DON'T PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS!

Unless you are prepared to be seriously injured.

Okay it's not that serious. It just hurts like a mother f*ck@r.

And those last two words are the reason I'm writing this post. 

You see, I have a foul mouth. Evidenced by several of my posts, and by the many uncomfortable moments in mixed company, (that likely included someone's grandmother), where I could have chosen another word, but didn't.

However, the three people in this world I do NOT swear in front of are my kids. And they are not allowed to swear in front of me. (Just ask my 27 year old daughter...but she's not allowed to swear because she has a voice like Mini Mouse, which makes swearing sound ridiculous.)

BUT when your 11 year old son, who is freakishly strong, hurls a baseball in your direction, that just misses your glove, then nails your foot, and in an instant it feels like you are giving birth through your big toe, you apparently forget your swearing rule.

Instead you freeze, stop breathing and after you assure your darling child, who didn't mean to hurt you, that you are okay and it wasn't his fault, you succumb to the pain and become Joe Pesci from Goodfellows.

"Jesus Mother F-ing Christ!", you say in the early stages of toe labor. (You see, the nail of the toe acts like tourniquet. More blood is rushing to the area than can be released. Much like the baby-versus-vagina scenario.)

"Holy F-ing Sh*t Balls!", you scream with the next toe contraction. Then you quite ungracefully hop to the nearest picnic table because the park where you have just been injured is 40 minutes from home, your other son's baseball game just started and you aren't going anywhere for at least 2 hours. You need a place to prop your deleterious digit above your heart so you can get through this without an epidural.  

Finally, as you reach the active stage of toe birth and the DARK BLUE nail is crowning, you rip off a string of expletives that goes something like, "F-ing Mother of God Damn Christ. Why the F does this F-ing Sh*t hurt so much? Get me a C-Sucking gun!"

Suddenly, the triage team of your body's defense system retreats, things start to calm down, and as you open your eyes while still lying face-up on the bench portion of the picnic table, you can faintly see all the heavenly bodies you just verbally assaulted with their arms crossed, one foot tapping, leering down at you like you have just ruined your chances of ever getting in.

Then you look at your child who has gone from 11-41 in five minutes because of your bad behavior. His face is bright red. Not because he is scared or sad, but because he is so delighted that you have broken, nay, shattered your swearing rule so egregiously, that he thinks he can say whatever he wants in front of you for the rest of his life.

Then you both start laughing your asses off.

It's one of those moments the two of us will remember fondly forever.

Yeah, not exactly a Hallmark movie, but it's ours, so F-off.

Love,

Lynda

Copyright © Lynda Crotty Radio, Inc

 

No more moon!

(That's not me, BTW.)

Unlike my Astronomy classmates, I'm not on summer vacation. I'm busy working and mooning people in Minnesota, instead of on the coast.

But I did it! I did it! I got through Astronomy and I didn't die!!!!

I thought I might. I really sucked at it at first. So much that I almost dropped the class after one fateful day in February.

(INSERT DREAM-LIKE HARP MUSIC HERE TO TAKE US BACK IN TIME)

I was sitting in my lab group with two kids whose combined ages still made them younger than me. They were whizzing through the mathy stuff (which is not my forte) and after a fun-filled week of taking on one too many boring writing gigs, (and having to say no to a super fun joke-writing gig) losing my cell phone, eradicating lice from my household, and trying to help my 5th grader with his math (in Spanish) and failing, I decided I didn't know shit about shit, I was huge screw up and I should just chuck it all and go work at Super America. 

I didn't.

What I did do was start crying, right there, in front of my teenage lab partners on the fourth floor of the Physics building at the U of M. And because the Physics building is as old as dirt, there isn't a public restroom for a middle-aged freak show having a meltdown to go cry in. Which I learned after racing around both the fourth AND third floors in a desperate search for some privacy. I wound up bawling in a stall on the second floor, next to some other teenagers who were probably really good at math too. Assholes.

So, there I was. Devastated. Humiliated. And noticing how the graffiti in the bathroom stalls of higher learning institutions says stuff like "You are beautiful."instead of "Rachel is a whore." Interesting. Anyway. I had a decision to make. Either march back up there and show those brats who's boss, or write something more appropriately inappropriate on that bathroom stall wall.

I chose the former. I took the rickety elevator up those two flights of stairs back to Astrolab (because my f-ing back was killing me after playing goalie in a knee hockey game with my boys the night before). I bet those little math twats never have to do stuff like THAT. I put my reading glasses on to cover my red eyes, smiled and said, "Sorry. Cramps." Which grossed them out more than made them feel sorry for me, but I wouldn't actually know because this generation is a bunch of friggin' mutes. They don't speak. They don't even make eye contact. It's weird. (But that's another post.) Regardless. We got through the rest of the lab.

And I got a tutor.

He was an opinionated dude who hated God and had a penchant for tangents, (which is how I knew he hated God...and everyone else, but I was paying him so he pretend-liked me). He knew his Astronomy, though and helped me a crapload. It was just the thing to pry me out of my self-loathing slump and get my confidence back to it's fighting weight. 

That's when I started kicking ass.

You wanna know what a comet is made of? BAM!

How about why the the moon is out during the day? BAM!

Is it time to have your mind blown by the enigma that is black holes and dark matter? BAM! BAM! BAM! 

(I'm saying "BAM" because I don't actually know, but I faked it pretty damn well, bitches!)

Kidding. Some of it sunk in and most importantly, I really, really enjoyed the material. Like REALLY enjoyed it. I'm sad it's over. 

What? Who? 

I know.

Learning is fun!

And that's the moral, people.

Don't give up.

Get help.

Get your groove back.

This shit ain't that hard.

It's just logic and junk, and if a knuckle head like me (I) can do it, so can you.

To infinity and beyond!!!!!


Copyright © Lynda Crotty Radio, Inc