"Up with this bullshit I will not put!"

"A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks, a woman loses hers after four kisses."

A good friend and I were having a discussions about the differences between men and women when dating, married or otherwise engaged in relationships and we realized (what we subconsciously already knew), women will put up with some straight up mess in a relationship, mess that men wouldn't dare even entertain with a mere thought.
     My friend had been dating a guy who was "alright" and "all wrong." According to her descriptions of him –  he looked "alright", had an "alright" job, and had "alright" conversation. She wanted some male companionship and figured he'd be good enough to pass the time. On her first (and only) outside date with him she spent hours getting ready, got her hair done, got her nails done, nice outfit and their first date was to Applebees. In her head she thought "WTF is this Applebees bullsh*t?  Applebees? I went here last week with my Goddaughter who's 14! I'm a grown ass woman in her 30's, who's getting taken to Applebees on a first date- where they do that at?" But she fell back, talked herself down off the ledge said "ok, maybe this brother doesn't have it like that, ok."
After a few weeks of kicking it, they take it up a notch and became intimate. Well! That was another bag of ridiculousness right there. So she tells me that they began to skip down intimate road, she's ready to take the ride, only, the operator ain't workin'. Yes, he's got erectile dysfunction or as I call it "monkey wang"... She's in shock but instead of making him feel less than adequate, she continues to keep trying to perform an exorcism and raise the dead. The next flub was trying to get the condom on- well, he decided to give his wang a stern talking to,  he grits his teeth and says "you do this now? you doggone limp noodle!" (And that discussion was stiffer than he will ever be apparently) She is laying there in shock, but instead of saying "never mind honey, let's end this here", she continues to play along- every time he got it up,  it was a race for her to get on it before the wang fell asleep again... smh... have mercy. As she's telling me the story, tears are coming out my eyes, b/c I cannot contain the laughter.
All the while I'm wondering how much longer did she continue with this foolishness?

I remembered another story of a woman sharing her tale of how her husband apparently has a porn problem- he looks at porn everyday, looks at those King magazine photos and she's found porn site links on his laptop. Not to mention he's got a monkey wang issue as well, due to high blood pressure, blood flow is off,  but continues to try and get her to make him feel good as she grows more and more disgusted.  She puts up with it hoping that it will get better and because she made the vow "for better or for worse."

But this brings me back to my original statement and the fact that women will put up with mediocrity and less than that. And I don't know if men would put with half the stuff that women deal with.

Women are the more sympathetic of the 2 sexes but there are a few important lessons to note:

Lesson #1: Monkey Wang shall not be accepted straight out the gate.  Now I'm not saying that you dump a dude you've been married to for 10 years b/c his wang is on strike. But what I'm saying is, if on day 1 or 6 he can't play ball and you aren't really into the dude to begin with then let's cut your losses here ladies. If you're not into him, 9 times out of 10 you're with him for the nookie- and if that's the case... you ain't gettin' what you signed up for.  Note: Men do not play this bullshit game. If your sex game is at all wack-errific or any variation thereof, that man is out. He's not playing along, as Rick James would say "Fuck yo' couch".  And in no way shape or form would a man be going through these acrobatic tricks to get a woman in the mood had the tables been any variation of reversed. It ain't cool, he knew his wang was out of commission from the start of the tour. Eff his feelings, this ain't your man who suddenly had an issue and you're trying to be sympathetic. He didn't take your feelings into consideration when he brought that limp noodle to the dinner party! 


Lesson #2: Have similar standards for your man that you have of your friends.  I have heard women say about other women:  "I had to stop talking to that girl, she's too dumb" or "she's a bum, I can't be hanging around bum ass girls."  But in the next breath will talk about their man who needs to borrow $20 to put gas in the car...AGAIN or who continues to smoke weed and play video games in his boxers instead of looking for a job. I've had a discussion with a male family member who is known for using girls like an eraser, he constantly repeated his manifesto and mantra to me "I'm broke, why would I get a girl who's broke? She can't help me, shit, she can barely help herself." See, women don't think like that, we think, "oh we're helping him out til he get on his feet"- only feet he's gettin' on is yours so you can carry his monkey ass around!


