Throwback Thursday: Let those bitches eat cake

Remember back in 1782, when The French were all like “We are French! Let’s fight a lot” but it came out all “Nous sommes Français! Luttons beaucoup!”?

And Rousseau was like "Oh my gosh, guys. Let me tell you what this B said. We were like 'The peasants don't have any bread, Marie!' and she was like 'Well let those whiney bitches eat cake then! Being rich rules!'"? Except he lied about that part and she probably didn’t say that at all?

And everyone was like "Meh. We’re in the middle of a revolution anyway. Let’s eventually try her for treason and then we should totally cut this lady's head off."

And then they totally cut her head off? 

What? You guys don't have cake? I didn't even say that!

And 300 years later we were STILL so mad at Marie Antoinette that we were like "the only suitable punishment for her is to have Kirsten Dunst play her in a wildly inaccurate movie." ? 

Sophia Coppola: Fuck you, history.

Here’s the thing. I’m not really ever sure I’m doing Throwback Thursday right. Is this right? I’m just going to keep doing it this way.

#throwbackthursday?

Things we should learn from the Salem Witch Trials

Man. Remember in 1693 when all those ladies were acting suspiciously so we just said, "Hey. They're probably all witches. Why else would they want to wear shorts? We should probably just hang them." And then we hanged them? That was really the best way to tackle that suspicious lady problem. Is this the right way to do Throwback Thursday? Maybe it’s not. Regardless, here are some of the things we should have taken away from the Salem Witch Trials.

1) If a lady tells you to do something, especially if that lady is wearing a bonnet, you’d better fucking do it because she’s probably a witch.

“All I said was to put the MOTHERFUCKING SEAT DOWN when he finished so I don’t fall in during the middle of the night.  And somehow I’M the witch?"

 2) If you are a lady and you want to boss people around, do not wear a bonnet because you will be mistaken for a witch and will, with almost 100 percent certainty, be hanged, set on fire or pressed to death by gigantic rocks. And here’s the thing. Bonnets are a terrible fashion misstep, but they shouldn’t be punishable by death. Sandal boots are a different story.

Witch

Witch

Docent or witch? I have no idea so we’ll have to set you on fire. Witch.

3) Most suspicious ladies are probably witches. Which explains my former landlord who had like seventeen parakeets (because seriously. Parakeets are worse than watching every episode of Charles in Charge in one sitting), my former co-worker who would read her bible at lunch and then spend the rest of the day criticizing my nail polish, and Charlize Theron.

NOBODY is that beautiful and nice and funny and smart.  Expect a visit from Magistrate Hathorne, Theron. You’d better get that absolutely adorable accent going.

4) Do not act suspiciously in front of a man with a wig.

“Oh, hey, Emily Proctor. No, I won’t crush you under giant rocks. Wait.”

“You’d better work, bitch. Wait.”

“What’s that? No. My name is Donatien François. Well yeah some people call me that, but… Hm? Yeah I guess you can call me Marquis… What’s that? de Sade? Yeah that’s me. Wait…”

Men in wigs do not take  suspicious-acting ladies lightly. Because men in wigs will either set you on fire, make you work on the runway and make love to a camera, or will force you into their sex dungeon, which is probably not as cool as 50 Shades of Grey makes it sound. Also, shame on you for reading 50 Shades of Grey. You’re probably a witch. Also, shame on me for reading 50 Shades of Grey. I’m definitely a witch.

As evidenced by my tell-tale Squeaky-Witch-Bra test

 5) If you are a lady, and you do not like another lady, just tell everyone that she’s a witch. I know that people sort of already do that, but the consequences now are like “yeah. She totally IS a witch.” And before they were like “Really? Maybe we should just set her on fire?”  That kind of reaction could really come in handy. Here are some practical uses for starting your own witch trial:

• When a checker at the grocery store tells you they can take you in their aisle, but a suspicious lady cuts in front of you
• When you’re at Barnes and Nobles and you’re looking at the last Huey Lewis and the News CD but a suspicious lady takes it before you get it
• When you fall down in the middle of a tennis court because you tried to jump over the net but you missed and everyone is laughing and you see that one of the people laughing is a suspicious lady
• When you’re standing at your favorite bar trying to get a drink but the bartender is sort of ignoring you because he’s talking to Charlize Theron instead and you realize that Charlize Theron seems like a suspicious lady

Now you're on MY turf, Theron! Get your beautiful face out of here! Also, I may have a girl crush on Charlize Theron.

