Jane Thomson's Blog: But I'm Beootiful!, page 16

Are you a disaster waiting to happen?

Or just waiting for a disaster to happen?

I’m the latter. Yesterday I drove three hours through the high country, from the big (ish) smoke to my bush home, and all the way I was thinking…

‘A woman died tonight in a horrific car crash on the Snowy Mountains Highway…police believe that she slid on black ice/hit a kangaroo/went to sleep/was the victim of a reckless driver on the wrong side of the road…’

Sure, every time you get in your car you have more chance of dying than getting married, or something like that, but this is ridiculous. I used to be a good ice-skater. Natural balance, inborn grace…and one hell of an imagination. What if I fall over, I’d mull as I glid (is that a verb?) around the rink? What if I sprawl full-length on the ice and some teenager with razor sharp blades slices off my wedding ring finger? What if I do a splat while attempting to skate backwards and erase all my childhood memories in one fatal crunch? What if…

Then there’s snakes (a woman was found floating in her dam yesterday, apparently savaged by a rogue tiger snake…), chainsaws (‘Farewell, my children, as I lie bleeding here in the bush I think only of you…), and axe murderers (‘the house was like a scene from Psycho…’). Not to mention vampires. ‘She didn’t believe in vampires, and neither did we on Sixty Minutes…but what other explanation is there for the horrific scene we encountered when…’

Having an imagination is a bit of a bummer. As you’d guess, thrill rides are not for me. Climbing, canoeing rapids, surfing, jumping into water from any kind of height…no. On the other hand, some of my worst moments have come from NOT being able to imagine…

that getting into a canoe with my baby daughter just above a weir wasn’t a good idea (she survived)
that small children and automatic sliding doors don’t mix (he survived too)
that untidy as live electrical wires sometimes are, you shouldn’t try to cut them with a pair of scissors (I survived. There was a circuit breaker.).

Anyway, back to the drive home. I got a flat on the highway and ended up having to drive home in the dark at speeds slightly above walking pace, peering at the road for signs of black ice, scanning the perimeter for marsupials with a death wish, and generally driving the occasional person behind me completely nuts.

Have you ever done anything stupid? Or is your imagination better than mine?

Ps: if you’re into thrillers, I’m giving away not one but two trilogies (six books!). My just-released trilogy, Like Flies, and K.F.Breene’s darkly funny Fire and Ice. Enter here.

 

How interesting are you?

“I don’t know how to make friends”

I recently came across a post by What Sandra Thinks in which she said that she felt boring, socially inept and unable to make friends.

Like a lot of people who commented on that post, I immediately thought, god, you too? I don’t know how to make friends either. Luckily, these days I don’t much care. I don’t need friends – I’ve got sisters.

But it got me thinking about what it takes to make friends, and specifically, how to be more interesting. (Not that you have to be interesting to make friends: some of the most boring people I know have hundreds.)

I recently picked up a book by Edward de Bono on ‘How to be More Interesting’. Ironically, it was practically unreadable.

Edward’s main thesis is that interesting people live in a sort of multiple-alternate universe, as in ‘What shall I do with this meat pie? Eat it? Carve the Virgin’s face into it? Wear it as a hat? Analyse its constituent parts, including the apprentice factory hand’s fingernail clippings?’

Bullshit, Edward. As a very interesting person, let me tell you how it’s done.

Now, before you jump in and tell me how far up my own arse I’ve managed to crawl, let me qualify that.

I am really not that interesting. But what I have noticed in my travels is this. If I sit down and lend a serious ear to someone for half an hour, during which they speak and I ask pertinent questions and look like I want to know the answer – they will, as often as not, go away thinking ‘That woman is SO interesting!’.

What they mean is, ‘That woman clearly found ME interesting. Obviously she has a fine mind.’

Anyway, my advice to anyone who wants to be more interesting is this: don’t bother. Be interested, and learn to be a good listener. You don’t need social skills to listen to someone blathering on for hours about their favourite topic. You just need ears. You’d be surprised how really few good listeners there are in the world – they’re gold, mate, gold.

For example, I once sat awe-struck as a boyfriend of mine gave me a lift from the airport, a trip of approximately forty minutes. During this time, he didn’t once pause for breath – he talked about how he had to MC a party for a friend, who would probably cancel the whole thing if he wasn’t available to do it, about how his Mercedes was so expensive to fix, about how the women in his street would park themselves on their verandahs just to watch him jog by in the morning…. He was a kind and charming man but this – this was a tour de force! Me, I just listened. Most relaxing forty minutes I’ve ever spent (awake. Mostly).

