Graham Cracker Moms

A couple of years ago – okay more like ten – my oldest daughter was in 1st grade. Being the aspiring super mom that I was – 3 kids in 2.5 years, one in charter school in first grade, the other in a pilot preschool program, and the last one looking as cute as a button all the time – I signed up for ‘party mom’. As most of you will know, party moms are those women who have nothing better to do with their time than plan overly extravagant festivities to be held in the classroom on Valentine’s Day and for the ‘Holidays’ (some schools also include Halloween, but our school didn’t because there was a majority of families that preferred not to celebrate a ‘pagan’ holiday – perhaps they should confront the Pope about his Paganism) – so these moms all get together a few weeks in advance of party day and they all bring their fabulous ideas from whatever sources they have – I presume it’s some secret cult periodical that I never received because I keep liquor in my house – but I arrived with the idea that we would be making assignments for who was to bake 800 cookies and that would be about it. We arrived and it was determined – or more like proclaimed by the mom dictator who had taken on chairmanship of this apparently vitally important committee – who knew it was a matter of national security to have a spectacular holiday party – surely not me – that we would be giving the little darlings the opportunity to make ‘gingerbread houses’ out of used milk cartons from the cafeteria, graham crackers, frosting and candy. Okay great, that sounds really cute (note to self, have my clumsy kid wear something that is VERY washable). So, Mrs. A should bring 14 tons of frosting, oh don’t get the fluffy kind it’s not sticky enough to hold the crackers to the milk cartons, don’t buy the really cheap stuff it doesn’t taste as good and has more sugar so they will get more hyper (we are giving them frosting and candy, I’m sure it’s gonna matter 3 grams v. 5 grams in one tablespoon), etc. Okay frosting settled, Mrs. B bring the candy, lots of redhots, candy canes, don’t get the weird ones, don’t get the large ones, etc. – okay candy settled – Mrs. C pick up the milk cartons from Mrs. Cafeteria Genius (yes she is a Genius, I miss her tremendously, but that’s for another day) – and lastly the ensuing WAR over the graham crackers. Let me tell you now that school here started at 8:15 – to the best of my memory – we all began this meeting a bit before 8:30 in the school library – and this was for ONE classroom of first graders, so there were ya know 13 other similar meetings going on. By lunchtime – 11:30? – we were still fighting over what kind of graham crackers to purchase – okay we weren’t, the two ‘graham cracker mom’s’ were battling out. I mistakenly suggested they settle the way we had always settled things growing up – leg wrestling. Apparently that isn’t an appropriate solution to such an important decision. The dictator mom and another one, who (after years of contact) I assume must have tried for the very prestigious position of head party mom went at it for, I kid you not, 3 hours. Those crackers don’t break straight, those crackers taste like cardboard, those crackers are too expensive, those crackers won’t adhere to the frosting, etc., etc. etc. At about 10:30 I vowed to never ever ever be on this important committee again, because I was clearly out of my league – hell I knew nothing about which graham crackers didn’t stick well with frosting.

It’s been a few years, as I indicated already – and I have run across a few more ‘graham cracker moms’ during that time – in fact shortly after the original eye opener of the party mom meeting, I actually managed to do all my volunteering on one and two person committees that I either chaired or approached a mom I knew I could stand (who also maybe kept liquor in her home) and said, hey lets do this together so you don’t get stuck with Mrs. Super Duper Graham Cracker Dictator Mom – that worked really well from about 3rd grade to about 6th grade with only a couple of hideous experiences. Well, then you get into high school, and you don’t have so much control – because you are the new rookie mom again – ugh. So there was Softball Concessions, I knew the chair – our kids had gone to the same elementary – and I knew I could work with her – so she chaired Varsity and I chaired Junior Varsity – well that Graham Cracker mom – (by the way my daughter was a sophomore and it was my second year in this position – her daughter was a freshman, you get my point) actually laminated concession stand schedules and then attached them to magnets so that none of us slacker moms would forget that we had to bring the hotdogs early on Thursday the third and warm up the nacho cheese. Being a veteran of the ‘I don’t do Graham Crackers’ club – when she handed me my laminated schedule – I point blank said ‘wow you have a lot of flexible time don’t you’. So it’s not just about graham crackers and holiday parties. And there have been others.