• When you decide that enough is enough and Nickelback should finally be stopped and you put cobras in all of their sock drawers and they die and you get arrested but you notice that one of the people outside the jail is a suspicious lady

See? Witch trials can’t backfire at all! You’re welcome. We should probably all go out and hug some suspicious ladies today. And make sure you tell them that if this was 1693, they would have been hanged for witchcraft. Don't worry. They'll probably take it as a compliment. 

Reasons I should probably never be allowed to have children

You know how as soon as you’re married and turn 28, people start saying things like “why do you have all of these bobble heads in the living room” and “how many times have you set the kitchen on fire” and “is that a pink Magic 8-ball Jesus?” and “you’re married! why don’t you have kids!?”

“Outlook not good, Jennie. Also, my dad said you need to get it together.”

Then you turn 30 and people start saying things like “did I see you car dancing to Paula Abdul earlier?” and “where did you even find legwarmers after 1985?” and “that homeless guy is trying to holler at you” and “oh, you’re getting a divorce? Well at least y’all didn't have any kids! There’s still time!”

Let me know if you want me to show you how to fashion.

Then you turn 32 and people are like “womp womp. Have fun with that Uruk-Hai sword you bought. Looks like you’re never having kids.”

Well first of all, I WILL have fun with that Uruk-Hai sword I bought and don’t say that so condescendingly, unless you've played with an Uruk-Hai sword and thought “this is lame” which would have NEVER happened because playing with an Uruk-Hai sword is NEVER lame you fucking liar.

Exhibit A: Uruk-Hais know how to party.

Second, a psychic/potentially magical/slightly aggressive Buddhist monk told me I WOULD have kids and that they would be twins so 1) watch out for that train wreck and 2) shut your mouth. Third, maybe it’s better for my imaginary children named Blaze and Moxie that I haven’t had them yet because so far, I’m not shaping up to be great parent material. Also, I’ve already had three sets of baby names blatantly stolen from me because a) I share awesome ideas with people for FREE all of the time b) I don’t have kids yet and c) my friends are reckless, heartless, thieving a-holes. You know who you are. So if anyone else that knows me has babies and names them Blaze or Moxie, I am actually going to stab you. Here are some of the reasons it’s ok that I don’t have children yet.

1) I am super awkward around children.

When you meet a kid for the first time what do you do? I’m seriously asking a question. Because when I meet a baby for the first time, I’m like “Hello. I am Jennie. Here is my business card should you need anything from me in the future. Later on if you would like some assistance with your college essays, I’ll give you some notes. Alright. Nice meeting you.” And then I take a drink of tequila from my Big Gulp and walk away. Babies are often not a fan of this straightforward direct approach. I think they would prefer that I talk to them like idiots, but I have too much respect for you, babies. I suggest you set your standards a little higher. Contrarily, I have friends who are introduced to babies and are then immediately adopted as surrogate mothers. My sister, who once abandoned my brother and I to die during a potential home invasion/attack-monster situation and should therefore be a marginal kid-person at best, is incredible with kids.  They just wander up to her in the street like she’s some sort of pied-piper who attracts tiny humans that can’t properly feed themselves yet. Sort of like really drunk dwarves, but much less funny and astronomically more codependent. 

This looks exactly like the majority of children attracted to my sister and the majority of men attracted to me. 

On the other hand, on more than one occasion, babies have given me a look that silently says oh Christ here we go again and then they immediately try to log roll away, because babies are so stupid they can’t even walk. And I’m like shut up, baby! Who are you to judge me?! At least I can drive a car and count, you idiot! The only exceptions to this are my niece and nephew. Because once, I watched my nephew eat an entire piece of pizza before he had any teeth, and I was like “that is a kid who gets it,” and when my niece was three weeks old, she wrapped her tiny precious hands into my sister’s hair, pulled my sister’s face down to her sweet little baby face and sneezed into my sister’s mouth three times. And I was like “I couldn’t love her any more if she were my own.”

2) I often forget that threatening adults is acceptable, but threatening children is not as acceptable.

