You may remember we were burglarized last September, twice. In one week. They stole my laptop and essentially every piece of jewelry Mac had ever given me during our 13 years together. They stole my grandmother’s ring, the single item I inherited from her.

It took months to “get over it,” but recently, the wound was reopened. Basically, through a rather coincidental chain of events I’d rather not elaborate on, we found out for sure who burglarized our home, and it was the person I suspected: Our former nanny’s son, a young man addicted to methamphetamines.

I knew it was him the moment I saw my jewelry box laid open, empty. I drove immediately to his home. He was in the street. I walked right up to him looked him dead in the eyes and said “Hey. I get it. I was a drug addict once too. Just give me back my things. Have them show up on my doorstep and I’ll give you $1000. No questions asked.”

Looking back, I realize he had probably already traded everything for a 20 sack, maybe two.

He went around and around about how it wasn’t him. But I knew it was. The sight of his face in my mind’s eye makes me feel sick. Lying motherfucker. I had no proof, but I knew. 100%.

And the worst part is I knew it was going to happen before it happened. I saw it in my mind. I literally saw in my mind that this person was going to burglarize our home.

I knew it the day my nanny sat in our living room and told me her son (who lived with her) was addicted to meth. A thought crossed my mind: One of these days, he’s going to find out through his mom that you’re gone for the weekend and he’s going to burglarize your home.

Three months later, that is precisely, EXACTLY what happened.

After my nanny left that day, I called my mom. I told her “I need to find a new nanny. I need to disconnect. Something bad is going to happen.”

But I did nothing.

I talked to Mac about it, told him my concerns. I am no stranger to drug addiction and what it causes. I am no stranger to the monsters people become.

But still I did nothing.

I did nothing against my better judgment.

I did nothing against every cell of my being screaming at me “Stop this. Get out. Bad things are going to happen.”

I did nothing because I ignored my intuition.

I did nothing until it was too late.

And that is the part I can’t get over.

That is the part that haunts me, late at night when I think about the family photos and videos that were lost in the stolen laptop and the pearl necklace gone, the one Mac gave me a couple months into our relationship, and the diamond ring I remember so clearly on my beloved grandmother’s thin, wrinkled gorgeous finger.

I did nothing because I was stuck. I was stuck in a motherfucking rut and I could not see out. I refused to see out. I would not see out.

Life gave me the signs. It gave me the chance to redirect, to move along, to do something new. The universe hinted, nudged, and at times downright pushed and shoved, but still, I did nothing.

Why? Because it was too hard. Because I preferred the comfort of my rut to the difficulty of a new course.

Our home was dark. The neighborhood was terrible. I hated it. We all hated it.  It was a dead, depressing place. We lived two houses down from a known drug house. They’d do deals in the street. They’d park in front of our house waiting for the delivery. Sometimes I’d walk up to them and knock on the car window, ask if I could help. Probably not the safest move, but it gets to the point when you don’t fucking care anymore. The neighbor on our left occasionally got drunk and poisoned animals in the neighborhood. We lived in near-constant fear of our animals getting out. One day our cat did. We found her on our driveway, poisoned the same way our two kitties died when we first moved in, two years prior, before we knew. Our street was a thoroughfare to the worst street in town, so a constant stream of addicts and drunks poured down our road like a sad parade. They left their trash on our lawn and their baggies on the sidewalk.

We needed to move a long time before, but we didn’t. We didn’t because we were stuck.  We didn’t because sometimes the misery you know is easier than the unknown, because it’s safer, or you think it is, simply because it is known.

It all starts to feel so heavy: The change. The fear surrounding it all: What will happen? What if it doesn’t work? Where will we go and do and how will it all work?

One day turns into the next and the next and the next and it’s just you and the aching intuition, the burning feeling that something needs to change. But nothing changes, because nothing changes. And fear.

The burglary ended it.

