Rude Bitches Make Me Tired: Slightly Profane and Entirely Logical Answers to Modern Etiquette Dilemmas (10 page)

Question: A couple of moms in our play group have said they have no intention of immunizing their children, because they believe this can lead to all sorts of problems. What do you think?

I think your play group needs to not tell these moms where y’all are meeting next time. If they get pissy about it, just say that you’ve renamed your little group from Mothers’ Morning Out to something more catchy, something like the Our Kids Don’t Need Your Nineteenth-Century Deadly Diseases group.

If they act offended, tell them that while you respect their decision to subject their children to whooping cough, measles, and other long-dormant delights, you prefer to live in a safer, saner world where these diseases have very nearly been eradicated. Fuckin’ weirdos.

chapter 12

Teen to Mom: You’re Not the Boss of Me (Now Buy Me Something)

If you have a teenager living in your house, you may be vexed on a daily basis by what we in the South call “acting ugly.” I’m not speaking of the Princess, of course, but your teenagers, who appear to be either sulky or high much of the time.

Okay, okay, maybe the Princess, at fifteen, isn’t perfect, but I know how to handle it when she’s not because I have channeled the ancient wisdom of my foremothers faced with the problem of a mouthy teen. If you take “our” advice, you, too, will have a much easier time when your teen is less than mannersome to you.

The time-honored secret? Embarrass the living shit out of your teen, and they will never, ever repeat the offending behavior.

A real-life example: The Princess was in a bad mood the other day as I drove her to theater dance class across town. She was uncharacteristically cranky (hormones, biology-test woes, they ran out of chicken tenders at lunch…) and was being quite rude to her mom-slash-chauffeur-slash-payer of her smartphone bill every month despite the fact that I only have a “stupid” phone my own self. Oh, how I give and give and give. But that’s a story for another day. At this moment, the Princess was being quite testy and so I simply …

Rolled the windows down in my car, cranked up Kanye and Jay-Z’s “Ni**as in Paris” and not only sang along at the top of my lungs but also began to chop the air with my arms in a most unbecoming middle-age white-lady dance move. I would not stop despite the Princess’s increasingly hysterical pleas. Stopped for a red light at a very busy intersection, I “raised the roof” with my palms up, sending her sinking deep into the floorboard for fear of being seen.

By the time it got to the part where Kanye is bragging about his ability to acquire “bitches” at will, she was begging me to stop. She would behave. She would clean her room, even!

When you’re talking teens, etiquette rules have to be a bit flexible. While I would normally find it unseemly to gleefully sing along to some really horribly misogynistic lyrics, the end justified the means. And to anyone unfortunate enough to have traveled on that stretch of roadway on that particular afternoon, I humbly apologize for my bad self.

Question: How can I convince my teenage son that manners matter? Whenever I mention cotillion classes, his eyes glaze over!

I believe we established that is because he is high. Okay, that’s probably not true, but I think it’s important for you to put yourself in your teen’s place. Cotillion? Really? Today’s teen doesn’t want to be forced into an ill-fitting suit to dance with the girl in freshman class that he has honestly despised since kindergarten. Get creative with your approach. Tell him that if he continues to text at the dinner table, leave his sweaty soccer socks on the couch, and so on, there will be consequences. He will never listen until you take away his phone. Start there.

Question: I can’t get my teenagers to write thank-you notes to their grandparents for birthday gifts. When they were little, I forced them to do it, but now that they’re older, they never listen.

I can remember my grandmother sitting me and my sister down at her kitchen table and not letting us move from our chairs until we had dutifully written thank-you notes for birthday or Christmas gifts sent by her sisters. Even if Aunt Francis sent one dollar (which, allowing for inflation over the years—nah, who am I kidding—a dollar was still pretty much a crappy birthday gift even back in the day), we had to write heartfelt and flowery letters of thanks that were vastly (in my opinion) out of line with the gift itself. To wit …

What a delightful dilemma confronts me! How to spend this one dollar you have sent for my birthday? Will it be for a few Log Cabin or Chick-O-Stick candies? Or, perhaps the whimsical cellophane “fortune-teller fish” I’ve had my eye on each day I visit the Ben Franklin store after school with my best friend, Barbara Jean? Whatever I choose, please know that the dollar you sent me will afford endless hours of delight. I really can’t say enough about your kind remembrance of my 10th year on Planet Earth.…

Yes, I actually wrote those words back in 19—— (sound of sputtering cough and whatnot). The point is, I understand how important it is to thank relatives, in particular. You won’t look like an ungrateful little shit, and more important, you want to keep the gravy train rolling. My lengthy, butt-kissing thank-you notes resulted in gifts from these sweet old ladies for many, many years, and the amounts increased dramatically over time. Yes, it is true that one aunt accidentally gave me days-of-the-week crotchless panties for my high school graduation (I am
not
making that up), but other than that, I have found relatives giving gifts to be a wonderful thing.

Explain that the gifts will dry up soon because the grandparents have told you they’re tired of your rude behavior. I don’t care that you’re lying about it; it could happen, and in the immortal words of George Costanza, “It’s not a lie if you believe it’s true.”

Question: You mentioned texting at the dinner table. It’s a huge problem for me. My teen insists on keeping her phone in her lap while we eat because, she says, “I could miss an important text.” Despite my pleas, she always seems to sneak it into the kitchen. How can I convince her that it’s incredibly rude to text at the table?

Oh, she knows it’s rude; she just doesn’t care. We have had the same problem with the Princess, who behaves as though every text is to confirm that a liver has just been made available and she must immediately depart to meet the transplant team. In reality, there is no such medical emergency (thank heavens!), only fluff about who’s wearing what where and the like. It is maddening.

