CONSENTconsentconsentconsentconsentconsent

I know.  The last thing on Earth that we need right now is yet another article/blog/soundbite expressing outrage at Trump, cluttering up the Internet and getting lost with all the others.

Most of the absolutely ridiculous and illogical pro-Trump, anti-woman, assault-glossing-over memes and comments get whisked away with the roll of my eyes, but this one... is something entirely different.

This one is perpetuating a seriously dangerous attitude that goes far, far beyond this election.

The argument here is basically, well if you accept sexual content or language in any capacity, from anyone, at any time, then it must be welcomed from any one, at any time.

Starting with the easy stuff...

1. 50 Shades of Grey is a book.  To put it in perspective, substitute any of these other works of fiction:

"If men don't want to be cannibalized, why did so many of them watch The Silence of the Lambs?"

"If kids aren't secretly itching to be selected for a murdery blood-bath, why was the The Hunger Games trilogy so popular?"

See, that doesn't work.  Literature is entertainment.  Literature proposes ideas for an audience to consider.  Purchase of said literature or associated entertainment does not correlate with an acceptance of the material.  Hell, even the authors who wrote the material aren't necessarily condoning what their characters do. It's an exploration.  Something tells me the people who made this meme don't actually read books, though.

The only book that this meme's argument actually does work with is Harry Potter, because god knows I actually do want to go to Hogwarts, and if you can make that happen, please, send me an owl or whatever.  

2.  Mother&%*ing Consent

I am swearing because I am so, so mad about this.  SO ANGRY.

Guess. What.  The majority of you reading this probably have sex with someone.  SomeONE. And whatever you and that other person have negotiated in regards to sex is up to you, because the word there is negotiated.  You and that person came to the terms of what you would and would not accept in regards to sex.

So in 50 Shades of Grey, this girl and this guy consented to sex that, as far as I can tell, seems pretty unpleasant.  Not my cup of tea, but you know what?  Their bedroom, their negotiation, their business.  Both adults, yes?  Fine, then.

Here's what DIDN'T happen in that book (to my knowledge, can't say I've read it).  She did not make that agreement with anyone else but that guy.  That means that NO ONE ELSE BUT THAT GUY HAS PERMISSION TO HAVE SEX WITH HER.

I don't mean to blow your mind or anything, but you can actually consent to one without consenting to all.  You can also consent once, and not again.  Every time someone gives consent, it is a one-time, admit-one situation.  A girl could sleep with every guy in her graduating class except one, and that is fine.  A girl can sleep with a guy twenty times and then stop, and that is fine. No one is entitled to sex from anyone, at any time.  No one loses their ability to say no because they once said yes, or because they read a book about sex.

3. I Am Pissed as Hell About This Because I am so Scared for my Students.

I talk about consent in class a lot, and I show this video.

After watching that video, I have been asked some of the scariest questions ever, like, "Well.. what if you're texting with her and she's into it, but then you get there and she changed her mind?" and, "Okay, but what if the girl is like, KNOWN for sleeping with everyone?"

And then I say, "...what?  NO NO NO NO NO!"

These kids aren't assholes, they're part of a culture that comes out with stupid memes like the one above that suggest that women can't freely give and rescind consent, and part of a culture that has a man who suggested that you "grab [women] by the pussy" steps away from the presidency.

We don't live in a vacuum.  The kids of this culture are going to take their cues from us, and if they see instance after instance of women being blamed for their own assaults for various reasons, they're going to come to believe that this is the way that it goes. Who is going to tell those kids that that's not how it goes, when everyone around them, the leaders around them are saying that it is?! And it isn't just Trump, who is easily dismiss-able- this attitude is EVERYWHERE in our culture.

Stop spreading this meme.  Stop blaming women for their own assaults.  Stop participating in rape culture.  God, I hope you never rape someone, but when you spread shit like this, you are feeding into the people who do.  You are part of it.

Yes, millions of women read a book about sadomasochism, from the safety of their own homes, for entertainment, and then they put it down and got on with their lives. If you think that that means that women everywhere want to be assaulted, like to be assaulted, are asking to be assaulted, then you are scaring the shit out of me.