But yesterday – well wow is all I can say.
My daughters are involved in an organization for girls, and the age for membership has dropped from 12 when I was a girl to 10. So – our little group has our first ten year-old – G-d help us. And this little darling, is not so darling. Her mom is totally out to lunch, and will tell you as many times as you will listen how freaking fabulous she is, and how challenging her life is and how she still manages to do all these wonderful Martha Stewart times twelve accomplishments. As a matter of fact, she really never shuts up. Well whoopti hell, she is now on the adult advisory committee for this group – remember that whole I only join groups that I can tolerate the others – so far so good – but now… lets just call her Graham Cracker Mom from Hell. We usually have our meetings on the 3rd Tuesday of every month at 7:00pm – we are generally done by 8:30 – occasionally sooner, sometimes a bit later – and we don’t run them all that efficiently, and I am a HUGE violator when it comes to getting off task – I even tell myself going into these meetings to shut up and only comment on my own notes. And I’m sure that when I first joined this council, I was a pain in everyone’s ass too – because a newbie needs clarification all the time. I did have the advantage of having been in this organization as a girl, I had the advantage of having served on this same council when I was a young adult (the presiding officer at that time ran everything, simply had the meetings because they were required, told us what we were doing, what to vote for and made the most fabulous desserts ever – end of meeting) Now our presiding officer is a bit wishy washy, kinda wimpy – will admit all this herself, so I’m not really talking behind her back – and I love her and she was exactly what we needed when she took on the position. Anyhow, this new GCMfH, is totally new to the organization, and she can do everything remember (frankly she has already screwed up several times, but we will let that go right now) – so the way this meeting is run is that 5 of us have voting rights – the others just do stuff for the kids, but we honor their votes anyhow just to be nice. And of the five that have voting rights, we all get a turn to talk about our issues – beginning with the presiding officer. She says, here’s the deal the girls are idiots in the dressing room, and I told them they were being awful and told them to shape up and ten minutes later they made a huge mess, broke some stuff, and were idiots – GCMfH spoke up – maybe we should this and that – why isn’t there this and that – (oh yeah, the biggest idiot in the dressing room is her kid, which presiding officer had said we were specifically going to talk about Kid A and Kid B who are an issue – but their two moms who have NEVER attended this meeting before both showed up – so being wishy washy she didn’t name names – probably better that way, but…) – we spent 5 minutes on the topic, and then GCM spent another 20 minutes on it. Then the second in charge said could we do a ceremony for the Odd Fellows – we said yes) GCM had to tell us how her mom was a Rebekkah (sp?) and she remembers right where the Odd Fellows hall is from a field trip with her kids to town (we meet in a small historic mining town).Then the Secretary – she read us the notes from the State meeting that we all didn’t attend but she did – GCM had about 14 questions about stuff that she didn’t need to clarify right then and could have saved us all a lot of time if she had said to one specific person, can you explain all that later. – Okay now I’m just venting, and I’m sure you have the picture our usual little 1.5 hour meeting took 3 hours – and I didn’t talk much (couldn’t get a word in edgewise) so we pretty much stayed on topic, just that we got down to the silliest details of each topic – and then the coupe de gras (sp?) she actually told another mom – “and if I don’t like the way you are doing it, I won’t help” – and she was MEAN about it. I said, “that’s okay, if she won’t do it your way, find someone who will” (oh I am such a diplomat – actually I am, because what I wanted to say was “who died and made you queen bitch head of the quilters” – but I toned it down).

So – now my most passionate volunteer position is being jeopardized by a newbie-uninformed-idiot-hasn’t swept her own porch-Graham Cracker Mom – I will win this one, oh yes I will – because unlike my first attempt, when I was way out of my league – this time I have the upper hand, I have the experience, the knowledge, and my kids are older, I’m almost done, so it’s sorta like Fried Green Tomatoes, “I’m older and I have more insurance”.

Why must the dog watch me take a shit?

