We’re back for another installment of “everybody bugs the crap out of me.”

It’s been a while….

Hey, toy makers? Yeah, you. The ones outsourcing to China and making crappy toys.  Would it kill you to put nipples on your dolls? I know some of Middle America likes their dolls without groinal distinguishers, and without any openings except those that can be crammed shut with a pacifier, but could you please put nipples on your stinking dolls? You don’t have to build separate sets…boy babies and girl babies all have nipples. All humans do. We’re mammals. We feed our young with milk. We have nipples whether the formula companies let you admit it or not, and whether we have weird post-delivery black hairs around them or not. My kid wants a doll, and I want him to have another doll. But all your dolls drink and wet and cry without nipples. i mean, I’d drink and wet myself and cry if I had no nipples, too, but that’s a little traumatic and advanced for a three-year-old, don’t you think?

And can you put nipples on all the mammal toys, while you’re at it? Peanut wants to know where a deer’s nipples are. We’ve seen elephant nipples (armpit) and horse nipples (belly) but we have no idea where deer nay-nays are. Help a frustrated stay-at-home basketcase out, please! i don’t want to have to take him to the library and teach him where the encyclopedias are. That’s *so* 80s.

Mr. Center of the Universe? You’ll do it because I said so, that’s why. and if you ask why again you’re going to have to sit through presentations at the American Academy of Sciences conference, because if you want to “why” me to death, you can do it with those who have mastered the purposeful “WHY,” because it would be a joy to think at that level for a while, instead of developing an answer to the questions you readily admit you could answer yourself.

Nannies at the playground? I know you have it tough, what with being paid to do what I do for free, and making me feel all gyped because I was paid exorbitant amounts to do things I didn’t like and am now being paid in blackeyes and pee-soaked laundry for tasks I like even less (if that’s possible) but would you please stop making your tiny ward give stuff to my kid? Teach sharing not the same as teaching surrender. I know you’re better than 50% of the nannies at the playground because you actually watch the kid you’re paid to watch. And that you pay attention to the kid you’re paid to pay attention to. But could you give that kid a chance to play with stuff before ripping it out of their hands and giving it to my overpriviledged kid (who needs to be taken down a peg or two by an older kid, anyway)?

Stores and restaurants…please. Before I go all Sharpie on  your ass, it’s “DVDs and CDs.” There is no apostrophe in a plural. Dinners, diners, customers, all. No apostrophe if it’s plural.  You are the strraw that just might break the deer’s back, depending on where her nay-nays are placed in relation to the hay bale.

Finally (it’s a short list because I’m out of practice, what with being all sunny and perky all the time), um, self-absorbed working dads? Stop it. Just f—ing stop it. You have no idea, and you have no right to speak, and I’m going to cram this all the way from your hole-less nethers to your pacifiered crier if you don’t just bite your lip and keep your delusions to yourself.  It is not an easy job, and if you weren’t so clearly wrapped in your own world and not in your child’s, you might see that.