Being with my parents this week in Florida has seriously taken me off of my Starvation Diet which I had been following since I read about it in the book, How To Survive In New York City On $1 A Day by Brokey McTrash. Out of six nights here, four dinners have been at all-you-can-eat places.
In the past years I’ve visited, my Dad would buy a lot of fruit for me for breakfast and my Mom would always make a green salad and fruit salad to eat for lunch. I have been so overstuffed that, for the most part, I have only been eating dinner while here. My Mom has even started in combining Jewish guilt with the “a fat child is a healthy child” philosophy, saying, “I made you a fruit salad. You’ve got to eat something. Just eat a little of the fruit salad I made.”
If I were more of a conspiracy nut than I already am, I would suspect my parents were fattening me up for the soon to be declared by former Constitutional lawyer (“He’ll protect our civil liberties!”) and present traitor to our country who renewed the unconstitutional (un)Patriot Act, Kenyan Barack Hussein Obama’s Eat A Terrorist Day.
So we went to my favorite place with the ultimate salad bar, Sweet Tomato, for a second time within four days. On the line while filling up my two plates high and wide with a variety of greens and vegetables, my Dad asked me if I wanted a bottle of water, knowing that I don’t drink tap water but because of his Swiss cheese mind never remembering why (because it contains the toxic, I.Q. lowering, cancer-causing chemical fluoride and other poisons like chlorine.) I said no.
When we were approaching the cash register, my Dad again asked me if I wanted to grab a bottle of water. I again said no.
As we sat down to eat, I hadn’t even started to really dig into my first plate of food when my Dad asked me, yet again, if I wanted to get a bottle of water.
“Clean out your fuckin’ ears, old man. I said NO!” I didn’t exactly say this but instead checked the box on the application to submit a parent to “The Home” that I carry with me at all times which asked, “Does he or she often repeat him or herself, such as asking the same question over and over again?” I figured it was either The Home or smother him with a pillow in his sleep that, despite sounding like a good time, might result in a strained muscle and I wouldn’t want to be anything less than 100% when I go to off my Mom.
“Dad, I know you’re just being nurturing but when you ask me three times if I want water, it comes across as if you’re not honoring my response.”
A lot of us, especially in the New Age, think we have some universal duty to help everyone, ignoring the fact that most of the people we insist on helping are like the old lady crossing the street who says, “Get the fuck off my arm, sonny!” We’re about as annoying as Christian missionaries who ignore our, “Totally not interested” response to their opening of, “I’d like to share with you how Jesus Christ changed my life” and just keep barreling ahead with their Jesus hard sell. I usually tell those clowns, “Look, I personally rather burn in Hell for eternity than to listen to another second of your bullshit and if the express line to Hell involves me punching you in the fuckin’ mouth, I’m in.”
The best way you can “help” someone is by helping yourself to become more authentic and not be a do-gooder who thinks he’s scoring brownie points on the Universal, uh, brownie point tally. But if you do decide to open your fuckin’ mouth with the personally stated goal of helping another, the first thing you should do is LISTEN. Often that will be all the help the other person wants from you anyway. And if you don’t listen, you are actually insulting the other person, maintaining the false belief that your view of how things should go down is more important than the other person’s right to self-determination. Even angels won’t interfere unless we ask them to, knowing full well that our lives are none of their fuckin’ concern unless we ask it to be. “Be an angel, will you, and fuck off unless I ask for your help!”
Now even when I see someone doing something totally bozac with their dog, I usually say, “I do dog training. Would you mind me sharing something that I think might be useful in this situation?” If the person says, “Not interested,” I shut the fuck up like the Christian missionaries should but don’t. In the old days I might have said, “Good luck correcting that behavior in the idiotic way you are doing it, you stupid moron,” but I’m no longer a prick. Well, that’s not entirely true. Let’s just say, I’m a prick that doesn’t say that anymore.
Yes, it’s nice that you want to help another person to have a more comfortable life. But after you drag the sadhu peacefully sitting with his begging bowl under a tree in a loincloth to the local tailor and then put him up in a fancy hotel, maybe you should not only ask him if that is what he’d like—but also listen to his answer. Otherwise you’ll be just like our government, a nanny that we wish would just die so we could take responsibility for ourselves as grown up citizens.
Of course some people will refuse help from another just because they never learned how to receive without feeling weak. If you think this may be at play, I think it’s fine to add something like, “Look, it’s really not a problem for me to help you across the street—in fact, It would actually be an honor to have a beautiful woman like you, Granny Deathbed, on my arm.” If she again firmly says, “No,” it’s time to fuck off, perhaps with parting pleasantries like, “You’re probably going to die before you reach the other side of the road, you crabby old bitch!”
A flat-chested girl found a genie lamp and wished for bigger boobs. The genie said, “What size do you want your knockers?”
The ironing board girl never thought about this. “I don’t know. Just bigger.”
The genie said, “I’ll tell you what…I’ll make it so that every time you say the word ‘No’ your boobs will grow a little bigger. When they get to the size you like them, just stop saying, ‘No.’” The nippled rib-caged girl agreed.
The girl had gone to a restaurant with her parents and when her father asked if she wanted a bottle of water with dinner she said, “No.” All of a sudden her little seed-sized breasts started to sprout. At the register, her father again asked if she’d like for him to buy her a bottle of water. She again said, “No.” Now her little sprouty boobs grew into nice-sized planty tits and the girl was very pleased. “This is the perfect size!” she thought to herself.
At school the next day, her popularity among the boys grew ten-fold. Boys were talking with her, flirting with her and several popular boys had even asked her to the upcoming dance that weekend.
It was then that Felix Nerdopolis, her science partner who sported always sported a pocket protector to protect his shirts from the unlikely chance of a leaking pen, said to her, “Hey Nips, what do you say we go to the dance together on Saturday?”
The girl said, “No,” and her boobs grew a little bigger.
“Come on,” said Felix the geek. “I’d like to rub up against you with my erection, as opposed to rubbing against the cat scratch post at home.”
“I said no,” said the girl and her breasts grew some more.
“How about at least letting me touch those enlarged mammary glands of yours?” he asked.
“NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!” shouted the girl. And Felix the geek never knew what hit him.