Miserable Hallmark-obeying simpleton that she is, Hambeast (BM) demanded that Skidmark's week with dad be cut short for custody on Mother's Day. Her increasingly frequent and stupid reasons for needing custody accommodations in her favor are upsetting my man, thereby interfering with my digestion and overall quality of life. Being the master of my own destiny, I persuaded BD to invest Friday night and Saturday in a Mother's Day gift, Picklebreath style.

BD and I are big DIYers, and we've tried to impart the value of handmade gifts on Skidmark. Having the memory of a goldfish, we convinced Skidmark that she'd had the brilliant idea of making a painting for her whore mother. We chose to do a massive wall piece because it had the least potential for getting “accidentally ruined” to the point where it could be discarded or hidden. I provided a heavy-ass 5'x2.5' canvas for the project. It was one of those deep wooden ones from World Market; the hideous leaf decoupage on it gave me an excuse to use the belt sander, so at least I got a little something out of the experience. Anyway, the kid gets the primed canvas and immediately paints a dick.

This dick is huge... and pink. This is reassuring, since we now know that it couldn't have been a dick she's seen in relation to her mother's activities. Also, the squiggly vein on it was done in glitter glue for texture. “Its a flower” she insisted. Yeah, right. It didn't look like a flower before, and it sure as hell didn't when she was done.

After hours of work and very little coaching, she had glued all kinds of insane shit to this canvas. There were white, teardrop-shaped beads coming out of the “flower”, a googly-eye (yes, singular) glued to the tip, NRA stickers all over it, Pokemon cards, bits of paper, bottle caps, enough glitter to make someone think she killed a stripper, moss wads, hunks of foam, ribbon, rhinestones, it was hideous. I convinced her to put glow-in-the-dark stars on it so that “Moooomy” (read with a whine) would know it was there when she turned out the light.

Hambeast likes to buy Skidmark whatever, including books that are way beyond her reading capabilities. One was left at my house for so long that I gave up on trying to read it with her and taught her how to make a book safe (stash box). Hambeast found out and her jowels flapped furiously about how her precious purchase (that she had forgotten about until the kid brought home the book-box to show off her handiwork) had been destroyed. Thankfully, I had saved the pages we removed. BD and I sat up all night going through them, cutting hearts and flowers around subtle phrases like “It's a troll party!”, “You didn't listen, now I'm doomed!”, “You gave me a bad name”, and “You eat a lot”. We put a glitter border on them and let Skidmark affix our a little troll bouquet to the raging eyesore she had manifested. The bitch got her book back. If she ever gives that thing more than a glance, her face will catch fire.

Since Hambeast has gone out of her way to never meet me (after almost 3 years, even when we've been in the same room), I've deduced that she simply doesn't know how to interact with people without a cock stuffed in each cheek. Having to take part in raising a child that's joined at the cankle with someone like that is a Sysiphusian struggle; one must somehow find pleasure in their burden. This project was a gift from me to my fauxmily: therapy fodder for Skidmark's future self, and the passive-aggressive joy of delivering this monster-sized piece of crap to Hambeast for BD. Everyone of any importance wins.

I wish with all my heart that we could upload pictures.

Unless hell gets cold and that kid gains age-appropriate cognitive abilities before the next bullshit gift-giving holiday, we already have the project picked out. Since “mooooommy” always whines about how much she misses her vapid little security blanket, we're going to make a life-size Skidmark doll for her to cuddle while she's not around. Did I mention that they're still co-sleeping at the age of 7.5? Wouldn't a grotesquely-decorated effigy just be a PERFECT gift?! I'd be sewing the form right now, but Skidmark is expanding upward and outward at an odd rate, and I want to make sure the silhouette is accurate. Eye-wink

It kinda sucked to see BD spend the short weekend focusing on something for Hambeast, but he seemed to get a lot out of it. I'm here to help. Really.

*fingersteeple* }:)