Not So Pretty In Pink: The Men of Westport, CT.

It was Labor Day 2009, the end of the summer and i innocently thought, why not celebrate it by having a little barbecue, a little Frisbee and some much needed cathartic time taking notes dismantling the residents. That's always a favorite family pastime.

My idea of beach outing preparedness is a cooler packed with beer, grabbing a hoodie, snacks, and some stained sheet no longer usable for the dog bed.

But for the greater majority of well-to-do Westport residents, a typical families pilgrimage to the beach for a 'Casual' Labor Day bbq becomes this elaborate setup that Martha Stewart could masturbate to.

There's tiki torches abound, matching flame heights of course...your basic run-of-the-mill pop up tiki huts , coordinating beach recliners made from biodegradable sea grass, tents pitched whose sizes would rival Barnum and Baileys elephant wing, brandy snifters, smoking jackets, William Sonoma barbecue sauces, Clap-On gas grills, and loud obnoxious discussions about the Dow. Talk a little louder please. My aunt in the far corners of New Zealand cant quite hear you.

All this affected celebratory competitiveness, as they proudly sip their wines from only high lead crystal wine glasses overflowing with wine that is exclusively set aside for the Vatican church but with one phone call is air dropped to Compo Beach from Italy that morning.

And to top off the afternoon festivities, thanks to the added convenience of live-in nannies, ( hmmm, live-in...guess the Dow Jones is doing better...or so i fucking HEAR... ) I've been reminded that all of Westport's offspring are irritatedly named Zachery and Skyler. I know this because I heard it in yelled across the beach in Ecuadorian, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Trinidadian, Polish, Hungarian, Peruvian, and Michigan. I am now fluent in Zachery and Skyler.

It certainly does challenge my childhood memories of family beach bbqing at Coney Island... where we'd sit around and talk near a fire that was made by tossing some homeless persons stray articles of clothing into a stolen beach garbage pail and setting it on fire with gasoline we siphoned out of someones car. Those were the days.

So there I was, at Compo Beach, Westport CT, hellbent on relaxing and trying to feel somewhat welcome... with my stained broken cooler, the beach provided pre-seagulled-shat-on picnic table (you know, to open my beer) and my spider web enshrouded lawn chair I dug out of the mildewy shed. (I know how to blend. I'm super chameleon-like.) The more I look around, the more desperately I need a beer, my hoodie and come to think of it, a semi-automatic paintball gun.

To make myself feel completely invisible, I thought playing some Avenged Sevenfold out of my Jeep would be a nice backdrop for the adjacent family with the Foie Gras, Braised Ostrich and Frog Legs beach entree. I was doing my best.

When I get out of my jeep, at first glance I thought I got the wrong directions and inadvertently drove to the coast of South Africa during an active migration of the Puna Flamingos.

But much to my chagrin I was unfortunately right where I set out to go. Compo Beach, Westport Ct. 06880.

And the chaos of pink I witnessed before me wasn't in fact something as awe inspiring as the tropical flamingo, it was rich men in pink shorts. Pink. Linen. Shorts. Everywhere you looked.

Lets just call it the garden variety of hubris you only see with financially able Westport residents of the male gender.

Who else wears bright pink or powder pink linen shorts but Westport men and the mannequins in the window of Banana Republic Fag (a new division).

As far as the eye can see, upon this long expanse of sand and blue skies is a sect of full grown men dressed like they raided their daughters laundry basket. Is this perhaps to.... show their softer, more feminine side? If so, please give me some helpful pointers seeing that the only thing pink in my closet is a package of Hubba Bubba bubble gum, strawberry flavored Astro Glide and my Breast Cancer Awareness ball and gag.

See, I call rich men wearing pink shorts "Sailboat Arrogant". The message is clearly..."I don't get dirty." "I wont get dirty" "I don't do dirt."

Oh trust, you will Hendly... Before this day is over, I'll have you begging for camo shorts....once i trip you and cause your glazed Labor Day catered meatballs and red wine to careen off your turned up nose and cascade onto your crotch. You need some balls down there anyway, sir. So I'm expecting some flowers, or at least a thank you, or at the very least, an all knowing nod and grin. And my apologies for tripping you.. I didn't see you standing there, I was temporarily blinded by an abundance of sun-reflected fuchsia into my retina. You're so getting my Dr's bill.

