15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS

June 24, 2011 1:26 PM

"You’d be crazy not to buy that. I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY."
posted by zarq (257 comments total)

15 YEARS AND ONE DAY IS DIVORCE PAPERS
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:31 PM on June 24, 2011 [19 favorites]

IT IS NOT A NICE CHICKEN
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:31 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

That was funny!
posted by Mister_A at 1:32 PM on June 24, 2011

Where can I get a giant metal chicken?
I only have giant plushie chickens and I am looking to upgrade.
posted by yeoz at 1:32 PM on June 24, 2011

Best. 15th anniversary. ever.

For her, I guess...

(not really sure that's how anniversaries are supposed to work)
posted by Afroblanco at 1:32 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

That might be the worst article I've ever clicked to from MetaFilter. The image of the chicken at the door was fantastic, but I didn't enjoy the writing at all past the first paragraph.
posted by EJXD2 at 1:33 PM on June 24, 2011 [12 favorites]

I NEED something like that for my new apartment.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:34 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

"this chicken will cut you" - that line is just awesome.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:34 PM on June 24, 2011 [25 favorites]

PassiveAggressiveFilter: You don't want me to waste money? I'll show you wasting money.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:35 PM on June 24, 2011 [25 favorites]

Best. 15th anniversary. ever.

For her, I guess...

Yeah, I was a little uncomfortable about how things wound up. If I had purchased some wacky thing as a gag gift and the recipient reacted like he did, I'd take it back because...it's supposed to be something they enjoy, right?

She didn't get it as an anniversary gift for him, she got it for herself. It just felt oogy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:35 PM on June 24, 2011 [10 favorites]

Me, however, I would've just bought the damn towels.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:36 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

I need to get one of those. Hilarious.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:36 PM on June 24, 2011

Oh, man.... I could totally feel Victor's pain.
posted by brand-gnu at 1:36 PM on June 24, 2011

EJXD2: "That might be the worst article I've ever clicked to from MetaFilter."

YOU'RE WELCOME!



I make a lot of serious, link-heavy posts. Sometimes it's nice to just post something silly.
posted by zarq at 1:36 PM on June 24, 2011 [26 favorites]

I love her writing, but seriously honey? Meds. Keep up your meds.
posted by SPUTNIK at 1:36 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I read the post as "IT'S FULL OF WHISKY" and there's pretty much no way the story could have lived up to that.
posted by theodolite at 1:37 PM on June 24, 2011 [25 favorites]

My ex-wife bought us one of those chickens while I was at work one day, during a time when I was working something crazy like 70 hours a week. It made my day, made my night, and made all my coworkers' too. When my folks came to visit, my mom liked it so much she insisted my dad go get them one. So I guess you know where I stand, regarding giant metal chickens.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:38 PM on June 24, 2011 [51 favorites]

Whimsy is not your bitch.
posted by Trurl at 1:39 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wait. It's been long enough that I had to go back and check my math. It was more like 90-95 hours a week. Jesus. No wonder I thought that chicken was hilarious.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:40 PM on June 24, 2011 [10 favorites]

I'm going to Costco this weekend. Fingers crossed.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:41 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

"this chicken will cut you" still has me giggling like a madman.
posted by brundlefly at 1:41 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hubby won't let me buy towels? Ooh, my BFF and I will show him! Nice followup to the first-world-problems thread.
posted by headnsouth at 1:41 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Put a bird on it!
...on what?
Your stoop I guess
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:42 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Knock knock!

Who's there?

It's me, Judgey Judgington!
posted by Mister_A at 1:43 PM on June 24, 2011 [13 favorites]

additionally, these are first-marriage in the first-world problems...
posted by oblio_one at 1:43 PM on June 24, 2011

i want that chicken.
but then, i have a concrete jackalope and about a hundred gnomes in my yard.

the only thing better would be the 8 foot tall concrete gorilla i always used to see on the drive between dallas and austin.

victor has no soul.
posted by Seamus at 1:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I was a little uncomfortable about how things wound up. If I had purchased some wacky thing as a gag gift and the recipient reacted like he did, I'd take it back because...it's supposed to be something they enjoy, right?

She didn't get it as an anniversary gift for him, she got it for herself. It just felt oogy.

