Maybe you'll avoid parked cars in purgatory: Grandma's Story.

SO LISTEN. I’ve got a bone to pick with a Catholic.

I got my new car in October. She’s a red Jeep Cherokee with a tan leather interior, v8 engine, bunch of fancy woodgrain shit on the dashboard, and listen, she can flat get up and go. She does not waste time peeling out of red lights at Kingston Pike and leaving those other silly cars in the dust … just to slow down 20 yards ahead for next stop light or the slow poke Buick motherfucker all in the way. Based on this description alone, you’re probably thinking, “oh snap, this car is way nicer than Jen should drive. This is like a bonafied ADULT automobile .. I really see Jen in more of a like Ford Taurus circa 1998 or a volkswagon Golf circa any year volkswagon golf was made.” And you would be right. Can’t believe it myself, frankly. UNTIL around finals time (cue the very sad slow piano overture) … it was the saddest of all days. I was being super studious (procrastinating, per usual) at a quiet carrel in the library (coffee shop, down the street from the miserable library) when I went out to get some fresh air (smoke a cigarette, obviously). It was then that I saw it. Somebody had hit Grandma (that’s my car’s name, did I mention that?) right in the front bumper. I am not talking about some little bitty dent either, I am trying to tell you that they smacked her right in the mouth, fucked up the bumper big time, plastic all torn off and smashed up and SHIT IT PISSES ME OFF TO EVEN TYPE THIS. ok. (turn that piano music off, we’re done being pensive now.) I’m not real sure how many people have heard me bitch about this, but there was a handful of days when I was bitching up a storm to anybody who would listen. I’d be hollering about “my new caaaaaaarrr,” “somebody smacked her right in the mooouuuuuth and leeeeft. No note with a phone number, no note with a ‘kiss my ass’, no nothing.” This was obviously a BD (big deal). So (getting around to why I’m needing to bitch at a Catholic), I had no idea where grandma had been assaulted until my brother, who apparently moonlights as mcguyver/sherlock holmes, finds little bits of little parts of what used to be grandma’s mouth directly outside my mom’s house. NOW - my mom lives right across the street from (bring back that fucking piano, real loud this time) SAINT JOHN NEWMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. That’s right, I parked my car outside my mom’s house, went inside to practice my FAMILY VALUES YOU CATHOLICS HOLLER ABOUT SO MUCH and all those Catholics are all massing it up in there and one of them really gives it to Grandma good and flees the scene. BAM, kaPOW, case closed.

So. Now is the time when I go all V for Vendetta/Boondock Saints (pls note the Catholic pun) on behalf of Grandma. I am prepared to take it to the fathers and bishops and popes and what not. I will recount my story as politely and rationally as I just described it here and then get to the part about getting my retribution in the form of these three reasonable requests: 1) payment for reconstructive work on grandma’s mouth 2) pain and suffering (that’s for me) and 3) a simple apology. Except when I go to say, “thank you for apologizing, I forgive you” it’s really likely to come out sounding more like, ” …. yeah. so can somebody please show me the bible verse that says ” we do not accept amongst thou brethren whom are gayest or lesbianst but lo, very truly i say unto you, those among ye who do fuckest upest shit which does belong to you and then flee the scene, ye are righteous and holy forever amen” thus saith the Lord” One of those St. John Newman folk best be doing some serious confessing and/or getting their purgatory pants on cause are fixin to do some long sitting. Grandma, I will never forget your unsolved assault and will never stop fighting for justice. Imma make shirts and organize fundraisers and all that shit, whatever it takes.

Justice for Grandma.

Welp, I feel a little better. Grandma’s still a babe, even with her big ole gap tooth smile. GILF, all the way.

Things I could do with my graduate degree. By Jennifer Smith.

I will, hand to God, have an MSSW in May of 2012. The following are some possible “alternative” ways to serve my community and put my post-graduate social work education to use.


