Episode 21: Drug Lord (Part 2)

High school is weird.

I was always alot more apathetic about everything in high school. I was also the same kind of person, just in a Catholic school uniform and an air of unbounding narcissism. But I was alot more awkward.

Alot.

More.

Awkward.

Only one boy had asked me to a dance my entire life. This was my best high school (98% gay) friend. I was sick of it by my senior year and figured I should go with a real boy and maybe be a real teenager. I had unrealistic expectations about my life. I mean, I had only ever kissed one boy before (I accidentally bit his face.) It was weird and I decided that this was a feat best left for some other time.

But, I digress (Big fucking surprise, right?). One day ( I was seventeen and a senior) I stood by my obnoxious blue locker in my powder blue slut skirt, talking to Christine about something stupid, I’m sure.She had a look on her face that I would see about fifteen billion more times in the next week.

“What is that face for?” I asked.

Christine smiled and looked down to the junior class hallway. I shut my locker and looked down at my feet, all covered in knee highs and post-pubescent misery. When I looked up, I saw the two Jakes of the junior class. One Jake (the loud one) was pushing the other Jake (the quiet one) down the hall.

“Oh my god Christine.” I could feel my face flushing.

Loud Jake pushed Quiet Jake in front of me like he was Jesus and I was Pontious fucking Pilate.

I couldn’t even wash my hands of that shit.

“Jake has something he wants to ask you.” Loud Jake proclaimed in reference to Quiet Jake. (Who we will just refer to as Jake now because Loud Jake really plays no other roles.)

Jake looked around the room and I looked at the cheap ass high school floors. I knew what was coming.

“Wanna go to semi with me?” He mumbled as Loud Jake and Christine nodded at each other in approval.

Jake and I looked at each other uncomfortably and then I started to laugh uncontrollably.

“Uh, yeah, that’d be cool.“

He smirked.

He fucking smirked.

What the fuck does that mean? I thought anxiously to myself.

Little did I know it was a smirk I would eventually grow to be quite fond of and fucking despise at  the same goddamn time.

It was the EXACT same reaction I had to my accusation of Drug Lordship three years later. (See how I tied that in there and introduced a future character at the same time? Eh? Eh?) A general mix of anticipation, awkwardness, and anxiety filled my general being as I walked to the lab. Except this time, the outcome wouldn’t be going to a dance and hearing “Living on a Prayer” five thousand times. I could wind up in jail.

I couldn’t help but imagine what my mother would say about my lordship. And magically, as if she knew my entire schedule or something, my phone rang. It was my mother’s work phone. I picked up and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to fuck with the woman who birthed me.

Until I picked up the phone.
And she was sobbing.
This wasn’t high school.

“Marissa, please.” She choked back a sob. “If you’re covering for someone, please tell me. I don’t want you to get killed. I didn’t even know you were involved with this stuff.”

“Mom!” I yelled into the phone in the middle of the hallway. “I’m having a hard time tolerating diet coke. How in god’s name do you think I would get into drug dealing?”

She sniffled. “So you’re not dealing drugs?”

“Mom, please stop crying. I don’t know any of the people who they were talking about.”

“Oh thank god. Your father already called the county police department to try and clear your name.”

Blah blah blah.

Cut to like four hours later.

I’m sitting in my room, panicking slightly (actually alot. And crying…alot.) and listening to Christine try and assure me how fucking stupid our home county’s police department was.

“SOMEONES OUT TO GET ME CHRISTINE.” I yelled, choking on my own

snot.

It was through my screams that I heard the dulcet tones of the Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang. I picked up the phone before the second “sex, baby”.

“Hello?” I answered frantically.

“Hi Marissa. This is Detective Roberts. We spoke earlier.”

“Yes?!” I yelled into the phone and made Christine jump on her bed.

“So, we had a little bit of a mix up.” He said hesitantly.

“Oh my god, I know. Sir, I can’t even inhale smoke from a bag of steamed vegetab-”

“We accidentally spelled the real drug dealers name wrong. Its Mar-y-ssa. Can you believe that?”

