Unfortunately for my husband Adam, he’s going to be named the DB of the day more than anyone else. I personally don’t feel it’s even a dig on him, it’s just when you cohabitate with another human being, all their douchebaggery is right there for you to see, all the time. I’m sure he would label me the douchebag of the day at times, he just doesn’t have a blog about it so nobody will know. I win.

Adam travels a lot for work which is mostly annoying, but it does have its perks. He works on golf, so he’s gone a lot of weekends. It sucks for obvious reasons, but it’s good because on Sunday nights if I want to indulge in some guilty Keeping up with the Kardashian pleasure I don’t have to hear him telling me that my IQ is dropping 5 points with every word that comes out of Kylie Jenner’s over-inflated clown lips. Sure, I agree that if Kim Kardashian takes one more selfie she should be locked in a basement with no food, water, or botox, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious to see just how big her ass can look in a pencil skirt. It’s not so much must see TV, as it is must see booTY.

One particular trip, Adam was in Hawaii for a tournament at one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world. It was a Saturday and my daughter Lily and I had just come in from taking Elsa for a walk in the stroller. She “needed some air.” I needed some wine. Lily went the bathroom to pee, and came out asking me to help her pull up her pants and underwear. In her defense, she was wearing these leggings that were definitely too tight. I’ve been meaning to clean out her closet for oh, I’d say 3 years. She’s 3. Just as I was about to pull them up, I heard my phone “ding.” Adam had texted me a photo which I quickly opened. The best way to describe the photo would be, the most quintessential postcard you would find of Hawaii. Clear sky, crystal blue ocean, and perfectly placed palm trees. Basically heaven on earth. He also texted that it was “current view.” It was beautiful, I was jealous. But I had to get back to the task at hand, pulling up Lily’s pants. I looked down, and much to my dismay, I saw a large, somewhat textured brown mark in her underwear. Now before you jump to conclusions, she hadn’t pooped in her pants. She pooped earlier in the potty, it was the wiping part that was clearly a fail. Lily was late to start pooping on the potty, but once she did, she demanded privacy which I completely understand and respect. She likes to do everything herself, which is fine except the fact that she puts less effort into wiping her butt than Larry King did trying to make all 8 of his marriages work. So as I’m staring down at the poo marked panties, I thought back to Adam’s “current view” he had just sent me. Yup, I sure did. I reached for my phone, snapped a few pics, decided which angle was the most disturbing, and sent it off with the same caption, “current view.”

About 10 minutes later I heard back from Adam. The text just said, “I got you a nice gift.” He does always bring me back stuff from places he goes. He really stepped it up this time and brought me back a really nice bracelet. Sure that provided some redemption, but working at a golf course in Hawaii while I wipe ass in Orlando, I still deemed him the douchebag of the day.

Well, now nobody can unsee what a douchebag you are.
Dani Mathers…douchebag of the day.

That’s it for today.

Today’s Douchebag is a functional inanimate object that has become dysfunctional. And it really pisses me off. I have a relatively expensive washing machine that is less than a year old. Only a few short months after we purchased it, something seemed to go awry. Suddenly, in the middle of a wash cycle, the whole machine would start to shake very aggressively and make this insanely loud noise. The first time it happened I was so freaked out, I thought the machine was going to explode. It looked and sounded like Al Roker (pre gastric bypass surgery) was in my washing machine being tossed around as if he was a fitted sheet. Clearly rotund Al Roker was not in my washing machine, and a few towels, t-shirts, and underwear should not cause so much drama.  Side note, big props to Al for losing all that weight, but is it me or did a lot of his jolly persona melt away with his cellulite? Skinny Al seems much more snarky. Like now when he says it’s going to rain for 3 days straight it’s really depressing.  Big Al somehow made rain fun. Maybe he’s just really hungry.

Anyway, I ended up calling a repair man and after doing a full exam of the machine, he told me there was nothing wrong with it. He suggested that if I’m washing towels, jeans, or anything on the ‘heavy’ side, each load should consist of even numbers, like 4 towels, but not 5. 2 pairs of jeans, not 3. He said the uneven numbers can throw off the balance of the machine.  HUH????  When I was growing up my mother had a washing machine that had been through 5 presidential terms, and I’m pretty sure the only thing she was counting were the amount of days until me and my pain in the ass sister went off to sleep away camp. (I love my sister dearly but she was a real nightmare during her ‘grunge’ phase.  And somehow she smelled like wet dog. And we didn’t have a dog).

