Finally, decent weather. We may actually see summer after all, which has been in doubt here in the City of Wind. We've become a pathetic bunch here. On my way home from the dentist, I saw a woman wearing a very cute sundress and sandals....and carrying a polar fleece. It was morning and the temperature was still only in the 60s, but by God she was going to wear that goddamned dress at LEAST once before the snow flies again!

I took a different tack on this and decided I could make summer come by shoe shopping. I figure if I buy a cute pair of sandals, then it HAS to warm up, because I have the sandals and everything and the weather gods have to grant me mercy so I can wear them. I found a pair. They're cool flats with big leather flowers on the toes in bright flaming aqua. I DEMAND to be able to wear them by next week!

What a week this has been! My goodness the bile was flowing hither and yon on LW #3 - you'd think the poor kid had a problem that was unusual somehow. What a mess. I've already been told how "mean" I am for insisting that parents really ought to think about the KID at the KID'S event, but there you go. No doubt my worst critics will be too cowardly to even give me a negative rating...and I SO crave those negative ratings...

Now how can we train people to tell us WHY we're getting the negative ratings instead of just dropping them like little turds on our threads and walking away?


1. Ok. Let's get this straight. Your FIL knocked up his wife's daughter, divorced the wife and married the daughter. Got it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? D'ya think? On the off chance that you aren't full of shit and making this letter up, I'll give you an answer.

You want to know if you should tattle to your wife on her mother or to her mother alone, or whether you should tell strangers, or just relatives by marriage, or co workers or maybe YOUR side of the family....

Because you just can't hold it in, can you? You have to tell someone, it's killing you!

SHADDAP!

Think for just a second. A lot of people here warned you that the web site you visited is only as good as the information that only old person puts in. In other words, the thing could be full of crap - a made-up mess waiting to happen. Boy, would you look like a moron if you busted out with this at the dinner table one night and it was all a fake!

(Of course, you already look like a moron....who surfs other people's families on a geneology site for fun? You have WAY too much time on your hands, dude. Tell us, dear, when you visit peoples' homes, do you go through their medicine cabinets? Their sock drawers? Sneak off to the attics to see if there are any relatives up there that you didn't know about? Tear apart their walls to look for secret compartments full of cash?)

OR...Say it's true. So the hell what? Did you think your mother-in-law is going to be surprised to hear that she married her stepfather? Really? Gawrsh. You'd better sit her down and give her a drink before you drop that one on her! Shit, she might have had a whole wedding and marriage and stuff and NEVER NOTICED who she lived for for most of her life! It's a newsflash all right!

Oh, but you want her to explain....right. What's to explain? You "know" what happened already. Are you that ready to cause a confrontation? Do you really think you have the right to judge ANY of these people? Because YOU, you snooping asshole NATURALLY deserve to know every detail of this woman's life, right? What a fucking moron! This is NONE of your business! I wouldn't be surprised if she took that drink and threw it in your face just for being presumptuous!

Ok, so let's move on...let's say you tell your wife. Hmmm. Do you sincerely think she doesn't know about this? Seriously? I've got news for you, idiot. OF COURSE she knows! How could she not? There's no way someone in that family hasn't told that story a thousand times. It's old news! No one even cares any more! Besides, if she didn't know, and you tell her....then what? Do you hate your mother-in-law? You claim you don't, but what makes you think that any part of throwing this "secret" out there is going to be a good thing?

Leave it alone. If anyone thought it was your business, they would have told you already. If you MUST tell someone, tell your teddy bear. At night, when your wife is sleeping.


2. Oh, you're a pip, you are! I can see it now. Lard-ass guy (Do you really think we're going to buy that you were just a little overweight? Really?) marries slightly overweight woman, loses weight, then....what? You tell her that your little stiffy is now a little wilty when you see her tubby self naked? Or is it that you can actually SEE your dick now that makes you all self conscious around her?

SHADDAP!

