How do you say "Please don't vacuum up the dead wasps" in Spanish?

Mom: Happy birthday! Open your gift.

Me: (unties ribbon)

Mom: (excited face!)

Me: (rips off a corner of the wrapping paper)

Mom: (bouncy bouncy happy claps!)

Me: Okay, you're scaring me a little. The last time you were this excited was that time you set me up on a date with a chimp.

Mom: This is better. (squirmy squirmy!)

Me: Aaaand here we go. It's a... picture frame. With a picture of a... woman.

Mom: (EXCITED FACE!!)

Me: Is this... oh jesus... no... is this dad's illegitimate Icelandic baby from WWII? You found her? She doesn't look Icelandic. She looks more Latina than Icelandic. Weird.

Sister: Holy crap! A new sister?

Mom: No, she...

Me: Look, thank you? But frankly, I've kind of had it up to here with surprise illegitimate kids in this family. I don't meant to sound ungrateful, but...

Mom: No, Becky. No.

Me: Oh thank God.

Mom: Listen. Let me explain. For your birthday, I hired this lady to clean your house next week! I know how you hate to clean, sooooo...? DO YOU LOVE IT!!? (HAPPY ARMS OUT FOR A HUG!)

Me: I... I don't know what to say.

Mom: I KNOW!!

Me: You hired this woman? And then you took a photo of her and put it in a frame?

Mom: Yep. Creative, right? I could've just written it down in the card, but nope!

Me: So, this lady? You're giving her to me? She's mine?

Mom: Well, no, not really. But she's going to come over and clean your house!

Me: What's her name?

Mom: Manuela.

Me: Oh my God. Is she Mexican? My very own Mexican?

Mom: (Sigh.) Oh no. I've made an awful mistake with this gift, haven't I?

Me: Can I rename her once she gets here?

Mom: Stop it. You've made your point. I'm a horrible horrible person.

Me: I can't wait to tell everyone I know that you bought me a Mexican woman!

Mom: Oh, please don't. Becky, who are you texting? Give me the phone, Becky.

Me: My first Mexican! (Fans away tears) And I'm so young! I always thought, you know, maybe when I retire, but...

Mom: Don't be an asshole, it's a very thoughtful and creative gift. And stop saying "Mexican." It's racist to just assume she's Mexican.

Me: You're right mom, I shouldn't just asstuyo like that.

Mom: Asswhat?

Me: I shouldn't asstuyo that she's from Mexico. Because when you "asstuyo" you make an ass out of "tu" y "yo." Isn't that right, Manuela? (runs finger lovingly down the side of the photo)

Sister: What are you guys talking about? Who's that woman in the frame?

Me: Mom got me a Mexican!

Sister: MOM! You can't just go around BUYING people!!

Mom: Shhh! Keep it down, will you? No, listen. Here's what happened. I could have just written it in a card, but I'm creative, you see...

Sister: SO racist!

Mom: SHUT UP! YOU'RE RACIST!! WHAT BECKY'S SAYING RIGHT NOW IS RACIST!! NOT ME!!

Sister: Geesh! Settle down, Mel Gibson.

Mom: I was just being clever, putting her picture in a little frame.

Sister: You BOUGHT a woman, and gave her away like an OBJECT!

Mom: I bought two hours of a woman's TIME, and presented the IMAGE of her to my daughter in a lovely frame.

Sister: Awesome. I get a gift card to Amazon, and Becky gets a Mexican woman. So typical.

Mom: GAH!! STOP!! Why are you two tormenting me? You both are horrible, racist people. Why do you girls have to twist everything around? And why do you even assume she's from Mexico? For your information, she's El Salvadorian.

Sister: (gasp!)

Mom: What?

Me: The Golden Gods of Central America!

Sister: They can grant wishes, you know.

Me: But you don't want to anger them...

Sister: Right. Because of the...

Me: ...the lead-tipped shoulder quills.

Mom: Are you both on drugs?

Me: I have a handful of birthday cake letters packed into my cheek like tobacco right now, does that count? *spits into a can*

Mom: Okay, listen, I made up that whole El Salvador thing to try to teach you a lesson about assumptions, but clearly you two are unlessonable. She's not El Salvadorian, she is in fact from Mexico.

Sister: Ha! I knew it.

Me: Shut up!

Sister: Too bad! No wishes for you!

Me: I still love her! In fact, I love her even MORE now!

Sister: Sure you do.

Me: I do! In fact, to prove it? I'm gonna take all the furniture out of the living room, and I'm going to put a pedestal in the middle of the room. Then I'm going to put this picture frame on the pedestal...

Mom: Hey you know what? Maybe let's keep the picture frame just between us. I don't know, it might make her feel awkward. Now that I think about it, it was in pretty poor taste on my part. Here, gimme the frame.

Me: ...and I'm going to surround the pedestal with candles...

