Going To Hell For Dummies – A Beginner’s Guide

I’m an asshole. I’m not necessarily proud of it, but I do own it. It has been a demon I have fought my whole life, trying to “be the bigger person” and let things slide. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right?

But what if you repeatedly keep your Inner Asshole at bay? What if you ARE the bigger person and just try to get along and not make waves? 

Well, I can only tell you from my own experience that your Inner Asshole can only be suppressed for so long before she has a meltdown like a three year old in Target who just got told she can’t have a toy.

This is my cautionary tale. Do with it what you will.

It starts with Ozzy Osbourne at a Catholic School.

When Shane was in the First Grade, The Husband Dude got laid off for the second time in less than a year. With the job market being one big frustration after another, he sort of transitioned into a stay at home Dad, which really ended up being a blessing, considering my long work hours at the time and the fact that overnighters at the E.R. with my Mom were becoming a regular thing. 

THD took over the domestic duties and became the on-call parent for school activities. Then, the opportunity presented itself for him to start working part time at the school. He got paid and he got to spend time with the kiddo. Win/Win.

So it happened that on the last day of school, they always had a Fun Day with all kinds of outdoor water activities, bounce houses, etc. The school maintenance man ran a DJ business on the side and he would provide music for Fun Day. This was right up THD’s Alley. Anything having to do with music, he’ll gravitate to.

I guess Mr. M let THD start picking out and putting the music on while Mr. M was busy doing something else.

And then it happened.

Crazy Train.

“Really?!? Really?!? Ozzy Osbourne at a CATHOLIC SCHOOL???”

THD looked over to see a mom we knew. She was signaling him by making the slashing motion across her own throat, which THD assumed to mean that she was either telling him to cut the song or she was demonstrating the latest ISIS beheading technique.

After a couple more slashes, she marched up to the DJ booth and basically tore him a new asshole.

We live in Oklahoma and this was a Catholic school. With tattoos, piercings, and lots of skull clothing and handbags, we understand we don’t quite fit the cookie cutter mold.

This mother, however, was extreme by anyone’s standards. She once told me she was afraid to let her son have too many playdates with other boys and encouraged him to make friends with girls because “you never know”.

Ummm…what?

“You know. So many kids are turning gay. It’s scary. You never know.”

So it was not surprising at all that she would be offended by the guy that bit the head off a bat and may or may not have peed on The Alamo.

I’ll grant you, it probably wasn’t the best choice of music for a Catholic school event. Sometimes we forget the situation we’re in when we’re just having fun and we don’t make the best choices.

But this was Crazy Train. This is probably the least offensive of Ozzy Osbourne’s songs (if you’re so inclined to be offended).

The lyrics are about the Cold War, about learning to love each other in a world where we’re pointing nukes at each other and how it feels like a crazy train. Get it?

No cussing. No devil horns. No drugs. No sex.

So Mr. M pulled the song and put on the next one. And everything was just fine in holier-than-thou-land because he put on a country song, a little tune about a tractor.

“She thinks my tractor’s sexy, it really turns her on.”

Ummmm…what?

Let’s review:

“Learn how to love and forget how to hate” = Bad, very bad. Inappropriate at a Catholic school.

“She thinks my tractor’s sexy, it really turns her on” = Yes. That’s what I want my elementary aged child singing at Fun Day.

You may not sing about the Cold War if you have long hair and paint your fingernails black.

You may sing about the phallic nature of your farm equipment so long as you are clean cut and are accompanied by a twangy guitar.

Good to know.

Excuse me. I need a glass of wine. Even writing this 9 years later, it makes me want to drink and ponder the great mysteries of hypocrisy life.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of our bumps and bruises at this school.

The next year, Shane’s teacher called me in once for a parent teacher conference to tell me that the other kids were teasing Shane and calling him a baby because every time he would see his Dad, he would run up and give THD a hug and a kiss.

You should probably know that this teacher used to nit-pick Shane so much that she stressed him to the point of throwing up every Sunday night in anticipation of returning to school on Monday (not unlike how I feel when I know I have to go back to work). Instead of addressing the little turds who were making fun of Shane, she and the Principal instead offered a suggestion of THD giving him high fives or fist bumps instead of hugs and kisses.

That didn’t sit well with us.