As if the noise wasn’t enough, one day I started to notice that the ‘clean’ clothes coming out of the washing machine didn’t smell fresh and clean, they smelled stale and musty.  It was like a mix of old people and boys locker room. Specifically pubescent boys. It was gross.  This time I called a different repair man because I was suspect of the whole even number theory the other guy gave me. It’s always good to get a second opinion, whether it’s herpes or household appliances. The second repair man came, still couldn’t give me an answer for the volcanic tendencies of my washer, and as far as the smell, that was also a disappointment. I won’t bore you with his reasoning, but the best he could do was, it’s Florida, there’s lots of moisture, something about putting a light bulb in the machine to heat it up and kill germs (what??) and run a cycle with Clorox.  I said I would try the Clorox but he warned me that it might not completely take away the smell. Great, now I’m going to have to walk around smelling like a cross between Betty White and Justin Bieber. FML. I had no idea what that meant either, but one of my younger, hipper friends said it stands for ‘Fuck My Life’.  Acronyms generally irk me, but this one has its place. For the record, while I don’t want to necessarily smell like Betty White, I do love her and Golden Girls is everything. Bea Arthur was my spirit animal.

Anyway, washing machine, your foul play and foul smell make you the douchebag of the day.

I’m going to have to do things a little different today. Yes, I’m still going to present a rant filled with plenty of inner rage and expletives, but I’m going to have to rename the title, douchebag of the day. Why? It’s my daughter. So just for today’s purposes, let’s call her, the “silly goose of the day.” God, it sounds so ridiculous coming from me. I’d be the world’s worst kindergarten teacher.

I know potty training is a different experience for everyone. For Lily, once she finally decided she was ready, going “pee pee” went relatively smoothly. Pooping however was a different story. She just wouldn’t do it. I tried the sticker rewards, M&M rewards, hell, I was ready to offer up a Barbie dream house at one point. Nothing was working. My sister told me to stay home one whole day and not to put a pull-up on her, she’ll be forced to eventually go. So I did, and here’s what happened. We were playing on the back patio, I went inside to get something, and when I came back there was a pile of poop sitting there right next to the play doh ice cream maker. Sadly we don’t have any brown play doh or a dog so I immediately knew what it was. It’s a touchy subject, so I calmly asked, Lily, why did you go poop on the ground? Her answer was simple, she said, I didn’t have a pull-up on. My sister asked, didn’t she feel weird that she just pooped on the floor? My friend asked if she cares that all her girlfriends wear cute princess underwear and she doesn’t. You know that expression, zero fucks given? That’s my daughter. I love her confidence, but it’s work. My mother-n-law always said to me, don’t worry, nobody walks down the aisle in a diaper. Although, growing up a neighbor of mine got remarried at 87, and she gave birth to 6 kids, my guess is there was some sort of absorbent undergarment involved.

One day, out of the blue, Lily decided it was time, she pooped in the potty and the rest is history. A few days later she was on the potty, and when she poops she likes to either read a book, or sometimes she’ll bring one of her princesses with her. Anyway, she did her business and I heard her flush. A minute or so later I came over to see how she was doing only to find that the toilet water was cascading out of the bowl, flooding my floor. My husband was out town which was fine because with stuff like that he’s as useless as a tree branch. I futzed around a bit and finally got the water to stop. The damage was done though, with all the toilet water on the floor, if for some reason Lily were to regress and poop on the floor it would’ve been oddly appropriate.

I tried plunging with no success. Shit gets real when you gotta start plunging a clogged toilet. Literally. My friend gave me the name of a plumbing service, the earliest they could come was the next day. So that was fun. The guy finally came and got right to work. 10 minutes went by and there was an inordinate amount of noise coming from the bathroom. I was concerned, but then he came out and said he had fixed it, but his guess was that there was a foreign item down there, and judging from the surroundings he guessed it was a toy. I told him his hunch was probably correct. If Rapuzel thought being locked in that tower was bad, that bitch was in for quite a wake up call. I love my kid more than anything in the world, but you put toys down the toilet, you’re gonna be the “silly goose of the day.” Don’t worry, next time we’re back to douchebags.

Today’s douchebag is David Letterman’s beard. It basically looks like a giant rat took residence on his face, aged 20 years, then died. I saw a one on one interview with him not too long ago, and he said, for all the years he did his talk show he had to shave everyday. So as soon as he retired he vowed he wasn’t going to shave anymore. I’m not sure he also vowed to look like an underfed Sasquatch, but this is how he chose to move forward. 

