If random things had babies with other random things

I feel like it's been a while since I just sat down and drew a bunch of random shit.

So today, that's what we've got. A bunch of random shit.

Here is a dog:

And here is a pig:

And here is their offspring, the pig-dog:

Jesus f**king Christ it's an abomination.

Here is a bunny:

This one turned out pretty good, don't you think? 

My, how our standards have fallen after nearly a year of this blog.

And here is a shark:

And here is the bunny-shark their illicit love created:

I genuinely feel as though looking at this picture has made me dumber somehow.

Here is a mighty bald eagle:

And here is a kitty:

Tee hee, his name is "Boots."

And here is a bald eagle cat:

KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Here is a ladybug:

Here is a velociraptor:

Don't be so impressed. I was copying a picture instead of drawing from memory.

Here is an I don't even know anymore:

Here is your dad:

Here is your mom:

And here is you:

Christ, you're a f**king monster. How do you live with yourself? Were you conceived through butt-sex?

HAPPY FRIDAY YOU BUNCHA UGLY BASTARDS.

Charm School: Should I give this person advice, or should I SHUT THE HELL UP?

Ah, that age-old question of unsolicited advice: does anybody really appreciate it? Is there any reason to be giving it? Are you helping anyone other than yourself? These tough questions are the topic of today's post.

You see, most of my social media posts are comedic in nature. Jokes, I mean. Jokes that have been carefully constructed and exaggerated to get a laugh out of the people who read them. It's very rare that I either post something legitimately concerning or actually ask the good people of the Internet for advice. I tend to keep my private life and decisions, well, private. For good reason.

And yet, I find myself inundated with unwanted advice. This has especially been the case since I've been pregnant -- people simply cannot resist offering advice to pregnant women. And from what I hear, it will only get worse when the baby is born, as people are biologically incapable of withholding unsolicited parenting advice.

In his defense, beating newborns has a 95% success rate in making them stop crying.

So, today we will go through a little decision tree that will help us to know when we should share our advice and experiences with others, and when we should shut the f**k up no I'm serious shut your goddamned mouth you are going to get punched.

presents ... 

DO I SHARE THIS ADVICE, OR DO I SHUT THE HELL UP?

QUESTION 1: Was a question asked at any point? Something that might suggest that advice is being solicited?

Examples: 

"Seems like every time I eat shrimp, I get the worst diarrhea of my life two hours later. Has anyone else experienced this?"

"I'm considering buying a full-sized pool table for my studio apartment. Thoughts?"

"The entire left side of my body has gone numb and I'm having a terrible time typing this as all the letters seem to have jumbled together into a foreign language. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this? I already took some Tylenol an hour ago but it doesn't seem to be helping."

Congratulations! That question mark means you have been invited to share your thoughts/opinions/past experiences! If you're lucky, maybe the person soliciting advice has a lot of Facebook friends or Twitter followers who will also read your amazing response and think you're the smartest person on earth. Today is basically your Christmas, Advice Santa. Make it merry.

"Seems like every time I eat shrimp, I get the worst diarrhea of my life two hours later. Has anyone else experienced this?"

"I'm considering buying a full-sized pool table for my studio apartment. Thoughts?"

"The entire left side of my body has gone numb and I'm having a terrible time typing this as all the letters seem to have jumbled together into a foreign language. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this? I already took some Tylenol an hour ago but it doesn't seem to be helping."

If there is no question mark suggesting that advice is requested, then things start getting a little trickier. Next, we move on to ...


QUESTION 2: Is the person joking?

As someone who has often received advice in response to a joke, I can tell you firsthand that this is 1) really, really annoying, and 2) makes the person giving the advice look like a f**king idiot of the highest caliber. No, I'm serious -- if you respond to a joke with earnest advice, you will look like such a fool. I am writing this to help you. You might even say I am offering unsolicited advice on how to avoid looking like a fool.

Picture the exaggerated version: you go to a comedy club and the comedian does a bit about how his wife always nags at him to do unpleasant tasks, especially tasks involving the care of their young children. The bit is quite funny and gets a lot of laughs. After the show, you go up to the comedian and hand him a list of parenting and relationship advice books that he should look into, suggesting that his relationship could use some work. "It sounds like you and your wife aren't communicating well, and over time this can really break down even the strongest relationships. I think that you two may have different 'love languages' and it's important that you understand where the other person is coming from to avoid misunderstandings of the type you described in your act. I bet you would really benefit from couples therapy."