I didn't read it this way; I don't think she ACTUALLY got it as an anniversary gift for him, I think she got it for herself and then enjoyed his reaction and made a game out of it and he's coming to peace with that. It's like the time I got a rubber stingray and left it in the bathtub for when my husband came home. Ah, memories.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 1:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [32 favorites]

That read like a Scary Go Round comic.
posted by charred husk at 1:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

Then I pointed out that the last towels I’d bought were hot pink beach towels, and he was all “EXACTLY” and then I hit my head against the wall for an hour.

oblio_one--EXACTLY!
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I kinda wish two things:

1. she had bought the towels
2. he doesn't make idle threats
posted by tomswift at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love her writing, but seriously honey? Meds. Keep up your meds.

What makes you think she takes medication?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

That read sorta weird to me, dunno if there's a broader context because I haven't read any of her other posts, but there was the mirth... and a my-husband-was-a-colossal-asshole tone.
posted by ambient2 at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Well, to be fair, Victor did threaten to strangle her if she brought home any more towels, so I guess he sort of deserved a ridiculously childish prank.
posted by koeselitz at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Also: I think a lot of people seem to be taking every event in this entry as 100% Seriously And Literally True, and I'm not sure that's really warranted.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:46 PM on June 24, 2011 [40 favorites]

A friend showed me this one yesterday, and I'm still not impressed. Wasting $100 on a gag is a little extreme, but they also make tons more money than I do.
posted by deezil at 1:47 PM on June 24, 2011

Hrmph... Chicks.
posted by Debaser626 at 1:48 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Also: I think a lot of people seem to be taking every event in this entry as 100% Seriously And Literally True, and I'm not sure that's really warranted.

I confess: I can't tell if this is meant to be mock-serious or ironically-mock-serious.

CASTIGATE ME!
posted by muddgirl at 1:49 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

I didn't read it this way; I don't think she ACTUALLY got it as an anniversary gift for him, I think she got it for herself and then enjoyed his reaction and made a game out of it and he's coming to peace with that.

No, I know she didn't actaully get it as an anniversary gift, it was obvious it was something based on his reaction.

But I got something more malicious out of it, rather than a good-natured teasing thing; it was more, "Oh, yeah? He's gonna be a big meanie about this? I'll tell him it's his anniversary gift, make him feel bad, so there!"

I think a lot of people seem to be taking every event in this entry as 100% Seriously And Literally True, and I'm not sure that's really warranted.

Then I'm not sure the quality of the writing is coming across, then. She may have been attempting to exaggerate for "rollicking comedy", but it's coming across more...mean. Is it possible to tell this story so people receive it as comedy? Of course. ...She just didn't pull it off, I think.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:49 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

That read like a Scary Go Round comic.

High praise, if you ask me.

There's a million years of evolution and then there's showing off.
posted by maryr at 1:49 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: 100% Seriously And Literally True
posted by tomswift at 1:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

oh lord, the pic of the chicken looming ominously at the front door just made me loose a particularly demented cackle of glee.

luckily everyone in my office is drunk rn
posted by elizardbits at 1:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Like, is she pretending to be Jean Teasdale, or is she emulating the writer who wrote the Teasdale columns?
posted by muddgirl at 1:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Hrmph... Chicks.

I'm pretty sure that was more of a chicken than a chick.
posted by Alterscape at 1:50 PM on June 24, 2011

muddgirl: " CASTIGATE ME!"

Would you settle for a 5-foot metal chicken? :D
posted by zarq at 1:51 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Umm, I've never been married, and so maybe I don't really get how marriage goes, but spending $100 just to piss off your mate? Is that how it's supposed to work?
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:51 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Hmph. All I got for my 11th anniversary was a box of turkeys.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:51 PM on June 24, 2011

I have wanted one of those metal chickens since they started showing up at roadside junque shops in NC about 10 years ago. My husband said no. We have moved about 18 times since then, so it is just as well, but I still want one. Now I know the best way to reintroduce the idea.
posted by Hushpuppy at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2011

Uh, you guys are overthinking this.

I'M STILL GIGGLING! I almost snorted my coffee out my nose. Definitely up there with The God of Cake.
posted by jillithd at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Well for example I don't know that Victor actually threatened to strangle her, and if he did I imagine they have the sort of relationship where that is understood to be a joke.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

I still like the saga of James Garfield better.
posted by darksasami at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

You know, I was sympathetic to this woman until Mrs. Pterodactyl connected it to that damn sting ray she left in the tub to scare me. Fucking "Rachel Ray."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [35 favorites]

But I got something more malicious out of it, rather than a good-natured teasing thing; it was more, "Oh, yeah? He's gonna be a big meanie about this? I'll tell him it's his anniversary gift, make him feel bad, so there!"

