Monday, August 23, 2010

I'm Sorry You're Pissed

Nurse Betty needs to start her own line of greeting cards. It would be a Happy Bunny meets Barbie meets brutally honest biotch. And every card would end with a "K! Buh bye!" just to piss you off even more. I'm not mad at her or anything, it's just that in the last two years or so, she's become....honest. And by honest I mean no-holds-barred honest, which in the Single Girl land of happy kittens and puppies means that she's become a bitch.

The thing is, though, that if you tell her this, she revels in it. She laughs at your compliment and thanks you! Which makes her a bigger bitch! And the fact that I'm pointing this out may run me the risk of being one, too, but since she and I are practically joined at the hip, there's a good chance that her behaviors have rubbed off on me.

You see, once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I was once a bowl-stacking, watch-wearing, never-be-late-or-I-shall-perish sort of girl. I might as well been called Drill Sargent - Nurse Betty did once - and it wasn't because I was donning a cute Halloween costume for a party at The Hef's. If I had to be someplace, I was there 5 minutes early come hell or high water, or even Princess' tears of agony. This annoying need to be on time and have every dish in its place stems from my divorce. If I couldn't control anything going on with my life, I could damn well control how I existed. Enter Nurse Betty.

I'm not sure if the theme music to my life at the moment Nurse Betty and I began being friends would be some sappy Dionne Warwick song about friends or something more like Let It Be by the Beatles. My life definitely changed when I met her, though. Imagine being a tough, rough and ready New Yorker with places to go and people to see...like, yestehday already, eh? And enter in the Alabaman, complete with sweet tea, sweet disposition, no concept of time, on the eternal Sunday drive of her life. Take those two polar opposite personalities and meld them together. Did you see hell freeze over? Yep. There...it just happened.

I stack the bowls. She haphazardly throws them in the cupboard, devil may care or be beheaded by a flailing ceramic bowl toppling down upon you. I like to be 5 minutes early to my destination. She's just getting into the shower 5 minutes before we have to be there. At the checkout line, I literally sprout grey hairs and exude steam from my ears like Frankenstein at his boiling point when the checker wads up my newly purchased clothes and throws them into a shopping bag. She helps the checker wad them up and throw them in the bag. Notice a pattern here? She just does, because these little things that get my panties in a bunch she finds useless to her overall life. No drama, no fakeness, no unnecessary.

All this lack of drama, fakeness, and unnecessary allows her to live her life as she sees fit, which includes telling it like it is. So it's no surprise that in the "I'm Brutally Honest" department, Nurse Betty's mug is right there, smiling at you. I've been told that if you look really hard, you can see her horns coming through her angelic blonde hair.

Saturday started off like any other glorious weekend day. I stayed in my PJs until I was damned well and ready to get out of them. I drank coffee on the couch and watched anything and everything I damned well wanted to. And just about the time I was texting Nurse Betty to nag her into waking up, she texted me. We have this sixth sense that way. It's ESPN.

We got to texting back and forth, and eventually got on a subject that hit a nerve. It wasn't so much the subject, but what Brutally Honest had to say about it that hit the nerve. And since I had my PMS gun cocked and loaded, I let her know that she had irritated me. Several times. And I fired some really bad bullets.

But that was short lived, because she sent me the funniest damn text I've ever gotten. It was shit your pants and giggle til you pee funny. Four words: "I'm sorry you're pissed." I laughed so hard I cried. And then I sent her a text apologizing for being mean, explaining my temper, and told her that I respected her opinion and that just because I got pissed doesn't mean I don't still care for her. And I commended her for her Hallmark-esque approach to diffusing the situation. We laughed about it and got through our little tizzy. That wasn't the best of it, though.

My PMS gun had a few remaining bullets and they were aimed at all the unfortunate stupid people that I encountered the rest of the day. I can't remember how long it's been since people pissed me off so badly. If I hadn't had Princess in the car, I'd have been using each middle finger - and Nurse Betty's - at the idiots on the road driving 20 mph in a 45. Who cares if I have to steer with my toes? Middle finger pointing at stupid people is more important when your PMS gun is cocked and ready to fire!! And all day long I had to do Lamaze to keep from hyperventilating at the sheer magnitude of frustration. Damn Nurse Betty had to sit next to me the entire time saying four little words to salt the wound. She smiled her angelic smile, the one that makes her horns pop up just a little bit more through her golden locks, and said it...

"I'm sorry you're pissed."

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