Only someone who has completely, utterly missed the entire point of the comedy act would do this. Probably someone with severe mental and emotional problems.

So ... how is responding to a comedian this way any different from responding to a friend's joke on Facebook this way? It's not, really. Therefore, for your own sake, before you go posting links to great relationship columns in response to someone's statement that their husband never listens, ask yourself: is this a joke? Is this person purposefully exaggerating in order to get a laugh? And if the answer is yes, then PUT THE RELATIONSHIP COLUMNS AWAY. PLEASE.

uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Okay, so you're pretty sure the post wasn't intended as a joke. Now what? 


At this point, please note that you are officially leaving the safety of the reservation. We've acknowledged that advice has not been sought, so by giving it, you run the risk of pissing people off. Don't disregard that risk. People are perfectly within their rights to respond rudely to unsolicited advice, because giving unsolicited advice is itself rude. And as we all know, two wrongs make a right and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind but wise for having learned an important lesson. So be warned.

If you've decided to proceed anyway, the next several guidelines will help to limit the possibility that your advice will only piss the person off rather than helping them. Follow them closely.


QUESTION 3: Is your advice something the person legitimately may not have thought of?

Oftentimes, the unsolicited advice that people give is so stupid it makes me want to punch myself in the face just in the hopes of lowering my IQ a few points so that I won't be so pissed off by it.

Samantha should just delete her whole Facebook account at this point.

Unless you hang around mostly with mentally challenged people or very small children, then you can probably assume that your friends have already thought of the most basic possible solutions to their problems. When you suggest these basic things, you imply that your friend is an idiot. Because only an idiot wouldn't have considered going to bed earlier as a good cure for being tired in the morning. Or drinking coffee, or snoozing their alarm. Clearly, there is some impediment in the way that prevents these solutions from working for them.

This is how I'm going to start responding to stupid advice, by the way. With rude sarcasm. Prepare yourselves.

However, maybe you do know something that most people don't. Maybe you've just read an incredible new article in which you learned that many people who have trouble waking up in the morning have actually woken up hundreds of times throughout the night without knowing it. And that this condition can be easily cured with some new therapy, drug, or machine. 

Put your pants back on, ladies. I hear this guy is married.

This might be information that the original poster legitimately was not aware of. And so, this is information that there might be some value in sharing.

Just remember -- you're off the reservation now. Don't be offended if the person gets mad, even though you're 'only trying to help.'


QUESTION 4: Is your advised solution actually possible? Is it remotely on the same level as the problem being presented?

The next worst kind of advice after really obvious advice is really f**king useless advice. This seems to happen more often in semi-anonymous online forums, probably because even the people giving the advice realize how stupid it is so they don't want their real-life personas associated with it.

Yes, clearly the best way to deal with a noisy cat is to sell your house, buy a different house in another neighborhood, pack, go through the stress of moving, and uproot your entire life. Because of a cat.

"Dump him" is very common unsolicited advice given on public forums. So helpful.

How does that bit of Confucian wisdom go about not killing a mosquito with a bazooka? Yeah. Before you offer up your advice, really ask yourself: would I follow my own advice in this situation? Would I really divorce my husband because he drank too much one time? Would I really pack up and move away just to avoid an annoying neighbor? No? Then don't tell someone else to.

I have received this "advice" numerous times. Word for f**king word. I wish I was joking.
But if I were joking, then someone would offer me advice.
Shit.

QUESTION 5: Is your advice timely, or is it given after the fact?

The next person who gives me "advice" on a decision that has already been made and executed is getting punched in the face. You and I both know that your advice is obviously only given for your own benefit. It is literally impossible for me to benefit from it, as I have already chosen and embarked on an alternate course of action. Don't be a douche.

No one in the world would blame him. No one.

Alright, so we reach the final question of our decision tree. Advice hasn't been solicited, but you've decided to go forward anyway. You're 99% sure the original statement wasn't a joke; you're pretty sure your advice is novel and interesting and not something the original speaker has thought of; it's totally feasible and a great way to solve the problem; and there's still time to implement it! Sounds like you're well on your way to giving some dynamite advice, Advice Santa. Now we just have to consider ...