We have two dogs – they have lovely real names, but I usually refer to them as ‘you’ and ‘fat ass’.
‘You’ is old – in fact yesterday was his 11th (or 77th) birthday – and since puppyhood cannot pee/poop in front of a human, possibly other living creatures as well, not certain about that, because he has this uncanny knack of knowing if you are anywhere near the window and he will stop midstream and/or mid-whatever and wait for you to go away – I assume he waits, he’s never been treated for not going.
‘Fat ass’ is such an attention hog that if she sees you looking out the window and she is in the middle of her business, even if it’s only been twelve seconds since you gave her all sorts of attention before putting her out, she will begin wagging her tail like you are the most wonderful sight in the world and you are going to start petting her – I love my dogs, but I have never petted anything that was taking a crap (maybe a pet bunny when I was a kid, but they crap every eight seconds).
Well ‘You’ cannot stand it if I get up to go to the bathroom he MUST follow me – I can say to him, I am only going to the bathroom; I can wait til he is sound asleep and try to sneak off to the bathroom; it really doesn’t matter, even if he is only lying 4 feet from the bathroom door, he will get up and follow me and then very alertly watch me from the hallway. Oh I know I could close the door, the thing is, he would open it anyhow – and I’m claustrophobic – I only close the door if we have guests – otherwise, just stay outta the hall, cuz it will not only be ajar, it will be wide open. Okay if everyone is home, I will leave it ajar – but it won’t stay that way because the dog will come and open it. I could also time their trips out to the backyard with my trips to the bathroom, but being on the same schedule as the dogs is creepy in so many ways I can’t begin to think about that. I just think that he could be more understanding, he doesn’t like to be watched, and I’ve talked with him about this – I respect his dignity and let him have his privacy (well as much privacy as a dog can get going in the great outdoors – can’t he please just let me have my moment alone – he usually just looks at me with the same look he uses on ‘Fat Ass’ when she tries to eat his regular dog food instead of the doggy weight watchers crap we offer her. You see, he is actually underweight, probably all that exercise from following the entire family back and forth to the bathroom – and ‘Fat Ass’ is well, duh, overweight – so they get two different types of food – another complication in my life that I did NOT need.

My teenaged DAUGHTER noticed a car…

People who know me in real life know that amongst my many closeted personalities lives a ‘gear head’ – I did have a lot of brothers – Brothers, Mom, Dad, and Grandmother all drove race cars – we went to the races a lot when we were kids, and even more as teenagers. I even worked on a pit crew for short flirtatious stint one summer. So it comes as no surprise to those that know of this alter ego that I watch the Barrett Jackson auctions with husband and the boy, that the boy and I have spent time surfing fabulously wonderful dream cars on various occasions – GAWD the internet is so much better than trying to choose which magazine to browse like we had to do back in the 70’s and 80’s. I fell in love with the Maybach – I suppose it’s a testament to the little old lady alter ego that lives inside of me and adores luxury and performance – that is not to say it has replaced my dream cars – the ’66 Chevelle SS or the ’66 Ferrari Dino – it is to say I have grown and so has the list of dreams. My son wants a Bugatti – can’t say I blame him… oh shit I digressed from my point. My point, the girls, they think that car browsing, interest, etc. is so much bullshit. They have zero interest in seeing a Shelby Cobra when it is driving down the highway right in front of us, nor do any other high-performance-make-you-drool-all-over-yourself vehicles even cause their necks to twitch, let alone turn around 180 degrees, causing the drool to actually run down their backs between their shoulder blades. They will go to the races with us, on those rare occasions that we can find both time and money for such an outing – but I believe they spend the entire time eating concession stand food (there’s that whole money thing again), bitching about the bathroom facilities and of course looking at butts – you know the ones inside of the wranglers on the boys strutting around the track looking at butts. So, it came as an enormous shock, in fact I nearly needed one of those portable defibrulators, that her head not only turned, but she actually had to wipe drool from her chin the other day when a Porsche 911 GT3 drove by us on the highway – now, as a seasoned veteran of peeing my pants with envy and desire when a car like that is in visible vicinity I knew it wouldn’t be long until she began to hyperventilate and her eyes would become fixed on the last little visible speck of the car in the distance, so I knew that in spite of my own selfish needs, I had to keep myself together, there would be time later to restart my heart from the pure shock of her statement “Oh My God that Car is so F***ing Sweet – THAT is the car I want” (ps the shock had nothing whatsoever to do with the F word, that I can handle, it was that she was noticing a car). I didn’t even comment that her dream was ONLY a Porsche, and not nearly so unique or fabulous as a Shelby Cobra, Bugatti Veyron, Maserati, Ferrari, Lambourghini, Spyder, etc – and in fact it was a fabulous car, just beautiful, truly fantastically enjoyable – we tried to catch it (rofl in our 4 cylinder Chevy Impala – the kids’ car, but I drive it a lot right now because of both gas mileage and weather – My old lady luxury car [Lincoln Town Car] doesn’t get nearly the gas mileage) just to see if it was a hot guy, a hot girl, or an old bald fart driving it. Oh yeah it had a vanity plate too – something really decadent, I can’t remember it now. I don’t know if this is the result of some sort of late blooming switch finally firing, or if she will really only ever love this one car, or if she was temporarily possessed by some other entity that does actually appreciate fine automobiles. She has mentioned it a few times since, so I think that possession is not really the cause. She even asked her sister (who aspires to be a broadway actress/dancer) to buy her one when she is rich – keep in mind the oldest aspires to be a surgeon and should have plenty of $$ herself to buy one – but she continues to live in this strange little fantasy land that her brother and sister will both be far more wealthy than she will be with their careers in theatre and professional sports – hmmmm, we’ll just have to see about that.