I don't get this sense, but I do see what you mean here. It felt to me more like a celebration of wackiness than an if he can't take a joke the hell with him, but I definitely understand where it could seem that way. I think also his lack of sense of humor about it is part of the story and if she said "but of course secretly he loved it" that would ruin the whole thing. The one bit that moved me towards the other interpretation was the idea of him locking himself up in the study and hitting things, but the sense I get is that this is more a matter of how she's decided to present the story than actual meanness. Anyway, I didn't intend to imply that I got it and you didn't, sorry if it came off that way!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 1:53 PM on June 24, 2011

"...one of these days... Pow! Right in the kisser! One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!"
posted by muddgirl at 1:54 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

...spending $100 just to piss off your mate? Is that how it's supposed to work?

Not if you're doing it right.
posted by Citrus at 1:54 PM on June 24, 2011

Well, how close was it to Steve Irwin's death?
posted by maryr at 1:54 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's a big chicken.
posted by octothorpe at 1:54 PM on June 24, 2011

"But, in brighter news I’m getting a lot accomplished due to not sleeping. Like, I’m really good at drawing dinosaurs now. And at making water-beds for cats. And at involuntary hallucinations and forgetting where I live."

I'm getting enough amusement out of this to justify its existence, I think.
posted by redsparkler at 1:54 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Well off person wasting $100 to piss off her spouse while some people can't even find a job.

The middle class almost deserves to die off.
posted by GavinR at 1:56 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Nice. We've reached some new level of not-getting-it.
posted by muddgirl at 1:58 PM on June 24, 2011 [58 favorites]

Aww, reading this really made me very happy. Thank-you for posting it.
posted by Acheman at 1:58 PM on June 24, 2011

You must be fun at parties, GavinR.
posted by Mister_A at 1:58 PM on June 24, 2011 [23 favorites]

Yeah, she totally should have invested that $100 in a small business that could employ one-fifteenth of a person for a week. What a bitch.
posted by Etrigan at 1:59 PM on June 24, 2011 [43 favorites]

Victor's seeming impulse towards violence and anger leaves me with a queasy feeling in my stomach here.
posted by Apropos of Something at 2:01 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, if he wanted her to save money, she could do what I do to urk DH---rub leg stubble on him in the middle of the night.

Yeti Princesses Unite!
posted by stormpooper at 2:02 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

redsparkler: ""But, in brighter news I’m getting a lot accomplished due to not sleeping. Like, I’m really good at drawing dinosaurs now. And at making water-beds for cats. And at involuntary hallucinations and forgetting where I live.""

Heh. And her cat's name is Ferris Mewler.
posted by zarq at 2:03 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Victor's seeming impulse towards violence and anger makes me think large-metal-chicken moments are a regular thing in their relationship.
posted by N-stoff at 2:04 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Like, is she pretending to be Jean Teasdale, or is she emulating the writer who wrote the Teasdale columns?

No, she's writing a blog in which she purports to talk like people who write blogs write.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:05 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

everyone wants a giant cock
posted by nathancaswell at 2:06 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

stormpooper: "Well, if he wanted her to save money, she could do what I do to urk DH---rub leg stubble on him in the middle of the night.

Yeti Princesses Unite!"

Cold feet and leg stubble are a horrible combination.
posted by zarq at 2:07 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

nathancaswell: "everyone wants a giant cock"

Named Beyoncé.
posted by zarq at 2:08 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

ALSO I AM EXTREMELY CONCERNED THAT SHE MAY HAVE CONCUSSED HERSELF AFTER HITTING HER HEAD AGAINST THE WALL FOR EXACTLY ONE HOUR

PERHAPS SHE OUGHT TO CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
posted by shakespeherian at 2:10 PM on June 24, 2011 [54 favorites]

I also read it as "full of whisky"
Then I read the subtitle "pick your BOTTLES"
I got excited
posted by J0 at 2:10 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Terrible
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 2:13 PM on June 24, 2011

> What makes you think she takes medication?

As a Bloggess fan, I can toss in that she takes plenty of medication.

I love this post of hers. One of my favorites.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:15 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

75 comments and no clarification that it's A FUCKING METAL ROOSTER?