16.8 Million

A few days ago, the 2009 Erin Andrews nude video case resurfaced in the news as she took the stand to testify. The end result of that case is that Andrews was awarded 55 million in damages against the hotel that failed to notify her of a an obsessed "fan" who requested the room beside her and subsequently recorded her naked through a peephole.

We can debate whether or not she deserves 55 million for days (but the answer is yes, fyi.  The answer is yes because she will never get to be the same person she was before someone compromised her sense of safety and freedom by using her own body against her. But the question here is not, in my mind, "Will 55 million alleviate the suffering that Andrews has and will continue to endure?"  Because the answer is no.  Now she simply is a victim who is 55 million richer, but no less afraid.  The question here is, "How much effing money do we have to take away from someone to get people to stop doing this sort of shit to women?"  And if the answer is 55 million, so be it.  Because people apparently don't have the sort of conscience that would help them come to that conclusion on their own, we have to get their attention with something they do care about more than basic human decency.

The settlement is a huge victory, obviously, but the unintended consequence of the victory is that she is now once again in the spotlight and, as this article details, the video is once again trending on Google search.  So basically, she's reliving the entire thing.

I understand curiosity.  There is something to seeing something for yourself.  A few years back, when the video of Ray Rice hitting his fiance was released on the internet, I watched it, then instantly felt disgusting for having done so.  What is to gain from such a thing, other than voyeurism, or some sort of weird shadenfreude? Nothing, but that curiosity is like everyone crowding around when someone fought in the hall in high school- you want to see it.

I am not immune to curiosity either.  But, in this situation, I am begging you, don't.
Don't Google it, don't watch it, don't look for stills.  Nothing.

Please recognize videos like this for exactly what they are, which is a method of shaming and holding down women who hold any sort of power.  There's a name for it- blackmail porn- and it's effing illegal.  Videos like this are inherently misogynistic. We live in a society where women have to fight an uphill battle to be taken seriously. She's a sports reporter! A female sports reporter- can you even imagine all the bullshit she had to put up with to get there?

And when a woman- Erin Andrews, or Jennifer Lawrence and any of the other celebrities who had nude photos leaked last year- gets too powerful, they put her in check by reducing her to a body, an object.

This is not just about an obsessed "fan".  If it was, why would he sell the video?  It's about holding someone down, dominating and controlling them,

It's news to exactly no one that the internet is full of all sorts of porn, and I've really got nothing to say about that one way or the other.  Watch it, don't watch it- you're an adult, I leave it to you.  But there's a very big difference between porn and the Erin Andrews video, and that is that the the vast majority of porn is (hopefully) consensual, which is to say that the people involved have CHOSEN to be involved, have set the parameters for what they will or will not do, and have (hopefully) been compensated in a way that makes it worthwhile to them. And that's their choice, but the operative word is choice.

If you are watching the Erin Andrews video, you are not watching porn, you are watching an assault.  Women CAN participate in porn- and SHOULD be allowed to do so, sans slut-shaming- as long as they maintain agency over themselves.  Erin Andrews had none of that, and that's why you shouldn't have anything to do with the video.

The fact that you didn't make the video, didn't distribute the video, didn't have a hand in whatever went into getting it out in the world does not mean that you are not complicit when you watch it.  Only one person made the video, but 16.8 million people watched it.  The video was made famous by the watchers, not the guy who made it.  Guys, even TMZ wouldn't buy the damn video.  If you find that TMZ has greater moral compass than you, it is time to revisit your morals.

We decry the breakdown of society, the bad morals, the horrible things that are going on, and then we each take part in it, claiming that "it's already out there".  Guess what? 1+1+1 eventually equals 16.8 million if you go long enough.  And every single "1" claimed it wasn't their fault.

If you want to know something about the case- instead of googling some creepy video that a misogynistic psycho took through a peephole, maybe instead you could watch this video, in which she describes how she feels she can't be the same person for the man she loves because of the video.  Or maybe watch her father on the stand, talking about how she isn't the same person.  Yeah, that's someone's daughter.

It isn't adult entertainment.  If we're going to talk about making things better for women in this country, then 16.8 million of us need to stop being 1 of 16.8 million.  And if we're not worried about how we're treating the women in this society, then we have a much, much bigger problem that is, frankly, too depressing to even consider.

Why I'm All About "Happy Holidays".

Too many of my stories start with, “today on Facebook”, and I’m afraid this one does as well.  