FYI –
Porsche 911 GT3 – MSRP $100,000
Maybach 62– MSRP $386,500
1966 Ferrari Dino 206 SP – Auction Value $1,000,000 (no I did not put too many zeros)
1966 Chevelle SS - $20-$30,000 (though I did run across a numbers matching L78 Convertible for $105,000)
Shelby Cobra – Barrett Jackson Auction Price - $5,500,000 (no I did not put too many zeros)
Bugatti Veyron - $1,100,000 (not too many zeros)

Blog Surfing…

I went blog surfing yesterday morning, and contrary to my usual forays into this “exciting” (usually isn’t) and “inspiring” (usually isn’t) world of voyeurism, I found some things I really did like looking at. ‘Baseball Mom’ – her kids are younger than mine, and she has no girls, but… in many ways we sound like a matched pair – I think that she would probably be a lot of fun to hang out and drink beers with while we make fun of the men and the boys and solve all of the world’s problems by relating them to baseball or motherhood. I left her a few messages, though her latest entry made it clear that she would be out of town this week. On her page – I mean after all I liked her stuff, so I might like what she looks at – I found others I liked also (of course I am on a different computer now and can’t access my history, or find these blogs with a simple google search so that I make certain and get the name correct, and get the link – oh yeah and I’m on dialup at work, and well the searching is going ever so quickly-NOT) – ‘LDSM, Soccer Mom’, first of all she’s pink, like me, second of all – I belong to a long line of stuck up snotty baseball-moms-are-better-than-soccer-mom’s clicque, you know the ones I drink beer with and therefore owe all my loyalty to – so to say that someone who calls herself “Soccer Mom” is a good read, well, you do the math (ps I only pretend to be uppity, there’s no way in hell I could actually pull it off) – she’s got a sense of humor, and I love This Post – Look for a corresponding post here soon (if I remember to post it) – then there is also ‘My Tiny Kingdom’ – ROFL at what her kids put in her closet – I don’t know that I read any other posts, but that one had me giggling out loud, I will have to read more of her posts too see what I think of the person behind the ornery brothers – The last one I read was ‘Cursing Mama’, well obviously I liked the name, I also like the tagline – “Teaching my kids the English Language, one colorful word at a time” – obviously the husband would not like this at all, as I am constantly in the doghouse for my mouth – I do however love it when my little minions rat on him and come home with ‘Dad used the F word in traffic today’ or ‘I heard Dad say the F word to so and so on the phone’ – it gives me a little wiggle room for a week or two. Cursing Mama does like cats and knitting, so we have our subtle differences, but I usually like people who like cats and knitting (though knitters are such snobs to we who are lazy and only use one needle and give it a fancy name that men can’t pronounce when the see it and can’t spell when they hear it). Anyhow, so yesterday’s blog surfing paid off, and all because of that glorious word ‘Baseball’ – I can almost smell the dirt and leather now.

Well back to Baseball Mom - I must check out her other friends, and then start thinking about making a list of my own blogs that I read. I'll give it awhile and see which ones I just can't stay away from, after all it would be silly to list something I've only been to one time.

Valentine’s Day

So – you are looking around at all the pink and thinking oh great – here comes some sappy crappy romantic stuff – WRONG!

Don’t get me wrong, I love romance – I think romance is necessary and healthy and absolutely fabulous. I hate CONTRIVED romance. That is to say, I hate love songs; I hate stupid sappy assed insincere cards; I detest feeling obligated to show affection or vocalize feelings just because it’s good manners to ‘return’ the comment/action. Valentine’s Day (and Anniversaries) are the stupidest most obligatory contrived holidays I can think of.