Exhibit A: Rooster, showing wattles, earlobes and comb; Exhibit B: ah crap, chicken is the term for the whole subspecies. It's still a rooster.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:16 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

me: The 5-foot tall one was $300, marked down to $100. That’s like, $200 worth of chicken for free.

I use this exact same kind of logic when convincing myself to buy something awesome and useless. It works remarkably well at mollifying my higher, more frugal, brain functions.
posted by quin at 2:19 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

As soon as I saw the photo of the giant rooster at the door I heard the shower scene music from Psycho in my head.

Worth it just for that.
posted by bwg at 2:20 PM on June 24, 2011

Wow, the women in this thread think this story is funny. The men think she's kinda toxic. Gee, who thought the thread would go that way?

Myself, I thought the whole thing was incredibly cliched. I mean, didn't I read this in the Lockhorns once? Or Blondie? Or some other form of Sunday morning birdcage lining?
posted by Afroblanco at 2:21 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'll show you whimsy.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 2:21 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm a man, and I think she's hilarious. This kind of oddball humor is her thing, and I'm sure she exaggerated her husband's reaction just a tad. Her writing is quirky, funny, absolutely positively "normal real life" at times, and she's the kind of person I would love to have as a neighbor.
posted by mrbill at 2:23 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Myself, I thought the whole thing was incredibly cliched. I mean, didn't I read this in the Lockhorns once? Or Blondie? Or some other form of Sunday morning birdcage lining?

Exactly. I know it's not 100% sincere and truthful or whatever, but I can't figure out if it's intentionally or unintentionally cliched. Reading some of her other stuff makes me think it's unintentional (I mean, it is intentionally a joke but unintentionally a very, very old one), but I'm probably missing something.
posted by muddgirl at 2:23 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I had to check, but I'm about 85% sure I'm a man. Also zarq posted this, and probably not because he thinks she's 'toxic.'
posted by shakespeherian at 2:23 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Here's a fun fact: Ross (Dress For Less) is a fantastic source for all sorts of discount yard art/what-the-fuckery. Burnished metal elephant table? Check! Metal horses pawing at the air? Check! 2' tall gnomes in a variety of poses and professions? Check! Giant frogs, both anthropomorphic and vaguely realistic? Check!

And if the Yard Full 'O Whimsey is too much whimsey (wimp), you can also adorn your house with a sufficient collection of bottled ships and faux-nautical whatnots to appear either quite manly or quite salty. Ooh, and the religious iconography: FANTASTIC! Fuzzy buddha? YES! Chrome-plated Jesus? YES!

In short: I love Ross, but my wife scowls at me when I discuss what I saw in the store. If not for her, I might have smothered myself in whimsey.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:24 PM on June 24, 2011 [13 favorites]

Aggressive humor is a necessity in awesome relationships. This is fantastic.
posted by Chipmazing at 2:25 PM on June 24, 2011

I read this the other day, and after laughing at the idea of a giant chicken, I was irritated at both of them. He sounds like a grumpy jerk. She sounds like an entitled princess. It was such a fun story that just took such a sour turn the minute he opened the door and walked away.
posted by haplesschild at 2:25 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Seems like the nefarious towel prohibitionist would be just as displeased if his wife showed up at the front door...and why not just fill up the chicken with towels? That'll show him to appreciate the dryness of the human body!

Also, whatever happened to the good ol' flaming paper bag of dog shit? Too teenage? Costs much less than $100, unless you factor in the shoe-replacement..
posted by obscurator at 2:26 PM on June 24, 2011

All of my efforts to live my life in a way that would make for a good blog entry have ended in disaster, and not the wacky, whimsical sort.
posted by mecran01 at 2:26 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

This thread reminds me why I stopped hanging out with assholes.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:26 PM on June 24, 2011 [21 favorites]

Afroblanco: "Wow, the women in this thread think this story is funny. The men think she's kinda toxic. Gee, who thought the thread would go that way?"

I'm a guy. Wouldn't have posted this if I thought she was toxic.
posted by zarq at 2:27 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Heh. On non-preview, what shakespeherian said. :D
posted by zarq at 2:28 PM on June 24, 2011

I'm convinced that Victor is a very patient man. His thought as he opened the door was probably "Metal chicken? Well, at least it isn't another stuffed boar head..."
posted by mrbill at 2:32 PM on June 24, 2011 [10 favorites]

Friends don't let bloggesses buy giant metal chickens and write about it!

Ok I confess I also thought it was hilarious and I'm a woman, so there's another cliché for you collectors out there.