And then of course, to compliment the flowing pink shorts , we have to have the 'I'm enjoying the good life" effect....also known as the Sweater-Tied-Around-The-Neck look. Taken right out of a vitamin commercial for retired bicycling seniors with osteoporosis. I'm guessing the "Tied around the neck" thing is an attempt to cajole female onlookers into believing that he's 'casual', yet aggressively prepared. Always ready to quickly shimmy it over his head, you know... in the event of the earths sudden shift in polarity.

He thinks aloud in a bellowing voice: "I'LL BE ONE OF THE FEW TO SURVIVE....BECAUSE. I'M WEARING MY FUZZY CAPE OF PREPAREDNESS. I'M ALWAYS THINKING. ALWAYS ON CALL. I AM SUPERMAN. IN PINK SHORTS."

And we can't forget the absolute completion of this runway disaster by wearing sockless, tasseled, leather loafers....Damp feet in dressed up wedding shoes. Very sexy. This clearly is the subconscious message...." Who has time for all this sock nonsense, putting on socks takes TIME!!! TIME I don't HAVE!! I'm too important, too on the go, too busy....dry cleaning Liberace's shorts here...."

Or is he's simply thinking, well, since my shit doesn't stink, nor will my hairy, sweaty sockless feet.

I say get some real shorts, grab a t-shirt, and get yourself a damn pair of sandals. Sandals are for sand. Loafers, are for loafs.

And I'm sure they sell them, somewhere, in pink.

Celebrating Singularity

Saying you're single has always carried this weird stigma.

Like you're somehow that Lone Lost Dryer Sock of the dating community or something.

Granted, anyone whose dated knows the dating world can be brutally aggravating at times. Lots of immature drama, gross tongue-darting kissers, and blind dates that when you go on, you wish you were the one that were blind.

But once you've been married, as I myself had been for 13 years, you realize just how much more aggravating marriage can be, and how carefree and satisfying dating can be by comparison. This is not to say that marriage can't be a harmonious, loving union between two people. It's just that I'm not going to be the one saying it.

So seeing that I've been on both sides of the relationship fence, I'd like to not only share my observations on being knee deep in a serious relationship / matrimony, but also to verbally illustrate the less obvious, more advantageous aspects of being single.

Let me start by saying, in marriage or any committed relationships, there's an endless list of expectations that go along with it. Alot because of that damn word "married". It ruins everything. It's so 'MARRIED'. Last I checked, I think it weighed like 46 lbs. and the shipping was outrageous. And that's even before anyone gains their "I'm married weight". It's super laden with time inquiries, money arguments, quests to the outlaws houses, and demands to hang things up properly centered, and fights because they're usually not.

And while it's true that being married may mean you can comfortably tell your other half all of you're deepest, darkest secrets, it's also true that you're cleaning they're deepest, darkest underwear stains.

I know I know, when you love someone, that crap's not supposed to matter (pun absolutely intended) Maybe. But still rather hard to "strike that shit from the record" once you bore witness to it.

Versus when you're single. There's always the freshest, newest underwear involved. No dingy old underwear with dried out, overly stretched, crunchy elastic waistbands. No beige grandma bras. But instead, shiny new super heroine pushup bras from porn shops, and crispy new ass hugging boxer briefs. When you're single, skid marks are only something seen on the highway. That's being single. I say, we're off to a good start.

As importantly, when you're not married or in a serious relationship, lucky you... there's approximately 26 less farts per week you'll have to pretend that you didn't hear. I call this progress.

As opposed to when you're single/ just dating someone, no one ever defecates right? Nope. Not at all. No farting either. Not allowed yet. I think I actually once lied and said I left something in my car so I could go outside and fart. It wasn't a complete lie, I believe I left the fart in the car.

I think we'd actually prefer to systemically poison ourselves by voluntarilly imploding than use our dates bathroom to empty our intestines.

So therefore, when you're single, you're viewed as pure. And so there's theoretically no dirty underwear decorating your laundry baskets. Which if i haven't impressed upon you enough as of yet, is a guaranteed buzz kill.

So thankfully, single/dating couples, in the heat of passion, will never have to worry about seeing their partners stained, grimey underwear on the floor, because seeing that no one poops, that would have to be something like the Immaculate Conception of the Underwear World. Come to think of it, when you're married, there no longer is that 'in the heat of passion' vernacular anywhere to be found, so underwear being torn from your body and displayed mid-center-floor isn't of real concern anyway.

Once you're married for years, sex, one day sadly becomes intercourse. Then it becomes reproduction. That's when suddenly there's calendars, calculators under your ass, fertility testing strips, egg timers and Mayan sun dials involved. That once, raw, primal, spontaneous, sensual thing tragically becomes as precise and computed as a NASA Space Probe launch. ("Don't cough honey. I'm goin' in.")

