You Lying S.O.B - But Now I Don't Care

This post was going to be a rant about something that happened to me this morning when I was dropping Kylie off at preschool. Long story short...I was backing out of my parking space, and my back bumper bumped into the back bumper of another car. No damage to my car... paint came off the bumper on the other person's car. He decided to be real dick about it though, and I found out later that he's even filed an effing MEDICAL CLAIM with my insurance company. Dude, I was going like 3 mph when I bumped you. You are SO LYING. And I've been pissed off about it all day, and I may tell the story later. However, I was interupted by my phone just now, and some much more important news:

Shannon made the 7th grade soccer team!!!!!! I'm so happy for her, because I know she's been struggling a bit to figure out where she fits in at the jr high. The thing is, she has never played organized soccer before. She's definitely an athlete, and an awesome softball player, but has never been on a soccer team. They had about 35 girls trying out, and they only took 18...and she made it!! I am so proud of her. Wtg, Shay Shay!!!

Purell is Trying to Kill Us

I was just sitting here, clicking away, reading some other mom-type blogs, because it's a good way to kill time and avoid folding the laundry. I came across one lady who said something very interesting. She said she was sick, and that she feels like she's always getting sick, and can catch anyone's germs. Then in the next sentence, she said,

"The thing that is bizarre is that I'm very much a clean freak. I wash my hands in scalding hot water many times daily. Lysol is my friend on all kitchen and bath surfaces."

Well, I have some news for you. I don't think Lysol is your friend at all. In fact, I've been meaning to talk about this very subject. All you obsessive users of the hand-sanitizer and the Lysol just need to stop. Really. You're going to kill us all.

You may think you're keeping yourself and your kids healthier by trying to maintain a germ-free environment, but what you're really doing is sanitizing yourselves right out of an immune system. Your body needs to be exposed to germs to build its defenses and immunities. That's the way our bodies are designed.

Case in point: I had this friend (actually, she was a friend of a friend, she was too full of crazy to hang out with for any sustained period of time) who cleaned her house with bleach. Every surface in her house was sanitized, and she obsessively washed her own hands and those of her two small daughters. She disinfected every shopping cart, every fast-food restaurant table, and anything else that might have those nasty germs on it. The girls were pretty healthy, until guess what? They went to school, and they were sick constantly. They had never been exposed to...anything, and therefore their little bodies had no immunity to anything.

I have a confession to make: I don't use hand sanitizer. Ever. I don't make my kids wash their hands every time they have a cracker. If there is visible dirt, then yes, we wash. We wash our hands after using the toilet. I don't wipe down the shopping cart handle before I touch it. I didn't use one of those shopping cart cover things for the babies to sit in. I *gasp* don't use paper toilet seat covers in public restrooms. In other words, I'm really not concerned about coming in contact with germs in everyday life. None of us has ever had a flu shot, and coincidentally (or not), none of us has ever had the flu, either.

Guess how often I get sick? Never. Guess how often my kids get sick? Hardly ever. Kylie had strep this past June, but other than that, I can't remember the last time any of the three of them were sick. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, I didn't breastfeed any of them. So according to the "research", they should be less healthy than their breastfed, hand-sanitizing, Lysol-mom-spraying counterparts, right? Only that's definitely not the case.

I'm not saying that occasionally washing your hands with soap is a bad thing. It's probably a good thing. But the quest to have our kids living in a germ-free environment is not doing them any favors. Let 'em eat dirt once in a while...it's not going to kill them, I promise. It'll probably make them healthier. ;)

You're Lucky I Didn't Kick Your Ass

Dear Dirty Middle-Aged Pervert with the Beard and the Horse Racing Forms at Starbucks,

That girl that you are so obviously looking up and down is my daughter. She is FIFTEEN. Do you happen to see me, her mother, standing right next to her as you are so blatently ogling her? I let it go the first time I saw you do it, when she was ordering her drink. But the second time, as you walked by her as she was waiting for her drink, and holding her five year-old sister on her hip, you did it again. And you weren't subtle about it either. Again, I suppose you didn't happen to see me, her mother, STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HER? I hope you were just a little bit embarrassed when I told you, loudly, that she was fifteen and to stop staring at her. Skeevy bastard. It's a good thing I'm not Matt Parkman, because I don't even want to know what you were thinking.