You know how fundamental Christians carry on about not over-commercializing Christmas and remembering Jesus’ birthday (which by the way is NOT on Christmas). Why don’t they have the same passion about anniversaries and Valentine’s Day?

I love my husband, deeply, passionately, in ways I never understood until it happened. I love my children, deeply, passionately, in ways no one can fathom until they feel it. I love my parents, deeply, passionately, blindly. I love my siblings, I love my friends, I love many people, and creatures. And, I enjoy giving valentines to any/all of them. Valentine’s are fun – the little candy hearts, the chocolates, silly sentiments that are universally genuine and sincere. I do not however generally feel very romantic on Valentine’s Day – probably in part because I am stubborn to a fault, and I hate being told how to feel – so… if Hallmark says I must feel sappy and romantic all day, I’m likely to feel nearly the opposite.

I tell my husband often, particularly around Valentine’s Day and anniversaries – every day is Valentine’s Day – the best most wonderful romantic gesture are the ones that happen on the spur of the moment, or at least are UNEXPECTED. I love when my husband grabs me by the hand to drag me outside to look at the sunset – I love grabbing his hand and dragging him outside to kiss in the rain. I feel incredibly in love when he will just suddenly suggest a romantic moment in spite of the dirty house, crazy schedule, or even that I look awful. I love when he dresses up for some event that he doesn’t even really want to attend – he looks fabulous, and I know he is making a sacrifice for someone else’s happiness.

So what are my Valentine’s plans… I plan to cook a special dinner for the kids and husband – maybe French Steak, decorate the dining room with things from the box that has VD written on the side in big red marker, give them all stupid little trinkets and goofy valentines – as if we are all in 3rd grade – and I will email them ecards – because those are the best valentine cards around. My husband I will probably not have a night any different than usual in the romance department, because he knows that I hate feeling obligated to be romantic – and then in a week or two, one of us will do something incredibly romantic for the other.

The Meltdown

I am delighted to let all of you know that we have melted enough to actually see some of the lawn! I was so delighted to find a couple of weeks worth of the local weekly paper in a snowbank this morning, and to see some of my lawn – it can’t be long before I can enjoy my little crocuses and daffodils – I know they are under there somewhere.

I have just spent the better part of the day doing the old spreadsheet dizzy dance – getting financial backup ready for a board meeting – I haven’t had a shower in two days, I stink, and I haven’t eaten lunch yet (2:30pm) – So… am I jumping into the shower with a sandwich in hand – uh… no, I’m writing a stupid blog entry, because I want readers dammit – and I think that if I blog enough nonsense maybe I will get one or two more than the one I have. Also because my brain is almost entirely mush from several consecutive days of spreadsheets and I can’t make a logical decision.

What to write about, well it seems that Anna Nicole is getting an awful lot of attention – and here is what I really snickered at (please don’t think me crass) – they did a piece on Nightline last night that was at least 10 minutes about ‘why is Anna Nicole Smith in the news’ – well if y’all didn’t spend ten minutes on her, maybe she wouldn’t be. Don’t misread me, there have been some newsworthy stories on her, and her death merits some mention in the news, I just don’t think that it merits quite the abundance of attention that it seems to be receiving. There are other celebrities that have passed away recently, and I don’t recall it being THE headline story for a full 24 hours, surely there is something in this whole big world that has more impact on us that should be the lead story.

Wow, between the hunger and the hygiene, I think I have nothing more to say – how’s that for a blog that will really inspire my readers to comment!

Superbowl Whiners

Yes we watched the superbowl – a. we are American, b. did you not notice the profile, there are two males in this house – and they both play/played football all through school, c. there generally isn’t anything else on, especially anything that allows you to use it as an excuse for gastronomic overindulgence.

