At least the vomiting gives me something to look forward to

Aw, shucks.

It's sweet of some of you guys to encourage me to post again. I even loosely consider it sweet when others of you call me unflattering names and harp at me to get off my "lazy ass" and write something to entertain you. As for those of you who haven't contacted me at all in my blog posting absence, well, I think you're the sweetest of all, because I could ask for no better gift than to, at least temporarily, forget you pricks exist.

And I wish I had an abundance of time to lounge around in my jammies in front of my computer, industriously scheming up ways to amuse you with the written word, but there are so many hours a day, and almost all of them are occupied right now. A breakdown of my average day:

7:30 AM - Noon: Complain about how uncomfortable I am.
Noon - 3 PM: Stare at my misshappen form in the mirror and sob uncontrollably.
3 PM - 6 PM: Scheme ways to go into preterm labor.
6 PM - 9:30 PM: Draw up elaborate charts and graphs detailing the various types of alcohol I will consume after the baby is born.
9:30 PM - 11:30 PM: Curse God.
11:30 PM - 7:30 AM: Go to bed and catnap in between hourly trips to the bathroom, during which time I continue to curse God.

As you can see, that's a tight schedule, and leaves little room for horseplay. I wish I could help you, but until I eject this parasite from my poor, beleaguered body, I just don't see how I can find the time. And, truth be told, once the child is born, I expect my first few weeks to be consumed with a combination of compulsive vomiting and self-starvation until I can approach something close to my pre-baby weight. After that, if history is any guide, there will be the traditional string of investigations by Child Protective Services brought on by neighbors' and family members' complaints...man, I'm getting tired just thinking about it. It's true what they say: Motherhood is a lot of work. But obviously it does have its rewards--and by that I mean that it's so much easier to shoplift liquor if you have a stroller to stash it in. So things will all work out.

Now scram, and let me get back to my busy day. It's 1:30 PM, and I've taken time out of sobbing uncontrollably while staring at myself in the mirror so that I could write this blog post. I hope you're happy--this is going to push my whole schedule back.

Believe the hype: Hell is every bit as hot as your mother said it would be

I'm irritable.

This must come as a shock to you, because I imagine you think of me as a sunny Mary Poppins-type, always smiling and extending goodwill to all. Helping old ladies across the street, baking cookies for the neighborhood children--that whole deal. I hate to put a dent your perfect vision of me, and possibly be responsible for crushing some of your faith in the general goodness in the world--but I'm crabby today, and no one could blame me. Not only am I lumbering around with this cartoonishly large, pregnant belly, but doesn't help that it's been a face-melting 81 goddamn degrees in my house during the hottest part of the day for the past couple of weeks. It's like I'm living in the Wild West-era, when women just had to sit around and fan their sweaty, stinking faces all day long to keep from dying prematurely. Luckily for me, we're getting new insulation installed soon (bringing our paltry 3 inches of insulation up to the standard 14 inches), so I can die from fiberglass inhalation rather than dehydration, as God intended.

But in the meantime, I'm bloody hot. I need your help. Normally I'd hesitate to turn to you for help in any matter except cleaning monkey cages at the zoo or possibly stamping hands at a roller rink-- except for the fact that you're the only group I can think of that's clearly unemployed, with nothing better to do than sit on your asses reading blogs all day--and since everyone else in the world is gainfully employed and contributing to society in some way, that leaves me little choice but to call on you.

The following is a list of the positions I need filled at my 81-degree Circle of Hell in short order:

Fan Wielders:I need no less than 10 of you to stand around and fan me with some of those long-handled fans you see the servants fanning Cleopatra with in the movies. These 10 fan-wielders should, ideally, be the best-looking among you, if such a group exists. Or I suppose I could settle for the least offensive-looking among you, if I must.

Toilet Scrubbers: 2 or 3 people to clean my house, since it's far too hot for me to engage in such menial tasks. You'll need to bring your own supplies, to include your own toothbrushes to clean the toilets.

Mustard Spreader: 1 person on standby to whip me up a club sandwich when the need arises, and gently press a damp cloth to my delicate forehead while I nibble daintily on your perfectly-toasted creation. Let it be noted that the Mustard Spreaders must never, ever fraternize with the Toilet Scrubbers, lest bacteria carelessly be passed to the above mentioned club sandwich.