Like the time I told this bitchy little kid that she needed to stop beating the shit out of her classmates or someone would drop a house on her. Because if you’re going to insult a child, it’s best to threaten bodily injury in the context of The Wizard of Oz, therefore ruining both their faith in adults AND an awesome childhood movie. Or the time a kid I was watching kept playing with the knobs on the oven like a little asshole and I said, knock it off or I will straight stick you in that oven. Or the time I led an elementary school field trip when I was in high school and a kid kept sticking his fingers in the chinchilla cages and, even though I had asked him nicely several times to please don’t do that, seriously, he did it one time too many and I told him without a trace of hilarity that I swear to God if you do that one more time I am going to throw you in with that eight foot python. In my defense, all of these kids were real jerks. Oh. I’m terrible? And I shouldn’t threaten to throw a small child into a snake cage and watch him be strangled and swallowed whole and then digested half alive? Well first of all, calm down. The snake had already eaten.  And second of all, you’re a liar if you’re telling me you’ve never met ONE kid you wouldn’t throw to a ravenous snake.

Game. Set. Match, bitches.

3) Sometimes, I think kids are assholes and there’s probably something fundamentally wrong with that.

In my defense, sometimes kids are assholes. I'm sorry?You don’t think so?

• One time, my friend’s child approached her on the couch, snuggled up in her lap, threw a fucking rock in her drink, laughed and ran away. If an adult did that, you’d be like, “don’t worry about that Janice because that guy’s an asshole.”
• I once watched a child ask for juice, and then after she got said juice, she unscrewed the top of her sippy cup and poured the fucking juice out all over the floor while staring at her mother in the eyes the whole time. First, fuck you, that’s creepy. And second, if I visited you, asked you for apple juice and then after you gave it to me, purposefully poured it all over the floor while staring at you, you would be like “Jennie. You are a drunk asshole. Go home.”
• Another one of my friend’s children wanted to sleep in their dog’s kennel, and when his mother told him no, because his mother does not want to go to jail, the child went over and tried to beat the shit out of their dog. Like a motherfucking serial murderer. Because that child was also an asshole.

OK. Forget this one. I was right and it’s perfectly ok to sometimes think that kids are assholes. Damien was a kid. Those freaky ass twins from The Shining were kids. Linda Blair was a kid in The Exorcist. And Macaulay Caulkin was a kid in The Good Son. And it’s pretty safe to say that all of these things are scientific evidence that kids can be real assholes. 

4) I was confident that purchasing an Uruk-Hai sword would be a good investment.

Formula costs money. So do diapers, cribs, baby clothes, bottles and eventually college. Well I’ve got news for you, kiddo. My Uruk-Hai sword costs money too. And I haven’t even paid off my OWN college loans, you selfish a-hole. Also, I can’t use a child to chop a water jug or pineapple in half.

See?

In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of what Toni Morrison was trying to say with Beloved. (Toni Morrison, if you’re reading this, I’m so, so sorry for that.) All I’m saying is that if something goes wrong, I can sharpen or throw away my Uruk-Hai sword, but I cannot sharpen or throw away a baby.

5) I’m probably not a wonderful influence.

Have you ever been simultaneously babysitting and watching a realistically gory episode of Criminal Minds and thought “maybe I should put something else on”? Oh you have? Because I haven’t. Ditto for Paranormal Witness, Law and Order SVU and Freddy Vs. Jason. Ever been watching a two-year-old and they want half of your Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino and instead of saying “no, pumpkin, here’s your juice,” you say “don’t tell your mom” and hand it over?  No? Here’s a list of other reasons I’m probably not a proper full-time influence for children broken down by category:

Health

• One time, I ate whipped cream for dinner
• Sometimes, I lie about how many times I’ve eaten whipped cream for dinner
• For like a month, I was dizzy, had headaches, and also had seventeen other signs of high blood pressure and I was like I’m going to ignore this away until a doctor was like I cannot give you any kind of diet pills with your blood pressure this high, Jesus Christ go to the hospital you're about to die
• I did not know until my late 20s that gyms were open before 10 am

Finances

• On more than one occasion, I have looked at my bank account, known that I had $500 and spent $300 on makeup
• I considered $68 for an Uruk-Hai sword a good investment
• Several times, I have had to choose between dinner for the rest of the week and manicures, and I choose manicures 100 percent of the time
• One time, someone stole my purse and then sort of gave it back because he felt sorry for me

Relationships

• I have dated a man who moved to another state without telling me mid-relationship
• I have dated a man for a year and a half who broke up with me via text
• I have dated a man whose idea of romance was asking me to go to a hotel on our first date
• I have dated a man whose idea of proper wedding attire was Jordans and blue jeans, and this man was not LL Cool J

