindest, most generous soul evar). Her presence is a present, and all that.

No one man can have all that power.

What Swiss Miss doesn’t understand (well...that list is actually endless but ONE thing she definitely doesn’t understand) is that no one is genuinely nice, smart, AND pretty. It just doesn’t happen. Having spent an inordinate amount of time studying this phenomena, we are here to tell you exactly why no one is really the total package. The answer is so simple, and yet elegant in the way it captures the human condition. People are not all of these things because: it is way too much work for no discernible payoff except perhaps higher attendance at your funeral.

Yes, we know, it’s upsetting. Some of you are probably either saying “but I know someone who IS all three of those things!” or “I AM the total package!”. You are all lying. Sorry, not sorry. The important thing to remember is that all of these traits involve a spectrum, personal taste, etc. What we’re saying is that everyone is just enough of each to get by in life. Or they’re delusional and confused about why they have no friends/their coworkers hate them/their relationships never work out.

So here’s our hypothesis and reasoning:

You’ve all played The Sims. You know how you can assign points on each spectrum for their personalities? So when you make your Sim a genius, you have to sacrifice points in the neatness/social aptitude/work ethic category. That shit is real life, people. But here we have only three categories, and a much wider spectrum.

Everyone has to be at least one of these things to get through life. You can be extremely beautiful in a way that appeals to the vast majority of people but not terribly intelligent or nice (Kim Kardashian), you can be a genius who is also an ugly asshole (take your pick on this one), or you can be the kind of person about whom people say “but he’s so nice” (Xander Harris). All of these people have something to rely on in their dealings with other people. They all have currency, whether it’s sexual, intellectual, or moral.

“Hmm, I know you don’t, that’s ‘cause you’re my friend. You’re my Xander-shaped friend.”

You can be two of these things, and most people are, since they’re not on the extreme end of gorgeous or saintly. We would posit that this is why old people have a reputation for being assholes. They grew up relying on pretty/smart ratio that outweighed their personality, and never adjusted once their looks faded (I already know this is totally going to happen to me, and I’m fine with it. I look forward to being a bitchy old lady who is only nice to service people and her dogs. Like the Queen, if she were nice to service people).

Some people are smart enough to function in life, fairly normal looking, and generally nice people. They have extremely evenly distributed Sims points. And they’re boring. You can think of a dozen people like this off the top of your head, because there are millions of them in the world. Other people are good looking and nice, but kind of stupid. They’re nice to people because they know they can’t get by without some intellectual assistance. Still others are smart and nice, because they’re pretty heinous looking and they can’t get away with the kind of assholery that seems to come specifically with good looks. And then there’s our combo: apparently smart and pretty enough to get through life successfully despite the distinctly dark color of our hearts/souls. Anya’s mother despairs, but until she gets uglier or dumber, she doesn’t have to be nice.

Out of all of these traits, only once is choice (which is why my mother despairs that I don’t choose to be nicer). But, for once we will follow the logic of our co-workers and say “Why put in the work when I get everything I want without doing it?”. Embrace it, people!

But if you have enough money, you can be none of these things and apparently you’re still fine.

Perception vs. Reality

So, we have this friend. Let’s call her Swiss Miss. Swiss Miss played an integral role in our college experience, being a key player in some of the best and most of the worst memories from this time of our lives. We’re a little surprised that we somehow managed to go five months without sharing any anecdotes from this important character from our past (she spent a few seasons solidly in the the main cast, before the writers decided to reduce her role to special guest star), which we can only attribute to our doing our best to forget her.

Nobody’s perfect, but Swiss Miss has more than her fair share of flaws. We can look back now and (kind of) laugh about her numerous shortcomings because it is (almost) funny to look at them from afar (we can’t emphasize enough how not funny they are when living with her). By far and large, her biggest/saddest/most absurd problem is the extremely delusional disconnect between how she perceives herself and the reality of her questionable-at-best character.

You’re beautiful.