QUESTION 6: Is there a way to phrase it that doesn't make you sound like a condescending dick?

Ways of sounding like a condescending dick include:
-- making it sound like your 'advice' is something the original poster should obviously have already known

Well, when you put it that way, I absolutely want to follow your advice! I surely won't argue and disagree with you for no other reason than because your delivery was so shitty!!

-- barking it like an order

Now I'm not going to get a CPAP machine just because you're a bitch and I don't want to do anything you say. Ever.

-- making it sound like you are a doctor when you clearly are not

If you want to share doctor advice, make it clear that it came from an ACTUAL doctor, not from you or from WebMD. Say something like "my son had similar problems and ended up being diagnosed with ADHD! They put him on Ritalin and it has been an absolute savior for us. Maybe your son has a similar issue?"

-- just posting a link to some article without any explanation (I don't need to present an example of this -- you all know what links look like.) 

Instead of saying "Check out this awesome article about sleep disorders!", you just post the link to the article without any explanation. If the person even bothers to click on it (which they probably won't, since they have no idea where the link leads), they will see that your post was actually pretty dickish. Like, you couldn't even be bothered to explain what you were trying to do; you just sighed loudly and posted the link to the article that you can't believe your friend hasn't read yet, that f**king idiot. This is not going to make anyone want to listen to you.



Are we all on the same page now? Are we ready to venture into the dangerous world of unsolicited advice without stepping on too many toes?? I hope so.

Meanwhile, just remember: 1 -- almost everything I post is a joke, and I have very little patience for people who don't get humor. If I want advice, look for a question mark. And 2 -- I do realize that if I stopped posting anything at all, people would stop responding idiotically to it. But then who the hell would we all laugh at???

Giving good advice: it's not that hard, people.

You can check out past issues of Charm School here: How to talk to pregnant women; Weddings; and How to guest-proof your home. I can't guarantee you'll actually learn anything, but that's because I suck at manners and have no business pretending to teach them.

I finally got an iPhone

I have had a BlackBerry Pearl for over eight years now. Every time I was due for an upgrade, I would just get the newest Pearl and life was great. Even though everyone else on Earth seemed to hate my phone, I loved it. It was small and rugged and I could type texts and emails faster than the wind blows (does the wind blow fast? Is this a good analogy?).

But Research in Motion has been on an undeniable downward trend. Their phones, quite simply, are crap these days. My ol' workhorse Pearl just couldn't keep up anymore -- sometimes, when I tried to type something, each key I hit on the keyboard would enter the letter three times ... so if I were to type without looking I might end up withhh a texxxttt that lookkkeddd lllikeee thhhisss.

It was time to make the change.

My whole family has iPhones. Jesse has an iPhone. We have an iPad at home. I have an iPod and keep all my music in iTunes. The choice seemed obvious -- I needed to join the herd. So we ordered my new iPhone -- the 4S -- and I just got it activated today.

And oh my god I f**king hate the shit out of it.

I am writing this post on Friday, less than two hours after activating the new phone, because by Monday I will have mostly learned to use it so I won't be nearly as pissed off anymore. And clearly, this post will be much funnier if I'm still pissed off when I write it, because I'm young enough that I shouldn't be insisting things are "broken" simply because I haven't figured out how to use them yet. No. This goddamned phone is f**king broken.


First of all, this bitch is loud as f**k. Like, what the hell, why is it so goddamned loud. The f**king keyboard is all clickity-clickity-click; whenever it goes to sleep and you wake it up, it's like SSSHHHHHHHCLICK! Like, hey bitch, I JUST SWIPED THE SCREEN TO WAKE YOU UP. Clearly I'm aware that you're not locked anymore. Why on God's green earth would there need to be a sound associated with that?!?!?! What kind of mentally defective zoo animal would require a sound for that??? Oh great; it's easy enough to turn this sound off. That is, by "easy enough" I mean who in their right mind would assume that you would uncheck a box called "Lock Sounds" to get that to go away? I figured the "lock" in "lock sounds" was a verb -- as in, click this button to lock the sounds. But apparently it's a noun -- click this button to turn the lock sounds on or off. Jesse had to tell me how to do it while I threatened repeatedly to throw the phone into a river, onto the f**king freeway, or onto an orphan's head from a great height.