Common Sense

• I have a Master’s degree in literature
• Once, while holding a glass of tea in my hand, I turned my wrist to check the time, and spilled the tea all over me, the floor and the dog; it took me a minute to realize what happened
• I one time swallowed the tine of a plastic fork at dinner and didn’t realize it until the meal was over
• I broke an “unbreakable” pyrex dish to prove a point

So look. I’m not saying that I don’t want Blaze or Moxie. I’m just saying that it’s ok that I haven’t had them yet, because maybe the authorities would have to get involved once I started threatening to put them in the oven or letting them have Starbucks while watching Paranormal Witness. Either that, or they would turn out just like me, and while I think that’s pretty badass, the rest of my family and friends would be like “we’re moving to Canada because fuck it, enough is enough.”

And that hurts, guys.

(A couple of you guys asked, so here's the blog's Facebook link, if you're into that sort of thing: https://www.facebook.com/DiaryOfAFailedAnorexic)

The day a total stranger threw a bat at my face

Remember how, a couple of years ago it froze in Houston and we all lost our minds because driving on ice is only something you can do if you’re an Eskimo (who, I’m sorry, I’m not completely sure actually exist) or a magician and we were all like “I’m not going to work. I can only drive in the middle of hurricanes and flash floods. ”?

That day, which I thought was going to be totally awesome because 1) no one was going to work and 2) my friends Kellie and Sam and I were going to Hobby Lobby to get stuff to make t-shirts that had pictures of possums on them, ended with a stranger throwing a bat at my face. I know what you’re thinking. “Tell me more about these possum shirts.”

They were going to have possums on them. Who were wearing sunglasses (in my mind. I hadn’t discussed this with Kellie. I’m sure she would have been on board.) And these possums would be giving a thumbs up. And underneath that, it was going to say “Awesome Possum”. And also, Sam was not interested in a t-shirt, I believe (but I think deep down he wanted one. I mean, who wouldn’t want that, right?). And we risked our lives on roads that could have at some point in time been icy in order to make these shirts. The end.

Just kidding. That would have been the worst blog ever.  

So Kellie and I went to Hobby Lobby in the middle of the Great Ice Attack of 2011, where:

Sam dressed up like a spaceman.

and

I found a teacup for Queen Latifah. Or I am actually just a short round pixie. You decide.

While we were out, my mom called in a tiny panic. You know my mom. But just for some background:

• She can’t be trusted at the movies.
• She once sprayed my finches with Lysol because she thought they were dirty.
• She once febreezed my dog and when I caught her red handed she denied it.
• She made my brother and sister and I leave a turtle to fend for itself in the wild after we “rescued” it from a ditch and relegated it to our backyard (where it could eat all the flies it wanted! as it turns out, I didn’t really understand how turtle diets worked). She found it swimming around in our pool, insisted that it was “just swimming around peeing all over the place in there” (which was dramatic), and she made us take it back to the ditch we had “rescued” it from, even though we had already named him Denver and he was obviously going to be found by Karankawa Indians and eaten (as it turns out, I also did not understand how genocide worked).

What I’m trying to get across to you is that, while my mom is an outstanding mother and the best and most important influence in my life when we’re not at the movies together, she’s not great with animals. Which would be ok, but she called me while I was at Hobby Lobby in a panic because there was a bat under my dad’s truck. And I was like 89 percent sure that if I didn’t get home quickly, I would find her outside spraying it with Lysol while wearing a catcher’s mask and holding a lacrosse catchy basket. I know what you’re thinking. That sounds like the Great Outdoors with John Candy. And also possibly that there is no such thing as a “lacrosse catchy basket”. Well who died and left you in charge of naming athletic equipment?

"Ok. I'll get the lacrosse catchy basket. You get the tennis bouncy paddle."

 So when I got home my mom was just sort of refusing to go outside. In case the bat had magical powers AND rabies. It was daylight, so he was obviously about to burn up in flames and smoke at any second, because bats are sort of like Freemasons. To be fair, I still may not have a handle on that. So I put him in a shoe box because it was very cold (I mean, not stay-home-from-work cold, but too-cold-for-a-bat-to-be-hanging-out-under-my-dad’s-truck cold) and brought the box inside, and my mother immediately screamed and told me to put him back outside, where I told her he would instantly freeze to death. While she is not great with animals, she is also not a serial murderer, so she made me duct tape the lid shut and I had to stick the box in an empty room in the corner of the house under stuff so that if the bat suddenly woke up with telepathic powers, it would have a couple different shields of defense to go through before it Jedi-mind-tricked us into letting it fly out all willy nilly through the house, just hanging around and turning us into Freemasons.

