You know when you’re in high school and you have your heart completely and totally ripped out by a teenage boy?

Great! Then you’re ready to be a stepmother-ish. You’ve already been hurt by a 16-year-old a-hole so you’re familiar with the process.

JUST KIDDING. Get ready for round 2 of teenage heartache. And this bitch packs an unforeseen emotional punch.

 

I’ve never wanted kids because ew, gross. I’m sorry to my friends who have kids. To clarify, I’m not sorry about what I said, I’m sorry about your dilemma.  I’ve always just pictured them drooling and pooping and barfing and crying and eating your food and giving nothing back in return (fuck that unconditional love bullshit) all while taking up valuable space on social media so why bother? Plus there’s the whole process of having a kid:

1) Get pregnant (okay, I know how babies are made so this part isn’t really that bad)

2) Be pregnant (aka: no drinking)

3) Give birth (either having major surgery or stretching your vagina to an abhorrent size)

4) Raise a child (they’re pricey, they’re needy, they stink, they need rides and time and energy)

So when my husband and I met almost 9 years ago and he had, at the time, an almost 8-year-old son I was wary. Did I really want to go down this road? I mean sure he was a great guy but did I really want to deal with a kid? After weighing all the pros and cons I decided that since the kid was old enough to, like, wipe his own ass and make toast (not simultaneously) I’d give it a go.

We all lived together for about 7 years and for the most part it was pretty good. Sure we had the occasional family spat and we all did things to annoy one another but overall, no biggie. The kid and I developed a pretty cool relationship where I wasn’t so much authoritative as I was like a much smarter, much older sister. We were, in a word, friends.

 

Then something changed.

It happened gradually but all at once. That’s the best way I can describe it.

 

Now if you ask anyone in the entire world about it they’ll say “Oh he’s just being a teenager” or “You know, the teenage brain” or “It’s just a phase” or “those crazy hormones!” All of these cliched excuses can be more easily summed up in one word: ASSHOLE.

Because over the course of a couple months he completely stops speaking to you or looking you in the eye and then one day you find a bunch of weed (really shitty weed, I may add) in his bedroom and rather than owning up to it he runs crying to his crazy mother’s shitshow of a hoarder’s house. I liken this to the dog hiding under the bed when she’s gone through the trash while we’re not home. By a process of elimination this makes said stepson approximately as intelligent and emotionally mature as a dog. A dog who wears lace panties.

Here’s the thing — my husband and I are pretty cool parents. That said we do have some pretty strict and quite complicated rules:

1) No weed….in the house

2) Don’t be a turd

As you can see any kid would be horribly confused by all these conditions and would inevitably feel incredibly oppressed. “What do you mean I can’t just sit around high playing guitar shirtless in my bedroom all day? Goddddddddd.”

Wow, that’s some messed up shit. What are you going to do now?

Well, what I always do when I’m hurt/filled with rage: drink a lot of wine, gain or lose 4 to 6 pounds, go shopping, work out a lot, sleep a lot, call my mom, cry, incorporate phrases like “don’t fuck with me!” unnecessarily and excessively in everyday speech, and use one of the kid’s favorite t-shirts to clean up dog vomit (no really, the dog just puked while I was sitting here writing).

As much as I’d love for this story to have a happy ending it certainly does not. Because despite what you thought all along with the love and caring and being pretty cool you’re just a retarded stepmom (my apologies if you’re actually retarded and also happen to be a stepmom) except now you’re hurt and more jaded than when you started this whole venture; the only things you have to show for it are a new Snoop Dog lighter and one of your own Tupperware containers filled with stems and seeds.

(I am sorry for all the misery today but sometimes when life gives you lemons the best you can do is to squeeze an ultra-sour blog post out of it.)

Basically this is coming full circle: you’ve had your heart broken again by essentially the same dickbag who made you watch skateboarding videos in his basement on many sunny afternoons in the mid to late 90s because he “liked you.”

So enjoy your 15 minutes — or 8 1/2 years as some of us are lucky enough to get. It’ll be over before you know it.