Shaken to our core, we were faced with the reality of what our life had become and how distant we had grown from that reality. Within 45 days our house was on the market and we had moved into my mom’s house. Within 90 days our house was sold and we were in escrow on another. Around 4 months from that burglary we moved into the house we live in now, a place I love so much I never want to leave (which is its own problem but one I love to have!). I had forgotten how much a miserable house can bring you down. I had forgotten what it feels like to love where you’re living, to feel “home” each day, in your home.

Action. Finally. Happened.

In a way, that burglary was the best thing to ever happen to us, but still I’m full of hatred sometimes, toward him, but mostly toward myself. Why didn’t I act? Why didn’t I do something? Why didn’t I trust my gut and heart?

I know. I already know: I was doing the best I could at the time. And really, it was just stuff gone. It’s just stuff. Means nothing.

But shit. It’s hard. You know?

Hard to face the elements of responsibility in our own lives, hard to square off with the truth about ourselves. It is not my fault that he burglarized our home. It is, however, my fault that I denied my intuition and chose comfort over change, even though that comfort was making me fucking miserable and I KNEW IT.

It is my fault that I didn’t leave a house and town and situation that was sucking the life out of me.

It is my fault I DID NOT ACT.

Life is strange, isn’t it? The way we stay in things that are killing us because at least we feel safe – hang out in the muck and dirt and mire because at least it’s the muck and dirt and mire we’re accustomed to. The way we justify the shit in our lives as if it’s other people’s faults when really it’s us – we’re the ones too chicken shit to move, paralyzed by our own indecision, cut off at the knees with terror. Of what, who knows. How could it be worse than this?

Until life slaughters us one day, to be reborn.

I’m beginning to think life is just a series of little deaths, of becoming unstuck, of seeing how fear pulses through my mind and spine and legs, moving my body for me, on nothing more than a glorified rat wheel. Around and around we call it “living.” I know the truth but I’m too scared to face it. That bullshit job, relationship, habit, whatever. The truth rests deep inside of me. I work every day to ignore it, until I cannot any longer.

I was stuck. I’m not stuck now.

I want to forgive myself, but some mental construction won’t work. “I forgive you Janelle.”

Ah, fuck off.

That shit never works. I need action. I will forgive myself by staying unstuck, by laughing at the voice that says “You can’t. It’s too hard. Stay here.”

I tried that, asshole. I went down that road and it didn’t work. I couldn’t get off  the track on my own so life did it for me, and it hurt. I was shattered into a new direction.

I’m responsible for that, too, I guess. New digs and freedom. My own failure to move – literally and figuratively – killed me. But to begin again. Unstuck, one more time.

Maybe I’ll trust better, sooner.

Myself, and life.

The real kind.

sometimes I feel like this.

I agree with this dude who said parents need to calm the fuck down.

I would like to add that people need to grow the fuck up. From this point forward, we shall use the acronym GTFU. Sometimes, that’s the simple answer. Calm the fuck down, GTFU.

Personally, I’m pretty tired of people walking around as if they’re grown up, only to commit some fatal juvenile act outta the damn blue, signaling a formerly unknown, totally unmanageable well of immaturity. It’s actually rather disturbing. You’re hanging out with somebody all chill and shit thinking “Yeah, look at us, two adults.” And then boom! It happens and you’re all “Oh, wow. I was wrong. You’re my tween.” Possibly my toddler.

I mean come ON, I’m immature. But even I have figured out a few things during my years, and my bar is low I assure you. Some things just aren’t right, and whether we want to or not, at some point, in some areas, we simply must GTFU.

So in the interest of helpfulness (not really, I actually have no interest in being helpful at all), I have compiled a list of behaviors that really signal a need to GTFU.

This list is not comprehensive.

15 SIGNS YOU NEED TO GTFU

1. Finding yourself disturbed for more than 12 seconds by something you read on The Twitter. Check this out: There’s real life and there’s social media.Twitter falls into the category of “social media.” Social media is known to be the gathering ground of all idiots of the world, because not only are they idiots, they are INVISIBLE IDIOTS, which empowers the shit outta them. So, since it surpasses standard dumb exponentially via the blessing of anonymity, social media weirdness needn’t compel serious introspection or offense, but rather one thought and one thought only: What the hell is wrong with these people? And then you get back into real life.