If you asked Swiss Miss to describe herself (but don’t worry, you will never have to persuade her to share her multifarious opinions with you), she would tell you that she is the full-packaged triple threat deal: pretty, smart, and nice (never mind that you can only ever, at most, maintain two of the elusive trifecta, of which Anya will tell you all about one day). Now, Swiss Miss is a pretty woman. Fine. We will give her that one. But smart? Not so much. And nice!? Girl has an ego and sense of entitlement that would cause her to fit right in with America’s Royal Family, the Kardashian Klan.

Never let fame affect what really matters.

We are all guilty of occasionally rating ourselves both higher and lower in specific areas, where a panel of experts would rank us rather differently. Maybe we’re extra harsh on the the state of our stomach fat or constantly insist that we are “such good drunks.” While this isn’t great, there is a huge difference between downplaying a weakness or playing up a strength (real or imagined) and having some kind of magical idealized version of yourself that exists ONLY IN YOUR HEAD AND HAS NEVER, EVER BEEN A REALITY.

That’s the worst thing about Swiss Miss. It’s not that she’s simply not a nice person. We’re not exceedingly genial people, but we’re also quite aware of this personality quirk (you say ‘flaw,’ we say ‘advantage,’ so... let’s meet somewhere in the middle?). The true issues arise from the fact that she operates on a level of cuntery and petty malice that even we can’t touch, all the while thinking that she is the greatest friend, daughter, roommate, sister, girlfriend, student, employee, and conscientious citizen in existence. She then spends an exorbitant amount of time lamenting on how unappreciated she is and how everyone in the universe is constantly taking advantage of her bottomless well of generosity.

Surely she’s not that bad you say. You’re just jealous because she’s got her life together (ha!) and you obviously don’t. She can’t be so bad that you have to make up a word like “cuntery” for her. FINE. You insisted. We hear you. Just keep reading.

Her deep-seated evil began in the womb, although it managed to hide itself rather successfully, not manifesting itself until Swiss Miss turned four, in what would infamously be known as “The Flower Incident” (alternative title: “Why Swiss Miss Will Never Be the Favorite”). On a lazy summer afternoon, young Swiss Miss was enjoying a snack of cookies. After finishing her reasonably-sized snack, Swiss Miss decided that she needed more. Her mother told her that she had eaten enough and that dinner would be served in another hour. Swiss Miss was unsatisfied with this answer and began to loudly protest, as children are wont to do.

While the beginning of the story may be a tale well-known to us all, this is where the plot diverges from the archetypal tantrum, fatherly intervention, and lesson learned, into something a bit... darker. Instead of screaming at her mother, running away, or throwing her toys around in a fit of rage, Swiss Miss quietly went into the living room. She climbed a chair, so that she could reach the top of the fireplace mantle. At the center of the mantle was a glass case holding a delicate dried rose that her father had given her mother on their first date. Swiss Miss took the sentimental flower out of the case and crushed it into a hundred pieces over the carpet.

Remind us again why we should have children?

Some of you might be apt to dismiss this singularly shocking and heinous behavior as “kids will be kids”. We might buy that if she hadn’t only gotten more diabolical with age. Also if she hadn’t destroyed something that she, as a four year old, knew was her mother’s most treasured possession, and purposely set out to punish her for limiting the cookie intake of a kindergartener. Therein lies Swiss Miss’s molten hot core of evil. Most of know people we dislike, or even hate. We have friends that hurt our feelings or siblings that make us seethe with white hot rage. What do we do about it? We suck it up, take a deep breathe, and dream up revenge fantasies that we never unleash in person. We type up vitriolic emails, wait twenty four hours, and delete them. We spend our lunch break bitching about the depravity, and then go back to work like professionals.