He chuckled.

He fucking chuckled.

I sat in silence.

“Just wanted to let you know though that you’re name is cleared and we apologize for the inconvenience. We promise to leave you alone now.”

“Uh, yeah, that’d be cool.”

I was in the high school of life and I still hadn’t learned to talk to boys.

We all look like assholes.

Episode 20: Drug Lord (Part 1)

I don’t believe in luck, religion, superstition, folklore, urban legends, fairy tales, God, Jesus, or Stephanie Meyer. I mostly believe that all of them are pathetic excuses that we,as humans, create to make ourselves feel better about our inescapable death and impending doom. I am one hundred percent made up of my belief that I, myself, am responsible for my own actions and what happens to me.

But sometimes I think I just have really shitty luck.

The rain drizzled lightly from the sky early in the morning as I trudged to work study. I was eager as ever to see Ethel, my dragon lady, she-devil boss. I stared calculatedly at the ground as I walked there, hoping to avoid any eye contact with an unwanted person (Neil.). It was still warm enough to be the end of summer, but cool enough to be the beginning of fall. The day was an oxymoron and the scales were not tipped in my favor.

“Hi goldy locks!” Ethel said, as she smiled her big, fake, gap-toothed smile at me.

“Hi Ethel.” I didn’t smile.

Ethel never wasted two seconds of time when she had work for me to do. She slammed down two files, packed with papers.

“I need you to file these chronologically. They aren’t in any order. You can do this, right?”

She loved making me feel like I was completely fucking mentally incapable.

“Anything for you Ethel.” This time I smiled. It was pained.

“Oh honey, you are just so beautiful, did you dye your hair? Its just gorgeous.” Ethel loved buttering me up when I played bitch.

“No, I just didn’t wash it.”

Ethel walked away. She was never much of a ‘people person’ for someone who worked in a Student affairs office.

For the next hour or so, I sat diligently arranging irrelevant paperwork from 1986 to 2011 (*Authors note: the current year, because this is WRITTEN IN THE PAST, ASSHOLES.)

It was tedious work that I was getting paid minimum wage for, but I had no car and no way to get a job, so I had to endure the bitch work.

Approximately when I got to 1999, a strange number called my phone. Clearly it was a telemarketer and I had much more important things to do, so I declined it and went back to my job as a mild mannered slave. It was mere seconds after I declined that a voice mail was left, so I decided to discreetly check it so that Ethel didn’t see as she was sipping on coffee and enjoying the feeling that thousands of students tuition’s were paying for her to sit on her ass.

“Hello Marissa, this is Detective Roberts from (Insert county that I will not put in) Police Department. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. This is extremely important.”

So, lets just talk about my anxiety.

I have it.

I suddenly yearned for the bottle of Klonopin sitting in my dorm room.

“Ethel,” I said quietly, my hands secretly shaking. “I think something happened and I need to call someone right now. Its an emergency.”

Ethel looked mildly concerned.

And by mildly concerned I mean she said: “Sure honey, that’s fine.”

I quickly redialed the number that had called me, hands shaking, feeling the vomit rise to the top of my throat.

A young sounding man answered the phone, “Detective Roberts.”

I started speaking with reckless abandon and little to no attention to punctuation.

“Hidetectiverobertsthisismarissayoucalledmeandiwasjustreturningthatcall?”

Usually people laugh at my awkward, anxiety fueled politeness on the phone.

He totally didn’t.

“Hi Marissa, I’m a detective in (Still not going to say) and we have reason to believe that you witness an armed robbery and drug deal in (just use your imagination) last weekend. I’m going to list off names, and I need you to tell me if you know any of them.”

The detective gave me no chance to speak. I was sweating through my shirt.

All of the names were Mexican.

“No, I don’t know any of them sir.”

The detective was silent for a second. “You are Marissa (insert last name which you all probably know anyway.), right?”

“Yes sir.”

“So, you’re saying that you were not at all involved in this crime?”