2. Getting unfriended on Facebook results in days of thought and emotional turmoil. If you’re pissing people off, you’re doing it right. Well, usually. Unless you’re Rush Limbaugh or a proponent of this website, which promotes the equal treatment of white people (because that’s obviously always been a problem). There’s no way anybody on that website is doing it right.

3. Involving yourself in every corner of your kids’ lives, telling yourself it’s “for their good.” Look, the rest of the world knows you need to GTFU, because really, it’s all about you. You have not realized your childhood is over. Ship fully sailed. Please stop controlling your kids to bolster the value and meaning of your own existence. We are now in grown-up mode, where we reflect on past mistakes with a mix of nostalgia and horror as opposed to attempt to FIX them through innocent children. Get with the program!

4. You are offended/disturbed/made to feel funny by women breastfeeding in public without a cover. Masturbate, watch porn, move to Denmark. DO WHAT IT TAKES TO FIX YOURSELF.

5. You are in your 30s and think it’s acceptable to smoke weed and play video games all day while your partner goes to work.

6. You are the partner of number 5 and defend him(her?) to your parents by saying things like “But we’re in love.”

7. U write all correspondence like ur texting.

8. You play Candy Crush. Dude I’m totally joking. Just got addicted to that shit last week. However, if you play Candy Crush and send repeated requests for it, you may need to GTFU, realizing that most people with brains do not play stupid candy games on their iPhones. And if they do, they deny the shit out of it. So deny your shit like the rest of us! (for real though, lately, my house is so messy I choose to sit on the couch and wait for more Candy Crush lives as a new form of denial.)

9. When you’re angry at a friend, you prefer The Passive-Aggressive Unfollow rather than an actual conversation. Look. Good old face-to-face conversations tend to be more effective than a silent click and seething disdain. While I can get behind the “unfriend” as joyfully as the next guy, if you are going to remain a fixture in my life for reasons beyond my control, can we just talk about our issues directly rather than dance around “follow” lists?

10. Wearing sweatpants with words on the rear.

No wait. Actually I’m not done with the Passive-Aggressive Unfollow thing. You see here’s what makes your move childish and infuriating: YOU KNOW THE UNFOLLOW WILL IGNITE A CONVERSATION so it isn’t that you don’t want to talk, it’s that you want to poke me and prod me until I say “Okay, FINE, what is it. Why are you mad? How can I make this better?”

Newsflash: That’s what kids do. GTFU.

11. Yelling at check-out people instead of managers. Everybody knows it’s not their fault. We’re all watching you yell at the pimply faced 18-year-old Target check-out-guy nursing a hangover and general malaise are thinking one thing: “What sort of asshat thinks it’s this kid’s fault the headphones were marked on clearance and now they’re not?” GTFU.

12. You have a beard like this guy.

I’m kidding. If you have a beard like this guy, you have reached the pinnacle of manhood. You have no further to go. Stop now while you’re ahead. YOU WILL NEVER GET MORE GROWN UP.

13. Judging people’s maturity by their facial hair. OH FUCK YOU. It’s a reliable maturity indicator.

14. Making duck face in photographs, seriously. 

15. Dismissing entire pieces of writing on account of one typo. Grown-ups have been the asshole, probably on more than one occasion, who suddenly for absolutely no apparent reason emails “there” coworkers and gets a reply from them, reads it, notices the typo in shock and horror, requesting immediately that those same coworkers hold her head in a full toilet bowl until she stops squirming.

Life is no longer worth living.

Okay if you think grammatical errors or looking like a douchebag signals the end of the world, you should probably GTFU, because actual grown-ups have realized we’re all douchebags who do the wrong thing, piss people off, and people piss us off.

And rather than pout and freak out and unfollow each other, we can just talk about it, like big people.

Or we can write about it on our blogs, sure the offenders won’t see anyway, CAUSE THEY’VE ALL UNFOLLOWED YOU.

OMG

I need to GTFU.