1.Activity: Instillation Art/Construction. Relevant area of social work study: Feminism, theoretical perspectives, sarcasm.
Knoxville has the sunsphere. Situated in World’s Fair Park, The Sunphere is Knoxville’s own phallic downtown eyesore. Now me myself, I like a big useless building shaped like a penis just as much as the next feminist but (and I’m making an assumption here) I hope we can agree that female parts can represent downtown Knoxville just as well as male parts can. Female parts have always really gotten the shaft …. (see what I did there? read it again). So in the spirit of breaking that glass ceiling/emasculating Knoxville’s golden penis, I propose we organize a way to construct another equally large and useless monstrosity, except this will be basically two large round objects with circles inside of them- to represent boobs (naturally). This can be just as tasteful, subtle, and aesthetically pleasing as the Sunsphere (which sets the bar pretty low). Just two big ole boobies staring down the sunsphere to see who blinks first. (This experiment is also obviously evidenced based research/ final reckoning day for the work of Freud and everything he wrote about people’s body parts-which was virtually everything he wrote). Building boobs downtown and disproving psychosexual development is too ambitious? pish. posh.

2. Activity: Protest. Relevant area of social work study: Protest, shame, why you will never make fun of my blog again, sarcasm.
Apparently Knoxville has some pretty disgruntled labor workers who have taken to making huge banners to be publicly disgraced business involved in labor disputes. These protesters sit outside any given place with their umbrellas and their coats beside a big white sign that says in big red letters, “SHAME ON YOU CALHOUNS”. Now, you all can see clearly as I do that there is an obvious need to expand the use of the shame signs beyond just labor disputes. I prospose to research/execute a plan to get a hold of some of those to protest various things I think need protesting. Something like, “SHAME ON YOU CHICKFILA HATE MEAT”, (as I sit there chowing down on, i mean, a big ole order of waffle fries). Or it could be a birthday present, because, honestly, who doesn’t want to pull into work one morning and see me, posted up in the soccer field at the CLO, with an umbrella and a big gulp beside a banner that says “SHAME ON YOU STEPHEN BRADLEY JENNINGS” …” jen, what the fuck are you doing.” ”(mumbles) read the sign, asshole .. I'm shaming you." Now, I am still really unclear as to how this would happen, who would (wo)man the sign when I’m refiling my ketchup, just how one would piss of labor workers to the point of public humiliation, but apparently it cannot be that hard because those signs are everywhere. Maybe they’ll even let me keep some of them for posterity sake. not sure.

3. Activity: Moral depravity. Relevant area of social work study: Moral depravity.
If none of that pans out, I think I’d like to try my hand at a little moral depravity. Ya know, just for something different and my hedonism clock is tick-tocking away. I did not really experience the depth and breadth of “sowing my wild oats” and engage in regrettable youthful wreckless indiscretions that make great stories later. Evidently, I threw all my oats at Anne Lamott and school and following rules and bonding with my 3 friends that I actually liked. I think I just missed out on that the development stage of "being a wild ass" and I’m just experiencing some buyers remorse for my young adult responsibility. Sometimes I do legitimately wonder, did I miss anything at the 1 star bars in the middle of the night? There must be a reason why people put on those GAWD AWFUL unflattering uncomfortable clothes and get shitty 5 nights out of the week. For me, very often, social situations like that seem a lot more like something that feels like work than something that feels like fun. I think that whenever those girls were out buying the dresses so tight it cuts off their circulation and getting belly button pierced, someone evidently pulled them aside and told them something like, "Hey, listen, here is how you do this social stuff without being totally and completely awkward .. .and also, here is how you don't hate it". Maybe that is what that weird tattooed dude tells you before he crams that needle in your navel and then snorts a line of coke off the sterile instrument tray. I will find this gentleman and hasten to observe him in his natural habitat (Cool Beans, Electric Cowboy, Th’ Katch- except not that last one because I'm a feminist- see above). Just doing my part to keep my friends in some job security.

maybe I should volunteer to give the speech at graduation and read these ideas as serious proposals for future ventures. Don't know why not.