Once the keyboard and lock sounds were turned off, it was time to take a look at the ol' Sound Profile for messages and calls and whatnot. And guess what I learned? What the f**k, you can't set up multiple sound profiles for this motherf**ker? What the hell kind of bullshit is that??? My BlackBerry had a bunch of profiles, four of them that I used regularly. One was full loud make-noise-for-everything; one was all vibrate; one was medium-loud only make sounds for calls and texts but vibrate for emails and Facebook notifications; and then there was full silent for nighttime. MY BLACKBERRY HAD THIS. ALWAYS. (Oh hey, the iPhone is soooo much better than the BlackBerry, right? ARE YOU SURE?!?!?)

This stupid-ass goddamn piece of crap phone only appears to give you two options -- noise or silent. If you tell it you want it to vibrate while it's on silent, then I guess it just keeps you up all night with its bullshit because Old Navy can't f**king stop emailing me no matter how many times I unsubscribe from their mailing list. Or, you can manually go into the Sound settings and turn off vibrate every night. And then manually go into the Sound settings and turn vibrate back on every morning. No. That is retarded. I know you're not supposed to use that word because it's insensitive but SERIOUSLY APPLE THAT IS RETARDED. Christ on a cracker, I can practically use this phone to fire atomic missiles, but I can't set up a variety of personalized sound profiles? I'm throwing it into a f**king volcano.

And what the f**k is with these widgets that I can't delete? The whole home screen is clogged with bullshit and it won't let me delete any of it. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but it's not obvious to me at all. I shouldn't have to Google "how to delete stupid bullshit apps that come installed on the phone and Apple has apparently decided that I may not remove". I should just be able to f**king X my way out of them and never have to deal with them again. A Stocks Widget? Eat my asshole, iPhone. All I want is the f**king calendar and the camera and Facebook and Twitter and maybe a couple other things. Your stupid Weather Widget makes me want to strangle an innocent puppy. (UPDATE Monday morning: apparently you seriously cannot hide or delete this shit. You just have to move it to the back page and pretend you can't see it. WHAT THE F**K.)

Oh hey, and thanks for the awesome touch screen keyboard. Really love it. My favorite part was when I was entering "baby due" in the calendar and it typed "baby die" instead. That was a nice touch.

Meanwhile, I had to go to the AT&T store to get the phone activated and move all my contacts over. And I was like, "can you move my photos over too?" And they were like "haha no you silly goose that is impossible and cannot be done. We could sooner raise the Titanic and build a colony on Jupiter than move your photos from one phone's memory to another's. That is madness."

Well, I guess I'd better start looking into cases for it. Because unlike my Pearl, which was hardy and could take a pretty severe beating, this iPhone is a fragile f**king snowflake that will shatter if you so much as look at it with malice in your eye. It's daintier than your f**king great-grandmother and slicker than the bar of soap you keep in your shower that never quite gets all the way dry. I bet a case with some f**king pictures of cats on it costs like $65 because F**K YOU APPLE. (UPDATED Monday: I bought a $7 case at Safeway that is a useless piece of shit but at least now I don't have to worry about dropping calls from touching the phone wrong).

F**king goddamned piece of shit phone.

Does anyone have a baseball bat I could borrow?

No particular reason.



More Monday updates: I've had the phone all weekend and did some more learning on it. I have gotten better at typing on the touch screen and I installed some apps that are pretty convenient, like Craigslist and banking stuff and whatnot. The apps are nice, I admit.

But the battery life is dogshit and I'm still pissed that I can't delete those widgets so I'd say on the whole I still give this phone A BIG FAT F-MINUS. F-MINUS, APPLE.

AND WHY CAN'T I ADJUST HOW LONG THE SNOOZE ON THE ALARM IS? TEN MINUTES IS TOO LONG TO SNOOZE.

I COULD DO THAT ON MY BLACKBERRY.

PIECE OF GODDAMNED GARBAGE.

*punt*

Avoiding technological humiliation

Yay, it's Friday again! Boy, it always seems to be Friday, doesn't it? (no, it is only Friday one day per week, idiot.)