Leave me alone. I’m need to go play Candy Crush in my sweatpants with words on them while I unfollow people who were mean to me on Twitter.

And then I’m going to try to follow my own advice, which would be way easier if I didn’t hate advice like a fucking 16-year old.

No but really. The passive-aggressive unfollow thing is super uncool. I stand by that one with every shred of my immature heart.

I “offend” people, a lot.

I don’t give a shit, a lot.

I’m not a cold-hearted person. I’m actually quite sensitive. But when people write “This offends me” or “I’m offended by this,” the only thing I think to myself is “It is impossible for me to convey how little I care.” Not because I’m evil (though that may be true), but rather because I just don’t understand what the hell that’s got to do with me.

Recently I wrote a post referring to “childless” people. I used that word because I wanted to refer to people without children, and “people without children” is three words whereas “childless” is one. And since I’m into the whole brevity thing, I decided on the latter. If you hop over and read the comment thread, you’ll see numerous comments clarifying that “childless” is an offensive, politically incorrect term. The word is “childFREE.” ChildLESS implies a void.

See now this is precisely the moment where they lose me. Yes, of course “childless” implies a void. In English, when you add the word “less” to the end of another word, it means “without” that thing. Hence, without children, which is precisely what I’m trying to say. Forgive me, but I’m not going to INVENT some new word because you find the actual word unpalatable.

I know there are people suffering from infertility, and this word must pierce them, and that makes me feel sad, but can you imagine if we kept changing up English every seven minutes to accommodate every individual experience ever known to humankind? I didn’t set out to hurt people’s feelings. I was just writing. And I’m not particularly invested in the word “childless.” But the fact is I’m not responsible for crafting ideas that are pleasant and palatable and gentle on every version of human on earth today.

I will always hurt people, somehow, and they will always hurt me.

The reason some words are replaced by others (“humankind” for “mankind” or “artificial” or “human-made” for “manmade”) is that they are inaccurate.  They erase women. Women are also humans. And unless you know without a doubt that not a single female played a part in the creation of whatever’s in question, then you are misspeaking to call it “manmade.”

But I wasn’t misspeaking. I was merely pissing people off and hurting feelings.

And really, in the end, as harsh as this sounds, who gives a fuck about feelings?

You, your spouse, the people close to you. Feelings are super useful in indicating to us that something’s wrong, that we need to take some action. Internal unrest is a great indicator that our feet or mouths need to do something: Leave, tell the truth, clean up a past action or wrong. Talk about something. Call somebody. Click off this bitch’s webpage.

But people (whiners) of the fucking internet, your feelings are not sufficient evidence that the world should do something different.

In other words, it’s not our problem you’re “offended.”

Let’s think about this for a moment. You’re offended. You’ve taken offense. You announce that on a website or comment thread (or to a live human being) as if it means something, as if it’s some grand proclamation with relevance and importance, but all you’re really saying is this: “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and we’ve had two totally different lives, but your existence is not validating mine, and that makes me sad, and therefore you should stop doing what you’re doing.”

Do you see how insane that is?

“I’ve had a unique experience of life and my feelings reflect that experience but you don’t, and so YOU’RE WRONG! Stop it! I’m hurt! Wahhhh!”

The problem is not that you’re “offended.” The problem is that you think the rest of the world should care, do something about it, change its behavior to accommodate your inner self.

I hate to break it to you, but your feelings are your own. They’re not mine. They’re not his or hers or theirs or the douchebag writing that article. They are YOURS. Own it, dude. Deal with it.

Every time I hear somebody say “I used to be an alcoholic but now I drink moderately” I want to bash them in the face and my heart sinks into my toes, because that ignorance furthers the plight of actual alcoholics, who of course can’t safely touch alcohol in any form. And there are people dying in the fucking gutters from this disease, and it sure isn’t helping to have people calling themselves alcoholics announcing that they’ve seen the light and “learned to drink reasonably.”