Lesson #3: "For Better or Worse" is cool but if you're getting more of the worse then the Better some thangs got to change! This "for better or for worse" vow has gotten women all messed up in the game. Women take that shit to mean that no matter how bad it gets and how much we ache we gotta "stick it out" and "make it work."  Meanwhile, men don't have that same approach- it's more "For Better or for worse, but mines come first" type of party. Monkey wang AND a porn problem? Nah son, you get to pick one issue, 2 issues is too many and you asking to be set ablaze while you sleep.  Sacrifice is a 2 way street - if he's not willing to see that you are not happy with the relationship and adjust himself to make sure that YOU are happy then it's time to re-evaluate the relationship. And if he's got The Wang, then why is he looking at porn? That's like wanting to test drive a car as a paraplegic- some shit just ain't gonna happen, so why try?! 


Lesson #4 Don't believe the hype - you ain't gonna die alone- it ain't worth it to be with somebody just so you won't be alone.  We all have had that thought at some point but that kind of thinking is like having an infected gangrene foot and keeping it because "hey, at least I still got 2 feet!" Yeah you got 2 feet but one is blacker than Flava Flav with a tan and you can't use it! Your better than that- and warming your bed with a lighter seems like a good idea at first until the whole shit is engulfed in flames, you running around trying to put out the fire and going crazy- same shit for allowing a man who you know ain't working for you to remain in your life - sometimes it feels good, but when you grit your teeth at the the thought of him getting in the bed, some shit's got to change!


Message!
One...

The outskirts of NYC scare me...

Working in NY for as long as I have, one comes across a plethora of foolishness- not just stupidity but racism, sexism and any other kind of "ism" that you can think of. I know, I know NY is the melting pot... it's a melting pot alright,  of absolute ridiculousness at times. And as much as NYC is an "open book", the outskirts of NY, are about as closed as liquor store on a Sunday in the South.
I work  in "Worstchester", and generally it's ok, but I realize that these people (some of them) have been inbreeding repeatedly for centuries, because their thinking is quite "special".
During my run of employment at this place, I've run into quite a few special (read: occasionally racist) moments:

"Every Woman" except you Black gals...
While in a meeting about a brochure being designed, there was a question about the cover image and which image should be used. The phrase "every woman" was tossed around a few times and I interjected and asked  "Sorry to interrupt, but what is this 'every woman' you guys are talking about?" This woman who's originally from Texas, takes a breath, rolls her neck trying to get the kink out - then says "non- African- American woman"- hmmm- well I think to myself  "is there a colored only bathroom in this bitch too I don't know about?!" I simply say "wow, so black women are a different breed of women." The meeting was over at that point, however, they never used that phrase again, at least not in my presence.

"Can I touch your hair?"
Now every black woman has had some semblance of this experience and I'm not so gentle with folks in these moments. While standing in the doorway talking to a colleague, another co-worker walks up behind me and touches my braids. I asked him "What the hell are you doing?" He says "Whaaa? I just want to feel?" I then continue, "how would you like it if I rubbed that bald q-tip you call a head? Don't touch my hair again, now beat it!"   Of course, Q-ball says I'm being too serious. No I'm not, I don't let random folks (I don't give a damn if I work with them) come up and touch me without being invited!
Since then things have been real "friendly" betwixt us... and I'm still trying to find a stitch of "give a damn."

"I know how dark black people get, my cousin married a Jamaican!" 
While sitting in an impromptu meeting with an Art Director about an ad that was produced featuring a Black woman, an issue with the woman in the image not being "black enough" arose. Some outside agencies we had placed the ad with stated that some folks thought he woman was ethnically ambiguous- she could be black or latina.  "Well what do they mean she's not black enough? Do they want her black black like Jamaican black?" the art director asked.  I looked at the art Asshole and I calmly told him "I want to punch you dead in your face, don't you EVER say that again."  "Well, I didn't mean it like that, but how dark do they want her? Jamaicans are really really dark" - I run through a mental rolodex of all the Jamaican folks I know and of the 9 or so self-identified Jamaicans that I know there are about 2 of 'em that are dark-skinned- I said "your comment is THE most assanine thing I've heard in the last 24 hours!"  He continues, "I'm sorry" - I said "there are mid-toned skinned Jamaicans, hell there are FAIR skinned Jamaicans! You don't know what you're talking about!" He continues "well, let me think... you're right, my cousin married a Jamaican woman and she is light-skinned, okay, well we need a meeting." I said, "good thing your cousin's wife set the bar for all things Jamaican, I just want you to know that was THE most offensive conversation I've had in this place to date." He later comes by my office and apologized again... I just glared at him and said "you do realize how much of a ridiculous fool that made you look don't you?" He agreed.. however, I realize a fool rarely realizes that he is one...