Me: ...and when she comes over to clean...

Mom: Please don't do any of that.

Me: ...when she comes over to clean, I'm going to dim the lights and light the candles, and I'll take her hand and lead her over to her pedestal, so she can see. Come here, Cherry Pegasus, I'll whisper.

Mom: Becky, I told you, you can NOT rename her.

Me: Come here and look, Cherry Pegasus. Look what you mean to me. All this is for you. My first, my last, my only cleaning lady. And I'll fill my best heart-patterned huffing socks full of Ajax, and we'll link our arms together as we raise them to our faces...

Sister: (dims the lights, sings softly) I've been really tryyyyyin' baby, tryin' to hold back this feeling for sooo long...

Me: Look into my osos, Cherry Pegasus. There's so much amor in my osos.

Mom: Oh, honey. Do you mean "ojos"? Eyes?

Me: No, I meant bears. Look into my bears, Cherry Pegasus.

Mom: I think you meant "ojos."

Sister: (sexy snapping) And if YOU feel, like I'm feelin baby... then comeon, WOO! Come OWWN... OOOHH! Let's gettit OWWWN!

Mom: Why do you guys always give me such a hard time when I'm creative about my gifts? Here's the deal: She's going to be here for two hours. To clean. She'll bring her own supplies. You're welcome. Happy birthday.

Me: I'm going to have so much sex with her.

Mom: Yeah. You said that about the chimp too, I remember.

Me: ...!!...

Mom: Okay. That was kind of... I didn't mean to equate Manuela with a... I was making a joke.

Sister: Wow, mom. Crossed the line.

Me: Yeah. Too far.

Been spendin' most my life, ridin' on a gangsta's motorized stair seat

I woke up in my bed last Saturday morning, shivering and wondering why my lips felt like a tempurpedic neck pillow, wearing a short black dress and one high heel. I had been dreaming about a life as a Russian acrobat, which I knew without even checking meant I had fallen asleep wearing a thong.

I limped unevenly to the bathroom, 5'7" on one side and 5'3" on the other.

High heel, bare foot...

Click, plop... click, plop... click, plop...

tall, short... svelte, dwarf... queen of the world, troll doll...

I pulled Hoodie and pj bottoms out of my pile of laundry limbo, redressed, and sat on the toilet in my thinking position--pajama pants down around ankles, chest on thighs, arms dangling, face in panties like a little head hammock. So comfy.

I remembered a marachino cherry.

There was another cherry, later. An orange slice too.

Sugar on the rim.

Lime wedge in the bottle. Like in Mexico. Damn, that gets me every time. I love Mexico.

I will drink anything if it has a cherry or some kind of fruit or accessory in/hanging off the glass. You know those plastic monkeys that hang by their tails off the rim? Done. You could fill a martini glass up with phlegm and kitty litter and hang a monkey off the glass and maybe an umbrella, and I'd be all, "Holy crap is this a party or what? This drink sure tastes like vacation!"

I remembered my drink order at dinner: "I want that foamy drink with the round thing bobbing around in it. I want to say frankenberry, but that's not right. Dingleberry? Help me out. Floaty thing."

(If you're interested, it was a CRANberry.

*smug Trebek pause*

CRAN. berry.

*taps answer cards*)

I love festivities. I'm like a 15-year old boy who ejaculates in his jeans before his girlfriend has even begun to fiddle with his zipper. I'm like him, only with fun. Or even the suggestion of fun. Those floating cranberries and plastic monkeys dry hump my brain until I ejaculate seratonin in my metaphorical jeans. Yeah, I just wrote that.

My funjaculation condition doesn't apply to just drinks though. I'm not a big drinker. Now I realize I can't keep posting about drunk bachelorette trips and lessons in how to be photographed drunk and continue to be all "Heavens above, I can't even remember the last time I consumed liquah, I wouldn't even know what to order." *coy eyes over Southern belle fan*

I sound like a hypocrite, but I'm not. I'm not a big drinker, but I'm a master celebrator, is what I am. A master 'brator. Okay, yes, I forced that. It's embarrassing. Let's move on.

It's not just the drinks. It's carnivals (Oh my God, get off the highway NOW, I see a ferris wheel I WANT A CHURRO GOGOGO!!) or elaborately decorated cakes (I want the piece with the Superman, but I also want a rose and a balloon and a corner piece, so maybe Gerrymander it around a bit when you're cutting, m'kay? I don't care if my piece looks like Tajikistan, just make it happen) or any Journey song (*air punch, air punch, air punch, scary rock n' roll face*) or Jai Ho (*delicate Bollywood turny wrists, serious multicultural face*) I just get too excited sometimes.