Something tells me it may be a little reckless to try and extrapolate and analyse the marriage dynamics of anyone from a post about a prank, but, yeah, well I don't really care about the serious part one way or the other. The prank would be hilarious even if it was about a couple of serial killers.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:32 PM on June 24, 2011

I too am a man and I enjoyed this huge metal cock yarn.
posted by Mister_A at 2:33 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by whitneyarner at 2:33 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I frequently drive past a store that has a big outdoor display of crudely cobbled-together animal-shaped metal "yard sculptures".

And I would think, "Who buys those?"

Now I know.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:34 PM on June 24, 2011

For what it's worth, I'm a man, thought they were both kinda toxic, as this was presented.

Yeah, didn't take it 100-percent literally, think she did in fact hit her head against a wall for 60 minutes, though it was hard to get a sense of what was accurate, what was exaggerated, what what entirely fiction, how serious the guy was in his no-towels mandate.
posted by ambient2 at 2:35 PM on June 24, 2011

I think most of those things are probably bought as jokes, yes.
posted by Mister_A at 2:35 PM on June 24, 2011

75 comments and no clarification that it's A FUCKING METAL ROOSTER?

76 comments and no innuendation that it's A FUCKING METAL COCK?




On preview: Mister_A, the giant metal cock salutes your observational and innuendo skills.
posted by Jehan at 2:36 PM on June 24, 2011

Also, this story is only "funny" if you assume he's the breadwinner in the family. Otherwise, it's like, "um, you wasted $100 of your own money on a stupid rooster. Uh, good job, I guess..."
posted by Afroblanco at 2:38 PM on June 24, 2011

Or they could think of it as "our money".
That's how it works in my house. I think.
posted by Seamus at 2:41 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

I wonder what the markup was on that thing? It looks like it's made of old metal oil drums, which I can't imagine are that expensive to buy second hand....? I think I'm in the wrong line of work.

Hope she keeps her kids away from it.
posted by Solomon at 2:41 PM on June 24, 2011

You guys have a hard week, or what?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:42 PM on June 24, 2011 [25 favorites]

How does this joke hinge on who made the money that paid for the lamp? I didn't really get the sense that it was the cost that angered him so much as the fact that it was an enormous ridiculous looking thing that he now had to live with.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 2:43 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

filthy light thief: Here's a fun fact: Ross (Dress For Less) is a fantastic source for all sorts of discount yard art/what-the-fuckery.

(Continued thoughts) And, somehow, the stock is often changing. They appear to push one or two themes or collections at a time, and then it all changes in a few weeks or a month. I want to know, does the stock actually get bought, or do they change it up in hopes of finding a new style that people actually like. "Hmm, the sharp and pointy abstract yard art didn't do as well as we hoped, how about some plaster frogs in pastel hues? No takers? OK: back to metal shapes, but let's try something with an African savannah theme. Bring in the elephants and lions!"
posted by filthy light thief at 2:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Solomon: I wonder what the markup was on that thing? It looks like it's made of old metal oil drums, which I can't imagine are that expensive to buy second hand....? I think I'm in the wrong line of work.

If it's a discount shop, which it may well be, it's probably mass-produced in China for pennies on the dollar, then left to turn to rust and/or dust on shelves somewhere. I don't think there's really a huge market for these kind of things, but they're probably cheap enough to make and light enough to ship that they work as attractions in the front windows of stores, even if no one buys them.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:46 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

GavinR: "Well off person wasting $100 to piss off her spouse while some people can't even find a job.

The middle class almost deserves to die off."

Hey she's supporting the economy. Or at least the giant sharp metal chicken part of the economy.
posted by octothorpe at 2:47 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

How does this joke hinge on who made the money that paid for the lamp?

It's all in the setup. Victor is the Controlling Husband/Father Figure who buys The Wrong Towels and is Too Manly to admit his mistake or let his wife fix it. The Blogess is the Mischevious Wife/Child who bucks under the husband's controlling mandate and screws him over with a White Elephant.

Again, I know the Blogess meant this to be a joke, but I don't understand how deep the joke goes.
posted by muddgirl at 2:47 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

This joke would have been literally even more perfect had she instead boughten a giant metal Butt Elephant.
posted by Mister_A at 2:47 PM on June 24, 2011 [8 favorites]

Some crafty, funny friends sent me this on FB the other day. I thought it was hilarious. I can imagine my wife doing something like this to me...and me thinking it was hilarious.