“To be honest with you,” and I was being completely honest here. “last weekend I spent in my dorm eating tootsie pops and watching “A Walk to Remember” with my best friend in my pajamas.”

He giggled. It was forced.

“I’m going to be investigating more into this case, its very serious and alot of people will be going to jail. I believe you if you’re saying that you weren’t involved, but I will be in contact with you. Have a nice day.”

And he hung up.

I hadn’t even done hard drugs.

And now I’m a motherfucking drug lord.

To be continued.

We all look like assholes.

Dear everyone that has, or will ever read this blog,

I would just like to inform you that all of these stories have happened about two years prior to the present time.

All names have been changed.

I ALSO DO NOT HAVE CANCER NOR WAS I RAPED.

I am a privileged, spoiled white girl.

I fucking overreact alot and that is portrayed in this blog.

Thank you and goodnight,
Marissa

Episode 19: Rape Me (Is a Nirvana song…pervert.)

The first boy I ever loved, really loved Nirvana. (The band, not the state of being or whatever you want to call it.) To be honest, I probably didn’t love him, I just assumed that he was my soul mate and that we would forever ride the eternal wave of bitterness and existentialism together for the rest of our pathetic, mortal existences.

He left me for some goth bitch.

It was a horrible, terrible high school to college unrequited love-fest. I’d write endless love letters to him on my secret blog, hoping one day he would come to me and tell me that life is meaningless and death is all we have to look forward to.

You know, fucking poetry.

I eventually got over the kid, and haven’t really thought about him (besides the times that Christine endlessly teases me over the whole thing) until now.

It was because of him, I think, that I told Neil I would go out with him that day. Apparently, from the drunken texts and pathetic attempts to start conversations, Neil felt the way I did about my high school love affair.

“So let me get this straight.” Christine started, sitting on her bed, watching me try to look decently good enough to be seen in public, but not too good that Neil would assume this was a date. “You’re going out with Neil because of a guy you gave a half-ass handy to in a parking lot?”

“All I’m saying is, I know how it feels.”

“You completely just ignored my last statement.” Christine said sardonically. “But I think its a good idea.”

I turned around, probably far too dramatically for the situation and not quite sure if the half-assed handy or the date was the ‘good idea’. “A good idea? What about this is a good idea?”

Christine looked at her cell phone and giggled, then returned to the conversation. “Well, he clearly cares about you, if he’s so persistent.”

“He’s an alcoholic.”

“But he loves you. Heart always beats liver.”

I rolled my eyes at her, but she didn’t see because she was far too enthralled in her texting conversation.

“I’m going to call Isaac. Use protection.” and she left the room, cackling wildly.

(Isaac was Christine’s newest man that she had met on omegle.)

I stared at myself long and hard in the mirror. It had been a really long fucking time since I had actually gone on a for real date with a guy.

I took a deep breath.

“If Christine can have a better romance online than I’ve ever had in the entirety of my lifetime, I can go on this date.”

***

“I’ll have a vanilla chai for here please.” I ordered politely at the hipster coffee shop Neil and I had gone to. We had an awkward conversation in the car where I repeatedly accused him of being a homosexual and having a needle dick.

My usual date conversations.

“I’ll just have a water please.” Neil ordered.

I glared at him.

“Who the fuck goes to a coffee shop and orders water?”

Neil laughed his motherfucking laugh. “I’m trying not to drink so much caffeine, and I’m also vegan, so I don’t have many options.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He laughed again, staring at me with twinkling eyes.

I was going to vomit.

I’m going to be real here and tell you that I don’t really remember how the rest of the conversation went. I remember laughing and having a better time than was expected, and thats about it. It was what ensued in his dark blue Subaru that really, um, stuck with me.

Neil cut right to the chase.

“So was this a date or not, Marissa?” He said my name in this way that I hated and loved at the same time. I hated it because it sounded demeaning, like he was talking to a small child ( I was kind of a child relative to him, but whatever) , but I loved it because he sounded like he actually enjoyed saying it.

