Month: November 2014

So I was at the vet yesterday to get annual shots for the dogs. I normally take them in one at a time because their shots stagger a bit but I had them both because I wanted to make sure they were absolutely as up to date a they could be since we are going to be boarding them over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Our dogs have completely different reactions when they walk in the door of the vet. Kumo thinks that the vet is Dog Disneyland. Everybody takes the time to scratch your ears and your butt and there are treats and chicken baby food and it’s all about MEEEEEEEEE! He goes in tail wagging and smelling all the things and talking to anything that moves. Danica, who doesn’t really enjoy being loved on by people that aren’t Her People, thinks that the vet is highly over rated and it’s stupid people touching her and WHO ASKED YOU TO TOUCH ME JERK and NO I DON’T CARE IF YOU HAVE CHICKEN BABY FOOD STOP TOUCHING ME JERK.

I have no problem dealing with each of the dog’s individual personality quirks when I have them in there one at a time and had we been in the waiting room alone (which is the case 99.9% of the time I’m there) I think it would have been fine. Of course this time since I had both dogs it was also the .01% of the time that the waiting room was not empty. It was full of KIDS. OUT OF CONTROL KIDS.

From the second I walked in the door the kids were all over the place. Kumo LOVES IN ALL CAPS all kids. They are at his level so the perfect height to face lick and most kids love dogs and want to hug them and scratch them and throw things for them so they were pretty much the icing on top of the Vet Cake for him. Danica was like GREAT. KIDS. GET OFF MY LAWN. So Kumo was off the wall excited and Danica was tying to hide between my legs.

I was annoyed before I had even spoken to the receptionist to check them in. I had to wait longer than normal to be taken back, probably a total of 10 minute. In that time the mom had to tell the girl (4 or 5 years old) to share toys with her brother (around 2ish) about 10 times. The little boy took his shoes off at least 7 time which she’d scold. He was throwing the pencils and highlighter caps from the kid’s table which was getting Kumo all hyped up because CHASE ALL THE THINGS. They were both complaining about being hungry and she had nothing left for them to eat. Then at one point the boy went to throw something AT Kumo but I stopped him politely and she looked at me with a little bit of shame and a little bit of horror. As I was pulling my phone out to complain about these GOODDAMN KIDS to Facebook they called me back to the room. It never really dawned on me that they were in the waiting room with no dog.

Our visit with the vet was perfect. Both dogs are doing great and we were done in less than 10 minutes. On the way out the door the vet mentioned to the tech in the room that he needed to get back to the “dog that got into drugs”. I didn’t think much about it till I was at the counter paying a few minutes later and the vet went into the waiting room to talk to the lady with the kids and I could hear their conversation.

Her dog was the one that had gotten into drugs. The charcoal treatment seemed to be working but the dog must have eaten something that was causing a blockage and if it didn’t clear up soon they were going to have to operate to remove the obstruction. Is that what she wanted? It would be expensive. I could her her choke back tears as she told the vet to do whatever he needed to do to save the dog while I could just see her son’s shoe fly through the air over the front counter.

And I felt like a complete asshole.

I try to be good about not assuming why people are acting the way they are. The checker at the grocery store has a life outside of work, the old lady who won’t get out of your way might just be lonely, the waitress might be on her second job of the day with schoolwork still to do when she gets done with her 18 hour work day, and the mom in the waiting room of the vet’s office who can’t seem to control her kids might have a beloved pet dying in the next room.

I don’t know how her dog is. Maybe I’ll ask the next time I go in. As I left I walked out the front instead of the back which is the way you’re supposed to go. I let Kumo distract her son for a few minutes so she could finish talking to the vet then gave her an “I’m so sorry and I’m totally giving you a hug in my mind” smile. I hope she understood. I think she did.

Cassidy really wanted to be Paulie Bleeker for Halloween this year but we could not find the costume locally and we waited till the last minute so didn’t have time to order anything online. On the way to a costume store I asked her if she couldn’t be Paulie Bleeker, what would she want to be instead.