And after years and years of marriage and screaming kids, sex can basically become as rare and hard to prove it ever existed as Atlantis.

Actually, i think there's even more proof of Atlantis existing, down at Epcot Center in Disneyworld. The display window down there for 'Marital Sex' has a "This Exhibition Is No Longer Available" sign in front of it, with a pair of shit stained underwear hanging from it.

When you're single, sex is sex. It's still SEX. Good or bad, it's always new, thought provoking, and visceral. There's face licking, toe and eyeball sucking and words exchanged that would give a priest a ripe heart attack.

And seriously, even if you both just lay there like logs, you're both still two freshly cut logs.

Also, when you're in the lovely maritally committed scenario for a few years, and you're bending over all day, its usually because you're thanklessly picking up your kids sticky toys.

When you're single, its because you're picking up your own sticky toys. I just did a coin toss and being single won.

A small point, but key for germaphobe singles- when you're not in any kind of committed relationship, you can be rest assured that the soap in the shower only had YOUR ass on it.

And of course, the same goes for the toilet seat. Only your ass on it. Plus there's no one outside the bathroom door impatiently awaiting their turn to stink up the bathroom. So there's no advance reservations required. You can hang there as long as your butt desires. Technically, if it's just you, you can basically read half of Barnes and Nobel in there. So pooping for singles can most definitely have a cultural slant to it.

Possibly why they say 'you learn so much being single'.

Lets not forget that when you're married and you're a woman, cooking mouth watering dishes every night is somewhat expected. Culinary prowess, a must. Dinner parties. A must. Courses? Must.

A subscription to Bon Appetit and little white skirts on your Thanksgiving turkey drumsticks? Double must.

However when you're single, you can hang over your sink like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, shoveling your third bowl of expired Tooty Fruitees cereal into your face for dinner, squirt a 6 month old can of Reddi Whip onto your uvula for dessert, and call it a night. Dinner is served.

And while we're on the subject of Thanksgiving, let me remind you that when you're single, there's no shuttling back and forth for holiday dinners from one persons annoying family to the next. It's a no-brainer. You just go visit your own annoying family. One down, none to go.

Another benefit. Fighting over the air conditioning becomes a thing of the past.

Its inevitable that when 2 people consistently share a bed, there's A/C wars. It's either too damn hot or too fucking cold. No two people are ever thermographically in sync.

When you're by yourself, the controlling of the climate in your bedroom habitat is your call, and your call only. You are The Thermostat God. You singlehandedly rule your mattress empire. Freezing you ass off or sweating your balls off. Just the way you like it. Now if it's cold in your room, its because you choose. Not because you're married for 10 years and getting the natural runoff of sleeping next to an emotional iceberg. Although the latter can definitely save on air conditioning bills for sure. I'd know.

When you're in an all out fight with your husband or wife, you still have to lay in the same bed with them later that night... with that heavy silence in the air....pretending youre sleeping, trying to not make your eyelids not twitch. This is no easy task. The eyelids always twitch.

But the nice thing about being single is, when the guy or girl you're dating isn't treating you how youd like, you simply roll them off the bed, down the stairs, and out the door. Thanks to the invention of the wheel, unless you so choose to roll them into oncoming traffic, we have a relatively harmless, effective, yet simple solution.

It's seems so clear to me now. When there's no binding piece of paper between 2 people, you can quickly flush any annoying relationship down the toilet like a dead goldfish.

No lawyers, No fights. No house selling, No custody battles. Simply, drop and flush, and away it goes. Nice and easy. Right into the public waste management system for some other prideless fool to sort out.

If a single woman or man wants to see someone they like, they just call them. And the worst that can happen is, the person says no, and they dont get to see them. Big deal, a little ego bruise. At least hazardously shaving your genitals is off your itinerary. When you're married, its quite the opposite. If you DONT want to see that person, the worst that can happen, always does... you DO see them. They still come home...horny...with their unshaven genitals.

Yes, being single now means taking out my own garbage, and having to take multiple trips to the hardware stores for miscellaneous stupid Home Depot nonsense, that I'd normally pass off to a caveman.

But now my garbage is remarkably lighter, is in floral scented bags, and it's free of oversized toenail clippings, beard stubble residue and an occasional loogie.

