hey mom, you're dumb.

dear irby and ian:
is it impolite to correct friends or relatives when they are wrong?

irby: you only have to meet me one time to know what my answer to this is. while possibly impolite, it is often 100% NECESSARY TO CORRECT SOME WRONG-ASS BITCH. i'm going to climb over the fourth wall for a second and tell you something awful about myself: i am totally insufferable. not all of the time, because i can be pretty goddamned charming and adorable and if you met me in real life you would want to hold me close to you and tickle my sides. but when i am victorious, especially in a battle of wits, i often behave in a way that is unworthy of human kindness.

i'm the baby of my dysfunctional family, and i proudly display every single negative characteristic and trait that accompanies that distinction. i'm too social and outgoing, financially irresponsible, whiny, egotistical, spoiled, and the most manipulative brat you will ever fucking meet. you'll still like me, though, because i'm the undisciplined life of the goddamned party. seriously, dude, i'm a good fucking time. and what rules?! any trouble i get us in can just be undone with the blink of my adowable wittle eyelashes. no one gets mad at the baby! baby can do whatever she wants! which is why i'm sometimes the worst. because when everyone acts like everything you do is cute and hilarious all the time, it's difficult to locate the off switch. i'm like the energizer bunny of "you're doing that wrong."

americans are super rude, and that's one of my most favorite things about this country. you can just be as foul and horrible as you want to be and let all your dirty shit hang out and no one is going to throw you in jail or publicly execute your ass for doing so. you might have to weather some dirty looks from people too polite to call you a shit-eating asshole to your face, but what the fuck do YOU care? you're rude! the world is your oyster! plus, the rest of us get fair warning to stay the fuck away from your grouchy ass. nobody has any goddamned manners anymore, so life is just one smash-and-grab survival of the fittest great big cosmic adventure. get what you can, man. i appreciate rudeness, mostly because i hate being nice more than anything else on earth and rude motherfuckers absolve you of that particular burden. the less i have to smile and pretend to give a shit about the weather outside or how your day is going, the better.

what's hilarious, though, are the silly things we feel the need to be polite about. a woman who would turn her head the other way while a visibly pregnant woman laden with groceries struggles to get her stroller onto the bus is the same shrinking violet too timid to tell her boyfriend that his final jeopardy guess is wrong? bitch, please. most family dynamics are complicated and weird, but if everyone is grown now what's the harm in telling your cousin that "irregardless" isn't a motherfucking word? my sister carol texted me the other day using abbreviations and emoticons she's thirty years too old for and i responded, "send that shit again. IN GODDAMNED ENGLISH."

political quarrels and ethical catch-22s are another story, though. but, in those instances, so is the concept of "rightness." when right depends on perspective rather than what you can scientifically prove, you might want to keep your fucking mouth shut. the other night i met a religious black dude in a bar. he wasn't hitting on me overtly, at least i hope he wasn't, because he started the conversation asking which republican i supported in the field of those vying for the presidential nomination. the whole "black republican" thing is astonishing to me, especially when that black person doesn't have any goddamned money. (his credit card was declined, and i nearly died of embarrassment for him.) anyway, thinking he was joking, i said, "whichever one would hold my hand during an abortion." thus unintentionally sparking a lengthy, exhausting defense of a woman's right to choose that totally destroyed my partyboner. i'm smart enough to know that it's as useless to try to change someone's mind as it is for him to try to change mine, and i didn't. neither should you.

is he ever going to convince me to kneel and worship a magical zombie that's his own father? probably not. am i ever going to convince him that it's okay for me to get gay married to a woman with good health insurance who will let me have side boyfriends? totally unlikely. some things you just have to learn to coexist with. so as long as you limit your revisions to shit you can substantiate with the help of a dictionary or history book, CORRECT THAT WRONG ASS BITCH. just like i would! with fervor!