I really think that (unsurprisingly) mefites are beanplating this.
posted by schyler523 at 2:49 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

Victor didn't buy the wrong towels. She bought the hot pink towels.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

But, he's still controlling even if he doesn't make a dime. She sets up him as controlling when he tells her not to by towels. She's mischievous even if she earned the money for the chicken because, as I said above, the problems the chicken caused are unrelated to cost.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 2:50 PM on June 24, 2011

the problems the chicken caused are unrelated to cost.

I dunno. $100 is a lot of money to some people.

Depends on your income bracket, I guess.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, but if I were Victor I'd probably piss myself laughing because I'd been had.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 2:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Like, is she pretending to be Jean Teasdale, or is she emulating the writer who wrote the Teasdale columns?

No, she's writing like Dooce. And like Tiger Beatdown. And I'm not sure where any of that started, but somehow the Internets are to blame.


Actually, I think Pamie invented this style, and it became the go-to Humorous Chick Blog template from there. I know because it tended to infect my writing when I was blogging.

(I mean, I like it, it's funny, but it's definitely a Thing, and not every blog needs to USE CAPS FOR PUNCHLINES and read like a 14-year-old girl is saying it).
posted by emjaybee at 2:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [8 favorites]

My apologies (for the misreading of the first paragraph, and the continual mis-spelling of Bloggess) but my interpretation still stands. The Manly Husband simply can't understand the difference between bath towels and beach towels!

the problems the chicken caused are unrelated to cost

Then why set up the whole "300 on sale for 100!" bit? A White Elephant doesn't have to be expensive - just inconvenient. It could have been 100 on sale for 20.
posted by muddgirl at 2:53 PM on June 24, 2011

As someone who has an irrational fear of chickens, I am a little sympathetic to Victor's side on this one. Of course, if it'd been a giant metal bunny, I'd find it hilarious.
posted by teleri025 at 2:53 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think most of those things are probably bought as jokes, yes.

As I started reading I was actually wondering "ok but what does this thing DO?" then realise it was the most futile question ever.

Although it would have been great if it had been a giant metal cock AND towel dispenser.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:53 PM on June 24, 2011

I'm pretty sure that Sady Doyle doesn't pretend her partner is Desi Arnez and that she is Lucille Ball, which is the part I find confusing.
posted by muddgirl at 2:55 PM on June 24, 2011

The story's actually really funny, and I like how it's written, but I completely don't get the current of outright hostility toward the husband throughout the thing. He's an "asshole" and a "motherfucker," really? Because he thought they had enough towels already? Maybe it's just me.
posted by churl at 2:55 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Perspective.

Now you has it!
posted by mmrtnt at 2:55 PM on June 24, 2011

Or really, I'm confused about whether The Blogess is pretending to be Lucille Ball or Lucy Ricardo.
posted by muddgirl at 2:56 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh sure, it's kinda funny now, but late at night when out of the corner of your eye you see a dark shape up in that tree and go "OH CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??" it won't seem so funny.

Well, until you realize it's a giant metal chicken again. Still, that chicken will cut you.
posted by mstokes650 at 2:57 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yeah, but muddgirl she does the whole OMG YOU GUYS thing for humor sometimes. She does it well, but it's definitely a style.

I have people send me Bloggess links frequently, and they are funny, but it's a funny I've seen before.
posted by emjaybee at 2:57 PM on June 24, 2011

The Manly Husband simply can't understand the difference between bath towels and beach towels!

I... don't think that's it, though. I think she said 'I wanna buy some towels!' and he was like 'You just bought towels!' and she was like 'But they're totally different kinds!' and he was like 'NO SUCH THING AS DIFFERENT KINDS' because they're married and therefore probably understand how to communicate with each other and probably joke around with each other and I don't think her humorous bloggy tale is supposed to be Confessions Of An Abused Housewife. She is writing everything, including her husband, in a tone of heightened whimsy, and part of the humor of that tone is that whenever someone within the narrative says something sarcastic or humorous or whimsical, it is dealt with as though it is just as serious, if not more, as everything else.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:58 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

Sure, $100 is a lot of money to some people, but its also not a lot of money to other people, the post gives us no idea how Victor feels about $100 or even if he knows the cost. We know he thinks it was "wasted money," but I'd wager that has as much to do with the utility of the chicken to Victor as anything else. I also assume she includes the detail that it was on sale because it sets up the $200 of free chicken joke.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:00 PM on June 24, 2011

"Giant chi... er, Candy Gram!"
posted by mmrtnt at 3:00 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

schyler523: “I really think that (unsurprisingly) mefites are beanplating this.”

