Jen Mann's Blog, page 24

Me - For Eavesdropping on a 13 Year Old's Date

I am so glad I am not 13 anymore.  I would hate to be 13 again.  I hated 13 so much that I am not looking forward to my kids being 13.


Today I was working in a public place when I was suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of giggy 13 year old girls.  Pretty soon, a couple of surly 13 year old boys joined the gaggle and they became a full on group.



I was instantly transported back 27 years to when I was 13.  Listening to the girls whisper to one another and the boys sort of...

People Who Work With Children, But Don't Like Them

What is the deal with people who work in professions designed to cater to children and then they can't stand children and/or they have no patience with children?!

We take our kids to a pediatric dentist.  He costs us far more than a "normal" dentist because he is a specialist, but I wanted to take my kids to a dentist who supposedly wouldn't scare the shit out of them and who I assume is trained to work with the under 12 crowd.

This guy has an office that looks like a carnival.  He...

Felicia Smith - The Teacher Who Gives the Best Birthday Lap Dances

An article caught my eye this week and I had to share. Apparently there is a middle school teacher in Texas who gave her 15-year-old student a lap dance for his birthday in front of the class. Let me give you the Cliff's Notes: Felicia Smith is a middle school teacher who has been accused of giving her student a lap dance as a birthday gift after being convinced by her class to do so. She couldn't resist the pleas of her students and so she threw caution to the wind and popped her ass in a...

Call for Submissions

Have you figured out yet that I like publishing anthologies? Well, I do! I think anthologies are awesome, because I can put the book down and come back in a week and not have to remember which two fellas our plucky heroine is waffling between. I think anthologies are a terrific way to discover a new writer that I didn't know about before. I'm never bored reading an anthology because each chapter is a totally different voice from the one before it or the one after it. 

So. Because I love...

Douchey Dad Revisited

'Guest post from The Hubs'

Apparently Jen hit a douchey nerve with her previous post.

I had no idea Jen had so many Douchey Dad readers and that they cared so much what she thinks or writes.  Before Jen started writing I never even heard of or read a blog before.  I think I was too busy on the golf course with my Douchey Dad friends.  Now that she has found a great audience and her voice, I fully support her writing and her sharp wit - even if she makes me look like a bitch...

Douchey Dads

I attended an auction at a chic country club.  I arrived early to help the organizers set up and I was surprised to find the bar full of young, well dressed (if you can call expensive plaid shorts well dressed), golf playing, thousands of dollars a year for dues paying men sitting around drinking and yukking it up.  I wanted to say, "Hey...where do you guys work that you can spend half of a Tuesday golfing at this expensive club?"  (I also wanted to hand all of them my real...

Live Free (and Compost) or Die

Today Mary and her kids showed me around the great state of New Hampshire.  I've only ever driven through New Hampshire on my way to the outlets in Kittery, Maine so it was nice to see what treasures lurk just off the highway.

Mary's kids are on Spring Break (Winter Break?  I don't know.  Some break the whole state has off.)  We decided we go to Dover to a children's museum her kids like.

We got to the museum and I fit right in.  New Hampshire are my people....

The Worst Interview I've Ever Had

The other night, the Hubs and I watched that new show "Girls" on HBO.  Hubs isn't sure what he thought of it, but I could relate to it.  There was one part where the main character is sitting in a job interview and the interview is going great.  She's impressing her future boss, he's enjoying her sense of humor and he's thisclose to hiring her and then she blows it by saying something completely weird and inappropriate.

The Hubs said, "Oh I don't believe that.  No one...

The Parents Who Ruined the Easter Egg Hunt

Seriously?  WTF, people?  Pushy parents went so far last year at a Colorado Easter egg hunt that this year, the organizers are just cancelling it.  They don't want to deal with the annoying, asshole parents who went crazy trying stealing Easter eggs from little kids.  It's a joke, right?  Nope.  Not at all.


One asshat was quoted as saying:  "You have all these eggs just lying around and parents helping out.  You better believe I'm going to help my kid...

Promposals

I guess because I have younger kids, I only ever see the overachieving moms (OAM) at the over the top birthday parties or designing elaborate concoctions for school lunches. I forgot about the children the overachievers have been raising long before I started having kids. I didn't think about the high school-aged children of the OAMs. That's why I was surprised last week when I read an article about "promposals."




Yup. Prom-posals. WTF? Gone are the days when a shy teenage boy waited by your...