Yesterday I went over to visit my Nana at my mom's house, dressed in my workout clothes because really I was there to use the treadmill, not to visit Nana, but I like to pretend I'm just killing time on the treadmill until Nana wakes up, but Nana never wakes up. If she were a goldfish she'd be the kind who's been resting on the rocks at the bottom of the tank with the same delicate tendril of poop hanging from her ass for so long that you decide to flush her and all of a sudden just as you've said your goodbyes to your Nanafish laying there in the net scooper, she opens one eye and you're like WAIWAIWAIT SHE'S ALIVE and everyone feels super bad for almost flushing Nana and you never talk about it again. Man, I am KILLING with the metaphors today.

Frankly, I wouldn't know what to say to her if she did ever wake up. Maybe I could talk about our common interests, like breathing:

Me: Breathe any good air lately?

Nana: *breathe*

Me: Oh, dang girl, save some for me!

Nana: *wink* *breathe* *sleep*

Me: You crazy, Nana.

So anyway, I showed up in my workout gear at around noon and discovered a half-empty frozen margarita machine sitting in the patio from a party the night before, promptly funjaculated, removed my sports bra and running shoes and began to gather beautiful flowers with which to decorate my drink.

And you know the saying, "Where there's a half-empty margarita machine, there's leftover fish tacos," right? So true.

And you know the saying, "I'd rather drink alone for the right reasons then drink with other people for the wrong ones?" Also true. It was hard, but I think I did the right thing.

And you know the saying, "It's better to have had a few drinks by yourself on a lovely spring day and then taken a ride on Nana's motorized stair-seat and broken the motor from over-enthusiastic make-believe gangsta hydraulics than it is to have never taken a ride on Nana's motorized stair seat at all?" No? Well, write it down. Words to live by.

I'm too sexy for my penis

Me: When you gave birth to me, was it difficult?

Mom: Oh no. It was pretty easy. No drugs or anything.

Me: Did you cut the cord? Or did dad do it?

Mom: Um...I think the doctor did it.

Me: When the doctor told you I had both a penis and a vagina, was it hard to choose which gender to assign to me?

Mom: Becky.

Me: What was the weather like that day? Do you remember?

Mom: Becky.

Me: Hmm?

Mom: You are not a hermaphrodite.

Me: But if I was, I bet you wouldn't even tell me.

Mom: I think you'd be able to figure it out yourself. Anyway, by this point, you'd need hormone supplements.

Me: Oh really? Is that what the pamphlets said?

Mom: Becky, you've never had a penis.

Me: You tend to gloss over the difficult issues, mom. If I was born a hermaphrodite, I think you might have gone into a deep denial about it. I think that's what's happening here.

Mom: I might gloss over things here and there, true. It would be hard to gloss over giving birth to a baby girl with a penis, though. I bet I would remember that pretty well.

Me: Would you though? Would you? *squinty eyes* Would you?

....

Me: Think about it.

...

Me: Would you?

...

Me: *suspicious eyes*

Mom: *chews sandwich*

Me: *raises eyebrows*

Mom: *sips tea*

Me: You are one tough nut to crack, you know that?

Mom: Is this about your shoulders again? Broad shoulders are very attractive, you know. Why do you think women wear shoulder pads in their jackets?

Me: They don't.

Mom: Oh. *absentmindedly touches her shoulder*

Me: You need me to cut those out later?

Mom: If you have time, yeah.

Me: I'm just grumpy I think. I don't feel very girly sometimes.

Mom: I think what's happening right now is that you're wearing your uncomfortable bra again.

Me: I am. This bra makes me so angry! I want to break out of it like The Hulk. *sticks fists under shirt into bra cups and pushes outwards* Arrrghhhh!!!

Mom: See? You're just having a bad bra day. You are the girliest girl I ever did see. There is nothing manly about you.

Me: Other than my broad shoulders and my penis stump.

Mom: Actually, I think they construct a clitoris out of the penis.

Me: Oh, good God. No. Ok, there are, like, 5 things on my plate I can't eat now. Baby corn, button mushrooms, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, this gherkin pickle needs to go away...

Mom: Why? What's wrong?

Me: Don't say clitoris ever again. Nobody should ever have to hear their mom say "clitoris". Or at least say it with the emphasis on the second syllable. Your way sounds so...Julie Andrews.

Mom: When have you ever heard Julie Andrews say the word clitoris?

Me: I'm pretty sure she says it that way. Like, Juuuussssst aaaaa spoonful of sugar helps the CLItoris, go down....

Mom: But then there's: Nobody solves a problem like cliTORiiiiis.....So, who's to say?

Me: The nuns sing that one, not Julie Andrews. My argument stands.

Mom: Wow. You should have been a lawyer, really.

Me: Did you save my extra penis skin? You should tell me. I might need a graft one day.

Mom: I think I pressed it into your "Baby's First Memories" book.

Me: ....

...

*shudder*

...

Me: Bravo.

Mom: Thank you.