“Nope.”

This is when it happened.

Neil pulled over to the side of the road. I figured this was the eventual end that I knew was coming. I always knew I’d die young. Luckily I had told Christine to text me throughout the night to check on me.

“Raaaaapee me…” Kurt Cobain’s voice crooned grungily through Neil’s speakers.

I jumped. “What the fuck is this music?!” My hands immediately searching for the car door handle.

“Its Nirvana, calm the fuck down.” He yelled as the drums kicked in.

I stayed glued to the side of the car with my hand slyly on the door handle.

“I love you.” He said, as smoothly as one could imagine, I guess.

“Um, I know.” (Little did you know that I don’t only give half-ass handys, but I also make half-ass Star Wars references.)

Neil laughed again.

“I want to be with you and I don’t want to wait any longer.”

“Um.”

Remember that time a nurse had her hand up my vagina?
I was starting to react like that.

“I really just want to be your friend, Neil.”

Neil nearly jumped on my words like a vulture on dead…stuff. I grabbed the door handle with even more gusto “I can’t be your friend. I will never be your friend.”

This is when my empathy stopped.

“Sucks for you then.”

Neil sat back in his seat, rigid as a board.

“I would be so good to you.”

This is when my empathy started back up again.

“I know.”

Neil leaned in with that expectant look in his eyes. That “this will be just like the notebook” kind of look.

Too bad I hadn’t laid eyes on that piece of cinematographic shit.

This is when my empathy stopped.

“I want to go home.”

***

I stepped back into my dorm room. Christine sat on her bed, talking to whom I assumed to be Isaac. She whispered into the receiver “She’s back she’s back!”

“You look like you’re going to cry.” Christine said, with as much sympathy in her voice as someone who didn’t really want to get out of bed but still kind of cared.

“He cornered me. He fucking cornered me with a rapist song on in the background.”

Christine relayed what I was saying to Isaac as I sat down in front of my laptop.I wasn’t quite sure what I expected this date thing to be, but it certainly turned out far worse than that.

Somehow, a shitty grunge band continued to mark the beginning and end of relationship bliss.

Who the fuck writes a song called “Rape Me”, anyway?

We all look like assholes.

Episode 18: Lab Ass

Did you ever just really want to grab someone’s ass? You’re just walking along one day in the grocery store, trying to get tampons, and some average looking man walks by and BAM, you get the sudden urge to  pinch his butt cheeks without even the slightest acknowledgement of his dignity?

Well, at least I do, like all the time.

I sat in my Experimental Psychology class next to Christine and Ruby (A friend who I’ve had since freshman year who smokes approximately fifteen packsof ciggies  a day but I love dearly.) We were eagerly note takingfor our third class of the semester  (good one). It was a class that I knew I would have to work at every single day, with no avail, simply not to fail miserably.  Statistics was not my thing, ever, in the history of forever. I was also constantly distracted by the smoking hot piece of ass that was our professor: Dr. Peking.

Dr. Peking was in his late forties; tall, dark, and handsome, with abs you could beat someone with and an ass that was incredibly distracting. He wore clothes from Aeropastle and knew he was the hottest shit to walk the planet. On a minor note, it was his last year teaching at my University because he had had sex with a student.

I was so envious.

Christine scoffed at my gaze, which was ever so averted from the board and slightly more focused Dr. Peking’s perfect as-

“Marissa, what’s the t-score here?”

“30.” I took a shot in the dark.

He obviously knew, because he narrowed his eyes at me (which consequently made me melt in my chair)

“Close enough.”

“Christine”, I whispered. “He totally wants to have sex with me.”

He didn’t.

***

After daydreaming for an hour and a half about 50 Shades of Experimental Psychology, I made my way to the building’s computer lab. I was far too lazy to walk up the gigantic hill of doom to my dorm room, and far too eager to see if I had gotten any messages from desperate internet boys.

There were about seven.

Subj: Beeutiful eyes

Subj: Hey I seen we only live five minutes apart

Subj: How about coffee?