There’s one other thing I’d say to Sandra, and it’s this. The most boring people in the world are those who never even consider that they might, possibly, be boring. You’re not one of those, so that puts you way ahead of the pack.

Oh, and by the way, if you like my style and would like to get free copies of all my books before they’re released (in return for feedback & an honest review), you’re welcome to join my launch team, Rose’s Elite Readers.

Was Jane Austen a bum?

There are seven billion kinds of people in this world – but for the purposes of this post, I’m going to pick two. Disrupters and Supporters.

Take this recent conversation with an acquaintance who’s just embarking on a promising career as a NEET. What, you ask, is a NEET? (Well, I had to ask, old fogey that I am.) A NEET is what the right wing press call a dole bludger – someone who, in Australia, is prepared to live on meagre welfare payments for the doubtful pleasure of being able to call his time his own (except for those infrequent occasions when he has to pretend to look for a job). In the US, it’s roughly the same, except that instead of living on welfare payments, he’s living on whatever he can collect in his hat.

Me: Work is good for you. Like suffering, it provides necessary contrast. Without work, there’s no weekend!

Aspirational NEET: That’s what the wage-cucks would have us believe, so that they can justify in their own minds the pathetic grind of their work-bound existence.

Me: But don’t you want to make a contribution to mankind? Aren’t you uncomfortable relying on others for the bare necessities of life?

Aspirational NEET: I am making a contribution. By enriching my mind and gathering knowledge. As for depending on others, in more enlightened times, aristocrats did fuck all and nobody called them bludgers. Some of the world’s most famous scientists, novelists and explorers didn’t have to work for their living. So why should I?

Why indeed.

Of course, I’m not that keen on being called a ‘wage cuck’ – but it’s a different perspective. Maybe, I thought, he’s right – there is another way to approach this whole ‘survival in the modern world’ business, other than running after the perpetual pay packet?

My friend likes to think so. But then, he’s full of ‘alternative’ viewpoints. He’s a disrupter, unlike my Uncle Fred, who’s not. Uncle Fred is a fan of the ‘best of all possible worlds’ approach. Whatever is, is there for a reason. Usually a good reason.

Me: Why don’t we legalise drugs? The war is lost!

Uncle Fred: No it’s not. Why, only the other day the police arrested two shady looking marijuana dealers. That’ll put a stop to their dreadful trade.

Me: And then there’s Mexico. And don’t they say 80 percent of high school students get high…grades on a regular basis?

Uncle Fred: And that’s why the Government in its wisdom made drugs illegal. Ha!

As for me, I’m more on the disruptive side than the supportive – but then again, if I’d been around when Lucy the Cave-Engineer invented the wheel, I probably would’ve muttered ‘What’s wrong with walking, anyway!’

What about you? What do you think about wage-cuckery? Are you a disrupter, a supporter – or one of those seven billion minus one others I forgot to mention?

NEET: Not in Employment, Education or Training. Cuck: short for ‘cuckold’

Existential terror before breakfast…

This morning, I wake to pale sunlight and the gossip of fifteen parrots in the paddock outside my window. An hour before work and enough (solar) power to fire up the computer. But Microsoft has other ideas…

But more of that later. 

Malcolm Steadman is a man who will drown in his own mind. This you should know. You should also know that there is nothing to be done to prevent this. In three months Malcolm will take his first proper plunge. Then he will begin to drown.

This  quote is from Existential Terror and Breakfast, by MP Fitzgerald, a writer of mordant wit and a somewhat black outlook. In the stream bed of fiction, among the numberless sands of indie novels which are, frankly, not very good, MP Fitzgerald’s work stands out like a speck of real gold. So I asked him if he’d mind being interviewed for this blog, and he said yes. Yay!

Rose: In the Nihilist Horoscopes, another of your books, every star sign has a borderline personality disorder and a dark destiny (if not for the actual individual concerned, then for their unfortunate victim). In another of your books, Existential Terror and Breakfast, the hero is a deeply depressed – yet somehow uneasily amusing – disaster zone.  Are you a man with a message, and if so, what is it?