For the record, I’m a huge Lederman fan. I love his sense of humor, I loved his show, and I think he has more talent in his smallest toe than Jay Leno does in his giant chin. But his post-show rodent face leaves me extremely perplexed. And my response to his ‘hardship’ of having to shave every day is this. Try being a woman. 

First, let’s compare surface area. A guy shaving his face is basically equivalent to a woman shaving 2 knees. OK fine, maybe 2 knees and an armpit. Think about all the surface area that leaves. And it’s something that just has to get done. Do you remember that song John Mayer had a long time ago called, “Your body is a wonderland?” Notice the name of the song wasn’t, “Your body is an overgrown jungle.” Not that I particularly care what John Mayer thinks, although it is interesting that he’s dated Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, just to name a few. He hasn’t had too many big hits lately, there’s got to be something else big that we don’t know about.

So back to Letterman and his sob story. Forget about shaving, let’s talk about waxing. So Dave is complaining about taking a state of the art razor to his face vs. hot wax being placed on an extremely sensitive area of the body, then being ripped off aggressively along with all the hair once innocently attached deep below the epidermis. I spent many years in advertising working on the Gillette account so I happen to know they put even more research and development into making those razors than the Kardashians put into making their faces. So we’re comparing a very comfortable, user friendly razor to what could be considered some sort of torture. Sorry Dave, I have about as much sympathy for you as I did for my daughter who “really wanted” an 11th gummy bear after she already had 10. None.

I’m not even going to start in with the laser hair removal option, but let’s just say it’s really expensive so one might have to choose between a hairless vagina or a new stove. I mean, a girl’s gotta eat. So like I said, since I am a Letterman fan, Dave, I will refrain from making you the douchebag of the day. But since that beard makes you look like a creepy Santa Claus who slides down people’s chimneys for the wrong reasons, the beard IS in fact the DB of the day.

About 2 weeks ago we took our daughter Lily to Disney. Living in Orlando we go often and since, as you may have gathered, Lily is all about the princesses right now, we made fast pass reservations to meet a few of them. For those of you who haven’t been to Disney, fast pass means you go at a certain time and just wait on a short/medium line as opposed to a line that takes so long kids can go through puberty waiting their turn. Especially in the 110 degree summer heat, I’d sooner eat a poison apple than wait in a 75 minute line to meet Snow White.

So we arrive at one of the princess stations to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella. If I had to work as one of the princesses I’d avoid Rapunzel. That big ass braid weighed more than the waif princess schlepping it around. I’d probably be Ariel, I always wanted to see what I’d look like as a ginge, and how often can you get away with wearing a fin? So first we met Rapunzel, she was pretty, sweet, and engaged with Lily as you would expect a fake princess would. We snapped a few pics and were on our way. Next up was Cinderella. Also pretty, but this was different. I get that to some extent all these girls have to drink the Disney Kool-Aid, but this bitch chugged an entire keg. All the girls play the part, but I swear, this chick took it to another level. First she starting talking to Lily about the whole coach turning into a pumpkin at midnight bit. Lily basically looked at her like, WTF are you talking about? Here’s the deal, I let Lily play with all the princess dolls, but she hasn’t watched the “classic” movies. I dislike the whole damsel in distress thing as much as I dislike the word panties. And the whole “prince charming” thing is a crock of shit. The closest person I can think of is maybe Prince William over in the UK, and frankly he’s got some serious male pattern baldness happening. In a few years he’ll be less Prince Charming, and more my Grandpa Irving. Side note, my grandpa was the funniest guy ever and personally I’d take hilarity over hair any day. In Disney’s defense, their more modern princesses line up more with my beliefs. They’re not waiting around for some tool in tight pants and a puffy shirt to ride up on a horse. They have brains, an independent spirit, and chutzpah (Yiddish for a set of balls)

Anyway, this chick playing Cinderella finished with Lily, just when I thought we could snap a quick pic and get out of there, she looked at me and said in her creepy, over the top princess voice, ‘And what will YOU be wearing to the ball?” (she was also a close talker which makes me mental) I really wanted to say, Listen “Cindy,” I’m really only here for my daughter, and I have a yearly pass to the parks so being a good Jew I want to get my money’s worth. But instead, I simply said, “McQueen.” It was the truth because if I were to go to a ball, like say maybe the Met Ball in NYC one day, I’d want to wear an Alexander McQueen dress. Cinderella had no clue what I meant which was fine, because she stopped talking and smiled for the 137th princess picture I’ll never order and we were on our way. And with that, sorry Cinderella, you are the DB of the day.