Subj: Where r ur tits?

Subj: Wanna meet up?

Subj: Missy, what the fuck are you doing on here????!?!?
The last subject finally caught my attention; I opened it with a distinct feeling of dread. There were only about seven people in the world who called me Missy. There were only about three who would actually downgrade to using a dating website.

It was Ron.

“You’re brother is going to break skulls when he sees this. (Yes he has one too.)”

I guess the third person was me.

After my heart had stopped beating out of my chest,  I searched desperately for handsome hipster men and not the awkward ghetto guys asking WHERE MA TITS WAS AT. This was far more important than trying to create some kind of experiment for Peking’s class.

Maybe I could do an experiment on how long it would take me to find naked pictures of Peking on the intern-“

I had been rudely interrupted before I could even finish my explicitly sexual thought.

“There’s a virus on that computer ma’am. You might want to change to another one before you lose any important wor- anything important.”

Because apparently the continuation of the species with the added assistance of the world wide web was not important.

I turned to face the masked man (masked only by my laziness to turn around and listen to someone when they speak) hoping to the lord baby jesus that I wasn’t coming face to face with Gabe Mitchell again; the almighty king of my college’s silicon valley. (Keep up, people, they’re coming back.)

It was worse though, worse than anything I could have imagined.

Standing in his five foot five glory, wearing a blue polo, his regular black rimmed glasses, and holding a can of electronic appliance spray, was the bane of my existence.

Neil.

He looked at me in surprise silence.

I immediately resorted to my Fonzee thing.

“Heeeeey!” I crooned slowly.

He looked puzzled.

“Are you on a dating website?”

I turned back at my computer.  A bearded man in a beanie broodingly stared back at me. He really enjoyed photography and graphic novels.

“Its research.” I quickly flashed a smile, trying to remain somewhat cool in the heat of being caught next to the one person in the world who actually laid awake at night and thought about….

Me.

 

Neil sat down next to me. He smelt distinctly of patchouli and cleaning supplies.

“I didn’t say you could sit next to me.” I said, still smiling, as to not create a scene.

“I’m waiting for you to get off the computer, ma’am.”

“What did you want to talk to me about the other night?”

He stared down at his shirt, turning a slight shade of maroon.

“I can’t tell you now.”

I crinkled my face and raised an eyebrow at him. He giggled.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking smart because you’re one foot in the grave.” I whispered bitterly at him.

“I’m 29 Marissa. And I can’t talk to you about this right now because-“

He looked down at his polo to a pinned on name tag that read:

“Neil McConnel
Lab Ass.”

“-I’m an employee here now.”

“Lab ass?” I chuckled to myself.

“Its assistant, jackass.”

As much as I hated to admit it, Neil was the only one who would shovel my shit right back into its pile.

“Come out with me once, listen to what I have to say, and if you don’t like it, I’ll leave you alone forever.” Neil stared seriously at me, speaking under his breath as if we were dealing mad dope.

For the rest of my years I will never understand why I did this. I will never get why these fucking words came out of my mouth. They will literally haunt me till I’m fucking dead and buried.

“Fine, you can pick me up tomorrow at seven.”

Neil smiled.

“The computer doesn’t really have a virus, but I could definitely defragment that c-drive sometime soon.”

He winked.

This was one lab ass I had no desire to squeeze.

We all look like assholes.

Episode 17: Gun to Your Head

“Gun to your head though, who would you choose?”

Let me just start off by telling you, if someone asks you this question,

don’t. fucking. answer.

My mother, however,landed this atomic bomb on me like America laid that atomic bomb on…whatever country that was. I was throwing my heaping underwear collection into my suitcase, along with the other contents of my room, preparing to embark on my  junior year of college. “Who am I choosing between?” I asked jovially, knowing full well whom she was talking about.

“Tom and I? Gun to your head, who would you choose?”