But I know that because I am an alcoholic, because I was dying in a gutter (well actually it was a beige Ford Taurus but who’s counting?). My feelings are hurt because I know – no, I’ve experienced something –this person has not. But that’s not their problem, is it? It’s mine. If I really want to be helpful, perhaps I attempt to explain my perspective, if the opportunity arises. But simply proclaiming “You offend me!” is about the most useless, narcissistic, entitled and meaningless statement ever.

Am I so important that the world should bow and shift and change because my inner self is wounded?

Poor inner child.

Grow the fuck up.

It must be frustrating to troll around the internet endlessly announcing the offense you take to this and that only to find a bunch of unfeeling bags looking at you like “Yes, and?”

But check it out: People find gay people “offensive.” People once found integrated schools “offensive.” People find people of other races, ethnicities and sexes “offensive.” People find breastfeeding in public “offensive.” People find uncovered heads “offensive.” I could go on all day.

Do you see my point here?

The fact that you find something “offensive” cannot possibly mean anything to anybody other than YOU, because if it did, if the world really had to respond to every offense ever taken by every person to ever walk this earth, well come on, you know that’s ridiculous. Nobody would be able to say or write or do anything. The world would turn into some giant vanilla ego-stroking orgy. And there’s no way that’s any fun.

So if that’s true, if quite clearly the world can’t respond to every offended person on the planet, WHAT, dare I ask, makes you so fucking special?

Oh, yes. That’s right. You’re not. You’re only that special in your own head, and possibly your mom’s.

So once again, we’re back to “your problem.”

My problem.

So please, people of the interwebs getting offended all the time and sharing it with us (and then getting more offended because nobody cares), for the love of logic and effectiveness, move beyond your damn feelings for a minute and look at what’s causing them.

Tell me why I’m wrong.

Tell me what I’m not seeing.

Tell me what you’ve experienced that I have not, leading you to see the world differently, from a different place in a different way, and maybe, just maybe, even an asshole like me will take a moment to think about what you’re saying.

Because to begin with, you’re actually, finally, saying something.

So go you.

And now, a moment of silence in reverence for Stephen Fucking Fry. The man-god.

So I have this friend. She’s kinduva bitch.

And I mean that in the entirely derogatory sense of the word.

I can do that, because she knows she’s a bitch. Like I know I’m offensive.

One must own their shit, ya know.

This woman will tell you what’s up and she won’t sugar-coat it, and yeah. Sometimes it STINGS.

She won’t soften it to save your delicate feelings or protect the soul of your vulnerable inner child. Fuck your inner child, I hear her saying, “you’re a big girl now.”

Sometimes I want to punch her in the face because I’m like “look lady, leave me alone, I don’t have time for this shit and I’d REALLY APPRECIATE IT if you’d just let me hide out in my warm little delusional cave.” But she won’t. It’s outta the question.

(Not gonna lie, it’s a little unnerving to be around that much honesty. Kinda makes you realize how totally and completely full of shit most people are (including me!)).

But after that initial “I’ll kill you in your sleep” passes, I want to kiss her and tie her up in my basement until she promises she’ll never leave, because I realize I have a friend who loves me enough to tell me the truth.

Like the other day when I showed up at her house in The Only Pair of Jeans I owned, which happened to be a size too big and consequently hanging off my ass, a feature that was particularly problematic when I would bend over, since my underwear aren’t the grandma kind (if ya know what I mean). And, if you read my last post, you know I have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER wearing non-grandma underwear. But I do anyway, because I got hooked on them in college, and I’ve never gone back. So in short, my bending over revealed what I can imagine was a somewhat disconcerting montage of cotton, cellulite and butt crack, with possibly a few stretch marks thrown in for good measure.

Hot. “Hot” is the word you’re looking for.

Anyway she basically recited the aforementioned paragraph to me in no uncertain terms, punctuating the entire thing with “we’re going today to get you new jeans. Today.”

Luckily, my two other way nicer and way gentler friends were there to soften the blows of The Bitch, and luckily the four of us are the most perfect disaster in the world, so we could go to the mall with the distinct purpose of fixing my broke ass and it felt alright and was only kind of embarrassing.