Tub Filler: 1 person on call to be ready at any moment to draw me a nice cool bubble bath, and possibly massage my feet while I snooze among the bubbles. Bring a good-sized selection of your own nail polishes (in tasteful colors) to paint my toenails while I nap in the suds.

Toddler Chaser: No fewer than 7 of you to entertain/muffle/restrain/subdue my 2-year-old son, freeing me up for a maximum amount of napping and TV-watching time. These 7 people should be the biggest, burliest among you--ideally ex-marines or former NFL players. They should also posses great mental fortitude, enabling them to stand firm against unreasonable, constant demands to watch Mickey Mouse on TV all day long.

That completes the list, so feel free to go ahead and submit your qualifications for the position you feel best suited for. I'd say no applicants with criminal records are allowed, but I understand I'm dealing with a limited talent pool here, and I can't be choosy--so I will only ask that you refrain from committing criminal acts while in my employ...or, at the very least, that the criminal acts you commit not involve firearms or kidnapped neighborhood children. And, of course, I use the word "employ" in only the sketchiest sense, since there's no actual pay involved in these job positions...unless you count the immeasurable satisfaction a person can get from doing good deeds. And the bonus satisfaction you'll get from losing 7 to 10 pounds per day by sweating like a prizefighter in training in my barely-air-conditioned home.

You've got exactly two months to make me stinking rich

Crap.

Never in a million years did I dream that the cheap tactic I employed in my previous post would work. I claimed that I wasn't going to blog again until Common Shithead did, and I'll be honest with you--I thought that would free up my calendar into the next millennium. No way did I think that lazy oaf would drag himself away from his well-worn stack of kiddie porn and actually crap out a blog post. But he did, and so now it's incumbent upon me to do the same. Once again, that sack of fecal matter has screwed me over. Truth is, I didn't want to write anything. I'm in the final stages of that massive curse that is pregnancy, and all I feel like doing these days is laying uncomfortably on the couch shaking my fist at the sky and cursing God's name. Now I have to unclench my fist and write a blog post.

And to be honest, there's not much to talk about except pregnancy itself--which would bore the pants off of you. And the very last thing I want to imagine is any of you pants-less. You look bad enough with pants; I can only assume that without pants you look like an aging walrus with a bad skin condition. So I will avoid going into the specifics of pregnancy except to say this: Those squealing, airheaded wanna-be supermommies who gush enthusiastically about how beautiful and amazing pregnancy is, and repeatedly insist, "Oh, I loved being pregnant!" are lying whores who should be choked to death with a fistful of gigantic maternity panties. Pregnancy is like sex with Dyckerson: Even at its very best it's a fucking horror show, and the best you can hope for is that it passes by as quickly as possible so you can take a scalding hot shower and try to get back to your normal life, and try to drink enough to forget about the misery you've just endured.

Speaking of getting back to normal life, that's what's been on my mind lately. What will my life be like with not one but two children of Satan to chase after? Not wanting to put my kids in daycare causes a real dilemma--namely, it means I'll have to raise them, which doesn't exactly sound like a party for me, and can't be much good for them, either. However, if I were filthy rich instead of just filthy, I could hire a team of Nicaraguan nannies to raise them while I sunbathe by the pool and snort coke off the poolboy's ripped abs. The question is: How do I get rich in a matter of months?

The more unimaginative among you will suggest things like selling drugs or turning tricks--don't bother. I've tried those, and they're not as lucrative as movies and TV would lead you to believe. What I need are good, original suggestions that could actually work. Otherwise I'll have to fall back on Plan G, which involves beating up little old ladies and stealing their jewelry to pawn--which is fairly easy, sometimes fruitful work, but begs the question of where to leave the kids while I'm doing the beating. Even on "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" you can't bring the kiddies along when you know you might have to slice off a few ring fingers with a switchblade.

So put on your thinking caps--and for Christ's sake, your pants--and come up with some suggestions for how I could very quickly get shamefully rich so that I can hire some immigrants to love my children while I drink my liver into a hard, cold stone.