Today, in my Facebook feed, a high school acquaintance proudly and defiantly proclaimed that SHE would not be proclaiming “Happy Holidays” to any customers she saw at work.  It would be all “Merry Christmas”s for her, political correctness be damned.  

Well la-te-da, I thought, and kept scrolling.  

We have mostly learned by now that to argue on the internet, no matter how logical and supported your stance, is to wage a losing battle. But that stuff wears on me, too.  When I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom I end up thinking about it, and then my person says, “What are you thinking about over there” and, good God, I’m not going to say “Facebook”, because he already thinks I’m obsessed with Facebook, so then I have to make up something like work or bills or death.  But what I’m thinking about is this girl yelling “Merry Christmas” at everyone she encounters, in a misguided assertion of faith.

Let’s skip right past the irony of the fact that Christmas is meant to be the celebration of an impoverished savior born in a manger, but has morphed into the single most consumerist holiday in existence.  No one worried about the snowflakeless Starbucks cup seems terribly worried about that.  And yet, the idea that we might wish someone a happy holiday without marking it with the trappings of Christianity is an affront to the religion.

The world is diverse, guys.  And the world seems to be trying to be more aware of its diversity, more respectful.  It seems, lately and for once, that the loudest voice isn’t the only one to be heard- that we’re actually asking people to shut up so we can hear what the quieter voices have to say.  You can do two things in the wake of that.  You can respond with fear, yell louder, somehow convinced that the only way to protect your own religion is to tamp down everyone else’s.  Or you can make room for everyone else.  And what we choose to do is going to depend largely on how we frame that change.  

The first step to figuring out a problem, I think,  is to try to understand why the other person feels the way that they do.  I think that the Merry Christmas Crusaders believe that they’re protecting their religion.  In their eyes, it likely seems as if the move from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” is a secular world’s attempt to eradicate the “Reason for the Season”.

Take a minute to think about why that’s a very self-involved point of view.  That point of view puts you directly in the center of the spinning world.  The idea that the world is out to get you, that you are front and center on their minds, are somehow the underdog, the disenfranchised- especially if you just so happen to be the largest and most powerful religion in the country- is to ignore the 20 million other things that are probably occupying their minds and driving their actions. It’s to ignore the religions that are actually being persecuted.  It also betrays the privilege of being the predominant religion that expects to see its beliefs mirrored by the greater population.  More importantly,  it’s just not the case.

Religious persecution exists, but persecution of Christians in this country on any measurable level? Where?  I know a lot of non-believers, sure.  But anti-Christian?  Nope. Those are two entirely different things.  The difference is that one chooses not to subscribe, and the other wants it not to be an option.

The idea of saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” has, forgive me, nothing to do with you.  In fact, it isn’t a replacement of “Merry Christmas”, it’s an evolution of the phrase.  It isn’t meant to push Jesus out of the picture; it’s meant to make room in a holiday season for those who are giving thanks to a different entity.  It’s a recognition of the fact that we are diverse and grants respect to that diversity, and the equal importance of all involved.  There are a whole host of holidays going on in this time period.  Christmas, Hannukah, Winter Solstice. This year, a Muslim holiday called Prophet’s Day falls in December.

If you’re adamantly against Happy Holidays, my question, and it isn’t rhetorical, is this- Why are you wishing someone a Merry Christmas to begin with?  What is your goal with that statement?

Isn’t it because you’re wishing them happiness during the season?  That’s sort of the common thought, isn’t it?

If that’s not your intention when you say it- if you don’t truly wish happiness on the people you’re bestowing your graciousness on- then I invite you to stop saying it.  Really.  It’s not supposed to be a filler.  If it was just a filler, why would you yourself be so upset between the semantics of Christmas vs. Holidays

And if you do mean it, if you really do wish them happiness during this time, then you ought to be just fine with Happy Holidays, because it shouldn’t matter to you whether they find their happiness in the same place that you find yours.  If you’re only willing to wish on them the sort of happiness that is valid and meaningful to you, then you’re not wishing them happiness at all.  You are saying, in essence, “I wish you a happy time this holiday season, as long as it looks like the kind of happy time I have deemed acceptable.”  I hope that you are a big enough person to love and worship who you love, and to let others do the same, and to wish them happiness in that pursuit.  

