I Scream, You Scream

The conventions of polite behavior may differ from culture to culture, but I like to imagine there is a certain baseline that runs true. Like lines of latitude and longitude, these red threads of commonality encompass the globe helping us navigate social situations with grace and decorum.

That is the ideal. Then, there is WonderGirl.

My parents, in a semi-uncharacteristic act of generosity, offered to bring food to WonderGirl's house for Memorial Day Weekend. With the new baby and her subsequent period of confinement, they brought food and all the fixings to grill out so that she wouldn't miss out on the holiday.

The barbecue and conversation were well-received and pleasant. They talked, laughed, oohed and aahed over the baby. My parents cleaned everything up, then joined WonderGirl and her new husband on the couch to watch an evening movie. It was at some point during the film that WonderGirl and her husband got up, went to the kitchen, fixed themselves bowls of ice cream and returned to the living room. Nothing in hand for my parents. No offer to my parents was forthcoming.

The sad thing is that as flabbergasted as I am on the one hand, I am not surprised in the least on the other. That is WonderGirl in a nutshell. People exist to take care of her. Why my mother thought things would be any different is a lesson is selective memory. When you hope against hope that someone will grow and mature, disappointment often follows.

WonderGirl: The Roommate

I haven't posted a WonderGirl story in a while. The well has been a bit dry on this front, but holy shit when it rains it pours. One of the latest is The Roommate.

WonderGirl is constantly strapped for cash. She has terrible spending habits and can't balance her checkbook. Then again, who the hell actually writes checks nowadays, but that is beside the point. She let a fellow coworker come live with her so that she could get help paying her mortgage.

Come to find out last night that Loser Roommate moved in sometime in November and gave her a little cash. And has not paid her since.

What the hell? It's fucking JANUARY, for chrissake!

WonderGirl swears that Loser Roommate has to be out by February 5th. Fuck that shit. I would have her crap on the lawn with the locks changed, today.

Just another frustrating example of how WonderGirl got her name. Makes stupid decisions and then wonders what the fuck went wrong.

WonderGirl: It Wasn't Me, Officer

Another day, another WonderGirl story.

This one happened quite some time ago. However, it is quintessential WonderGirl and bears repeating.

WonderGirl got a speeding ticket. Not a shock to me because WonderGirl has a pretty crappy driving record. I would never trust the lives of my children with her, and I do not say that merely for the sake of a laugh on my blog. I really wouldn't.

She left her parents house one morning to go to work. She teaches school in a town a good distance away (yes, she is a school teacher...pausing to let that horror sink in...)

She must cross a major highway on her route. This is a state highway, no median. Two lanes in each direction, turn lane in the middle. Lots of traffic in the AM. LOTS. Meaning you actually have to stop, look both directions, wait forEVER, and then try and zip across before someone t-bones your car.

She drives a Toyota Echo at the time, and she got a ticket for going nearly 70 in a 35mph zone.

Here are the kickers:

She swears the cop must have been waiting for her. Rotten bastard. Doesn't he have anything better to do that make her late for work?

She swears that she was only a little bit away from the stop sign when he caught her.

Her cell phone was out of charge, so she tells the ticketing officer that he had better call her principal and tell him why she was going to be late and not be in her classroom on time because he pulled her over and that she was not going to get into trouble because the officer made her late.

Oh. My. God.

Seriously, what are you smoking?

There are so many things wrong with this picture that I barely know where to start. An Echo is not a sports car. An Echo does not go zero to 70 in the distance she claims. My hubbie and I have taken to calling the vehicle the Poor Man's Porsche.

Secondly, she is lucky she only got off with a ticket. She is lucky that cop did not arrest her for stupidity in public.

Thirdly, the red thread that runs through all of her misadventures. Just say it was your fault. Laugh it off and say Awwwwww fuck!! I got caught this time!! Then we can all have a laugh and talk about the times we got caught, or how we were lucky enough not to. Graciously (or not so graciously) take the ticket and be done with it. You were speeding, you got caught. Too damned bad.

Of course, she had every excuse to tell us how it wasn't her fault. Whatever, chick. You got busted. Shrug your shoulders, laugh it off, pay the fine.

Dumbass.

WonderGirl: Keys

We all have moments of brilliance, and we all have moments of stupidity. Big, giant, HUGE moments of stupidity. Just admit it.

That is all I ask of people. If you have a moment of stupidity, just laugh about it and say so. We've all been there. We will respect you a lot more if you just say, "Hey! Can you believe I just..." Then we can all sit down have a beer and a chuckle. Usually, if it is a particularly good goof-up, others will chime in with similar mishaps.

Alas, there are those who walk among us who just cannot admit that they screwed up. Everything is either someone else's fault, or it just didn't really happen.

Take a person in my life, I will call her WonderGirl. I call her that because I really think she goes through life wondering what the fuck is going on. To this day she still cannot seem to understand the connection between her actions and their consequences.

In the most recent installment of the soap opera that is her life, WonderGirl called her parents in the middle of the night, in a panic, because she could not find her car keys. She had fallen asleep in a recliner in the house, woken up, then literally ran around the house and in the yard looking for the keys. She says she looked in the recliner, but she could not find them and ended up borrowing her parents vehicle for three days.

Here is the kicker. When I followed up with the story:

Her car had been unlocked the entire time, and it never occurred to her to actually look in her vehicle

She says she spent three days tearing the house apart looking for said keys

When she finally found them, her story began with an absolutely dead-serious, "Now you can't laugh at me," and only upon agreement were we told that the keys were eventually found in the recliner.

Here's what I don't get. Why not just say, "Oh my god!! You are NEVER going to believe this!..." and tell the story and we all could have had a good laugh about it and been done with it.

This woman is in her thirties, folks. So instead of having a brilliant opportunity to swap stories about getting locked out of houses, telling of all the times we had lost our keys and had to break into our cars, we were instead asked to be sworn to secrecy over how she had lost and then found the keys. And Shhhhhhhh...don't tell anybody!!

Um, okay. I won't.