MP: I want people to question their perceptions, realize that we are all a mess inside, and have a laugh when we inevitably find out that we are wrong about everything. When you open a horoscope you are looking for meaning and corroboration, but this is at odds with the inherently absurd nature of the universe. Everything in The Nihilist’s Horoscope goes awry because the planets and stars do not know about you. They are barren ancient rocks that will be around long, long after you die and you fretting about material things is ultimately trivial.

For instance, in Existential Terror and Breakfast, Malcolm Steadman has goals that are totally at odds with the lessons that the universe tries to teach him (perhaps the universe is a crap teacher..). He deals with his depression privately and holds onto a veneer of normalcy, when things are wrong at the core. Malcolm’s biggest enemy is boredom, because it means that he has time to recognize that his American Dream has failed.

Asking the stars for advice is selfish. Holding onto a delusion is selfish. We think that we are the heroes of the story, but the universe has auditioned us as the fool. This is only a tragedy if we fail to laugh at it. (You mean I’m not the leading lady? Ouch)

Rose: To what extent does your writing reflect who you are as a person – are you like the typical comedian who laughs on stage and cries in the wings, or more like the typical nihilist who revels in death and destruction by day and enjoys a blissful home life in the evening? Or neither?

MP: I’m probably a little bit of both, honestly. I can’t help but think that dark things are funny. It is how I cope, and I think that laughing at the dark stuff can actually help us empathize with something that we otherwise would avoid (I just do it because I’m mean). My writings reflect very much how I think about things, but they usually come short in the conclusions. I stretch my nihilism further in my writings because I think it makes for an uncomfortable punchline, but in my day-to-day I have rejected nihilism, or at least its bleak conclusion. So what if there is no inherent meaning in life? Dogs are a thing, go play with them! There exists an animal that just wants to play with you! The absurd can be a joy if you let it be.

Rose: What motivates you to write? Not-so-filthy lucre, the creative drive, the lure of fame and recognition? Other?

MP: The fact that my time is finite. I write because being productive feels good, and at the end of my life, I will have something to show for it. Days do not feel wasted when I write. It can be hard, and I do not always enjoy it, but I can go to bed knowing that I did something that was important to me. Don’t get me wrong, fame and money are awesome! But those things will only motivate me so far. When I have writer’s block I remind myself that someday I am going to die. That’s healthy…right? (Sure it’s healthy. You could die tomorrow. Write today!)

Rose: What’s the biggest challenge of being an indie writer, in your opinion? And how do you, personally, judge quality in writing, indie or otherwise?

MP: I think that the biggest challenge for an indie is marketing. When you are indie you do not have to ask permission to publish, and indeed you have the freedom to reach an audience without a corporate gatekeeper saying no, but that comes at a price. You do not have the marketing expertise or budget that a traditional publisher has. If you want to reach your audience you have to be the marketer. It is a bit sobering, and it can be just as much of a challenge as playing the submission/rejection game of traditional publishing. Few writers get into the indie scene because they are naturally good at advertising their art as a commodity, but all of us will have to learn how to do that if we want to make a living. (Rose: either that or sleep with the CEO of Book Bub...)

As for the second part of the question, if you can surprise me, then you are a good writer. I can usually guess where a plot is going, and if you can spin me around, and it makes sense, then I am a happy camper.

Rose: If you met a guy like Malcolm Steadman, the hero of Existential Terror, what would you say to him? Cheer up mate, worse things happen at sea? Or, you know what, you can order these great euthanasia drugs online these days…

I’d tell him that he needs to admit to others that he is ill and find a productive hobby. Isolation is your worst enemy when you are depressed, you need to seek out others and ask for help. There is no shame in that. I’d tell him to find active engagement in projects of worth so that he had something to occupy his time and be proud of. I’d tell him to stop eating those breakfast burritos because dear god man no one needs to wake up at 3 AM to go to the bathroom! That’s what I would tell him. What I did to him is entirely different…(If I met a guy like Malcolm I’d probably marry him, so I could cheer him up. Then he’d infect me with his angst, and we’d both end up cowering under the kitchen table eating Doritos.)

You can check out MP’s books here. 

Anyway, to continue the story of my own existential terror experience at breakfast, I powered up the computer, my head pounding with ideas poised to pursue and devour the fleeing keyboard like a lioness tackling an antelope….and it said ‘Updating…this will take a while. Do Not Turn Off.’ In MS Speak, this means two hours and half my limited satellite data. So instead of creating a great work of literature, I put the washing on. Thanks, Microsoft.