We are an affectionate family. We are not changing how we parent just because you won’t discipline the kids who are shits because their parents are rich and contribute a lot of money to your school.

Our Inner Assholes fumed.

Shortly thereafter, the Principal gave THD a very unprofessional ass-chewing about something he did wrong at work, in front of a gym full of kids and other staff.

In any other situation, THD probably would’ve released his Inner Asshole and gotten himself fired, but we were still thinking of Shane and his education at that point. Instead, at the end of the year, THD gave a vague excuse and resigned his position at the school.

I won’t go into all the gory details of what happened next, but over the next few years, Shane started being ostracized and picked on by kids that used to be his friends. It spilled over into Boy Scouts and baseball. We tried to handle it personally with the other parents, but it got really ugly.

It all came to a head when we got an email from his teacher with the subject line, “Shane is being bullied“. We were called in to a conference with his teacher and the administrators.

Apparently, some of Shane’s older friends started defending him on the playground and “now we have a problem because we can’t have older kids picking on younger kids“.

In other words, we can’t have kids defending kids who are being bullied. Also, we can’t call bullies “bullies” because “kids just can’t come back from labels like that.”

My head hurts just writing this.

We never used the word “bully” until we got an email from the TEACHER saying “Shane is being bullied”, but now WE are being labeled as “labelers”?

 

There were so many reasons over the years that we should’ve pulled him from that school, but he did have a handful of good friends there that he really liked. We would ask him constantly if he wanted to go to a different school, and he always said no. He wanted to finish out with his friends, despite the other bullshit. 

I guess the glutton-for-punishment-gene runs deep.

Our Inner Assholes had enough, though. THD and I quit going to PTO meetings or volunteering. We didn’t participate in fundraisers. We just sat on our Inner Assholes (pun intended) and hoped it would all end uneventfully.

It almost did.

On the second to last day of Shane’s last year at the school, I went into the office to pay the last of the fees that needed handling. Relief washed over me as I exited the building and knew that this would all soon be just a bad memory. I congratulated myself on being an adult and keeping the Inner Asshole at bay for ten long years (a true record for me).

I was even feeling a little sentimental as I looked over at the Primary building and remembered taking Shane’s little hand and leading him into his Pre-K class for the first time. I was a little misty-eyed and almost didn’t hear my name being called.

“Mrs. Romanello! Mrs. Romanello!”

I turned around and saw Ms. We-Don’t-Label-Kids standing at her position in the parking lot, getting ready to direct incoming traffic.

“Mrs. Romanello! You need to use the crosswalk!”

I was literally 3 steps from my car. Three more steps and I could’ve escorted my Inner Asshole safely off the property without incident.

“It’s for your own safety!”

A lot of words came into my head.

A. LOT. OF. WORDS.

They may have rhymed with “Duck Too” and “Nupid Punt”.

Just get in the car. She’s not worth it. Tomorrow, you’ll be done with her and this whole fucking place.

I slowly turned back to my car and climbed in without acknowledging what Numb Ditch was yelling across the parking lot.

I turned the key in the ignition. The radio came on and a new song was starting.

Flying High Again by Ozzy Osbourne.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

My Inner Asshole smiled. She would not be suppressed any longer.

I lowered all four windows and turned the volume up as high as it would go. I rolled VERY SLOWLY out of my parking space and down the aisle toward the exit, making sure the entire parking lot bathed in the glory of the King of Darkness.

Then I gunned it.

“YES REALLY, BITCHES! OZZY OSBOURNE AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL!” my Inner Asshole yelled at the top of her lungs as my tires screeched against the driveway.

There may or may not have been accompanying hand gestures.

The thing about parenting is, you do things for the sake of your kids that you would never do in any other situation. Looking back, I can see that I should’ve let my Inner Asshole out far more often to let her Freak Flag Fly. We put up with a lot of shit we shouldn’t have, thinking we were doing the right thing at the time.

It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.

Bottling up my Inner Asshole led me to burning out my tires in a school/church parking lot, screaming like a mad woman over blaring heavy metal music and flipping off a religious institution in front of people I’ve known for ten years.

I may have bought myself a one-way Handbasket to Hell.

But at least the soundtrack will be really good.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring. And take your Inner Asshole out for a walk once in a while.