ginnithomas Did you miss me last week? Sucker. I did not only not miss you; I forgot about you entirely. “Oh dear!” I said to my mama on Thursday night. “I forgot all about my FourStory readers!” But Friday was Christmas Eve, anyway, so I figure all y’all just assumed I had the holiday off.

I make my own holidays, friends, whensoever I want them!

 Now I am tucked up in a Holiday Inn Express in Casa Grande, AZ, heading home from more than a week frolicking at Chigger Lake, and I can hear a train going by. I promised you a year-end list of things that made me very angry this year, and I will do my very best. But, I swan, at this point? I ain’t remember much.

 Oh, shut up and read.

 1. That I can no longer eat shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico without freaking the hell out.

2. That time Sen. Ben Nelson pissed on the public option.

3. Or was it Galactic Hell Queen Olympia Snowe?

4. I suspect it was probably both of ’em, right?

5. That my boyfriend, the president, keeps starting his negotiations in the middle.

6. Because of how he is fair like that.

7. But he still sort of hasn’t gotten that the Loyal Opposition … isn’t.

 8. Maybe he will now?

9. I am an optimist.

10. No, really, I am!

11. Also, I am surprisingly nice.

12. Which isn’t something that made me mad this year.

13. So strike it, please.

14. People who drive in the fast lane on a two-lane highway when they are not passing.

15. While talking on the phone.

16. With a cowboy really right on their bumper.

17. And they will not get over, no, Cowboy, not for nothing.

18. Because, their window decal explains, they are a princess half the time and a bitch all of it.

19. Really, you must be so proud.

20. What is wrong with people? No, really, I am asking.

21. I found the last three weeks of the semester to be positively offensive in the amount of work due. Teachers! So teachy! With their assignments and such!

22. The filibuster. I propose that only Bernie Sanders be permitted to use it.

23. You know who’s an asshole? Mitch McConnell.

24. You know who else is an asshole? Tom Coburn. He is my mother’s senator, haha!

25. And her other one is even worse! By which I mean stupider. Which is maybe not worse. I don’t know. Ask Scalia.

26. Did you follow that? I meant that Scalia is smart and evil. Which is much worse than, say, Clarence Thomas.

27. But not worse than Clarence Thomas’s wife! Oh ho ho, Ginni Thomas! Thank you for providing us with such a treat!

28. When you called Anita Hill to ask for an apology, I mean. Since I’m not sure just how with-it my readers are. Maybe they are not up on the news? I don’t know!

29. Maybe they could comment and tell me!

30. But that was funny, that one time, anyway. I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! CLARENCE THOMAS’S WIFE CALLED THE WOMAN HE TOTALLY SEXUALLY HARASSED DECADES AGO, AND ASKED HER TO APOLOGIZE.

31. Fuckin’ awesome.

32. Let’s see, which other senators am I mad at lately? I guess mostly Ben Nelson still.

33. That guy is just a cock.

34. I apologize to any of my mother’s friends who are reading this and don’t themselves use the term “cock.”

35. But they should. It’s very evocative!

36. I wish I had a nicer mouth. I think it is hard to get jobs when people google you and just see the word “cock” everywhere.

37. I am 37!

38. Sometimes I get called “ma’am” at school.

39. That no matter what I said in my seminar on race relations, everyone else thought it was racist.

40. Even though it was only racist sometimes.

41. Like for instance when I said that Cubans don’t eat fruits or vegetables; it simply isn’t part of their diet. And this woman mutters, “Well THAT’S a sweeping statement!” And she frowned! And looked disgusted!

42. CUBANS DON’T EAT FRUITS OR VEGETABLES! GO TO CUBA AND ASK THEM! THAT’S WHAT I DID!

43. Oh, ha, you know what got my son mad? When he heard “Jesus is the reason for the season.” That got him all het up!

44. He is probably still mad about it!

45. Isn’t that cute that he’d never heard it before?

46. Because of how I’m a terrible mother?

47. You know he was like 12 before he knew how Jesus died?

48. Sorry about that.

49. “Christmas With a Capital C.”

50. Go ahead. I dare you.

51. Nobody on earth has asked you not to wish others a happy Christmas.

52. I wish that band wasn’t a LIAR!

53. And then, outside Lovington, New Mexico, there was a country song about a guy who wants to put you in his car, and then put you in his song.

54. I think he wanted to put you in his TRUNK!

55. Now that I have looked it up on the Internets, it seems to have been Keith Urban.

56. AND I STAND BY WHAT I SAID.

57. Creep!

58. Here is a question: What kind of boy would keep the iPod buds in his ears, listening to all the good music, and make his mama listen to the Lovington, New Mexico, radio station?

59. Which apparently plays only the finest in creepy murder tunes by Keith Urban?

60. A very bad boy, that’s what kind!

61. And Lovington had really terrible petroleum fumes! For like two hours! It made my eyes burn! And it made me think about oil, and the Gulf, and it gave me a sad!

62. Says the girl who is just finishing up a 3,000-mile drive.

63. I hate when I do that!

64. You know what song is horrible? This one! Gross!

65. I can’t think of anything else I am mad about right now.

66. But when I think of some more, I will get back to you.

67. Because of how you’re my faithful readers.

68. Except for when I completely forget that you exist!

69. Love,

70. Beccalou

READ REBECCA SCHOENKOPF—AND A WHOLE LOT MORE—AT FOURSTORY.ORG