Am I doing this right?

Then I called a wildlife refuge nearby. Then they didn’t pick up (because, come ON. It was cold). Then I left a message and went to lunch with Kellie and Sam. Then I realized that I had left the bat at home with my mom and I started to get nervous. Then I rushed home.

When I came back, I had this conversation with my mom:

Mom: I think it’s dead. We can just throw the box away.

Me: Why do you think it’s dead.

Mom: I poked the box. I didn’t hear it moving.

Me: They’re nocturnal. He’s asleep.

Mom: I shook it around a lot. I mean a lot. And he just sort of rattled around in there.

Me: …I have to get that bat to a wildlife refuge before you kill it…

Mom: Jennifer, just throw it away.

Me: It’s not a Milli Vanilli tape, Mom!

Mom: Jennifer! It’s dead!

I suspected she had attempted to spray Lysol through some of the breathing holes I had poked into the top. (breathing holes + one stick + three leaves = completely livable terrarium for any animal).

So I called the wildlife refuge again, and as I was leaving a message that said “my mom is trying to throw this bat away,” a lady picked up and frantically gave me her address, because you cannot just throw away a tiny living animal because you feel like it may try to eat your soul in the night.

So my brother Jarrett and I took the box and got into my car, where we both commented on how the bat was awfully quiet and wondered if it was dead from some sort of terrible shaking episode at the hands of a mom who will remain nameless, Barbara White.

Until the sun went down.

Motherfucking milliseconds after the sun dipped over the horizon, that bat was like Yawn. Stretch. Feed on the blood of the innocent. Imagine sitting in a dark room and hearing a faint scratching on your door. And imagine that after two seconds of faint scratching, it was obvious that the Swamp Witch Goblin from Legend was on the other side and was like: “Oh hey, assholes! Guess who’s awake?! This motherfucker right here; and I KNOW you were shaking the box!”

…I will literally suck your eyeballs out of your face…

So Jarrett is holding this box in his lap and his face is saying “Nope. We should have thrown this bastard away,” and I’m thinking “Thank God Jarrett is holding the box because that bat is going to motherfucking claw right through it in a second and eat my brother alive. Maybe we should have thrown that bastard away.” Because every single vanishing ray of light transformed this tiny furry monster into a more and more intense ball of murder and rage. By the time we got to the refuge, he was attempting to burst out of the box lid like one of Alien's babies out of the chest of some vaguely Asian man. 

You may think that's mirth on our faces. But it's not. It's unmitigated fear. 

Luckily, the bat refuge was only ten minutes away.  I’m sorry. Did I say “bat refuge”? I meant “some lady’s house.” I will preface everything I am about to say with this: this woman and her husband were absolutely motherfucking awesome. There is no one else on the planet who loves bats more than her. Even Batman. There is no one on the planet who knows as much about bats as her. Even Batman. If there were any form of bat-related emergency, there is no one else on the planet I would call. With maybe the exception of Batman, if the bat-related emergency was that my mom shook all  of their shoe boxes and they were looking for vengeance. She loves bats so much, she was wearing socks with bats on them. And a shirt with bats on it. And she had a room specifically for bats. And I will remind you that this was a day work was cancelled, so it wasn’t like this was a uniform.

When I knocked on the door, her husband, who was this amazing, laid-back, long haired, older guy, said “Whelp. I’ll go cut up some fruit.” and promptly left. Are you serious?! No one has ever cut up fruit based upon my arrival before!

Jarrett and I climbed some very tiny stairs that were installed to lead the way up to a Batroom. I mean. I wasn’t expressly told that’s what it was called, but come on. That’s what it was called.

And I turned to go, but she shut the door. And put on gloves. And opened. The fucking. Box. Which is really the same thing as throwing a possibly rabid bat at my face. 

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I have my rabies shot.”

But we motherfucking didn’t. And the bat tore out of that box like it had been held prisoner by someone who was relentlessly shaking it with a focused intent to kill it all god damn day. And it flew right at my head. Then it flew right at my brother’s head. Then it screeched across the room right for my jugular. Then I ducked and screamed. Then it screeched across the room for his eyeballs. And he sidestepped and ducked. Then it went whirring and chirping and screeching across the room like a tiny harbinger-tornado of death hell bent on killing all of us. And when I looked at my brother, his eyes said “we’re going to die right now.” And my eyes said back, "Fuck yes we are." Then the bat lady said something I will never forget.