And it’s not that anyone is offended by your “Merry Christmas”.  It’s that, if they’re celebrating Kwanzaa or Ramadan or Hannukah, it means nothing to them.  So why are you saying it?  How would you, as a Christian, respond if someone wished you a Happy Hannukah?

My second question would be this: If those specific words- Merry Christmas- are so very meaningful and important to you, what, beyond speaking words,  have you done this holiday season that is actually representative of that, and of the weight you place on this holiday?  Sure, some people could make a list. But my guess is that the vast majority of people will struggle to come up with something.  Cutting down a tree?  Not based in Christianity. Actually based in pre-Christian traditions of keeping bad spirits away.  Seeing Santa?  Not Christian.  Buying presents?  Certainly not a reflection of the first Christmas.  Don’t you think that the actual carrying out of these ideals is more powerful than yelling “Merry Christmas” at whoever’s face appears in front of you during the month of December?

The fair response that I’m bound to get for that is, “Well, what have YOU done?”

Absolutely nothing.  Fair disclosure, I wouldn’t call myself a Christian- not because I don’t like Christianity, or reject Jesus, or anything like that.  Quite honestly, I don’t have any idea what I believe in. But I don’t call myself a Christian because I don’t do a damn thing to exercise Christianity.  Nothing. Calling myself Christian would be unfair to actual Christians.

In middle school, I went through two years of religious classes and was confirmed in the Lutheran church. Today, I have a gym membership, which I pay $10 a month for, and those two things have a lot in common.  Signing up for a gym membership and occasionally going doesn’t make me fit.  It makes me someone who pays $10 a month for the opportunity to access a gym.  I went through catechism classes because it was important to my mother.  I guess I could say that I’m Lutheran, but it doesn’t mean anything, if you saw the sort of Lutheran I am.  The transformation is in the action.  Saying Merry Christmas doesn’t make you a Christian either. If speaking the word Christ was all you had to do to be a Christian, I’m pretty sure we’d have a lot more converts.  

No one is saying you have to be a perfect Christian.  I am about the last person who would be chosen to judge that contest.  But if you’re truly worried about Christmas being lost to the secular masses, why don’t you act on and spread that faith by actually doing something that reflects Christianity, instead of arguing over the design of a coffee cup.  You know, like accepting others, regardless of their religion, sins, beliefs, lifestyle, etc., and wishing them a good holiday season.

Quite frankly, I don’t care if you do that.  I don’t care if you’re as terrible a Lutheran as I am.  But I do care if you’re pushing your beliefs on someone else and refusing to make room for all the people who are celebrating things at the same time you are by refusing such a simple action as saying the words “Happy Holidays”.  What in the world happened to “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Man”?  Doesn’t the phrase “Happy Holidays” encompass that entire idea?  And if you don’t want that- if you only want to wish a good season on people who believe the exact thing that you do- then you’re as bad a Christian as I am.  

Crap I Feel Needs to be Said: Fidelity Edition

It's been a while since I've posted here at all, and even longer since a stupid sign on Pinterest about motherhood drove me to the edge and into writing Crap I Feel Needs to be Said: Mother's Day Edition, but here I am again, enraged to the point of furious typing by something stupid I read on the internet.

What I tell my students a lot of the time is that the internet is the great democratizing force, because anyone can say anything and be seen.  Which is great in the case of, say, social movements like Black Lives Matter, that wouldn't have otherwise gained traction if we'd have to had to rely on the mainstream media to pick it up.  But the downside of a medium where anyone can say anything is that anyone can say anything.  Think of the stupidest, most bigoted, misinformed person you know.  They can say anything on the internet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against that.  It's the price you pay for equal access.  But I do worry a lot about who is reading what and what they're internalizing.

The internet is rife with them, but just in the past two days, I've had two different articles, from two different authors (both women!) pop up in my Facebook newsfeed, both explaining "Why Men Cheat" and "10 Simple Ways to Guarantee They Won't Cheat".  I almost don't want to put the links there because I'm afraid that they get paid per click and, Jesus, please don't click on that.