Technology is all around us, and sometimes we f**k it right up in a way that makes others laugh at us for a thousand years straight. We're talking about simple mistakes that could happen to the best of us -- you send a text to the wrong person; you accidentally hit Reply All for your sarcastic and arguably anti-Semitic comeback to a group email; you butt-dial a guy you met at a bar three years ago but forgot to remove from your phone's memory ... the possibilities are endless. But there are things you can do to help avoid this humiliation. Read and learn!

1

Avoiding Awkward Butt-Dials

The other day, Jesse sat on my phone on the couch and caused it to butt-dial someone, because this is the sort of thing that happens in our house and nobody should be remotely surprised by this.

The problem is, the person it butt-dialed was kind of embarrassing -- it was someone I haven't spoken to in aaaaages after I had a falling-out with his girlfriend (which was TOTALLY HER FAULT obvs I am a f**king gem of a wonderful human). In other words, it was not a harmless butt-dial; it was a total flaming-red-face-of-embarrassment butt-dial. Thankfully, the guy didn't answer the phone or call back or anything, and maybe he doesn't even have my number in his phone anymore so he had no idea who it was ... many things are possible. 

Either way, after this close call, I decided it was time to clear out my phone book so that the next time Jesse sits on my phone and calls someone (WE ALL KNOW THIS WON'T BE THE LAST TIME), it at least won't be someone mortifying.

PEOPLE TO DELETE FROM YOUR PHONE BOOK:

-- Anyone you used to date. Ever.
This would make for the most awkward butt-dial of all time. What if the person desperately wants you back and thinks you're actually calling them to catch up? What if they answer the call? What if they want to talk to you about how you're doing and where your life has gone since you broke up?

Ugh, that was so awkward I got a heart attack diarrhea just from reading it.

Avoid this by just deleting all former flings from your phone. If you REALLY need to contact them again for some reason, you can always send a Facebook message.

Jesus, at least add a photo of a frowning face or something. Don't be a complete asshole about it.

-- Anyone you exchanged numbers with while you were drunk
Jesse and I always loved to get drunk at bars and make friends with strangers. Sometimes, if we were just the right amount of drunk, we would exchange numbers with the strangers, insisting that we'd tooootally text each other next time we went to that same bar so that we could hang out again. Of course, we never did.

But then I would just forget about the whole incident and the numbers of these complete strangers would stay in my phone. I can only assume that they also forgot about the whole thing and left my number in their phone too. And so that particular butt-dial would be really hard to explain.

Ha ha, you saved someone in your phone as "Drunk Bar Slut." You big ol' joker.

Any number/name that doesn't immediately mean something to you, delete. It's for the best.

-- Salesmen, spammers, or anyone else whose number you only saved so you knew not to answer whenever they called
Oh come on, you've done this -- you've saved a number in your phone not because you wanted to be able to contact that person, but because you wanted to make sure you knew not to answer whenever they called you. Most of the numbers stored in my work cell phone fall into this category. This is because nobody loves me, and the only calls I get at work are from a collection agency looking for a girl named Shelby, and from the Center for Disease Control demanding a take a survey of some variety. Comcast used to call, but they don't anymore. Whatever, Comcast. WHAT-THE-F**K-EVER.

Keep these numbers active for only as long as needed. As soon as you fall off their list or once the restraining order goes through, delete them. Otherwise, they are worse than calling ex-boyfriends by accident. MUCH WORSE.

You f**king dumbass. Now he's going to start calling you twice a day to offer you heart attack diarrhea insurance. Time to change your phone number.

Once you've got your contacts list cleaned out, hop on over to your Call Log and do the same. My phone's favorite means of butt-dialing is to call whoever called me most recently. It's almost never someone I'm willing to communicate with.

Then, all you can do is lock your keypad and hope for the best. And by "the best," I mean "hope your husband doesn't sit his blind ass down directly on your phone because he 'didn't see it' -- because he doesn't look where he puts his blind ass. He just puts it down anywhere."

2

Making fun of someone you're currently talking to

Yeah yeah yeah it's mean to make fun of people and it's especially mean to do it behind their backs. Blah blah blah, lecture lecture lecture, f**k you I don't care. I like to make fun of people who are stupid. It's much better that I do it behind their backs than to their faces.

