Suck it, juice!

I know what you might be thinking. That the expression "suck it," when used in a taunting or otherwise derogatory capacity, is subliminally anti-female, as well as subliminally homophobic, because it implies that performing fellatio is exclusively the domain of those who are trapped within a gender-based second-class citizenship.

And yes, if you want to take all of the intended innocence out of the taunt written into the title of this blog post, then I must acknowledge that your point is correct. Moreover, I must now apologize to everyone--including myself--who was, or who will be, in one way or another, born into a category of "well, you don't want to be THAT guy" butt-of-cruel-jokesmanship.

(I say this as someone who was once the lone girl at middle school baseball camp, whom coaches and colleagues alike would joke "out of earshot" about, by accusing one another of throwing, not merely like A girl, but indeed, of throwing like THE girl. I won the most improved player award that year, and brought two more middle school girls with me the next year. And not just ANY sort of middle school girls. The sort of sassy, giggling, sports-ambivalent "don't give a fuck" kind of middle school girls who just made everybody feel a little weird about baseball camp, in general. Because I could.)

Still.

Before we get into any Hillary Clinton-themed quoteables about NASA, I want to try to steal a little moment, to adopt a tone of childlike ignorance. The sort of "the world is kinda safe" naïveté needed to use whatever language might pop into my head, without making any real effort to apply critical thinking skills, or even basic adult courtesy, to the situation which I have decided to describe.

And it is with this "safe space to express myself" approach, and self-permission to indulge in lowered boundaries, which prompts me to easily and blithely write the following:

FUCK YEAH, STUPID!!! WHO'S TOO EXPENSIVE, NOW!!! Juice? You think I can afford fruit juice? Fruit juice that either comes in boxes too tiny to be affordable, or frozen tubes that require me to fit a carafe into my fridge like some fucking mathemagician. FUCK NO!!! Not medium-sized bottles of fruit juice, that require figuring out which objects in my yard are the recycle bin. Fruit juice is too much of a hassle.

And it is too fatty. Yeah, there's no fat in it. What's up with that, man?

But it is still full of sugar. That's sugar that could be spent on CANDY!!! I could be eating candy RIGHT NOW!!!!! I might!!! I might just do that!!! Because I keep candy around!!! Because I have a JOB!!! And that is the kind of proactive, assertive living that a steady income can provide. The finer things in life, like always having a fresh stash of bitchin' candy. Yeah, that's right, fruit juice. Taking my money. Not today. Not now. It's whatever the opposite of payback is, time. It's no-payment time. Wallet got left at home accidentally, oh God I hope, time.

Now, fruit juice is one of my husband's favorites, but when I pick it up at the store, I look at it with the same mistrust that I give... um... huh... yeah... sliced cheese? Theme yogurt? Quality ingredients? Foods that are still too fresh for the bargain shelf? I CANNOT SPEND MY CANDY MONEY ON SUCH EXTRAVAGANCES!!!!!!

So.

So what do I do?

I buy some shelf-stable, fruit-inspired, crystallized water-alteration powder. And I buy it for mothafuckin astronauts. How do I eat my ice cream? ASTRONAUT ICE CREAM!!!!! How do I try to transition out of buying real fruit juice so often? I BUY TANG AND DRINK TANG AND WAIT FOR MY HUSBAND TO STEAL MY GLASS OF TANG EVEN THOUGH HE ORIGINALLY SAID THAT HE WAS JUST FINE WITH BEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SPACE TRAVEL!!!!!!!!! GAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHBBBBBBTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blurry phone photo, featuring a gorgeously retro washing machine dial.

Why does the positioning of my hand imply that I'm shorter than the washing machine? For that matter, why AM I shorter than the washing machine? Those weren't special effects. No camera tricks here. It is a monolithic tower of soap and garment rehabilitation.

Right. Always right. Always right, over here.