Clearly it's not The New Yorker, but Thought Catalog is a site with some decently decent personal essays, and it's written by and for the 20-30 year old crowd.  The above gems of wisdom offer such insighful tidbits as, "The number one reason why men cheat is..a lack of emotional appreciation!" and, [If you don't want them to cheat on you] "Have Sex With Them as Often as Possible", "Have Sex With them Even When you Don't Want to" and "Sext Them Regularly".
You know, women of the world, it's a good thing that you're not an actual person, with your own life and aspirations, because if you were, it would be really, REALLY difficult to lead that life AND do everything you need to do to keep your partner from cheating on you.

Sorry, but, pulling no punches here, if your partner cheated on you, it has nothing to do with your ugly underwear, or your failure to sext them on your lunch break.

There is ONE reason your partner cheats on you- not six- and that one reason is that he's a jerk.  Really.  Stop looking for the six answers why, or the top ten ways to stop him from doing it.  He's just a d-bag, end of story.

Granted, I haven't met all of your partners/spouses/significantothers/itscomplicateds, but I am willing to bet that 100% of them have a mouth and speak a language which you are also fluent in.  If they don't, maybe we can look deeper into the causes of their infidelities.  But if they do, then what they need to do if they think your underwear is ugly or want you to do/be more of X is open that mouth and speak words that explain that you.  Because that is implied in your partnership, as well as in your graduation into adulthood.

You know, if you, as a couple aren't great at talking, you don't even need words!  Maybe you could do a rousing game of charades.  I don't care.  Do what you do.  But, I'm telling you, even effing Nell got her point across, so if you are telling me that an adult man is somehow not able or expected to communicate to the level of a woman raised by wolves, I have to admit to you, I am effing confused.

If they express that to you and your response is,"whatevs", now we're talking about something else.  But even then, we're not talking about cheating.  We're talking about, "Wow, we have some serious problems in this relationship, and we either need to fix it or end it."

And, to be clear, I understand that women cheat as well, and that is equally awful.  But never ever in my newsfeed do I see an article titled, "Men! 10 ways to keep your woman from straying!"  Somehow we just seem to accept that a woman who cheated is acting selfishly.

The reason that this pisses me off so much is that takes the blame off of the cheater, and puts it squarely on your shoulders, because your not-enoughness is somehow driving him to this, and IT'S ALL WRITTEN BY WOMEN.

Women of the world! Seriously? STOP IT.
Every time you write that article, you are validating people who cheat.  You are telling them that it's not really their fault, and in the course of saying that, you are disrespecting the hell out of the people who invested themselves in that person and got cheated on.

It pisses me off because it's self-hating, but it also pisses me off because I feel like, as a gender, we spend a WHOLE lot of time trying to figure out what we can do to be enough for other people.

You know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid that if we collected all of the hours and minutes that women spend wondering if they're doing the right things to keep their partner from cheating, that we would end up with enough time to cure cancer, write the great American novel, solve the social ills of the world.

I like to stress about a whole lot of crap, and my partner's favorite thing to tell me is that you can't control another person.  All you can do is try really hard, and that person is hopefully going to do the same.  It might be the most brilliant piece of advice on earth.

Women of the world.  Stop reading the articles, stop buying new underwear, stop writing weird sexts from the employee parking lot (I hope you weren't really doing that but, if you were,...stop).  Try really hard, and go cure cancer.  That's all you can do.

The Post in Which I Grade 90s Songs as if They Are My Freshman Comp Papers, Vol. 1

Color Me Badd, "I Wanna Sex You Up"

Final grade: FAIL

CMB.  There are so many absolute nonsensical impossibilities in this song I don't even know where to start.  So let's start here:

We can do it 'til we both wake up.

Do you mean to imply that you were asleep?  First of all, if either of you is asleep, there is a name for that, and it's a felony.  Secondly, I don't know if you're aware of how the human body works, but it is virtually- nay, totally- impossible- anatomically, I mean.  Biologically- for you to be doing "it" while you're asleep.

In fact, Color Me Badd, the only way that this lyric makes any sense is if by "it" you mean "sleep".  And then, yes- in that case, you can both do "it" until you wake up.  That is generally how napping goes, and I'm not sure why you wrote it into a song, but carry on.

"Let me take off all your clothes/disconnect the phone so nobody knows"

Are you FaceTime-ing with someone as this is going on? If not, I'm not entirely sure how anyone would know what was going on. This is 1991, and no one can see you when you talk to them on the phone.  For crap's sake, your fan base is using pagers at this point in time, which require them to return the call from payphones, which almost don't even exist anymore.