My mother had been having a silent battle with Tom after he had decided to inform her he was enlisting in the army and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him (blah blah blah rebellious eighteen year old blah blah blah.) She somehow believed that, not talking to Tom and ignoring all of her problems, would eventually solve all of her problems.

This is probably where I get all of my problems from.

It had been immensely frustrating since, for some ungodly reason, Tom and my mother both decided to confide in me.

Me.

Me.

“Mother.” I shouted, making the matriarch jump back in astonishment. I waved a pair of underwear that read ‘Time to Party’ or something else demeaning and degrading like that at her.

“That is the most immature question I have ever heard in my entire life. I will literally torture, slaughter, and murder the next person who asks me that.”

***

“So then what did you say?” Maureen asked, staring at me from across the room. Maureen was my current therapist (Yes, I’ve had more than one. And no, fuck you and your stigmas.) She was new and vastly different from the younger (and sexy as fuck)  male one I had had last semester. She was perky and smiley and laughed at my awkward jokes (though I doubt she ever thought they were funny. No one actually ever thought my jokes were funny, that’s the funny part.)

Junior year, on the other hand, had started out nicely, despite my immediate self-admittance to therapy.

“Nothing.” I stated bluntly, unknowingly (but knowingly) giving Maureen the official therapist scare that I often gave my counselors. “My mother just stared at me and walk away. The usual.” “And how did that make you feel?” I glared at her.

“You really did just use the most vague and common open ended question of all time, didn’t you?” Maureen burst out laughing, a real, genuine laugh. I smiled at her, giggling quietly. “Sorry,” She laughed.

“No one warned me you were this difficult. OH GOD, I shouldn’t have said that either.”

“Nah, its a compliment.” I said, smiling.

“So, how was your summer?” Maureen asked, smiling at me. Obviously trying to regain control of the session. But she wasn’t a bitch about it or anything.  I looked back at her, recalling the long, hot, disgustingly humid summer. It was full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Except the rock and roll.

And the drugs sort of.

And, lets face it, the sex.

“It was boring.”

“Boring?”

“I fell in love with a boy in England for awhile.” I blurted out, surprisingly openly admitting the internet love affair I had for about a month. It was pathetic and lonely and painfully romantic.

I totally didn’t meet him on an internet chat.

No.

“You’re getting desperate aren’t you?” Maureen asked, much to my surprise.

“Basically.” I muttered, not overly shocked. “I’ve been a cat lady, despite severe cat allergies, for the past year and a half. I’m starting to think I’ll be alone forever.”

It was surprising that I was so open with Maureen so soon. There was something about her passively hostile demeanor that was covered by a smile that made me immensely comfortable.

“What about,” Maureen hesitated, looking at the floor, as if any word she said would set off an explosion in my mind. “What about internet dating?”

I glared.

“I mean,” Maureen continued hesitantly. “You could judge the people before you even talk to them. It would be good for you, because you’re kind of judgemental.”

I smiled.

“…and this way you could be judgmental without sounding like a complete bitch right off the back.”

“I like you.” I proclaimed.

***

That night, I sat at my shitty ass laptop, filling out a profile on a pathetic dating website and attempting to make myself sound vaguely less bitter and disturbing. I looked through about five pictures that I deemed suitable for attracting a mate. None seemed to work.

It was then that I realized it was inevitable that I would have to make decisions in my life. Even if it was picking out a picture that made my tits look bigger or my eyes look nice, it was a choice. Gun to my head, I realized then and there that, despite being a cat lady, or a godawful daughter or shitty sister, I would have to pick myself.

And the picture that made my tits look the biggest.

My facebook tab lit up as I was typing the line “If you’re a pervert, leave me alo-”

“I need to talk to you.” The chat box read. My eyes rolling.

It was Neil.

Fuck this shit.

We All Look Like Assholes.

Episode 16: Ass Thrashing for Dummies

Mostly because I am not one to beat around the bush and am generally excited about this metaphor, I’ll just throw it out there for you to keep in mind:

Religion is a lot like spanking.