You have to be firm about this because studies have shown that families who eat dinner together at least four times a week really get on one another’s nerves by that fourth night. No! I meant to say studies have shown the kids are healthier, happier, and make better grades than those who don’t eat with their families at night.

It doesn’t count if she’s texting her friends while you’re trying to be Perky Caring Mom, inquiring about everyone’s day. Nobody gives much of a happy damn about your day, of course. If the texting continues (“Mom, you are so lame! What difference does it make?”) you can smile a little drunkenly as you pass the tuna noodle casserole she actually likes and say, “If you don’t put that phone in the other room during dinner, I will crush it, along with your spirit, beneath the wheels of the car you will never drive. Sweetheart.”

Because you’re just a little drunk, she will believe you. Trust me.

Question: How can I get my teenager to understand that it’s very rude to act bored all the time. Also, he never looks adults in the eye, just stares down at his feet all the time.

Your kid sounds like pretty much of an asshole. I got nothin’.

Question: I’m a teenager who gets tired of my mom always asking, “Who are you texting now?” “What are you talking about?” “Who are you texting
now
?” “What are you talking about
now
?” She never stops asking intrusive questions when I’m texting my friends. Is it too much to expect her to show good manners and respect my privacy?

Oh, you poor, dear, sweet, misguided child. Of course it’s too much to ask. She is your mother, the one who brought you into this world after what felt like eleventyhundred months of swollen ankles, hormonal back acne, and twenty-four-hour puking. But you go ahead and text your little friends. I’m sure that they would’ve sacrificed shellfish, soft cheeses,
and
vodka at the same time without a second thought just like I, I mean, your mother, did. One day, you’ll miss hearing those nagging questions about what is most certainly your private and personal business. Little missy.

Question: My mom wears the same clothes I wear, and it’s embarrassing. What can I do to get her to stop without hurting her feelings?

Clearly your mom did something right because you are interested in sparing her feelings, and that, my cherub, is the heart of good manners.

This is a sad trend, according to a study by the
Journal of Consumer Behavior.
Teenage girls are a huge fashion influence on what their mothers buy—not the other way around!

I was talking to the Princess about the study and realized that she was staring at me but not saying a word. Her eyes moved from head to toe. She took in my Toms shoes, jeans (not mom jeans—I’m not a damn Duggar, after all), and a T-shirt I bought at the Never Shout Never concert, which was totes cool, b-tee-dubs.

Said the Princess: “The study shows that we want our own identity, and then you copy us!”

“Yeah? Well, I want a million dollars. If you like the study so much, why don’t you marry it?”

Part of the problem is a lack of choices for modern moms. Department stores are the worst for making us feel matronly what with their ghastly collections of plaid shirts layered over sad pedal pushers for the “mom on the go!” She must be going to rehab because she’d have to be crazy drunk or high to buy that shit.

What can I tell you except that you’re right. And we’ll try to do better. Cross my heart and hope to die (in Forever 21)!

Word to the wise: Teenagers don’t always have a sense of humor. For instance, the Princess asked me to buy her student pictures with the “retouched package,” which, for an extra fifteen dollars, removes blemishes, scars, flyaway hair; whitens dull teeth; and evens out skin tone. I said, “Sure, but you don’t have flyaway hair,” which seemed to piss her off.

Question: I am appalled at the language that I hear when I pick up my teenagers at school. Why must teens drop so many F-bombs? And what is wrong with them that they don’t even seem to know you aren’t supposed to curse like that in front of adults?

Yes, well, ahem, er, cursing. Right. Cursing is bad. No, strike that. Cursing is bad if done by young people in front of their elders. No, strike that, too. Okay. Young people should not curse, because, as everyone knows, cursing is a sign of limited intelligence. Someone read that to me from a book one time. Teenagers curse to sound grown-up, always have, always will. It’s exacerbated because so many of the “cool people” they watch on TV curse constantly. Consider this made-up but totally possible convo from
Jersey Shore,
which is particularly popular with the teen demo.…

Now, it doesn’t take a (bleeping) rocket scientist to figure out what each and every bleep means. It’s like those word games people post on Facebook, where none of the words have vowels but you can easily read the whole thing anyway? The mind knows that shit. I mean stuff.

My advice? Give your best mean-face to the cussing teen. If that doesn’t work, fuck it, you’ve done what you could to shame him.

Question: It’s not as bad as cursing, but I find the new “vocal fry” very annoying. First it was using “like” every other word, then it was “uptalking,” right? And now this weird guttural speech pattern. How can I correct this without being rude about it?

Ah, yes, vocal fry. To those who haven’t been around teenage girls much, it refers to the odd lazy endings on words. Example: “interesting” becomes “interesteeeeeaaaaaaaaang.”

I believe that, like toe socks and Clay Aiken, this will quickly become a thing of the past. Sorraaaaaaaay, Clay. Look, if drawing out a few syllables is the worst thing your teen does, count yourself lucky. He could end up on
Anderson Cooper,
talking about huffing glue and cinnamon or strangling himself to get high. By and large, today’s teens aren’t that much different from their parents at that age. Honestlaaaaaaaaaaay.

Question: My daughter, who will be sixteen soon, has been watching all those TV shows about rich people’s kids having Sweet Sixteen parties, and now she expects a huge party and even a new car! How can I let her down easy?

By easy, do you mean a pan of brownies with a candle in the center and having a couple of girlfriends over for movie night? ’Cause that’s what I plan. You know why? Because, unlike Timbaland, I can’t afford that crap. I watched Timbaland’s huge sixteenth bash for his son—whose name I forget, so I’ll just call him “Splinter”—and it was nuts. I warned the Princess that she would
not
have a million-dollar bash featuring Lil Wayne, Missy Elliot, and live tigers.