I've seen a lot of excuses for screwing around on this Fray, but yours is a classic. You damn your wife with faint praise, "I realize that some of this has to do with the stress of her job and her general (unfounded) feelings of inadequacy." And... "I find her beautiful, funny, and intelligent."

THEN you proceed to tell us how you find her inadequate! What an asshole! What's the matter, you think you can get yourself that anorexic aerobics instructor now, so you have to make your wife feel like shit? All you want us to tell you is how to do that and get away with it, right? Wait.....that's it isn't it? Some chickie admired your newly found abs at the gym and now you want to fuck the cheerleaders that refused to have anything to do with you when you were the zit-encrusted fat nerd with the wedgie in high school!

See, you married her just the way she is. You CLAIM to love her, but you don't do you? You couldn't, if all of a sudden, through no fault of her own, you can't get it up around her any more. So cut it out with the justifications and get through the bullshit. What you have is middle-aged crazy and that's YOUR issue, not your wife's.

Quit trying to justify what you're planning, moron, and do the right thing. Your wife can lose almost 200 pounds at the stroke of a pen, by signing divorce papers. You'll be free to fuck anyone you want, and she can take all that lovely money from her high-stress job and spend it having fun without you. Any way you cut it, that's an advantage to her.

Yeah, I know losing her income will suck big time for you, but what the hell? You'll be spending so much time riding your bike and all those women who wouldn't give you a second look before that you won't even notice the poverty, right? Sounds like a life plan to me!


3. You don't want to go to the prom. I can't say I blame you there. Judging by some of the nonsense it seems to include, it seems like a cubic waste of money and time to me, too.

( As an aside, some of the schools here in Chicago have been forced to create a dress code for proms after some of the girls showed up wearing what looked like a series of shoelaces designed to barely cover their nipples and skirts that required matching panties. A lot of parents are screaming about how "unfair" it is that their daughters actually have to dress like ladies and NOT ladies of the evening.... like it matters that they have to cover their shoulders for ONE NIGHT. Yeesh.)

However, we have to concede that proms are desperately important to some people. You and I might think it's foolish and over the top, but there you go. When people start nagging you, you know what to say, right?

SHADDAP!


4. I have never run into so many people who are full of shit and sour apples as those that responded to this letter claiming that grown women are in the right when they scream and yell over events that have been over for so long that no one even remembers them clearly. What utter bullshit that is. You lot can

SHADDAP!

because I'm responding to the DAUGHTER, and her mother doesn't even count here.


Right. You know your story isn't unusual, right? Dad cheated, your parents divorced, your dad remarried and your mother... is still sitting in the corner chewing nails and contemplating either murder or suicide over a DECADE later, because she can't stop obsessing about what that other woman had that she didn't.....aside from NOT being a bitchy drama queen with a paranoid streak a mile wide, that is....

Kid, you're an adult now, and this is something you need to deal with BEFORE your mother gets the idea that she can force you to obey her every whim for the rest of your life. You have to sit her down and tell her to

SHADDAP!

You haven't had an easy time of it, have you? I can't imagine it was particularly pleasant to grow up listening to your mother constantly putting your father down and whining because he left. You do realize that his wife has nothing to do with him leaving, either, right? Your mother's choosing to stay single and brood over this whole mess instead of getting a life and moving on couldn't have been easy. Remember that she CHOSE not to have a life of her own. That's HER choice, not yours. You have a life and you have a right to keep it your own. It must have weighed on you like a load of bricks to realize that the only life your mother wants to live is...yours....

Don't let her do this to you. She did you a disservice by behaving like such a rotten bitch to your father for all these years. HER relationship with him has NOTHING to do with yours, after all. What he did was wrong and cheating is never the way to handle a problem, but let's face it, happily married men don't cheat. Something was wrong with that relationship, possibly LONG before you even came on the scene. NOTHING about this has anything to do with you, and you have the right to tell your mother exactly that. You have a right to have a relationship with your father and you're smart enough to realize that that includes his wife. Good for you.

