People I Want to Punch in the Throat Quotes

“Excuse me?” I asked. I always say “excuse me” even though I heard perfectly well what the person said. I feel that by saying “excuse me,” I’m giving them a chance to realize they’re being an asshole, and they can change their attitude for the second attempt.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I let my kids make decisions for themselves, but some things are not up for discussion. When it's cold, they wear a coat.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“People who tell me not to swear so much. Oh, fuck you, too.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“One of these days I’m going to be surrounded by so many young gifted athletes. There must be something in the water, because everyone’s kid is a prodigy of some kind, except for mine. Gomer is a bit of a lumberer on the soccer field, and when Adolpha practices her ballet, she has the grace of a baby giraffe. They’re so like their mother. I couldn’t be prouder of my little underachievers.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Cheerleading was not a hit: “What am I doing here, Mommy? I’m freezing cold and I’m cheering for a bunch of boys to win a game! Who cheers for me?” (Exactly, Adolpha. Exactly.)”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I’m the only one who leaves the house in my pajamas because I can’t get my shit together, nor do I give a shit that I can’t get my shit together.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Besides shopping at garage sales, I love hosting garage sales. Every year my mom and I dig through our houses and find a bunch of crap (I mean really terrific stuff) to sell so we can earn some money so we can go back out and buy some more crap (I mean really terrific stuff) that we’ll use for a bit and then turn around and garage-sale in a couple of years. It’s the circle of life suburban style.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I love my husband dearly, but there are days I wouldn’t be opposed to burying his bludgeoned body in the backyard.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I can’t believe … this is what you guys … are serving.” “Well, you don’t have to eat it,” I replied. “What are our choices, though? My kids are starving and they need food. This barely qualifies. This is just processed garbage on a stick.” I couldn’t argue with that statement, but did she see me eating it? No way. However, no one who comes to a school carnival expects to eat kale. What else would you eat at a carnival if not crap on a stick?”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“When I told her I was surprised she knew it was International Clover Day, she informed me that every day should be a holiday. She told me there is an international holiday of some kind almost every day that you can celebrate. (She’s absolutely right! I just looked, and today is the day the French celebrate the anniversary of the execution of Marie Antoinette. Maybe I should make hot dogs for dinner tonight and design a tiny razor-sharp guillotine to cut them into bite-sized pieces.)”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“No mother in my community has a more widely recognized hobby than bitching about her child’s school. I’ve come to realize that for many, school is a real drag. It gets in the way of raising a professional athlete.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“emphasizing a bajillion times that we weren’t going on a date. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t deserve a nicer outfit. It was partly”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Who’s ready to unlock her inner diva?” Joyce cried, waving a dildo around. “I am!” yelled Colleen. I moved her drink out of her reach. Her inner diva was hammered already.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“It was a beautiful fall day at the soccer fields when I met Stacy for the first time. The game had just begun when she arrived carrying homemade pumpkin spice muffins with cream cheese frosting for everyone, photos of the jack-o’-lantern she had elaborately carved earlier that morning into the shape of a witch stirring a bubbling cauldron with the rising steam spelling out the word “Boo,” enough material and glue for each of the siblings not playing soccer to make adorable “easy no-sew” bat wings as a fun craft to fill their time, as well as little gift bags for every mother full of Halloween-themed wine charms and sleep masks that were embroidered with “Sleeping for a spell.” Besides her generous gifts, she also looked terrific. She was wearing the perfect fall outfit with just the right number of layers and textures and cool boots. Her hair was beautifully twisted into a loose braid casually thrown over one shoulder. While everyone sat in their lawn chair and screamed at their kid to “attack the ball,” Stacy ran up and down the sidelines taking (no doubt fabulous) photos of her son and overseeing the siblings’ craft bonanza. At this point I should also mention, in case you don’t feel bad enough about yourself, that Stacy has a full-time job outside the home. Like a really important one. I’m not sure what she does exactly, but from the thirty seconds that she slowed down long enough to talk to me, I learned that she works fifty hours a week or so and travels around the country every few days and then comes home and makes her kids pancakes in the shape of clovers for breakfast, because it’s International Clover Day or some shit like that.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“dancer?”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I can’t be the only one who at times would like to go to the fucking grocery store by myself.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Somehow I missed the news bulletin about the suburban moms who lure other suburban moms into their homes, dope them with tainted coffee, and then steal their internal organs to sell on the black market.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“After all, there aren’t too many men out there willing to put up with my brand of crazy.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“We walked in silence for a bit until my heartbeat slowed down and I determined Ebenezer was not going to kill me and dump my body in the pond. (By the way, this would be the first of many, many times I was convinced the Hubs was trying to kill me. In his defense, I bring out that instinct in many people, so he’s forgiven.)”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“On a quick jaunt to the library, I tried not to laugh and drive off the road when a very concerned and serious four-year-old Adolpha asked me, “Someday will I have a mustache on my ’china, too?”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“And why do you have a pager? Are you a drug dealer?”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Someday will I have a mustache on my ’china, too?” She’d caught a glimpse of me in the shower that morning and was quite disturbed at the state of my “ ’china,” and wanted to know if there was a way to make hers look better.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“In 1996 or so, I bought my first home computer. It was some sort of IBM product. If I was some weird computer nerd, I would be able to tell you all about the ROM and RAM this machine had. All I know is that it was black when every other model was off-white. When I was perusing models with the sales guy who was blathering on and on about what it could do, all I could think was how much better the black would look in my home office than the ugly off-white. I’m that kind of nerd.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“What is wrong with you? Does everything need to be a competition? Does your kid need to win everything she does? Is winning the only way for her to develop self-worth?”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“I don’t want to lick chocolate dust off my husband’s chest, because that shit will get on the sheets and then that makes more laundry for me. I don’t want a giant green dildo, because that’s one more damn thing in my house that will need new batteries in a few weeks,”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“We’re not very good at the niceties and the small talk that are required to be a good neighbor, so block parties and barbecues tend to be awkward. Our politics rarely jibe (we’re a couple of mouthy liberals living in the heart of red country), and we don’t give a shit about sports, especially college basketball and hypercompetitive soccer for young children, which are the favorites around here.”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges

“Internet had been around for years at that point, but I’d been at school in Bumblefuck, Iowa, where I barely had phone service, let alone Internet, and as I stated above, I was not a computer nerd (just a regular nerd), so I didn’t know what the hell AOL was exactly. I read the description and decided I should try it. For someone like me, who really couldn’t comprehend the Internet, it sounded like the perfect introduction. I hooked up my computer, plugged it into a phone jack, and went online for the first time. These were the days of dial-up, so I’d log in and send AOL off to find an open line, and then I’d have time to get some dinner, put on my jammies, and maybe even throw in a load of laundry before I’d hear: “You’ve got mail!” AOL was so smart. Even the first time I logged in I had mail. It was just a welcome letter from them, but it was still mail and I loved to hear that voice announce every time I logged on. It was like crack for me. I was hooked. So long, social life! Ha! As if I really had a social life to lose! In those days, I was living on my own and working at a shitty job. Most of my friends were married at that point and I didn’t feel like being a third wheel. My life was pretty much: get up, go to work, come home, watch whatever crappy show was on TV (this was before DVRs, so you had to watch whatever was on plus the commercials—it totally sucked balls), and go to bed. Get up the next day and repeat. I quickly discovered that many people went on AOL to “chat.” There were tons of chat rooms to choose from based on your interests. Everything from dog grooming to knitting to S&M. You”
― Jen Mann, People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges