Priorities, People.
Mamacita says: In case you’re one of those people who don’t believe children in America are going to bed hungry, I’ve got news for you: bu
Monday mornings were the worst – we teachers would stand at the front doors of the school and watch as little pinched faces hurtled off the bus and dashed into the building, heading for the cafeteria and that tray of breakfast that was, for far too many of the children, the first actual meal they’d had since free lunch at school the previous Friday. Even when schools send home food in a backpack, many families don’t feed their children with it. Sending it home doesn’t necessarily mean the child gets to eat it.
It was also usually on Monday mornings that we watched children who’d been given a coat, mittens, and hat on Friday emerge from the bus bareheaded and shivering because the clothing had been given to another family member or – and there is a special level of Hell for these people – sold to buy booze. If I had a nickel for every mother (part of an hyphenated word) who came into the building wearing the coat we’d given her child, I’d have, well, a really big pile of nickels.
My point? Do I have to have one? Okay then. Here it is:
Adults have no business taking care of themselves until their children have been provided for. This includes food AND clothing. I’m sorry if an adult has no warm coat, but if said adult helps herself/himself to the warm coat off a child’s back, I hope said adult hangs.
If there isn’t much food in the house and an adult eats the last piece of bread, see above, regarding hanging.
Children come first. Children take priority over everything else. Children are more important than you are.
Always.*
P.S. If you reek of cigarette smoke, I will hate you worse. What you paid for that pack of smokes sitting in your purse or rolled up in your sleeve (classy) would have bought socks and mittens for your shivering, blue-fingered child.
Don’t talk to me about addiction, either. You created these children and you are morally, ethically obligated to care for them until such time as they can care for themselves. By the way, since you don’t seem to know, that time isn’t second grade.
* The only place this doesn’t apply is on a plane that’s losing altitude. Put your oxygen mask on first, THEN help the children. In every other situation, you’re last.
Snickers Bites and Diabetes and Lemons, Oh My
Mamacita says: I have never been a person who gorges on candy. I can go for months without any candy at all. Sweet things have never appealed – I would rather have sour things. Red plums, little sour grapes, green apples, lemons. . . these are my snack foods of choice. However, every few months, I get a real hankering for candy, and my favorite purchased candy is, without a doubt, Snickers.
Now, not only am I not interested in a lot of candy at once, all the time. . . . I am diabetic, so even if I did long for lots of candy, I couldn’t have it.
Snickers Bites have changed my life.
With Snickers Bites, I can have my favorite candy. I can. The “bites” are big enough
to count as real candy indulgence, but the “bites” are also small enough that one or two every once in a while will not harm me.
Now, don’t think that diabetics get a free ride with Snickers Bites. No, we don’t get a free ride with any kind of candy. It’s just that with Snickers Bites, it’s so easy to just eat one or two at a time, and walk away. One or two Snickers Bites are enough.
It would depend on how severe your diabetes is, of course. Check with your doctor, naturally. Mine told me that since I don’t have much of a sweet tooth anyway, one or two Snickers Bites once in a while would be just fine.
Snickers Bites are better than just fine, you know. Snickers Bites are divine. They’re so delicious, your taste buds will swoon. They’re also a lot softer and fresher-tasting than a full-size candy bar.
Serious goodness that even some diabetics are allowed to love. My life is great.
Things Nice People Just Don’t Do
Mamacita says: And lo, there are things nice, smart, decent people just simply do not do, and here are some of them. No, this post isn’t about murder or assault, but it is about petty things that turn you from a nice person into a creep. If you recognize yourself, change your ways lest you burn in the fiery depths of Hell, which is where people who are not nice belong anyway. Bring it on.
1. Nice people don’t cut lines. No. Nice young people, nice middle-aged people, nice old people, people on foot, people in cars. . . . nice people don’t cut lines. This includes people who save a place in line for a line-cutting friend. If you are a line-cutter, you are not a nice person.
2. Nice people don’t get in the wrong lines. If the sign says “20 items or less,” grammatically incorrect though it may be, nice people get in the regular line if there are 21 items in their cart. If you get in the 20 items line with a mounded cartful, or even just 21 items, you are not a nice person.
3. Nice people return carts to the corral. Period. If you leave your cart in random spots in the parking lot, you are not a nice person.
4. When nice people decide not to buy an item after all, they return said item to its proper shelf. Nice people do not place items on the nearest, handiest shelf. No. Assholian people do that. You’re the one who moved the item, so you’re the one who needs to put it back. IN THE RIGHT PLACE. If you put unwanted items on the nearest shelf instead of returning them to their proper place, you are not a nice person. The store cannot sell the frozen pizza you decided you didn’t want and placed on the bread shelf. The store cannot sell the gallon of milk you decided you didn’t want and placed in the shoe department. You are responsible for ruining those items. Thief.
5. Nice people do not make noise in the movie theater. If you talk, let your phone ring, eat constantly and let your food make sounds, get up and down a lot, and don’t insist that your children behave in the theater, you are not a nice person.
6. Nice people don’t eat and drink in a store. Such people tend to leave litter and stains on merchandise. If you can’t wait until you step out of the store to dive into your unpaid-for cheese curls and sodas, but must inhale them IMMEDIATELY as you push your cart down the aisles, you are not a nice person. P.S. Until you pay for it, it’s not actually yours. Thief.
7. Nice people don’t go through a restaurant’s drive-through line if they’ve got a special order of some kind. For special orders, nice people park and go inside. The drive-through is for people who are in a hurry – people who order a #5 and a #8, both with Cokes. If you need a #9 with no ketchup or pickles and some french fries with no salt, GO INSIDE. Nice people don’t hold up lines.
8. Nice people don’t text and drive. I can even, quite properly, rephrase this one by saying that smart people don’t text and drive. Ever. Smart people and nice people do not text and drive. Period.
9. Nice people don’t smoke where there are other people, and especially if there are children. Uncle Fred, who’s smoked three packs a day for 38 years and is feeling just fine, thanks, who lights up at the family reunion right in front of all the nieces and nephews and Grandmother who’s just out of the hospital, is a jerk. A big, fat, jerk. Nice people don’t do that. Nice people ask permission even to go outside and smoke at your house. Yes, I said permission. I don’t want my yard covered with butts. Go home and smoke. Stink up your own place. Nice people who never dream of doing that.
10. It goes without saying that nice people don’t pick their noses or fart/burp on purpose or scratch where the sun don’t shine when they’re with other people. These things are done in private, never in public. Chainsmoking Uncle Fred (see above) who sees nothing amiss in lighting up will probably be guilty of these offenses, too. Uncle Fred has no class. He’ll probably offer your toddler a sip of his beer. Nice people do not do these things.
It’s called “manners,” friends. People with good manners have “class.” I realize that those who don’t understand why the above 10 things are wrong won’t understand that they have no manners or class, either, but that doesn’t mean they should have their own reality show and make money whenever some equally classless person thinks it’s cool to watch a pack of hormonal, farting, nosepicking hilljacks dressed in camouflage eat roadkill possum and dance with pigs. Not that there’s all that much difference between the pig and the child. . . .
Now. Let’s all get out there and do our best to act properly in public. The universe thanks you.
Also? I am not making fun of the above offenders. I am reacting in horror. There’s really nothing funny about them.
If you have never worked a service sector job, you probably won’t understand. Then again, if you’ve never worked in the service sector, I won’t understand you, either. Talk about different worlds. . . .