Swiss Miss does all of the former and none of the latter. Those awful, completely below the belt things you would never *actually* say to your parents/sister/boyfriend/co-worker? She lets it fly. Angry at your best friend? Sleep with her boyfriend to prove a point. Not happy with your meal at a restaurant? Steal the silverware, make a mess, don’t leave a tip, maybe even bitch at the waitress for good measure. Annoyed that your roommate has her boyfriend over too much? Stop speaking to her, stop doing household chores, and knock all of her towels off the rack.

The thing is, she honestly believes that all of that behavior is not only justified, but necessary. How do you get someone like that to look in the mirror and say “oh shit, I should change something”?

Answer: You can’t.

If you’re worried that this article applies to you, it probably doesn’t. These kind of people never let those pesky thoughts cross their minds.

The Dating Survey

A few short years ago, Anya found herself single after a long period of turbulent relationship bullshittery (is there any other kind?). When she was ready to start taking applications for arm candy, Paul decided to help her out by developing a very sophisticated screening system, that would keep out the Cheating Bastards, the Never Gonna Happens, and the Don’t Waste My Times. Twas a valiant effort.

And now behold, what could be a very helpful tool in your personal life. Feel free to add your own incredibly pointed questions, it’s done wonders for Anya.

Name:

Do you pronounce your last name correctly?

Describe your penis. Does it have any quirks/faults/piercings/diseases?

Do you like Ginny Weasley?

Were you born and raised in another country?

Will your family make good in-laws?

While returning possessions to an ex, have you ever “accidently” mixed in items belonging to your current squeeze?

Do you act your age?

How many people have you slept with? / Have you slept with more people than Natalie Portman has?

Have you ever been on a daytrip to/vacationed in/owned property in Crazytown?

Are your friends lame?

Are you on any medications? Is yes, list what and why.

Do you have any pets? If so, do they hate sex?

Are you from the south?

Do you have an opinion on anything?

Where is the most exciting place you’ve traveled to?

Do you have any life goals? Do I fit into them?

Do you regularly brush your teeth?

Are you capable of communicating your thoughts/intentions/feelings?

Do you watch Fox News for any reasons other than providing laughter?

Are you willing to accept that I’m right about everything?

Do you sing? If yes, should you sing?

Are you a ginger?

Are you currently involved with anyone else?

Is your main goal in life to see as many nipples as possible?

Are you from [Hometown]?

Are you age appropriate for me?

Do we work together?

Do you subscribe to a diet that is wholly incompatible with mine? If so, can I cajole you into sharing ice cream with me anyway?

Everyone lies. Agree or disagree?

Have you ever attended a fishuneral? (A funeral for a fish). If so, how did you feel about the experience?

Do you want children?

Do you look like you would fit in with the cast of Jersey Shore?

Are you actually just trying to exploit my numerous resources?

Will you be able to cope with the fact that I generally hate humanity?

Honest to God answers that were turned in via social media (we’ve cut the blah yes’s and no’s because they’re boring):

suprisingly straight (referring to his dick. yup.)

? (DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT A WEASLEY IS)

if i tell them too (like you can boss your family into being good in-laws...once religious conservative dickheads, always religious conservative dickheads)

only if a Crazy Train runs through it (NO excuse for living in Crazy Town, sir)

y-and we limit his poontang (his cat’s...poontang.)

n fuck gingers (acceptable)

fuck [Hometown] it smells like dick cheese

Another gentleman caller:

fantastic (this is a heinous lie, also, it’s shocking how many of them will address the penis question)

n - older (acts older than his age? ha.)

nowhere really (not well traveled)

yes - probably, though that's a bit crazy to ask (YOU’RE crazy for thinking it’s crazy that I would like an idea of whether or not a relationship fits in with your long term life goals!)

yes. i am. fuck you paul. lol (this very eloquent “fuck you” sort of undermines his claims of emotional intelligence)

n - gingers scare me (funny how this works)

Even Lindsay says no to this shit.

The Curious Culture of Office Parties

As regular readers may have guessed, we have complex love/hate relationships with almost every element of our work lives. Scratch that, every element of our lives, period. You might think the older we get, the more we would see those fifty shades of gray...but you’d be very wrong. It’s more like the older we get, the faster we vacillate between loving and hating with equal fervor. Is this adulthood, guys? We doubt it. To be fair, it’s not like we have been living and working with paradigms of maturity for the past twenty something years.

Two of the major players on our list of “Things We Can’t Live With or Without” are ‘free food’ and ‘co-workers making asses out of themselves.’ As you may have guessed, we may not have the healthiest of bonds with food (Thanks, Mom), and while our office mates’ constant fuckassery may be amusing, it isn’t making our work days any easier or doing anything great for our overall nerves. These two elements are, of course, combined in an unholy union during those horrifying and yet glorious spectacles known across the land as office parties.

Would that our office parties could match this level of dysfunction.

Unfortunately, instead of reveling in gorgeous clothes, awkward office romance, and after hours punch bowls full of the liquor with which our office is well stocked year round, we get something that looks more like this:

Sans smiles.

As if the holidays aren’t already fraught with diet killers and food enablers around every corner, offices are rife with So-and-So’s FAMOUS cookies/brownies/cupcakes/mac and cheese/potatoes/four course dinner. You know what’s not on that list? Salad. Don’t get us wrong, we’re as delighted as can be when we discover that Spacey Secretary has a big bowl of festive York mints on her desk, but the constant stream of free food is a blessing and curse. Knowing our coworkers as you do (because surely you’ve read up on them!), you won’t be shocked to learn that they have plenty to say about our growing (or shrinking) waistlines.

Eating habits aside, we make a point to show up to every office gathering possible, from birthdays and anniversaries (with the company and each other) to volunteer gatherings and building redesigns. Spent Supervisor avoids them like the plague, and maybe we would as well after spending 10 years with these guys, but the novelty has certainly not worn off on us. We also know that the real stories lie not in the food, but in the conglomeration of all the different kinds of office crazy in a confined celebratory setting.

We always grab seats in a corner, giving ourselves as wide of a view as possible (and preventing sneak attacks from Time Thieves), whip out our notebooks, and watch the awfully awkward office banter on non-work topics unfold. Since most members of each department hate each other (unless they are temporarily allied in their complaints of a different department’s low quality of work/disrespect for deadlines/general smarmy disposition), a unique set of cliques form. These small groups consist of: overly-religious loudmouths, people who have been at the company forever, aggressive knitters, smokers, carpoolers from the east, “foodies” (allergic to gluten/allergic to dairy/health nut/faux health nut/vegetarian/faux vegetarian/elaborate baker), confused newbies, and people who really are just there for food.

“Of course not, Mother, I’m only here for the food.”

Scattered throughout are the completely oblivious nice folks, like Spacey Secretary, who have never really figured out the rules of these parties and formed a table of their own, and are thus each trapped trying to make pleasant conversation on their table’s topic (“Well, I don’t have any patterns to share, but I did crochet an orange hat way back when for my high school boyfriend!”). No Boundaries tramples around the room forcing everyone to try their dish, which you’ll never believe was made with [surprising food substitute]/a recipe [dead relative] found on a box/a marriage ruiner, launching torpedoes of tolerance and planting mines of multiculturalism.

Perhaps the highlight of our year (at least when it comes to this particular topic), is the office Christmas party. Obviously we’re still thinking about it six months later...that’s how spectacular it is. Anya stumbled upon the party unexpectedly one year, and her shock and awe drove Paul to join her the next. This party has all of the makings of true office bullshit. Potluck? Check. During work hours? Check. No alcohol allowed? Check. Parody Christmas carols? Double motha fuckin check. Yes, we don’t just have carolers here...we have a freakish mashup of Dr. Seuss, Weird Al Yankovic, and Jingle Bells, sung aloud, by co-workers, in the middle of a totally sober afternoon. We experience these things so you don’t have to.

Exemplar of sophisticated humor.