We’re like a Sex in the City episode, only with way hotter, smarter women (um duh), and not in New York. And possibly less expensive shoes. And not quite so skinny. So maybe not like it at all. Let’s move on.

So we get there and The Bitch starts running around grabbing shit off shelves, demanding my size and that I try certain things on, then hauls me into the dressing room where she sits there and watches me squeeze my rear end into approximately 9,000 pairs of jeans she chose.

Ah, but then the miracle happened. I put a pair on. She said “Holy shit, those are hot. Your ass is amazing. Your thighs look so thin it’s criminal.”

I turned a couple times in front of the mirror. She called my other friends in. They all agreed. They all discussed my amazing ass.

They told me the TRUTH, and I knew it. I knew there was nothing but honesty, and my feelings weren’t being factored into their assessment, so I could rely wholeheartedly on anything they said.

And there is no better thing in a friendship, as far as I can tell.

So I bought the damn jeans, and I wear them, and I know I look good, and I feel confident and loved, because I’ve got friends who are willing to help me, even if it may embarrass me to be helped.

I have friends who love me even though I’m a certifiable dork who can barely dress herself, who repeatedly wears clothes that should be thrown away, and will continue doing so until somebody has the balls to say “Janelle. SERIOUSLY?”

They know all this, and they’ll say it out loud, and then they’ll handle it, for me, with me.

In spite of me.

Until they’re the asshole in the saggy jeans, and I’m the bitch, and it’s my turn to tell the truth and drag them into the dressing room, loving them anyway, for being such a dork, for needing me to pick them up, save them one more time, with brutal honesty, and denim.

You see that face she’s making? Yep. It says it all.

I’ve been told that many programs exist to educate young women on the perils of early motherhood. You know, avoid teen pregnancy and such. I’ve only heard of this sex education because I went to a Catholic girls’ school. We don’t talk about those things there. Plus, none of us were going to have sex because we were saving ourselves for marriage.

Obviously.

Now, I imagine that much of this teen-pregnancy/smart-sex/use-protection-or-die education centers around the economic burden of motherhood, the extreme responsibility, the destruction of one’s social life, and perhaps the reality of missed or limited opportunities facing a girl who’s 15 and pregnant.

This may work. But I really believe there is a better way. When I think back to my teenaged self, so cool, so hot, so together and omniscient, I can’t help but think my sorry ass would not have given two shits about economics or social life or responsibility, because I didn’t really know much about those things. I had no perspective. I had no idea that not leaving your house for 2 months or talking only to toddlers would make me want to crawl in a hole and wither. I had no idea how hard it is to pay only the really late bills because the current ones still have a tolerance window (I mean bills don’t even become real until they’re a month late, right?).

However, there is one thing I understood, and that’s humiliation. I understood that. That hit my fragile egoic self where it hurt. I also understood things that are fucking disgusting. For example, dog shit.

And so, I propose that we tell young girls stories like the one I’m about to tell. We could compile our stories and market the anthology as The Best Birth Control Ever.

It would be like that camp they send disturbed youth to – the one where they attempt to shock them into obedience – they yell at them and take them to prisons and abandon them in the wilderness, doing their best to scare the living shit outta them until they snap out of their delusion and realize they’re ruining their lives. It would be like that, only for motherhood.

Remember Laser? Oh yeah, sweet little bundle of Labrador. Sweet, psychotic bundle of holy-fuck-what-was-I-thinking-getting-a-puppy. Yes, him.

Anyhoo, we were in Tahoe.  We went to the grocery store. Mac, the older kids and my mom went into the store for supplies and Starbuck’s while I waited in the car with Georgia and both dogs. While I waited, I opened the door next to Georgia’s car seat so I could play with her and prolong the point at which she loses her fucking mind because she realizes she’s trapped in a seat and there are things happening without me damnit! While standing there, Laser was sort of jumping on the seat next to her, on the other side of the car. I ignored him. At one point, however, he put his nose across Georgia’s lap and I noticed some brown stuff on it. I thought it was peanut butter.