The magic of technology, of course, is that you can simultaneously chat with an idiot AND make fun of that idiot to someone else! What a world!!!! Just imagine what our KIDS will be able to do!!!

????

Of course, this can be very dangerous. Mostly because if you screw up, you end up sending something like "if this bitch were any dumber, she'd be wearing a f**king foil helmet to Walmart, I swear" to the girl who just told you she's not too sure about 9/11 because have you SEEN that Loose Change video? And she just might figure out that you're making fun of her. And she'll be mad, which means she won't want to be friends with you anymore, which means you won't get to laugh at her stupidity anymore and you'll be stuck making fun of ugly children and the disabled (which we can all agree is just awful).

Clearly, it's critical that your friendship with this person be maintained, for the entertainment of all.

So, here's what you can do to avoid accidental mis-texting:
-- Consider changing the person's name in your phone, at least temporarily.
If you're texting a guy named Jose to make fun of a girl named Josie, you are setting yourself up for failure. Those names are just too similar. You will almost DEFINITELY text the wrong thing to the wrong person at some point. Instead, consider changing the moron's name to "GAPING DUMBASS". It will be harder to confuse Jose with GAPING DUMBASS.

The one on the left is ASKING for trouble.

-- Double-check that "to" line every time. EVERY TIME. Do NOT get lazy about this.
Hell, triple-check it. Especially if it's a real zinger, or a picture of your weiner. Better safe than sorry.

And if you ever look over my shoulder and notice that your number is stored in my phone under "GAPING DUMBASS," don't you worry about it. It's just a glitch. Promise.

I just know a lot of people with that name. It's a coincidence.

3

Accidentally sharing things to Facebook that WERE NOT FOR FACEBOOK

Some people set up their computers/phones so that the window where they type in a new Facebook status is right next to the window where they type in a Google search. The result is that they're simply daring themselves to accidentally set their Facebook status to "fat Asian pregnant anal small penis" or "how to treat pubic lice."

Oh come on, like you haven't wondered.

My first advice to you is DO NOT SET YOUR SHIT UP THIS WAY. No, I'm serious. DO NOT SET YOUR SHIT UP THIS WAY. I don't know or care what you have to do to change this. Maybe you have to use a different web browser or uninstall the Facebook app or have one computer that's for Facebook and another that's for Googling stuff. Do what you need to do. 

"Oh, but that sounds like such an inconvenience!" you whine. And hey, you're right. But you know what's even more inconvenient? Setting your Facebook status -- that your boss and your girlfriend and your grandma can all see -- to "free video of teenager blowing donkey".

Another common problem people have is that they set their phone up to automatically upload photos to Facebook. This sounds like a great way to inadvertently add photos of your teeny weeny to the World Wide Web. DO NOT SET YOUR SHIT UP THIS WAY EITHER.

And then we have the people who use Facebook as their "platform" for all other online activities. They are constantly logged in, and that logged-in status follows them all around the web. So while they're on FatAsianPregnantHump.com watching some sweet free vids, one wrong click and everyone on their Facebook is greeted by a link inviting them to enjoy the video as well.

I avoid this by carefully setting my Facebook privacy settings to not allow any such shenanigans. To do this, go to Facebook and open your Privacy Settings. Click on "Apps" and then, on "Instant Personalization," uncheck the box.

Now you can happily watch all the videos you want of pregnant teenagers making love to various barnyard animals. Nobody on Facebook will know about it.

But God will know about it. You sick, sick f**k.

4

Accidentally clicking "Like" on a terrible, terrible status

This is especially easy to do on touchscreen phones. You try to scroll down to see more Grumpy Cat memes, and instead you click "like" on the status of some chick you met at a party three years ago whose father apparently just passed away after a long battle with leukemia.

DUDE. HOLY SHIT. YOU DID NOT JUST CLICK THAT.

OOPS.

There is nothing to be done about this except to immediately un-like the status and hope the person never notices or says anything. Hopefully they will realize it was a mistake.

Either that, or they will think that you are happy that their father has passed away, which is a pretty terrible thing to think.