Now tell me…do YOU believe in star signs? I don’t…unless they say something nice about me, like ‘The Aquarian is the most brilliant and charming of all the star signs…” Obviously then they’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.

What’s the worst book you ever read?

The worst book I ever read was something called The Demon Lover, by Patricia somebody or other. I found it in a Salvation Army thrift shop – and I just HAD to buy it!

Because we’ve all dreamt about the Demon Lover, haven’t we? Just me, then? You know, the guy who’s totally besotted with us but more than a bit dangerous – and not just because he has studs in unusual places. He smoulders – sometimes literally. He has Powers Beyond the Normal (he CAN find the clitoris). He is way hotter than any of your friends’ boyfriends.

Anyway. The Demon Lover in this book was an actual rapist, and grumpy as fuck. Biggest waste of 50 cents in my life. The Mark – however – the first book in my trilogy Like Flies – also contains a  lover of the non-human persuasion, and he, let me tell you, is much nicer in every way.

In Like Flies, you’ll meet Green – a girl who’s self-conscious, hot-tempered, sceptical and brave. She’s loosely modelled on my own daughter Ms M (let’s hope she never reads this). You’ll meet the monk who becomes head of the next big thing after Scientology, the queen of hell with a taste for BDSM, the singer who rises to the very top of the rock world (with a little help from above), and the goddess who tramps around in ugg boots and doesn’t shave her underarms.

And of course the love interest. Gorgeous – that goes without saying – and maddeningly placid. That’s how I like them.  I ask you, would YOU want to share your short mortal existence with a bad-tempered, domineering immortal (however hot)?

Anyway, now I’m done, I never want to meet (or write) another hot god in my life. My next book (a series) is about a retired Byzantine courtesan turned private detective, and I’m having a ball with that. She (like me) has no scruples about looking a man up and down from his head to his toes and murmuring in  a Mae West whisper, ‘You should come up and see me some time, handsome’.

So what was the worst book you ever read?  And…be honest…have you ever hankered after a Demon Lover (or worse, actually had one?).

Free Advance Reader Copies of The Mark here

 

Obey.The.Rules!

Just step outside the box for a moment. There aren’t as many rules as you think there are.

A long time ago, I trained as a volunteer counsellor on a national telephone helpline…and this is what one of the trainers said to me. I’ve never forgotten it.

Mind you, I’ve never really known what to make of it either.

I mean, this organisation had more rules than boarding school. Don’t say’should’. Don’t say’you must’ as in ”you must feel awful…’. Don’t advise. Don’t sympathise. Don’t say”if I were you’. Paraphrase, reflect, never judge…and if you do get it wrong, they’ll probably jump and it’ll be all your fault. I didn’t last long.

Still, it made me think. What are my ‘rules’? Should I chuck some of them off the books?

One day I was hanging out at the shops with my mate – the two of us were about twelve at the time – and I greeted some elderly passerby, just out of random friendliness. “You can’t say hello to people you don’t know!” exclaimed my friend, shocked.

Oh? Can’t I? Ok. So I put that one down in Book of Rules for People Who Don’t Know What the Rules Are, and never did it again. See, people like me don’t know what the rules are: we need normal people to tell us. And they do!

The Man and I joke that we should own a reference book on What Normal People Think. Then, whenever we have an argument about what’s normal, we’ll just get the book down and go ‘oh yeah, it says here 99% of people get out of bed on the left side…ok, you win.’  Sadly, nobody’s written that book yet (but there’s still time…).

But sometimes, when I create, I find myself thinking, hang on a minute. Why shouldn’t I give this watercolour portrait of my favourite aunt snake hair and a witch’s hat? Why shouldn’t I make my romantic hero fat, or my heroine unlikeable, or my thriller introspective? Why shouldn’t I make up words and mix prose with poetry?

Well actually, I can do what I damn well like. I can make my own rules. I CAN learn French at 55, and eat breakfast with a hot water bottle under my jumper, and sing like a rock star while I’m making dinner. I can watch Outlander in bed, and stick pictures of my favourite hot actors on my bedroom wall. I can, finally, say hey to people I don’t know from Adam.

Do you set rules for yourself when you really don’t need to? What rules would YOU like to ditch?