Plus I've learned that an attractive single woman walking into a hardware store looking for advice on screws and S clamps, is quite identical to an oiled up, naked Venezuelan centerfold walking into a death row prison camp. You get tons of help. So now I walk around my house with a splintered broom handle, voluntarily busting all the lightbulbs I can reach. Whoops. Out of bulbs, Hooray!

And lastly, the most important advantage to being single versus being in a fully committed deal is this. If you're not happy with your spouse during the course of your marriage, even if you're full out miserable, you still have vows to keep in mind.... Those damn binding vows.....'TIL DEATH DO US PART.'.... Ooof. Death. Funerals. Aunts you haven't seen in years. Quite the heavy package deal.

But when you're single, and a guy or a girl treats you like festering cow poo, and you decide you're done, the only vow you need to stand by is self respect and ..."TIL YOU ANNOY ME". So next time you're feeling sorry for yourself because you're just dating some idiot who doesnt treat you right, and everyone else around you is seemingly happily married, grab a handful of rice, throw it over your head, and celebrate your biggest advantage: You dont have to sit around and wait for them to die before you're out. Seriously. Just call a cab people.

Sex, Boxing and Fetish

Take a few seconds to read this email I just received on my Myspace personal training page regarding, what was titled as: 'One On One Training with you' .....


Email from 'Ty' :



Hi Dawn, I'm looking to do a one-sided (I don't fight back at all) boxing session, and possibly wrestling. I want you to beat me up, and the session ends when I can't get up.

If it makes a difference, I'd pay $800 for this, and the session should not even take an hour. 

I would supply a waiver, blood test, and anything else you need. 

Let me know if you would be interested, you can contact directly at: billthomas-jr@hotmail.com (my real name is Bill).

Sorry to bother you if this is not your thing.

Thanks, and I really hope to hear back from you 

Ty (Bill)

---end----

I was a little confounded. 
I opened his Myspace page. And there it is. : 

About me:
I am part-time fighter, in very good physical shape, and I'm looking to get dominated by females in private wrestling / boxing sessions. I travel for these sessions as well.
Who I'd like to meet:
Any woman who would enjoy beating me up, and get paid for it.
---------------------------------------------------------


Alright people. I get women dressing up like schoolgirls and having sex.
I get ropes and gags and threesomes and whipped cream and bad girl stuff. I totally get that.
I get women being a little rough with men, and men being a lot of rough with a woman. Hot. Got it.
I can even get a man dressing up like a rhinoceros or some barnyard animal to have sex. I can sorta kinda maybe wrap my head around that. I said maybe. But it's slightly possible.

But 2 things I can never seem to scratch out a fantasy in, is 
A) A man dressing up like a woman during sex, Excuse me but, wtF. 
and now the latest..
B) A man wanting a woman to beat the living snot out of him, break his teeth, shatter his septum, and him handing you 8 Benjamins. Fuzzy. I'm real fuzzy on that one. 


My response:


I do see 1 glaring problem Ty. We haven't yet dated. 
In order for me to want to passionately beat the crap out of a guy, the prerequisite is generally for me to have dated him- and it ending with an assortment of dramatic Italian hand gestures / door slams and a slue of unreturned phone calls on my behalf. (This most commonly being the result of some newly unearthed male asshole tendency.) So to want to smack you upside your head, having a tumultuous history is somewhat key Ty. Uh...Bill. Whoever you are.. Then, hell yeah. Game on.
Otherwise, I just see this 'beat me up session' as an opportunity for me to make the next mornings obits. So save your 800 bucks dude. You'll need it to flee to Mexico after you've beheaded some woman and fed her remains through a sausage grinder.
But hey, thanks for the creepy offer.
~d
---------end---------


It got me thinking...
hmmmmm...
Maybe his mom used to beat the shit outta him, and then said she was sorry, and that she loved him more than life itself, and thats why he wants to harken back to the abuse.
Or maybe he was deficient in experiencing some type of physical discipline as a child.
Or maybe he has some repressed guilt with some woman, that he feels he was never properly penalized for.
Or maybe it's simply that he's some hellbent perv who wants his ugly undateable head squooshed between some hot womens perineum.
Intutive. I've been called that.


I might be a little off here, but I believe women love men because...they're men (a show of hands please).
They behave like men. They have fight in them. They're stronger than women. Theyre supposed to be. They can physically overpower, and protect a women. Crazy notion. 
I mean, the intensity of that natural law is fetish in and of itself. Yes, some women may like being strong (not me of course ), but what really turns them on, is to know that their man is undeniably stronger. Or maybe that's an unfair generalization, and that's just crazy little ole me.
Women secretly love handing that damn stuck jar that they cant open to a man. We bang and twist and grunt to no avail. He opens it without a visible flinch. We silently melt. And continue preparing the gourmet Fluff and banana sandwich with raging hormones.