***

I was having a miserable night. (As, you know, someone with my sunny disposition usually does.) Driving home from a terrible rehearsal for a terrible mish mash of a play for a company that I had just begun sort of running (against my own will), led me to think about all of the things I hate: my ass, my chest, unrequited love, sixty year old men, people who smell like alcohol, lavaliers, the fact that my mother cried every day since Tom decided to enlist in the army, and that I was singing so loudly and determinedly to Taylor Swift.

The night was cool and the air beat against my car as I drove through nowhere land to reach the ultimate destination: my bed. I would walk past the ultimate pity party that was my mother; with what I could only assume to be visions of Tom shaking hands with Al Quaida or something like that. She constantly informed me of how many times she recited the rosary to herself before she went to sleep; praying for my brothers and I, terrorism, and perhaps that one day the angel of the lord would rise up on his fiery steed and sweep all of us (myself, my brothers, and all of the terrorists in the world) to our dinky church down the road. I always imagined my mothers fantasy of us all fiercely beating our chests and throwing around snakes or something.

But mostly we were Catholic, so we’d all sit around thinking about sex while reciting mantras and drinking wine.

My house was dark, except for the dim light coming from our living room. Tom was sitting steadfastly on my father’s recliner…

reading a book.

Tom doesn’t read books.

“Hey Tom, is that porn or something?”

Tom snorted, picked up the book, and showed me.

“Catholicism for Dummies”

This book legitimately exists, and it had sat on my dad’s desk ever since he converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. It had been collecting dust for years while my father watched cheap pornography on Netflix.

“That’s not porn, Tom.”

He rolled his eyes at me. It was extremely confusing for me to see Tom roll his eyes at me. It was typically the other way around.

“I think getting back to church will be really good for me.”

(Just remember, I’m an atheist here.)

“Because you’re joining the army?”

“Well,” Tom sighed, an all too dramatic sigh.”Now that I’ve joined the army, I have a better chance of dying.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes.
This same talk was probably given to my mother as she choked back hysterical sobs and clung to her holy water. My parents were both genuinely mentally unstable, and a talk like this would send them to pieces; precisely my youngest brother’s aim.

“So,” I started. “You want to go back to church?”

“Well, I don’t know, it would be good for me to go back. It would probably be good for you to go back if you didn’t hate it so much.”

“Tom,” I was starting to get mildly frustrated. “I’m an atheist, I don’t hate the church, I find it to be the most insulting institute in the history of mankind.”

“Its not that bad.”

“Whatever Tom, I’m just saying, its only comforting to you because that’s what you’re used to. You’ll get back to hating it soon enough. Here’s a metaphor for you. Religion is a lot like spanking. You ge-”

“Okay!” Tom yelled, jumping up abruptly and turning off his X-Box. “Bedtime, motherfucker. I don’t feel like listening to you talk anymore.”

I sat, thinking smugly “religion is a lot like spanking”

Let me explain why:

As children we are typically punished by our parents for a wrong doing with a good spank on the behind. It was awful and we would stand there, bent over in crying. It was a behaviorist type business on our parents part: be bad, get spanked. Church, in most forms (Catholicism especially), practice the same form of classical conditioning. Instead of spanking though, we are threatened with the sentence of spending eternity in the fiery threshold of hell, where flames engulf us forever and we share a bunk bed with Hitler.

On the other hand, church offers its citizens (such as Tom and my former self) a sense of comfort. Clearly, like our parents, we believe as little kids that the people who punish us are authority figures, and we found, and still find (myself included) some kind of fucked up comfort in that.

But, add in the fact that humanity is amazingly perverted..

A good ass thrashing is a frigging delight to most adults. ( go ahead and judge me, you like it too.) Something that was seen as a punishment as a child is now a treat to a sexed-up adult.

The Catholic church is kind of the same.

I looked down at the book Tom was reading. He never would have paid attention to my rant.

Catholicism For Dummies stared innocently up at me.

I’d rather get spanked.

Netflix porn seemed entirely more enticing now.

We all look like assholes.