 "I don't like her hair, can we make her look like Celie from the Color Purple instead?" 
Another ad featuring a black woman is currently being created and the woman has "natural" hair – as in kinky, curly, non-Beyonce like. The woman came in a few weeks ago for a photoshoot, she had her hair swept up on her hair with a band around it and a large Afro puff on top. It looked fine.  The art director  (same art director that knows Jamaicans) decides he doesn't like the afro puff on top of her head and tells the designer to remove it. And instead photoshop a small Afro in it's place. Well... the end result made this woman look like a cross between Celie and Buckwheat.  And the designer knew it looked bad.  I said to the designer (who's Asian), "that's like me coming to a photo of you and say "ya know it would look better if your eyes weren't so Asian and almond-like lets swop them out for some round doe-like eyes." She says "I know, that's why I called you out here to look at this" I said well I think that  looks ridiculous and if it gets submitted I'm going to go off. I have to leave for the day, however, feel free to share my sentiments, because when I return I will make sure to say something.  I continued, "let me make something clear, the reason you have a caucasian woman in one ad and a black woman in another is to relate to your targe audience. A white gay man is NOT the target of this creative! And as a black woman I'm offended by the way she looks with that lopped off hair, it looks a mess AND I would not give a damn about the message, b/c I would be disgusted by the image and would ignore the message. ADVERTISING 101 jackasses. And it's important to note- the caucasian version of this ad- the woman looks like she just rolled out of bed with the cast of true blood- she's pale, with freckles and blotchy skin- yet, they've done "mild" retouching - meanwhile she looks like she's a got damn dalmatian.

And this is why Black folks and Black women in particular are seemingly "angry" in the workplace.  It's because of this type of repeated foolishness that creates an uneasy work environment for us. And it's anger but it's also called self defense- because of incidents like this, I'm constantly on guard to make sure that I'm not being disrespected as a Black Woman.

*Angela Davis 'fro, firmly in place. *

Workplace Rule #4- Sausage flirting is a No-No

I don't know about anyone else but "Pause" moments are running rampant these days. Sometimes we can attribute them to immaturity and silliness and other times we can attribute it to just plain stupidity and desperation.

Such an instance occurred at work last week in the cafeteria. As I waited to place my order, a woman walks up in front of me to the counter holding an italian sausage link with tongs from the self serve station. *Pause* I stood there thinking, "whoa, it's 9:15am on a Wednesday, what the fugg is going on here?" Then I thought to myself, stop being nasty. There were 2 men standing there as well and everyone else was straight faced.
The woman continues to the counter and says to the cook, "Big Daddy, I have something for you." *Pause, Pause, Pause Fuggin' Pause* Did I mention this was the cafeteria at WORK. Now I'm thinking, "bitch is you crazy? I mean seriously." At this point the guy to my left looks down at the floor in an attempt to keep his cool. The guy on my right is holding his mouth, trying to keep his cool as well. I mean, we are at work and these men are trying to avoid a sexual harrassment charge.
She continues. "Bernie, I have something for you, right behind you." Bernie hasn't turned around yet, I suspect, b/c  Bernie knows this is some bullshit going on behind him.  He peeped her with that sausage in hand and probably was like "not today bitch."

At this point my mouth is clenched tight and I'm shaking my head- again I think "this bitch has gon' straight crazy" and I break my silence. I said "Um, ok, let's talk about the 2 things you don't do at work #1 walk up to a man holding a sausage and #2 yelling out  some Big Daddy while holding said sausage! I mean really?? It ain't even 10 am and you've already taken us to straight HBO late night!"  The 2 guys lose it, they are laughing hard and the woman giggles. She says "oh I wasn't even thinking like that"...
Come the fugg on heffa!  I know this woman knew what was happening.  I see her every morning flirting with this man in the cafe. She is all too happy to give this man a loose ass sausage with a smile. He's a married man heffa, if you're planning on seducing him, you'll have to do something else. I don't know any straight man that's getting excited over you holding a sausage. Another important note- Bernie is knocking on 50, that sausage shit is for dudes of the younger set.  Why not just hold a banana and pump it in and out of your mouth and moan?? I know times are hard and good men seem scarce but flirting (if you can even call it that) must be kept within bounds. Workplace "sausage" flirting is an easy way to land your ass in the HR department trying to explain to the HR director what exactly were you thinking when you called him Big Daddy while holding a sausage...