Men don't run around and scream when a bee lands on them (fine. I do that). They don't cry at commercials of children with distended stomachs and flys hatching in their eyes. They don't sit around and talk about the sale prices of shoes.... and they certainly don't beg you to bludgeon them until they crap their pants and collapse on the floor like your ailing grandmother would after just getting back from hip replacement surgery. Christ, if I wanted to take some guys money while I go off the deep end, I wouldve stayed married. 

So if a man truly wants me to overpower him, to the point of humiliation, I have one piece of advice for him: Hand over your ATM card and set me free during a Half Price Sale Day at Maurice Villency Furniture. I'll definitely dominate your ass in that arena. Otherwise, carry me upstairs, get the barbeque started, put the football game on, change my tires, and quit your wanting to get beaten like a whining girl fetish. 





;)~~

Thanklessgiving

Well its almost Thanksgiving day here in the United States. Some will be thankful and gracious for the food set before them. Most, however, will just be thankful they're going over someone else's house so they don't have to get off their fat asses and cook. But either way, it's a time we're all taught to take pause and be grateful for certain things we may take for granted during the rest of the year. Food, specifically. I'm assuming this means the plentiful pesticide laden foods we're all fortunate enough to grow tumors from. But oozing sores and premature deaths aside, we need to be thankful. But not to worry, I'm sure we can resume our normal ungrateful habits once the last of the stuffing leftovers are gone. Which could be upward of 6 months, so this grateful thing could potentially get a little exhausting. I better grab a pillow.

But I personally may be off the hook, You ask why. Well, I thought long and hard about this big, food on the table 'Thanks', and I'm coming up a little dry. No surprise there, dry goes hand-in-hand with cooking turkey. I know some people eat bugs, and dirty water, and pieces of their aunt if they happen to survive a plane crash and their aunt didn't. So emotionally it seems right. But when every supermarket has over 55,000 products, and every other billboard on the highway is a dancing french fry, logically, it just doesnt. That's like Paris Hilton being thankful for having 8,600 pairs of shoes. It just feels arrogant to me.

For starters, we have food. And way too much of it. And nothing we've ever hunted for. The bulk of it having more chemicals running through it than Keith Richards, and Courtney Love combined. I once read that our thank worthy food has so many preservatives in it, that autopsers actually claim it now takes longer, than ever before in history, for the decomposition process to initiate in cadavers. Hey thanks for that. That's great. I feel honored that I'l rot slower.

So thankful for that? I'm not. I'm all about the fast rot. Get it over with.

And honestly, with all the BHTs and BHAs in all this food we consume, I want General Mills / Lucky Charms to gimme my money back, for this supposed 'luck' I was brainwashed to believe in, and enthusiastically ate my entire childhood, in hopes of it resulting in a brighter future. When what they really should have added is the dancing, grey tombstone mini marshmallow at the end of their Lucky Charms marshmallow brigade to set the record straight. And I'd prefer my money in gold coin denominations glistening into a trolls pot at the end of a rainbow, because I don't feeling like waiting on line at the bank. Actually, If the horrid preservative facts stands true, I'm quite sure I'll be able to get up from my coroners table and come get it myself. So never mind. But we're supposed to be thankful for the food. Ok. Thanks for the 3,489 varieties of ketchup. I'm not sure how I'd survive otherwise.

The pilgrims were thankful because food sources were limited. And because they hunted and struggled for their food. They were making itchy underwear and womens sanity napkins out of corn husks for Christs sake. We don't hunt. We don't struggle. We don't drape our private parts in corn husks. We go to Stop and Shop and Balduccis Finer Gourmet Foods and point to entrees on restaurant menus. The whole thing seems a bit pretentious and hypocritical if you ask me.

On the other hand, if the world happened to reset itself one day, and we're back at ground zero, and I have to tirelessly hunt for 13 nights just to come up with a field mouse kill, than I'll be grateful for the field mouse. If I ended up on a desert and stumbled upon one of those little dentists cups filled with minty water, I'd be grateful then too. If I lost all my teeth and awoke the next morning to look like that 70's Farrah Faucett poster, I'd be grateful too. But for the said gluttonous amounts of biochemically engineered food and the climbing obesity rates alone, I'm shaking my head so hard I'm suffering from whiplash.