Fallacious Rose writes a shit ton of books. You can find them here.

 

 

Yes, royalty ARE better than us…

Ok, hear me out.

Nobody (nobody sane) looks at Trump, or Theresa May, or even Justin Trudeau (delicious though he may be) and thinks, ‘Now there’s someone I can look up to!’  Maybe ‘I wish my girlfriend looked more like Stormy Daniels’, or ‘What a guy – I wish I could rock a yellow toupee like he does!’ but not ‘There goes a hero of our times’.

That’s no criticism of our pollies (as we Australians call politicians). Being a good person is far from an essential qualification for high public office. To snaffle a place at the top in a democracy, you need charm, ruthlessness and low cunning. Politicians are not the same as the people they represent: if anything, they’re worse.

But for royalty, it’s different.

A modern Royal is basically a random person who, through no fault of their own, was born to lots of money and a position which though practically powerless, sits at the very top of the political structure. This person doesn’t have to claw his or her way to the top – he’s there. And he’s trained – boy  is he trained – from infancy to understand that his only role in life is to be someone people can look up to. A hero.

That’s a hard life. You can’t do any of the normal stuff people get up to – suck toes, put your hand up chambermaid’s skirts, wear Nazi fancy dress at parties – without the tabloids reminding you what you’re there for. You’re a Role Model, they scream – you’re supposed to be better than us!

And if you want to keep on getting paid to cut ribbons, you make bloody sure you ARE better than us. Who, watching Harry and Meghan tie the knot, didn’t think something like, ‘What a lovely couple! What a great guy!’ There’s the pollies organising Brexit and slagging off each other and cutting welfare and raking in profits from the weapons dealers – and there’s Harry. He’s not doing any of that. He’s sponsoring the Invictus Games, and helping African AIDS orphans, and getting down with the ordinary squaddies in Afghanistan.

Finally, we have someone we can look up to. Sure, he’s a tad expensive, but in the long run, maybe it’s worth it. Because as long as we can see one nice guy on the hill (or  in the palace trying to do some genuine good in the world, it’s not all shit, and that’s important.

So here’s to our hero, long may he reign.  By the way, does anybody else think Prince Harry looks like a young Henry VIII? I think the resemblance is spooky.

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And before you say, wait a minute, wasn’t Henry VIII a homicidal maniac who went through wives like cheap underpants – actually, no. When he was young, he was handsome, charming, athletic and the hope of a nation. The crucial difference? HE had absolute power.

If I had absolute power, I reckon I’d probably chop a few people’s heads off too, wouldn’t you? Ok, be honest now – who would YOU send to the block?

Do you have youth envy?

I’m surrounded by youths. Sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, young persons on Facebook I don’t even know…and I have a BAD case of youth envy.

Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t wish I was younger. God no. I’ve got better looking, brighter and (coincidentally) more boastful every year since I was twenty, there’s no way I want to reverse a trend like that, do I?

No, what I envy is the actual youth those youths are having. For instance, a month ago I went to visit my esteemed daughter, who’s just started a degree in a large, vibrant Australian city. We were talking about her social calendar.

Her: Yeah, I’m pretty busy, actually. The flatmate and me are heading off to a Comicon Conference – he’s going as Xena, in a backless leather mini-skirt and I’m going as the sidekick.  Should be fun. And then there’s a birthday party on Saturday night – couple of gay girls I know, they’re so nice. And then next week…

Me: When I was your age I went to a party. Just the one. 

It’s not just me. The Man also has youth envy. In his case, the conversation goes something like this (on the phone, as his Wildly Popular and Socially Successful Offspring live rather further off).

The Man: So what’re you doing this weekend son?

Son: I’m MCing a mate’s wedding…it’s the third frigging wedding I’ve done this year, I’m really gonna have to stop saying yes…oh yeah and then I’m heading off to the footie – another friend’s playing his first match for the Big Note A-Grade Footie Team, so I’m in the VIP area with the entire sponsorship team from Our Beer Puts Hair on your Chest Inc…

The Man: Know what you mean son. I had a mate, once.

I’m exaggerating, slightly. I may have gone to more than one party (two, if I remember right – or is that the number of people who turned up to the last one I threw. Whatever.). The Man has, and had, more than one mate (he’s deservedly more popular than I am, although shy as a platypus).