Even if you're not FaceTiming.  Guys.  That's not how the phone works.  I'm not sure if anyone walked you through this, but you actually have to pick up the phone for anyone on the other end to hear you.  So, there's no need to disconnect the phone.
...Have you been disconnecting the phone every time you don't want someone to hear you?
Because if you are, people are trying to call, and they can't get through.
Because you disconnected the phone.

So, again, what I'm telling you is, as long as everyone in the room knows not to pick up the phone, no one will know.  Unless this is 1984, in which case, I stand corrected.

"Making love until we drown"
In what situation would you drown in this process?  Are you in the hottub? If so, I'm going to suggest two things:

1. Maybe you could stop just short of drowning, no? That seems unnecessary.  Kamikaze love making is not a thing.  You don't know this yet, but you are going to be a One Hit Wonder, but it shouldn't be because you made love until you drowned.
2. For God's sake, forget what I said before about the phone. You should disconnect the phone before you electrocute yourself, because God knows one of you is going to forget the rule and pick it up.


Ginuwine, "Pony"

Final Grade: Vomit in My Mouth

Ginuwine.

 I loathed this song from the moment it came out.  Loathed.  For two main reasons:
1. Why do you need to misspell your name? We know what you're getting at.  Just spell it correctly.  You're part of the reason that people named "Amy" end up spelling it "Aymie".  Stop it.  All you're doing is making the lives of Starbucks baristas hell.
2. It's like you took metaphors and lit them on fire, and ruined them for all of Generation Whatever I'm A Part Of.

"Ride it, my pony"
Of all the things in the world, why would you decide to use the metaphor of a pony?  A pony, really?  You know what a pony is, right?  It's a baby horse.  So.  To summarize.  You've decided to compare yourself to a baby horse?  I guess I don't see where you're going with this.  A few weeks ago, my son rode a pony at a fair.  When I asked him about it, his only comment was, "It peed while I was riding it."  I'm just saying.

Did you mean a mustang?  Or a colt? A bronco, perhaps?  Bronco and mustang both have the same number of syllables as pony, you could substitute either one easily.
You have to mean something other than a pony.

"My saddle is waiting.."
Hey, since you're the one that decided to go all out with this, let's follow the extended metaphor.  What, in this situation, is the "saddle".  It's nothing.  There's nothing that would be a "saddle" in this metaphor. You suck at metaphors.

"Until we reach the stream/you'll be on my jockey team."
1. Again.  What is the stream? You single-handedly murdered the metaphor.
2. On your jockey team?  It's a team, you say?  How flattering.

Target Knows Men.

It is once again that time of year when I am two weeks before Christmas, and still trying to figure out what to purchase for the gentlemen in my life (that would be Danny & Scott), who have given me weirdo suggestions like socks and some stupid video game where you assassinate people.  

Enter. Target.

Here's what you don't know about Target: they've got their finger on the pulse of the male population. Hidden away in the middle of the men's clothing department is a cardboard display filled with everything every man in your life has ever wanted.  You'll know you've arrived because of the GIFTS FOR MEN sign at the top.
Did they lobotomize a man and use the knowledge for marketing purposes?
No idea.  All I know is that they've saved Christmas.

So what is it that men truly want?

1.  Hand-held paper shredder

Do you have a man in your life who is constantly saying, "Good LORD, I am SO. SICK. of technology carrying out menial tasks for me, freeing up tons of time for me to do things I like!!"?

You do?

Seriously?

Okay.

Well.  Then you should buy him these handheld paper shredders, formerly marketed as herb scissors.  And then you should check if you're Amish, in which case you really shouldn't be reading this, or squatting in Greenfield Village.  Or perhaps you're Ted Kacyzinski.

At any rate, happy holidays!

2.

Harmonica?

Ah, no.

Harmanica.

Nothing says love like gifting the world's spittiest instrument to the love of your life.

It's retro.  Hipster, even.

If you can, you should really get that harmonica holder that makes it look like you have head gear to go along with it.  

What's better is that it's a gift for everyone in the house; goodbye to alarm clocks- and hello to waking up to the idyllic sounds of The Times They Are A'Changin at 6 am.