You're disgusting,
Bad Pissed-Off Mommy

The Response from Mickey D's

You may recall this post in which I emailed McDonald's, letting them know that I was not happy about their decision to include skanky, crotch-flashing, tube-top wearing roller derby hos My Scene dolls in their Happy Meals. I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly. Probably a company form letter thanking me for my opinion, which is pretty much what I got:

Hello Shelley:
Thank you for contacting McDonald's to share your comments about our recent Happy Meal toys. I'm sorry you were disappointed with the theme of this Happy Meal.

You may be interested to know that our Marketing staff reviews several different criteria when designing toys -- playability, durability, safety, quality and popularity with children just to name a few. The latter is always a challenge given the number of Happy Meal toys we offer every year. We often offer toys from kids' favorite television shows, retail toy lines and movie or television characters.

Please know that we would never intentionally upset our customers. Your comments are important and have been shared with our Marketing staff for their review. They've assured me they will consider your feedback when planning future Happy Meal offers.

Once again, thank you for letting us know how you feel. We hope you'll enjoy our future Happy Meal promotions.

Chris
McDonald's Customer Response Center

Well, Chris...thanks. I feel better now that I realize that McDonald's offers so many toys per year (which all wind up in my garbage can sooner or later) that they had no choice but to offer a line of roller-derby skank dolls. By the way, I was in Target the other day and I saw about a thousand toys. I saw a Kelly (Barbie's little sister) doll in an extremely cute little witch costume for Halloween. I also saw some My Little Ponys in adorable Halloween costumes. But perhaps Mattel has had enough of you. I also had the TV on the other day, and I think there are about 942 TV shows for kids that don't involve whores on skates. I can certainly see the difficulty that you face though...so many toys to offer, so few choices for themes. I wonder what toys Burger King is offering right now? Oh look: Little piñatas with a tiny surprise inside each one. Now that's really cute, not to mention age-appropriate. No micro-mini skirt, tube-top wearing skanks over there. However, I am pretty excited that McDonald's is going to "consider (my) feedback when planning future Happy Meal offers." Call me.

Edited to add: After a very nice lady commented on this post, saying she found my blog by Googling to find out what other moms thought of this toy in the Happy Meals, I did a little Googling myself. I discovered two things: First, if you Google the words "My Scene McDonald's moms", my blog comes up as one of the results! Cool! Another thing I found out is that I'm not the only one that is unhappy with this particular promotion. Apparently, the folks over at The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood aren't too pleased either.

The One Where We (Attempted To) Play Racquetball

I have a gym membership. I'm not sure what possessed me to do this again, because to get the really good price, you have to sign a year contract. I only got the membership because I wanted to start exercising and it was too freaking hot at the time to do anything outside. (Phoenix in June, yeah.)

So, got the membership. Never mind that I HATE the treadmill, and gyms are full of treadmills. A veritable farm of treadmills. Any exercise involving the words "tread" and/or "mill" has no place in my life. I would rather walk outside for an hour than spend 5 minutes on a treadmill. Even if the most interesting TV show or the best movie in the world is playing in front of me, it doesn't matter. Treadmills make me want to tear my hair out, because they're just that boring. No, music doesn't help. The stationary bike isn't much better. It's a tiny bit better because I can read, sort of, while doing that, but it still bores the ever-living crap out of me.

I had a goal of going to the gym 4 days a week, so I wouldn't get burned out. Well, occasionally I made it three days a week. For the past month or so though, it's been not at all. We went on vacation, you see...and the kids had a school break...and truth be told, I'm lazy and I hate exercising. But...they have racquetball courts there! Racquetball isn't exercising, it's playing a game! Huge difference to me. I used to play in high school, and I was actually pretty good. So this morning I asked husband to join me at the gym and play some racquetball. He was up for it.