Then again, they know what kind of videos you like to watch, with the tentacles and the incest and the whipping, so maybe you ARE the kind of person who "likes" it when people's fathers die.

You sick, sick f**k.

5

Hey, Old People -- "LOL" stands for "Laugh Out Loud." It does NOT stand for "Lots of Love"

You sick, sick f**k.

How to nag without nagging

Look, we've all been there: sometimes, you want someone to do something, and you ask them nicely and they say they'll do it, but then they forget and you have to remind them, and then they forget a second time and it's like "oh lord, it has now come to this. I have to remind them AGAIN about this thing I want them to do. And that is the very definition of nagging."

90% of the plot lines of Everybody Loves Raymond centered on Debra being a naggy bitch.

I think one of the keys to a happy and fruitful marriage is to figure out a good way to nag each other without actually sounding like a condescending shitbag. Because let's face it -- if Jesse never picked his clothes up off the floor for 60 years because I was too polite to say anything about it, I'd be pretty peeved. And if Jesse had to listen to me bitching like a shrew about picking his clothes up off the floor for 60 years, he'd be pretty peeved. So we find a nice middle ground.

Here is the example situation that we are trying to avoid:

As you can see, this is not effective for anyone. Neither the sheep nor the rabbit is happy. They both just think the other one is kind of an asshole. No, no, we don't want that. So here are some of my personal favorite ways to nag someone without braying at them like a donkey or throwing around the c-word:

1

Feigning ignorance of the culprit

This particular strategy works best when there are only two of you in the house and neither of you is a young child. You both know who made the mess, and whose responsibility it is to clean it up. I don't think it would work on children, though. I can totally imagine a small child honestly buying into the idea that you don't know who spilled fruit punch all over the kitchen floor, and trying to blame someone else.

Then again, Jesse totally does this as well.

After a good round of household whodunnit, we happily go about the rest of our day, pretending that it wasn't Jesse who got butter on the counter or who made all those stains on the carpet (mysteriously located right under the spot where he always sits to eat chips and salsa) or who splashed the bathroom mirror so badly I can't even see myself in it anymore. No, no -- some mischevious bandit breaks in and does all that stuff while we're not home. Jesse is just such an all-around great guy that he's willing to clean it up.

2

Story Time: Tell a really long story where the punchline is that you're an asshole

Story time is for when you're starting to feel a little less charitable and want to be just a little bit more of a dick. It's great because it really strings the offender along, making them think that they're going to hear some super interesting story. But then it turns out it's just them getting yelled at! Ha!!! Brilliant, right??!

Story time can also be combined with the Feigning Ignorance of the Culprit approach -- either you can tell a long and winding story about how the neighbor kid came over and had a seizure and then aliens came to abduct him but you fought them off using only your bare hands and a butter knife and then you had to call 911 about the seizure but meanwhile the aliens had called in for reinforcements and the neighbor kid was drooling on the floor unconscious and so anyway THAT'S why there's butter on the counter. Or you can spin a whole sordid tale about how you think all the stains got on the carpet, even though you totally know they got there because your husband has yet to master the cupping-your-hand-under-a-chip-laden-with-salsa trick.

Either way, story time says "if you want me to stop wasting your time with these ridiculous bullshit tales, just CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP and we won't have to do this again."

3

Doing it yourself, and then making such a fuss about what a hero you are that they'll never want to let you at this task ever again

This one is Jesse's personal favorite. God help me whenever he finds a chore to do that is technically my responsibility but he gets to it first. GOD HELP ME. One time I put chili in the crock pot and it overflowed while I was at work. Jesse cleaned up the entire mess, and then spent the next several days rambling on about "that amazing husband who cleaned up that whole crock pot mess on the counter. Gosh, who was that guy again? I remember his rugged good looks, but just can't seem to recall his name!"

As you can imagine, I have since then been more careful than ever about how much I fill the crock pot. It's not worth another boil-over. It's not worth it at all.

4

Extreme, over-the-top threats

Alright, so it's not very nice, but ... it's not nagging ... ??

Also, seriously, if Jesse doesn't figure out how to dry his hands in the downstairs bathroom without f**king the towel all up like it's a goddamned locker room, we are going to have a homicide on our hands.

But at least I don't nag.

Much.

:-)