3I was sitting in my bedroom, surrounded by the numerous grad school applications scattered around my bed when my roommate, Terri walked by and spotted my middle finger extended towards my TV.
"Dare I even ask why this time?" she asked with a slight smirk on her face.
I jumped, not realizing that I was caught once again, giving commercials the bird.
"I hate them. They're freaking delusional and they get paid for bringing people false hope."
"Jenny Craig?"
"Worse, those internet dating sites."
She shuddered. "God those freak me out. It's free advertising for the hopeless and horny."
"Free? They charge $30 a month!" I exclaimed while reaching for my remote.
"And you know this…."
"We talked about it in my Human Sexuality class one day." I answered. Like hell I was going to admit to checking them out late at night, when no one would find out how pathetic I really was.
"Was that the class where your professor said that you could go to Cincinnati and find any type of 'toy'?" She asked, air quotes and all.
"Yep. Including the ones that glow in the dark and sing "Jesus Loves Me'." I replied, smiling while I remembered how 'informative' the class had been.
"You know, you really enjoy psychology a little too much."
"Hey it takes a crazy to know a crazy."
"Well Jaime darling, you definitely have that one covered." I could hear her laughter as she ran from my doorway, my Homer Simpson house-shoe flying by her head.
I tried to resume my brain numbing task of filling out the 8 by 11 inch papers that held my future in its bond paper, white out hating hands.
Unfortunately, I have the attention span the size of a gnat.
I kept on focusing on those stupid commercials.
"Sign up and you can find your one true love."
Please, love is for dumb-asses.
I know someone who wants to go into the mental health field shouldn't be sitting around mentally arguing with commercials that had disappeared over 10 minutes ago. But I just couldn't let it go.
I already knew my fate was to be a middle aged cat lady. After I finished grad school, I was going to work during the day with impressionable and unaffected children and then return to my pet allowed apartment that I shared with my fat cat. He was going to be named Oscar and I would eventually teach him to go potty in a bright green kitty litter box.
Oh yes, I wasn't just insane and bitter, I was also organized and creative.
Your average 23 year old doesn't normally have their next meal planned out, let alone their future mental state of mind, but then again, I was never average.
Or normal for that matter.
Like most children of my generation, I can attribute a few of my hang-ups to my dear neurotic mother.
Now, the tendency to loudly, and rather badly, sing 90's pop songs that jump into my head and the little problem with laughing my ass off during sad movie moments were all my 'uniqueness' coming out.
But hating anything that relates to dating, love, and marriage?
That's my dear old mom's contribution.
It's not that she was a reformed nun or anything.
Well actually her term is "born again virgin" but I'm getting ahead of myself.
No my mother is a very unique woman.
As hard as it is to believe, she's only had sex with two men her whole life.
Honestly, which is more disturbing?
Knowing someone has only had two partners their WHOLE life, or knowing about YOUR MOTHER'S sex life?
My mother is a hopeless romantic. Ew, I get a bad taste in my mouth every time I just think the word.
She married young, had three wonderful children and then found out her husband cheated on her.
So she did what any sensible women would do. She left his cheating ass and got a job to support her little family.
And then, she met my father.
To make a sappy story short, they met, they married, he screwed up, and she left with her children. After shooting out all four of his tires.
But since my mother was human, after two years she gave in and went to his house to "clean it."
Two months later, she gathered her brother, two sons and daughter together and announced that she was remarrying their ex-new daddy.
Seven months later, I was born.
I had the semi-normal childhood growing up until I was 8.
My father once again screwed up and my mother took me and my little Chinese fighting fish and we left for good.
My mother always told me that she started to worry about me when I turned 10 and told her she should have never came back after she found out about me.
Hey, I couldn't help it if I had common sense before I knew all the 50 states and their capitals. (oh shoot I still don't know them.)