After strapping on his knee brace (he had knee-replacement surgery about 6 years ago), we went. Have I mentioned that he also has M.S.? This might be important later when I talk about how he kicked my ass. Have you ever been in an indoor racquetball court? There is an extremely LOUD echo in those places.

I know this probably won't be funny to anyone else. It's probably one of those "you had to be there" things. But he started announcing: "Now batting for the Diamondbacks...Eric Byrnes!" (Byrnes, Byrnes, Byrnes) The echo was killing me. He also did some Bill Cosby:

Zooba, zooba, zooba....ding!

"Noah!"

"Somebody call me?"

Zooba, zooba, zooba....ding!

"NOAH!"

"What? Who is that?"

"It's the Lord, Noah!"

"Riiiight!"

This probably isn't funny without being able to hear it with the echo. But there were times when I was laughing so hard, I could barely swing my racquet. There's nothing funnier than hitting the ball, having it sail behind you, then hearing a big echoing "Oooofffffffffffffffffff!" Turning around, seeing husband with one hand between his legs.

"What happened?"

"I think I broke my left nut."

Or him announcing the score before he served: "Person with extremely limited range of motion, FIVE" (fiveeee iveee iveee iveee) "Perfectly healthy woman, TWO!! (twooooo ooooo oooo oooo ooo)

Or him diving for balls. He's such a guy. I said "Do not dive for shots! Is that point in a pickup racquetball game with your wife really worth hurting yourself?" Did he stop diving? Of course not.

So yeah, he beat me. 25-10 the first game, and 15-9 the second game. I lost to a guy with a replaced knee, another bad knee, and M.S. Oh yeah, and he smokes. Next time, I'll give him the beating he deserves. I'm going to practice behind his back.

The cool thing is that we actually had FUN. I don't even remember the last time we did something and had fun together. We've had kids for way too long. At least with his left nut being broken, we won't be having any more.

McDonald's, You Got Some Splainin' To Do

Kylie and I were at McDonald's this morning for the Moms' Weekly Sit and Bitch (™ Toby) with two friends and their kids. Three moms, three kids. Kids, go play...Mommy needs to rant gossip talk.

Of course, all this talking requires food. Kylie gets a Happy Meal with pancakes. The new My Scene toy they're giving out with girls' Happy Meals, or at least the one we got, looks like this:



Dear McDonald's,

The new toy you're giving out with Happy Meals for girls is just lovely. I see you have special toddler toys for children under three. I assume that this means the above toy is appropriate for children ages 3 and above? Will you kindly explain to me how a skanky-looking ho on roller-skates, wearing a skirt up to her crotch and a tiny tube top covering her anatomically-incorrect boobs is appropriate for my 5 year-old little girl? Or any little girl, for that matter? Because if that doll also had anatomically-correct short curly ones, they'd be visible under that skirt. Just saying.

Yours truly,
Bad Mommy

ETA: Yes, I submitted the exact wording above to McDonald's in an email, except instead of "toy above", I put My Scene toy, and I signed my real name. I'll let you know if I receive a response.

Hot Damn, It Really IS Crazy Face Day!

In my previous post, there was a nice little story about how my child colored her face with red marker, claiming it was for "crazy face day." Well, little did I know. You see, last week at Awana (which I know nothing about because I'm at work and my mom takes her, it's at my mom's church), it was crazy hat night. She wore the flamingo hat she got at Sea World. Well, it turns out that tonight at Awana is crazy face night, and she was just practicing by coloring her entire face red! At the time of the red face incident, I had no idea about Awana's crazy face night.

Of course, I had to help her color her face for tonight and take pictures before I went to work. She told me what to draw. I am most definitely not an artist, so in case you are wondering: On her left cheek is a ladybug, and on her right cheek is a butterfly. All that green? Why, it's grass, of course.

Oh yes...the pink on her forehead is supposed to be a dolphin. I suppose some blue around it for water would have made that completely obvious. Art has never been my strong suit.

The below picture is especially for my friend Pam at Bubble Writes. It seems my daughter and her son share a love of writing with Sharpie markers. You know, everywhere but on paper. This is Kylie's rendition of Spongebob, in black Sharpie. On her bedroom door, of course.