[Warning: this story is disgusting. Remember: SHOCK TREATMENT. We’re going for shock here people. If we sugar-coat we won’t be as effective.]

I leaned over to see what was on his nose and I realized in a moment of horror that it was not peanut butter  at all. It was poop. It was dog poop. I determined this thanks to my keen olfactory senses. The  next few moments happened in slow motion, but so fast I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was like a car accident. Time slows down but it’s moving at lightning speed.

I look at the seat under  the dog. There is a giant pile of dog diarrhea. My heart stops. Things are dire. Life and death, Janelle. Don’t fuck up. I assess the situation. He’s about to step in it. I must get him out. I bolt to the other side of the car, open the door.

My whole life is hinging on the successful removal of this dog from the car, but I cannot allow him to touch the pile of shit. I cannot fail! I grab his leash and try to pull him toward me, but because the dog is fucking idiotic, he of course flails, steps in the poop and SLIDES ACROSS THE SEAT, dragging the pile of crap across my entire seat and his body. As he jumps out of the car he brushes against me and drags the back of the leash across the morass of excrement.

So there I am, dog shit on my arm, my shirt, my hand. A puppy hopping around psychotically, covered in shit. Holding a leash covered in shit. Staring in awe and wonder and shock at the most enormous pile of dog diarrhea I’ve ever seen, covering the better part of the back seat of the only car we have – the one we need to DRIVE IN and SIT IN.

And I’m stunned. I’m paralyzed. There is no way out. I’m only in survival mode now.  I’m trying to move the dog away from me. He’s jumping on me. Georgia’s yelling. I’m holding the leash out. I have no idea what to do. There is no solution. If I put the fucking dog back in the car we have more shit in the car. But I have to get this off of me and I have to clean my seat.

FYI, there is something infinitely disturbing about being covered in animal excrement.

I hear a noise. I look down. Laser is vomiting. You think I’m kidding? NO. NO I’M NOT. Evidently he ate half of a bully stick, WHOLE. He ralphs ALL OVER THE GROUND NEXT TO ME and almost immediately begins eating it.

I pull him away. He pukes again. Tries to eat it. And I want to die.

So yes, that’s right people. I was standing in the Safeway parking lot covered in dog diarrhea with vomit at my feet and a shit-covered dog attacking me, next to a car doused in crap. And I was alone.

And this, my friends, is my life. Two people asked me if I needed help. I said “um, yes. I need you take this dog and my life. Right now.”

All I could do was stand there and wait for help. I waited for at least 10 minutes in that condition, while people walked by, glanced at me, the dog, the vomit, heard the toddler screaming.

[I wonder how Snooki would have handled that situation.]

Finally Mac came out, horrified of course, bought upholstery cleaner and rags and disinfectant wipes. He held back the dog, tried to clean him, while I cleaned myself and scrubbed dog shit off my seat for AN ENTIRE HOUR.

Now, perhaps our teenaged wonder may read this story and think “Ah, that’s got nothing to do with motherhood. That dumb broad got herself into that trouble, buying a puppy and going on trips and shit.”

But to that I declare: IT IS THE FAULT OF MOTHERHOOD. Why? I’ll tell you why.

Step 1: Have a kid.

Step 2: Have another kid. Maybe another, to give the first kid siblings.

Step 3: Raise them for awhile.

Step 4: Begin doing things that families do, such as buy a fucking Labrador.

Step 5: Stand in vomit piles in a parking lot while covered in dog shit next to your desecrated vehicle.

You see? One thing leads to the next. And what’s the first step? Have a kid.

The jump from kid to dog shit is such a tiny one. And even if you never get a dog, kiddo, there will be excrement in your life and you will be covered in it. Absolutely more than once.

Are you gettin’ that? SHIT. On your skinny jeans.

And that, my friends, is why you don’t want to get pregnant as a teenager…because nobody looks cool doused in dog crap. Or kid crap, for that matter. And once that kid comes, there ain’t no going back.

It’s crap for you, baby.

That’s your future.

Choose wisely.

I’m here. Waiting. To shit on you.