“Aw! He’s in good shape! Don’t worry!”

As if the reason for our concern was the bat’s safety, and not that it was trying to claw off our faces with its tiny rage talons.

The bat lady then brought out a giant red blanket, and like a motherfucking matador, in three seconds, whirred the cloth around, wrapped the bat up like a lovable fucking bat-in-a-blanket, gingerly removed him and placed him in his own extremely large cage that had actual plants and fruit and other things that were very terrarium like. Which was definitely better for him, considering that several hours before, I had sort of awkwardly forced him into a Charlotte Russe shoe box by picking him up with a box lid, duct taped it shut and stuck it under a bra and some books in an unreasonably cold room.

“Ya got palm trees?”

“Yes,” I said.

“He prolly just fell outta his tarpor when it was windy. They like those palm trees.”

Except because this all happened two years ago, I forgot what it was called when a bat curled up. So I wanted to look it up. So I Googled “what is it called …” and Google finished that for me, but not by completing it to say “when a bat curls up.” Google decided to complete that for me by adding “when you eat yourself.” What the fuck, Google. Also, you get me, Google.

This seems fine.

Anyway.

So the lady asks me where I live, specifically. And I specifically tell her. And she tells me, “I’ll let him go close to your house, and he’ll find his way and fly right back to your palm trees.”

And what I meant to say was “No! My mom hates bats! She’s afraid of them!” But what I accidentally said was “ok.”

So after we met all the bats in the Batroom and the Batlady told us she was going to return this creature of death to our home, Jarrett and I left. And when we went home, I told my mom that the Batlady said she could let him go close to us so he could find his house in our palm trees. And my mom said “OHMYGOD YOU TOLD HER NO, RIGHT?!”

And I said “Of course.” 

Because that’s what you get when you act up at the movies.

And Kellie and I didn’t even make our possum shirts. The end.



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(And I figured out how to put the Pin it and Reddit thingies at the bottom of the post, if you're into THAT sort of thing. Either way, I would like a drink. Wait.)

How I almost bought two live cobras yesterday

Did you know that it is alarmingly easy to do ten minutes of research online and be able to very effortlessly convince someone that you have a reasonable amount of knowledge on just about any subject? Like when you tell a client that you’re “an expert on skincare for this product line”, or when you tell the IRS that “tequila is a legitimate deduction for a writer”. Or when you convinced a snake seller that you’re a snake expert and almost bought two Egyptian banded cobras yesterday. What?

Let me back up.

You’ll need this for reference later.

A couple days ago I started a Facebook page for this blog. Many people, most notably my mother who “doesn’t read [my] blogs” and “can’t ever remember the name of [my] blogs” and who says “anorexia isn’t funny, Jen”, had trouble finding the articles through my personal Facebook links, which is what’s going to happen when you post unnecessary, ludicrously stupid things about seagulls and baby straitjackets and margaritas every day. There’s just too much complete nonsense to sift through. So a friend-who-is-more-like-a-sister to me in that she used to emotionally abuse me by making me play Ursula and King Triton and sometimes Flotsam and Jetsam when her and my sister were playing Little Mermaid in our pool suggested that I start a separate Facebook page for my blog.

I didn’t even get to play one of Ariel’s insignificant sisters. Just the gigantic, rage-filled octopus monster and a handful of men.

So I started the page. You can find it here.

And if you don’t like it, I will know about it. You mark my words. 

Which brings me to my next point. Do you see how quickly that turned ugly and threatening? So when I posted the link to the new Facebook page, I sort of threatened to put live cobras in the beds of people who didn’t like it. And by “sort of”, I mean that I “definitely did.”

And by the way. Some of you are in trouble.

And that started a thought-chain-reaction, which are never good, because I assume that the movie Soul Plane started with a thought-chain-reaction.

Snoop. Planes. Rap? GO!

I wondered if one could even purchase live cobras. Because obviously that would be incredibly dangerous and irresponsible and you should need a permit or something to own a venomous animal. I mean seriously. I lose my car keys when they’re in my purse. They’re completely immobile. One time, I lost my house key for fifteen minutes in my bra. It’s not exactly like it could go anywhere. My cousins had a ball python that escaped one time while it was at my house and it didn’t even have motherfucking hands. 