So yesterday my friend (who only watched some of the game, she is single, has two daughters, and her mother lives with her – no men in the house (yes I’m sexist) – and she probably had other crap to do). Anyhow, yesterday she called me and said “I need your perspective” – this usually means that her fundamental religious training and strictly defined personal morals are at odds with her open-mindedness and/or her ability to look at things very very logically – and when she gets my feedback, she can usually find which side of the fence she wants to fall on. We actually agree on most everything, in spite of our different spiritual paths. [I call her for perspective also]

Apparently the flap over the Snickers Commercial was in high gear at her workplace – which to be fair to my “readers” – she does work in broadcasting. She missed the commercial during the game, knew I would have seen it, and wanted to know what my feelings were. Well…

For crying out loud, you stupid whiney assed Americans and the freakin drama queen media have done it again – get over yourselves. Let’s review (just in case someone actually stumbles into my blog that is from oh say another planet and hasn’t heard of this), two guys are working on an engine, one opens a snickers bar, and puts it in his mouth, and like a cigar leaves it hanging out (I would be afraid of dropping the chocolaty goodness onto the engine and would never have let go, but that really is beside the point) – the other guy, overcome by the temptation of the most wonderful candy bar he’s ever seen, bites onto the other end; they keep biting their way through the candy bar until they meet in the middle and their lips touch. They freak out at the prospect of having kissed, and jump up and one says to the other “quick do something manly” – they both reach into their shirts and pull out wads of chest hair – we here at ‘chez politically incorrect’ laughed our asses off – particularly when the one guy pulled out a wad of chest hair that could have served as a wig for someone.

Well it never occurred to me that this was ‘anti-homosexual’ – I didn’t even think of it as a ‘homosexual’ encounter. Two PEOPLE who weren’t attracted to each other accidentally kissed – if I accidentally ate my way up a snickers bar that was hanging out of my mailman’s mouth, or my brother’s mouth, or my gay hairdresser’s mouth, or my bitchy next door neighbor’s mouth, etc. – I would have been grossed out – these are not people I have any desire to kiss. It was not about homosexuality, or at least not entirely, it was about ewwwwwwww we just did something that doesn’t fit with our own personal style and now we have to reinforce who we are.

So, I give my opinion to my friend who tells me that she looked over a few blogs to ‘research’ because of all the flap at work and she even ran across people ranting about it not being appropriate during a football game because football is ‘family entertainment’. You will get NO argument from me that football is ‘family entertainment’ – in fact I wrote several letters years ago when my daughter was a toddler in a playpen and we left her alone in the living room with the t.v. during commercials to go get some food or something – well she starts screaming in horror and we run in and she is watching a commercial for ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ – and she is terrified, she even had nightmares for a few nights. I was way super pissed that they movie commercials have a need to be so graphic and hideous – if the movie is rated R – the commercials that are shown on television should NOT portray the reasons why they are R – particularly during a t.v. show that has a general audience rating. Guys kissing are not going to scar my children – be real.

So let’s review, there were commercials for horror movies during the superbowl, graphic commercials – no one is screaming. A rabbit molested a mouse during a superbowl commercial (again we laughed our asses off), no one is screaming. Two lions made fun of Latins (we laughed), no one is screaming. A girl was portrayed as clumsy, another girl was portrayed as slutty, there was casual sex – most certainly unprotected casual sex, there was an old guy getting his butt kicked, there was a portrayal of a classic children’s game reinvented with dangerous violence (my son says – what if kids start throwing scissors???), there was sexual harassment in the workplace, deviant sexual behaviour – really much to be offended by – oh wait… because of one simple premise – things that are funny are usually a little bit WRONG – and we expect to be amused and entertained during our superbowl commercials – also it doesn’t hurt to have commercials be entertaining so people will watch them instead of refilling their plates with hot wings and going pee, then they might actually buy your product – isn’t that the point?

We are going to have a hard time selling products to the masses if we don’t advertise; advertising is competitive, you have to have the better beer ad so that people will want to drink your beer; better = more entertaining; more entertaining can = funnier; funny = a little bit wrong; a little bit wrong = offensive to some. It’s really just capitalist math, don’t scream about the ‘anti-gay’ message, go live someplace communist where everyone is equal and advertising is unnecessary and bitch about how capitalism is the enemy – enjoy your little gray suit! The bonus to living in a communist country, aside from the lack of advertising, is that the media is state controlled, so while you still won’t get any valid reliable truthful correct news reports, at least they won’t be overselling their lies and drama, and you will know you aren’t getting the whole story and you won’t expect integrity in the reporting. There also aren’t any churches, so the judgmental freaks who want to scream at you for your choices won’t be around to make your life hell and use their big mouths to try to convince themselves that they are on the path to heaven.

There are many much greater things to be bitching and whining about, things that actually do have adverse affects on the american youth - maybe we should re-focus for the good of the entire community?