Read People I Want to Punch in the Throat Online
Authors: Jen Mann
People I Want to Punch in the Throat
A Ballantine Books eBook Edition
Copyright © 2014 by Jen Mann
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
B
ALLANTINE
and the H
OUSE
colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
L
IBRARY OF
C
ONGRESS
C
ATALOGING-IN
-P
UBLICATION
D
ATA
Mann, Jen.
People I want to punch in the throat : competitive crafters, drop-off despots, and other suburban scourges / Jen Mann.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-345-54983-9 (paperback)—ISBN 978-0-345-54998-3 (ebook)
1. Suburban life—Humor. 2. Suburbanites—United States—Humor.
I. Title.
PN6231.S8M36 2014
818′.602—dc23 2014024031
Jacket design: Joseph Perez
Jacket image: George Baier
v3.1
People I Want to Punch in the Throat: A Short List
Take Your Mother’s Sandwich and Shove It
The Hubs or the Cleaning Lady—Don’t Make Me Choose
God Bless America (and Thongs)
Just Some of the Many Reasons the Neighbors Always Hate Us
Screw Your Playgroup, I Didn’t Want to Join Anyway
Jeez, Lady, I Just Wanted a Cup of Coffee, Not Your Kidney
Hello Mother, Hello Father, Signing Up for Camp Sucks
Ooh, Sorry to Hear You Got Agnes in Your Class, but I Hear Her Mother Is Lovely
Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Sweet-Ass Ride
Am I Supposed to Believe a Five-Year-Old Made That?
Carpool Lines and Bunny Pajamas Go Together Like … Nothing. They Don’t Go Together at All.
Who Needs Dr. Phil When We Have Adolpha?
Do You Ever Invite Me Over When You’re Not Trying to Sell Me Something?
Sleepover Is Not a Party Theme! And Other Stupid Things Suburban Moms Complain About
It’s Free Bowling, Lady, Not the Junior Olympics
I Thought Mother’s Little Helper Was a Babysitter. I Was Wrong—It’s Drugs.
Motherhood: The Toughest Competition You’ll Ever Judge
Watch It, That Room Mom’ll Cut You
Would You Take Less than a Quarter for This Swarovski Vase?
Moms’ Night Out at the Gun Range
All of the names and identifying characteristics of the people who appear in this book have been changed to protect the good, the bad, and the ugly. So if you think you see yourself in the pages, please be assured that you are almost certainly wrong. These are my stories and this is how I remember them.
My parents
. Seriously, who spells their kid’s name “Jenni” with an adorable
i
? I guess they never expected me to be a doctor.
Anyone who thinks I really named my kids Gomer and Adolpha
. Their real names are actually worse.
That one guy who sits in the middle of Starbucks yelling into his stupid Bluetooth about a bullshit quarterly report
. We all hope you choke on your latte.
Extreme couponers who hold up the checkout line over thirty frickin’ cents
. I’m mostly pissed off because I always forget my coupons at home.
People who treat their pets like children
. No further explanation needed.
Anyone who feels the need to bling her washer and dryer.
I blame Pinterest for this shit.
The guy in front of me at McDonald’s the other day who asked, “What’s good here?”
Even the guy behind the counter didn’t know how to answer.
Humblebraggers
. If you have something to brag about, then just own it.
Anyone who names their kid after a Kardashian or a
Twilight
character
. Trust me, no one believes that you just “thought up” the name North on your own.
Moms who tell me my life would be so much easier if I implemented “systems.”
Oh, fuck you.
People who tell me not to swear so much
. Oh, fuck you, too.
People who think this book might be about them
. Don’t be so vain. You’re not the only asshat I know.
Believe it or not, I’m happily married to a guy who doesn’t mind the fact that I’ve never set foot in a CrossFit class and that I own “good” Crocs and “bad” Crocs. He overlooks my unfortunate shoe choice and I don’t mind that he follows me through the house flipping off lights to save money or gets his hair cut only when he has a coupon.
I know right about now you’re feeling some twinges of jealousy. You’re thinking to yourself: “That sounds like a match made in heaven!” or “How do I catch a guy like that?” Well, let me tell you how we met.
In 1996 or so, I bought my first home computer. It was some sort of IBM product. If I was some weird computer nerd, I would be able to tell you all about the ROM and RAM this machine had. All I know is that it was black when every other model was off-white. When I was perusing models with the sales guy who was blathering on and on about what it could do, all I could think was how much better the black would look in my home office than the ugly off-white. I’m
that
kind of nerd.
I needed a computer because I was going to write a novel, you
see. Ha! I’m still stuck on the first sentence:
It was a dark and stormy night…
.
I got the computer home and unpacked it and found that it included a disk, or was it a disc? I can’t remember. Anyway, it was for a free trial of America Online. Remember AOL? I’m sure the Internet had been around for years at that point, but I’d been at school in Bumblefuck, Iowa, where I barely had phone service, let alone Internet, and as I stated above, I was not a computer nerd (just a regular nerd), so I didn’t know what the hell AOL was exactly. I read the description and decided I should try it. For someone like me, who really couldn’t comprehend the Internet, it sounded like the perfect introduction.
I hooked up my computer, plugged it into a phone jack, and went online for the first time. These were the days of dial-up, so I’d log in and send AOL off to find an open line, and then I’d have time to get some dinner, put on my jammies, and maybe even throw in a load of laundry before I’d hear:
“You’ve got mail!”
AOL was so smart. Even the first time I logged in I had mail. It was just a welcome letter from them, but it was still mail and I loved to hear that voice announce every time I logged on. It was like crack for me. I was hooked. So long, social life!
Ha! As if I really had a social life to lose! In those days, I was living on my own and working at a shitty job. Most of my friends were married at that point and I didn’t feel like being a third wheel. My life was pretty much: get up, go to work, come home, watch whatever crappy show was on TV (this was before DVRs, so you had to watch whatever was on plus the commercials—it totally sucked balls), and go to bed. Get up the next day and repeat.
I quickly discovered that many people went on AOL to “chat.” There were tons of chat rooms to choose from based on your
interests. Everything from dog grooming to knitting to S&M. You could also search through profiles to see who was online and send them an instant message (IM) to see if they wanted to chat privately.