But, you know, if you didn’t have a ripping good time when you were in the official wild-oats sowing, bacardi-drinking, Xena-skirt-wearing years of your twenties – you, my friend, have missed the boat. Oh yes, you probably think you can catch up in your forties – but you can’t. A youth is a youth, and if you didn’t have one when you were young, you’re not going to be able to have one when you’re old. Or even middle-aged.

It’s sad really. All I can do is look at my girl over my spectacles and say things like ‘well…just don’t drink to excess, ok?’. And have a lovely party! Through gritted teeth.

The lesson: get yourself a misspent youth while you’ve still got a youth to misspend it in.

How about you? Were you a teenage swot or party central? What did you do with YOUR youth?

Yes, I will LITERALLY die without the internet!

Not long ago, my partner and I had a discussion, which went roughly like this.

Me: Our solar system is on its last legs (Note –  I don’t mean that solar system that surrounds earth like a starry womb, holding us close in its galactic embrace. I mean the solar panels that supply all – and I mean ALL – the energy at our home.)

Him: Oh well. No need to panic.

Me: Yes there is! If we don’t have power, we don’t have the internet, and I NEED the internet. I will literally die without the internet!

Him: Really? Literally?

Me: Creatively speaking. I need the internet to write my novels and, more importantly, to market them. Without the internet, I, the author, am nothing! I can’t work.

Him: Didn’t someone write to Bill Gates once asking for money for a computer – he said he couldn’t write great novels without one. And Bill Gates wrote back saying Jane Austen didn’t even have a typewriter – so no.

Me: That was then. This is now. No publisher accepts typewritten manuscripts – they have to be emailed. You can’t upload a sheaf of papers to Amazon. You can’t advertise your e-book to the world in the local paper (not that it’s interested in my e-book anyway, I tried).

Him: I spent twenty years living in a shearing shed on 200 acres with only a rusty bucket and a pedal powered VCR. What YOU are, is a princess!

Obviously, I will get my way, because I always do. No poo-powered satellite connections for me, thank you very much.

How about you. Like me, will you (virtually) die without the internet – or can you not be arsed, really?

Why I’m the best mother on the entire planet (you’re ok too I guess)

Dear children of mine, on the occasion of Mother’s Day, I’m pleased to inform you that you have the world’s absolute best mother.

How do I know?

Well, let’s focus on outcomes.

For instance, you, Mr F. You have grown (and how) from a minute but dearly loved pain in the arse to a magnificent towering warrior of a young man. Unlike me, you are generous to a fault (I once haggled over five cents on a coffee date).

Me: The solar’s crashed again, we’re going to have to shell out for new batteries. (Groans)

Him: I’ll help pay for them, Mum. Like, if I don’t give my money to you, I’ll probably just spend it on useless shit.

Mr F, as a student, has very little money.  But he is always offering it to me. Not only that, but – unusual in a man of any age, let alone one under twenty three – he is a great listener. I can go on about my books for hours and he will sit there going ‘That sounds interesting,’ and ‘That’s great!’. He once sat on a bus next to a talkative old lady (not me) for four hours and never once pretended he was asleep. Finally (there’s a long list of Things To Admire, but I thought I’d stick at three) he’s a feminist. It takes a strong man to support a strong woman. Go Mr F!

And Ms M. She’s also a feminist, despite the hordes of young women eagerly protesting their freedom from that demeaning tag. Girls who, but for feminism, would be on their fifth baby, unable to vote and ‘owning’ nothing but their whalebone corsets. She’s a staunch believer in the right of any woman to have as much damn sex as she pleases, without being labelled ‘promiscuous’ and ‘slut’. Despite being, herself, more than a bit picky.

Me: So when are you going to get out there and start putting it about?

Her: I don’t know…I’d like to get to know the girl properly first.

Me: Have I not taught you anything? FIRST, sleep with him (in her case, her), THEN you can get to know each other. What else is pillow talk for?

And Ms M is tolerant. She will be nice to anyone – old people, young people, people who changed from shes to hes and hes to shes – with Ms M, it’s what’s inside that counts. That said, if what’s inside stinks, she will rip into you big time. Well done, M.

So obviously, having produced such priceless jewels of offspring – I must be the world’s best mother, right?

Alternatively, they were just born that way.

Although these paragons do have one fatal flaw.  They never buy me anything on Mother’s Day. Do yours?