I've been trying to pin down why this rubbed me the wrong way. I guess it's probably the fact that the first thing I thought of when I read this was how Victor must feel at having his wife write up one of their arguments online as a big joke and then portray him as a total and complete asshole.

I guess maybe he is an asshole, and she's telling the truth. Is that what I'm supposed to assume to find it funny? That she's married to a jerk? Because if she's not married to a jerk – if she is actually married to a nice guy – well, I guess maybe they have a little understanding that when she writes things in her blog about how he's a humorless jerk, it's just a joke.

It's hard for me not to think about how he feels when reading it. Yeah, okay, I'm "beanplating."
posted by koeselitz at 3:01 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

"There! I blogged to the whole world about how he's an asshole! Let's see how he feels about it now!"
posted by koeselitz at 3:02 PM on June 24, 2011

I would love to set this woman loose in a Christmas Tree Shops.

Don't you just love a bargain?
posted by maryr at 3:02 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

It reminds me of Bad News Hughes and Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, both of which I very much miss- their later incarnations just aren't the same. I like to read about families like this. Does mean I give their family dynamics the small_ruminant Seal of Approval (TM)? Errr, not really. I mean, if they were presented as sane and well adjusted, they wouldn't be any fun to read about.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:03 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

and then portray him as a total and complete asshole.

Boy did I come away from this with a completely different take than you did.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:04 PM on June 24, 2011 [10 favorites]

I... don't think that's it, though

I'm calling it how I read it. If the Bloggess didn't intend for her husband to sound like a controlling jerk (even a fake controlling jerk) then it's pretty clear that she missed the mark.

But I think she DID intend for her husband to come off as (a pretend) Ricky Ricardo, and that's fine, if that's how they play. It just makes for a very uncomfortable joke that has to be over-explained. "No, wait, my husband doesn't ACTUALLY want to punch me so hard I fly to the moon."
posted by muddgirl at 3:05 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, to those complaining of her "wasting her money" - keep in mind that she LOVES this giant chicken and giggles every time she sees it. It's not entirely a waste.
posted by maryr at 3:06 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm calling it how I read it.

That's fair. It's not how I read it, though, and I don't think her husband came off sounding like a controlling jerk (or even a fake controlling jerk), and I don't think she missed her mark at all.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:08 PM on June 24, 2011

I read the link and giggled uncontrollably, then read this thread and committed seppuku with a giant metal cock. Please, do read that literally. I am typing with blood-spattered fingers and it's getting awfully dark in he
posted by melissa may at 3:09 PM on June 24, 2011 [42 favorites]

This thread is causing me to LOL because it's like someone pulled the pin on a giant, rooster-shaped hand grenade, threw it into Metafilter, and walked away from the explosion all Hollywood style.
posted by everichon at 3:10 PM on June 24, 2011 [30 favorites]

and I don't think her husband came off sounding like a controlling jerk

Me neither. I came out of it feeling terribly sorry for him if it was at all true. But it was still funny because it wasn't me in either of their positions.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:10 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Victor was surprisingly pissed that I’d “wasted money” on an enormous chicken, because apparently he couldn’t appreciate the hysterical value of a 5 foot chicken ringing the doorbell. Then I said, “Well, at least it’s not towels” and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because that’s when Victor screamed and stormed off, but I knew he was locked in his office because I could hear him punching things in there.

No, she isn't insinuating that her husband is a jerk at.all. Clearly this presentation of her husband is a nice, sane man who reacts to a joke in a normal fashion.

Again, I know that if there was a real incident, it didn't happen that way. I'm talking about the joke that the Bloggess is attempting to tell. And the joke definitely hinges on a very traditional "I Love Lucy" plotline.
posted by muddgirl at 3:12 PM on June 24, 2011

...with an eviler Lucy.
posted by muddgirl at 3:13 PM on June 24, 2011

Actually, she kept reminding me of Stephanie Plum in the Janet Evanovich novels.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:14 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

WHIMSY, not WHISKY. That's at the opposite end of my interest spectrum.
posted by cmoj at 3:15 PM on June 24, 2011

Whimsy now on sale!!! Was $300, now $100!!! Goes great with any blog post!!!