You're quite right when you say in your letter that you don't want your mother controlling every event in your life. That's exactly what she's trying to do. No one would want that. However, the only one who can prevent that is YOU. You're the adult now, and you're clearly more adult than your mother is at the moment. If she continues with her threat to "...throw a fit, start a fight, or leave...", you're going to have to tell her that you aren't interested in having her playground asshole behavior ruining YOUR day, so she isn't invited. Period. You have listened to her bullshit for far too long already. Tell her to go peddle it somewhere else.

This is going to seem harsh to you, I'm sure. It's always unnerving when one realizes that one has to treat a parent like a toddler. It doesn't matter, though. If you don't stand firm on this, you'll be fighting this same fight forever. You have to make her understand NOW that you won't allow her to interfere with your life. If that means not inviting her to events, then so be it. It's HER problem that she can't be trusted in public, not yours, and certainly not your father's (or his wife's).

In practical terms, here's what you can do. I'm assuming you can get four tickets to your commencement ceremony - that's pretty standard. Send tickets to your father and his wife and tell them that you'd really like it if both of them could come. Give both of the remaining tickets to someone you can trust. Tell that person that he/she is NOT to hand a ticket to your mother unless she behaves herself on the way in. If she starts throwing her threatened fit, then your friend is to take BOTH tickets inside the venue and leave your mother to pitch her little hissy outside.

With luck, you'll only have to do this once....



______________________________­_________________________

Did anyone else think of LW1 in the context of a Bob Newhart phone sketch? Does anyone remember those? This monologue kept running through my head........

Why hello there ! Yes, yes I know who you are.....

No, I understand, you married your stepdaughter. Yes. Yes.

I see. But we already knew that. Yes. You told us already...

Yes. I know you have a movie coming out. ..... I know ....but.......

How is this our problem Mr. A......No, I hadn't heard that part.

But...but sir....we can't print that again. No, I realize that you aren't as popular..oh, oh sorry, you ARE as popular as you always were, but.....

But sir, your fans are all in old folks homes!

Well yes, I guess I understand...a whiff of scandal IS a good thing, then....

I am LOLing. Shoelace dresses. The prom just gets skankier all the time, doesn't it?

Speaking of fashion — cute shoe choice! I love blue shoes. My neck of the woods gets more than 80 inches of rain a year and rarely tops 70 degrees, so I totally understand the urge to get the sandals out at the earliest convenience. Unfortunately, when those three pretty days a year fall on the weekend I'm in hiking shoes instead. It kind of hurts to have to choose shoes so carefully when I've got more cute shoes than nice days in a year (and no, I don't even own that many shoes, from the perspective of a middle class American. 30 pairs tops.)

Better than usual, Messy! The images conjured up by your clever unusual turns of phrases had me just dying. I'm picturing all those little teenage princesses showing up at the prom looking like models out of Fredericks of Hollywood. And the parents were complaining about a more conservative dress code?

Oh my god, you are so mean. You are the meanest person I ever met on the whole entire internet. Meany McMeanster, member of the Ways and Meany Committee. Attilla the Mean. Meandolph Hitler.

What are you, the mistress? Mistress Messy, that it? (You can't use that btw, it's taken.)

Okay, here's the good news:

MessyONE:

I decided I could make summer come by shoe shopping.

So far so good, right? Yeah, but even you can find a way to manage to f*ck that up. Here it is:

MessyONE:

They're flats

They're granny panties for your feet, is what they are. I'll bet you wear sneakers in public, too, don't you? I'd like to whip you. Not about the shoes, I'd just like to whip you.

Here's what real WOMAN shoes sound like:

Slingback, four inch heel, half inch platform, leopard print, peep toe with a bow.

I shall pair them with my seamed stockings and my fitted black skirt suit and my sexy librarian glasses and be too foxylicious to go to work. I know, I know, enough with the bows Minnie Mouse, but I couldn't resist as they are real "Fuck Me Shoes" which is not a swears but an actual fashion term as coined by Shelley Winters and Marilyn Monroe when they were starlet roommates in the lean years and they shared the same pair of black velvet ankle strap Fuck Me Shoes to go on dates and important auditions.

