Everyone Gets a Bad Rap

I think I just read my 1500th article on someone being an a**hole. I know for sure I've passed the 600 mark on posts regarding 'my partner sucks!' Neighbors, bosses, ex-friends, the people in your life, they're all jerks, too.

The thought that passes through my head when I read this, because of course 1. it's my head so my thoughts and 2. I know what I'm about so I know what I know about me. Anyway, what I think is this:

I'm pretty much an a**hole too, ask the people I live with. It's not just my kids, my partner, the crotchety thorn in my side grocery clerk. My two horned head rears its ugliness many mannnnnny times a week to those I could be nicer to, more patient with.

Yesterday morning, I was short-tempered. A**hole-y, if you will. Someone had to get me out of bed and not a one among my three kids wanted to be the one to poke the bear. I didn't want to wake up.  And I was an a**hole about it. Especially to the littlest one who handed me a stack of school papers to be signed at 8:19 when we had to leave at 8:19. Talking to him in a louder than needed to be voice at a faster than needed to be pace about checking his backpack the night before, I'm not sure what I thought that would do -- maybe make both of our mornings more productive?

The afternoon found me irritable, grouchy, cantankerous, and full of pet peeves, like the way the city plow dumps the snow at the end of our driveway but never the neighbor's. Enough to turn me into a  hissing old bat. I wish, sometimes, that I were a person without pet peeves. But then I'd miss the snarky conversations in my head that crack me up.

Crabby is my kids' favorite descriptor of their mom. They're so sweet, they'd never say a**hole. It doesn't take very much for me to bare my fangs like a wild hog. Just the usual of too much to do and not enough time, pressure and stress of the much too long to-do list, and I blow. My children have to listen to me grumble and kick boots out of the way when it's arctic outside and I have to leave the house to get groceries. Mix in not enough sleep, not being enthusiastic about cold weather, not really being into making dinner again, and Roooooooooaar! I sound just like when I used to play lion with the kids, except for the past ten years, I haven't been playing.

Everybody wants so much attention and everything needs so much attention. My children, my marriage, my house, my own life. I've taken to listening to only one kind of music in hopes of calming the savage beast -- slow piano collections from the Target slow piano collection music CD. And cleansing breaths? They used to be something I needed to remind myself to do, now it's the only way I know how to breathe.

I thought Darth Vader was raspy from being in that nasty fire. Turns out he's deep breathing trying to be less of an a**hole.

Doesn't work all the time, does it.

I know people call others a**holes, I do it. Especially when I'm driving, just ask my kids. But it would be only fair if we looked at the entire picture and reported what it's really made up of: the person in the middle of it all, being an a**hole right back. That's how it is with me, anyway. Every time I roll my eyes when my husband stares in the refrigerator, right at the soup I set aside for him, right there in the middle of the shelf, right there in front of his eyes, I'm being an a**hole. But he never calls me that.

I speak for myself only, of course. Maybe you all aren't the a**hole that I am. I know we don't have to be a**holes, I know that. But it comes easily to me some more than others, my kids push my buttons, my spouse forgets his manners. My kids' mother lets her buttons be pushed, and my spouse's spouse thinks eye for an eye when it comes to the words please and excuse me. That's how it really is.

The perfect storm just takes a couple of a**holes who forget to forgive each other, have grace for each other, and to deep breathe the lion hahahahhahaha kind of breath this lady shows us here:


 She may look and sound dumb, but if it makes her less of an a**hole, I'll take it.