The people that should truly be thankful, are the people banking all the profits from all the unused gym memberships, the Bi-Pass surgeons, stint manufactures, antacid suppliers, elastic jeans manufacturers, and the Grave Diggers Union boys.

Don't hear that the wrong way. There are endless things I'm forever grateful for. And on every single day. Not just on the day Turkeys get executed.

I'm of course thankful for certain people in my life. I do stress certain.

I'm thankful for the reemergence of my own health, and having a healthy beautiful family that drives me to drink, and threaten their small lives. So I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful I have a steady hand and a good aim with a blow dart gun. I'm thankful for that. But I refuse to be thankful for the entire meat depatrment that drinks an IV infusion of antibiotics and steroids and e-coli for lunch, and then eats my insides, for Thanksgiving dinner. Not terribly thankful for that.

I believe in being grateful for the simple things in life, the unsung heros of the 'giving thanks' world. So that's where I shall redirect my thankful Hallmarky energies. So just so you dont think im a complete ingrate, I've decided to compile a list of small things that i'm utterly grateful / thankful for, in order to make a speedy upgraded recovery from a total ingrate degenerate, to a partial ingrate degenerate.

1. Organic Food: It tastes good. And I rot faster. Small gesture, but I appreciate it.

2. Clean Running Water: So I can turn on the faucet and drown out the sound of me peeing if someone is close by, so I can maybe retain some dignity.

3. Eyelids: When was the last time you high-fived your eyelids. Fish got shanked in this department, so I'm forever grateful that I can close my eyes when I see a squirrels brains spilled in the road or a bad grade on my kids homework. And for all the years I fake slept and pretended I was sleeping when I was married. Thank you eyelids. I'm forever grateful.

4. Straws: How else would I be able to anonymously shoot driveway pebbles at all the lame moms during PTA meetings. Forever grateful to Thomas Straw.

5. Hands: I'm grateful I have hands. How else would I be able to draw. And hold hands with losers. And talk. But a special thanks to one finger in particular for all the active involvement its taken in my communicative life. Thank you for always being there for me. Proudly standing up for me.

6. The Word 'fuck': Where oh where would I be without this. It's unconditional availability has gotten me through some pretty turbulent times. So fuckin A for that one.

7. Westport PD : All the times I've been pulled over has made me check my mirrors more ( only to see if I see them ). So I'm safer now--from Westport PD. So I'm thankful for scumbag cops.

8. Cougars: I'm so glad I'm called a cougar at my age, when I could have so easily been referred to as another less appealing, grosser animal. i.e. ' Old Flea Bag'. ( and don't get any ideas, or I'll sik my 28 year old mindless motor cross side of beef on your ass). So thank you guys.

9. My 3 dogs: It's helped me take my crap cleaning skills to new levels. I do it so fast now that I can seamlessly snatch your watch off at the same time. Don't know if you've heard, but I've actually recently been promoted to Shit Wizard. A special shout out and thanks goes out to my dog Luigis entire lower intestine. Too bad he can't hear me. The sound of him peeing under my coffee table is sadly drowning me out.

10: Corn and Callous removers: Makes Christmas shopping so much easier. Thank you Walmart.

11. Gas stations: God, I'd hate to have to wake up extra early to drill my own oil. Thank you Exxon for raping the planet for me, so I can get to kickboxing class on time.

12. Duct tape: Where do I start. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my remotes battery compartment.

13. The Good Bacteria: Thanks for kickin all the bad bacterias asses for me. Sucks that you got that 'bacteria' stigma thing goin on in your name. That can't be good on job interviews.

I seriously hope your resume spends more time embellishing the 'good' part of your job. Anyway, you, my tiny friends, rock my biological world.

14. Nose Hairs: I can't imagine everything that would get through my nasal passageway without them flitting around up there. If I didn't have nose hairs, I could breath like 2 Coco Puffs up to my brain and drown head first in a bowl of cereal. Or on second glance, more like 2 desk globes or a couple of Penn tennis balls. So today I'm grateful that I have nose hair bodyguards that defend me against the miscreant Coco Puff riffraff.

15. The End of The Bush Era: I'm not referring to the Presidency, I'm referring to 70's womens crotch hygiene. Gone are the days. Grateful beyond words.

16. Dysfunctional Families : Without them, America's Thanksgiving, family get-togethers would be as bland as, well... turkey.

And lastly,

17. America: Because if I lived in some third world country, as a woman, I'd be so set on fire for writing this.