You deserve a down thumby for your goddam ugly shoes. There's no excuse for foisting non-cute footwear on the unsuspecting public. I'm sure you can find something in your size.

(Okay, that's pure bs and you know it. I'm not really mad, just trying to cover up these tender feelings I have. It's a pity down thumby I'm giving you cause I'm afraid you're gonna cwy if you don't get one. Just take it anyway. No one has to know but us.)

And I know I misspelled Attila. Screw you, spellcheck junkie.

My daughters' school kept it simple. They laid out what was acceptable attire for the prom, homecoming dance, etc. Essentially, if it didn't conform to the dress code of what they could wear to school on any given day, they had to take it to their counsellor's office, put it on, and get it approved - in writing. The guys were told what was considered proper attire for young men. They didn't have to rent a tux for the proms, but they at least had to have a button-type shirt, and no holes in their jeans.

It wasn't an issue for my girls, as they were both pretty modest, but some of their friends took in their dresses, and not all got approved. The one made of chainmail required a solid-material top underneath to make it acceptable.

You've never offered to whip me. *sniff-sniff*

What if I said I only own 5 pairs of shoes?

I look like a hammered klutz as soon as I stand up.

I look damn hot in a miniskirt and 20-eye Docs, though, and not bad in a sundress and knee high gladiator sandals, if I do say so myself.

Then again, most of the time my socks don't even match, so I may just be missing the fashion bus entirely.

Hey, at least I am married to a short guy, so he is not likely to figure he can trade up. That seems to be the theory on the Fray lately, from what I can see. If he gets lifts he is going to leave me for a supermodel. Oh, dear.

Freki

MessyONE:

(Of course, you already look like a moron....who surfs other people's families on a geneology site for fun? ....

Love it as usual... With this one exception. A lot of Fraysters are jumping on the guy for even looking up his wife's family on a genealogical site. So??! It's his family now too. Plenty of people look up their info AND their spouses info. Years ago I dug a little into my then husbands family tree. If the internet had of been so prevalent back then, I would have looked him up when I was looking up my tree. Okay, so he's a weenie thinking he's dug up a family skeleton and OMG what do I do Miss Prudie?! I think we can all agree on that.

That's all. Love the Bob Newhart sketch too. :o)

Your wife can lose almost 200 pounds at the stroke of a pen, by signing divorce papers.

Zing ! Good one, Messy, but isn't losing weight like becoming a doctor ? You've earned the right to trade up, haven't you ?

Mermaid's diatribe got me thinking about the 'shoe gap' (it's like the missile gap between the US / USSR in the 60s) between men and women. You should have a poll on the number of shoes the women here have and award an Imelda Marcos prize to the winner. I have 3 btw, if you don't count the shit-encrusted ones lying around the house somewhere - trainers, good shoes, boots.

At one time, hubby had twice as many shoes as I did. Technically, he still does, but he's no longer able to put many of them on without assistance. He's slowly going through those and giving them away, even as he accumulates more that he can put on alone.

The only reason I have as many as I do is if I express an interst in a pair, he insists on buying them for me. I've learned to curb any enthusiam when we are in a mall.

I recently tried to buy a suede cleaning block and couldn't find one for love nor money - wt?

You're so sensible, neato. You have to tell me if you've got any high heels.

 

He buys them for you? I just told The Boy that and his response was as predicted...

"What?! Is he nuts?"

Sigh. I live in hope.....

Chainmail? Oh Lord have mercy! Our school laid out the rules. If any girl showed up looking like they belong on the street corner of 14th Street, they were turned away. One chick was smart and had a back up dress.

Ahem! I didn't say a SINGLE WORD about spelling! Hah! Gotcha!

And the shoes ARE cute, so there. The bright aqua looks ever-so-sexy with the bright pink toenails. Or at least I thought so. As for heels, I have them. They just don't get worn that often during the summer. I'm kind to my toesies for the most part (Although I DO have a very cool pair of 4" open-toe wedges in light blue..)

Everyone's right. I need a shoe poll.