Clearly any venomous animal in my care would immediately escape and there would be a rash of cobra-related deaths in the Houston area. Thank God you can’t just email a person and agree to pick up a live, venomous, extremely deadly animal on a whim. Except you can. And after ten minutes of shoddy Wikipedia research and a Google search to find out what the word “gravid” meant (spoiler alert: it means “horrifyingly pregnant and about to deliver the spawn of Satan” when you’re talking about snakes. If you’re talking about anything else, it just means pregnant), I was confident that I knew enough about snakes to ask a dude to purchase two of his. That’s what she said?

I feel like you won’t really understand the gravity of this situation unless you know some cobra facts, which I am now qualified to give you because not only did I find them on Wikipedia, but I also convinced a snake seller that I was a snake expert. 

Here are some of the more important ones:

• If you look at a map of their distribution, they are found all the fuck over northern Africa
• They enter people’s homes like they were fucking invited when they were obviously not
• They eat small mammals (like midgets and babies, I’m assuming)
• They can be nine fucking feet long
• Here’s a direct quote from Wikipedia: “The venom affects the nervous system, stopping the nerve signals from being transmitted to the muscles and at later stages stopping those transmitted to the heart and lungs as well, causing death due to complete respiratory failure in just 10 minutes.” I’m sorry? What the fuck?
• In March of 2011, one escaped from the Bronx Zoo.

Let me repeat that for you. A team of professional people, whose entire job consists of keeping dangerous fucking animals inside of their cages, was apparently ill equipped to keep contained a giant, deadly, mammal hungry, angry, neurotoxin-venom-filled animal with no fucking legs. They have no fucking legs.

Keep those facts in mind when you read the following, which is an email exchange between me and a person who was willing to sell two live, exorbitantly venomous snakes to a person who once fell down two flights of stairs for no reason in particular.

From me:

Hello,

I saw your listing for two live Egyptian banded cobras and I’m interested in purchasing them. I see that you have one male and one female. Is the female gravid? Not sure if I’m ready for 20 little snake mouths to feed…

Thanks,

Jennie

From Frank the Snake Seller (whose name has been changed because I’m sure he would be inundated with thousands of emails from the ten people who read my blog and also want two large, aggressive, fangy death machines in their house to call their own.):

The female is gravid. Have you had banded cobras? Beautiful animals.

Frank

Me:

They most certainly are. When should the clutch be ready? I wouldn’t want to handle her too much. And I would also have to start thinking about knitting onesies for all of the babies. Just kidding. Snake babies don’t really have a way to keep onesies on. What is your asking price? I could possibly come get them this afternoon.

Jennie

Frank:

I’m asking $700 OBO, I have a couple offers in (obviously he does NOT have a couple offers in). I live at (I’m taking his address out so that PETA doesn’t somehow get involved. They always seem to get involved. Nothing personal, PETA. You seem really nice when you’re not throwing fake blood on people.) Do you need an incubator? I have one for sale. When were you interested in coming by?

Frank

And here is where I realized that Frank was completely fine with selling me what essentially amounted to biological weapons that had no off button (and no motherfucking legs). And I wanted to make sure that Frank was more thorough with his snake vesting process in the future. And as proof of that, here is a screen shot of a text I sent Josh. Who I trust to give me good advice (which is my own fault) and is, generally speaking, extremely supportive, especially of bad decisions.

I might have been offended if it wasn’t true.

Me:

I don’t need an incubator. I have two wicker laundry baskets with lids. Are you also selling the charmer? Does he sort of find his own house and just come over when the snakes need charming, or do I have to have a tent set up of some sort? And will he provide his own flute?

Jennie

And then nothing.

Me:

I was kidding, Frank.

Frank:

Ok. When can you come by?

So Frank still hasn’t learned his lesson.

Me:

How about 4:30? I have to pick up the magic rug from the cleaners. I know the charmer won’t need a tent. But seriously. Will the laundry baskets work?

And that was the last time I heard from Frank.

If you take anything away from this post, I would like for it to be these three things:

1. You can purchase live cobras online
2. I am able to convince someone that I have enough reasonable knowledge about deadly snakes that they feel confident in selling me two of them
3. I will know if you have not liked my blog’s Facebook page.

Sleep sweet, guys!

Because I know where you live!