3.   Travel Shot Glass set

Another thing that men really want is a travel shot glass set.  What's remarkable, and sets these travel shot glasses apart, is that they are the exact size of actual shot glasses.  For the unrefined, that might beg the question, "Why do you need travel shot glasses?  Why not just throw an actual shot glass in your suitcase?"  For everyone else, the question may be, "Why do you need to travel with shot glasses?  How is your home life these days?"

The answer to both questions is the distinctive leather case.

If you don't get it, maybe you should stick to the hand shredder.

4. Really, though, the highlight of this Man Collection is this:

What can you do with finger lights?

What can't you do with finger lights?!

Here are just a FEW suggestions:

• Create your own Pink Floyd "The Wall" Laser light show on your ceiling
• Direct traffic in the case of a power outage
• Give a cat a brain aneuyrsm by pointing the lights in four different directions at once.

If you want to buy your husband/dad/boyfriend/son/nephew some ridiculous assassin video game, you do what you want.  But Danny is getting a set of finger lights, and I'm anticipating a high-lighted high-five, and Scott is getting a Harmanica, with which he can sing my praises.  And the only thing getting assassinated? Christmas expectations.

*Drops microphone*

Gingerbread Dreams: The Rise and Fall of an American Home

They came from hardworking people.
After many years of saving, they bought what would be their future home- their legacy- from Target, with a 20% off coupon.

It was a $6.99 dream realized.

Until they opened the box and found that all but two of the effing pieces of their house were broken.

True, they could have collected the pieces and returned them to Target, shoving them across the customer service desk and demanding a refund.  But when one is in her early thirties, she feels slightly pathetic demanding a refund on a house constructed from baked goods.

Oddly enough, that same thirty year old has no qualms about writing a epic account of building a gingerbread house and publishing it for all the world to see.

Ironic.  Moving on.

But they were fighters.  With their good-natured optimism, they pushed on, saying, "Nothing that a little frosting can't fix!" so they began the construction, rebuilding their future one gingerbreaded wall at a time, using only the broken pieces of their dreams, the literally broken building materials,  and the fortitude inherited from their ancestors.

Slowly, the home took on the shape of their dreams.

.

And then that mf'er fell.  

When the last strip of sugared mortar gave way, and the walls hit the table with a not-quite deafening thud, they shook their fists at the heavens, asking WHYYYYYY?!  Hadn't they clipped their coupons?  Hadn't they rolled out the fondant with the precision of skilled builders?

Those were dark times.  The junior partner lost hope and began hitting the mortar to numb the pain.

  

He was in a dark place, but he soon regained perspective when the team leader told him in no uncertain terms Freaking stop that or you're not going to help.

And because they were fighters, and because it was Sunday afternoon and they didn't have crap else to do, they picked up the shattered pieces of their life and began to rebuild.

And, faster than Ty Pennington could Move That Bus, the home once again rose before them.

They were a little older now, and a little wiser.  A little more jaded.  And so they made due with what they had.  They adjusted their expectations to the cruel reality of the world.
They found new meaning in the once-discarded wisdom of their ancestors; in particular, Grandma's favorite saying: "If life gives you a shattered gingerbread wall, turn it into a doggy door."

And soon, they found themselves not in the gutter, but once again looking up at the stars through their unexpected skylight.

And when the middle of the roof gave way, as cracked-in-half roofs are wont to do, they did not cry, but instead declared it the world's first convertible house and ate the roof to celebrate!

When they'd finished- their hearts full, mouths sugar-coated, and every possession soaking wet from the previous night's rain- they called on the city building inspector to make it official.

From the moment he arrived, they knew he would do everything he could to stand between them and their dream.

"What's that hole for?" he asked
"It's a doggy door", they replied.

"You don't even have a dog," he answered.
"You're a snowman made out of gingerbread.  Like that makes any damn sense", they retorted.

He walked the perimeter of the house, grumbling about structural integrity.  And that's when they left, and that's the last they saw of him.  Seriously.

But when they returned the next morning, their jaws dropped in horror to find his lifeless snowman (gingerbread? Snowbread?) body smothered beneath a perfectly rolled oval of fondant.

The very fondant they'd planned to use to decorate their front door, per the directions, before they thought, Why the hell would I take the time to cut that fondant out in the shape of a door?
And that's all anyone knows about that.  

The end.