Cassidy: A sexy nurse.

Don’t worry, she was kidding. My kid actually has a pretty great sense of humor.

Me: No.
Cassidy: Ummmmm.
Me: I will not buy you anything that a person would use “sexy” or “skanky” as a descriptive word.
Cassidy: Seems reasonable.
Me: But good news! In two years you can buy and wear whatever costume you want!
Cassidy: WOOHOO!

And I meant it. When she’s 18 if she wants to be a sexy nurse or a sexy dog poop bag or a sexy WHATEVER then she should be that thing.

In the last few weeks my Facebook feed has been INUNDATED with scathing articles about the trend of “sexy *insert thing here*” Halloween costumes and I don’t get it. Mostly because these pages (I’m looking at you HuffPo Women) spend a lot of time posting articles that empower women. They support the feminist movement with articles like why it’s wrong to catcall women no matter what they are wearing, saying that women should be able to dress however they want and not be judged… till Halloween comes around and suddenly their collective brains explode and they use it to slutty costume shame women for A MONTH STRAIGHT.

Huffington Post posted this article four times that I saw over the course of two days on it’s many different Facebook pages. At first I didn’t read the entire thing, just skimmed the first few paragraphs then looked at the costumes and shrugged because I really don’t see anything wrong with GROWN women wearing sexy costumes. Then, after seeing it in my feed for the fourth time, I actually read what the author had written and I was pretty appalled.

Because here’s the thing…

Women can wear whatever the fuck they want for Halloween and nobody should say anything about it other than, “Hey, cool costume!”

And the thing that bothers me the most is that women have a CHOICE. They can CHOOSE to wear these sexy costumes or they can CHOOSE to wear something more modest. Every single costume that she posted has a more modest alternative. I really hate the implication that women are being practically forced to either be sexy or nothing for Halloween.

WE HAVE BRAINS! We can think for ourselves! And guess what?! Sometimes we WANT and CHOOSE to be sexy! And for pretty much every single costume she posted, there is a non-sexy alternative out there. Here let me show you! Here are the costumes she posted (a lot of which were taken from yandy.com which is a lingerie site NOT a costume store) with some costumes I found easily with google that were all on actual costume store’s sites.

The descriptions on these last two are what really got to me. On the hamburger costume she said:

I mean I love a good hamburger, but come on… do you really want some jerk following you around all night saying, “Nice buns!” No, you don’t. Or maybe you do. I don’t know, this is just a bad costume.

Because yeah, wearing a dress that looks like a hamburger totally means that men are allowed to make inappropriate sexual advances at you all night. OF COURSE IT DOES. And also, a guy would NEVER think to say that same thing (which yes, is wrong in BOTH CASES NO MATTER WHAT COSTUME YOU ARE WEARING) if you were wearing the second costume!

On the grease costume she said this:

The costume is actually called “Grease Good Sandy.” Now…if she’s good, then why is she slutty? And what have they done with “Grease Bad Sandy?” Jeez, she must be really bad.

Yes, she actually just said that you can not be “slutty” AND good a the same time. Thank you, author, for single-handedly setting the feminist movement back 100 years. And thank you HuffPo for undoing all that good you do by posting strong feminist pieces throughout the year. Here you go, feministing wrong.

I completely get not wanting your tweens or teens to wear the more sexy costumes. As a parent, that is your decision, much like it was mine for my 16 year old daughter. But when an adult woman wants to be sexy, nobody should be shaming her no matter what time of year it is. If a woman wants to be a crayon AND sexy THAT IS OKAY. That is not a reason to shame her.

And in the interest of being fair, there are actually quite a lot sexy costumes for men too. Take the banana costume that this author posted:

Here is a more modest version for you:

And here is a costume that I didn’t see a single person posting about on Facebook:

Because who cares if a MAN is wearing a sexy costume. AMIRIGHT?