Those guys have the biggest front door I've ever seen. Do they live at Hampton Court?
posted by Ritchie at 3:15 PM on June 24, 2011

Man, this had been a weird day. I was out late last night celebrating my friend's successful Ph.D. candidacy exam and slept in this morning, with a pretty nasty hangover for my troubles. Then I didn't realize that school's out and that the buses are running on a summer schedule until I'd been waiting at the wrong stop for fifteen minutes. Then I got to work and found the parameters of the project I'm currently working on have changed, again, and I've got to wrestle all the work I've already done into the new format at executive whim.

And then I fired up Chrome and somehow managed to log onto a version of MetaFilter from an alternate universe where nobody has ever used exaggeration for comic effect.
posted by Zozo at 3:16 PM on June 24, 2011 [34 favorites]

Clearly this presentation of her husband is a nice, sane man who reacts to a joke in a normal fashion.

I think the joke of the presentation, if you want to boil out all the humor, is that she is pretending to be a hopelessly clueless person who does extremely stupid things and doesn't understand what's wrong with them, and Victor is the adult that has to put up with her, thus making the joke about her.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:16 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Jeez you guys miss the point: IT WAS LIKE TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH OF FREE CHICKEN! This might as well be the greatest story ever told.
posted by padraigin at 3:17 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

small_ruminant: “I came out of it feeling terribly sorry for him if it was at all true. But it was still funny because it wasn't me in either of their positions.”

That hit the nail on the head for me, frankly. I am probably taking this personally. I was married for a few years to somebody who didn't respect me at all, and who used words like "asshole" and "motherfucker" about me, and who told other people that we'd had arguments and that I was a stuck-up jerk. So, yeah, I read this and felt a little sick.

muddgirl: “Again, I know that if there was a real incident, it didn't happen that way.”

Furthermore, this whole "it's just a joke!" thing hardly holds water. Is it just a joke if Victor is a real person – any kind of real person – who gets to feel embarrassed at knowing the world thinks of him as a humorless dweeb?

The only situation in which this would count as "just a joke!" is if Victor didn't exist at all.

shakespeherian: “I think the joke of the presentation, if you want to boil out all the humor, is that she is pretending to be a hopelessly clueless person who does extremely stupid things and doesn't understand what's wrong with them, and Victor is the adult that has to put up with her, thus making the joke about her.”

Yeah, that was the first thing that I thought of reading the article, actually. She's just a silly housewife who buys loads and loads of towels, and can't resist shopping with friends and who buys something ridiculous just because she loves the joke and because she loves wasting poor husband's money.

Can you see how uncomfortable this joke was for some of us on all levels? I mean, I'm vacillating between interpretations here, and all of them are unsettling.
posted by koeselitz at 3:19 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

What if Victor is in on the joke, and finds it funny? What if he doesn't mind playing the straight man in his wife's wacky misadventures? What if you're looking at a totally harmless joke through the lens of your own harmful experiences and seeing things that aren't actually there?
posted by Zozo at 3:30 PM on June 24, 2011 [32 favorites]

It sure sounds like she and her husband have a healthy, mutually-supportive relationship.
posted by kdar at 3:31 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Clearly, the real villain here is zarq for not putting a big disclaimer on it:
"TRIGGER WARNING: THIS STORY IS A MIRROR AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LOOK INTO YOUR OWN SOUL, STAY THE FUCK AWAY."
posted by Etrigan at 3:32 PM on June 24, 2011 [63 favorites]

If my wife pulled this kind of passive aggressive crap on our 15th anniversary, that would be the ONLY cock she got that day HEYY-OOOOOOOOOOOO.
posted by Scoo at 3:34 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

This...

Oh sure, it's kinda funny now, but late at night when out of the corner of your eye you see a dark shape up in that tree and go "OH CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??" it won't seem so funny.

Well, until you realize it's a giant metal chicken again. Still, that chicken will cut you

...is the funniest thing I have ever read on Metafilter.
posted by tamitang at 3:36 PM on June 24, 2011

No matter how hard you try, you cannot boil the humour out of a metal chicken...
posted by bitteschoen at 3:36 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

What if Victor is in on the joke, and finds it funny? What if he doesn't mind playing the straight man in his wife's wacky misadventures?

Yeah, this was the way I interpreted the whole thing. It's a skit in the form of a blog post.

I'm wishing I hadn't read this thread. It's really drained all the humor out the link. :(
posted by brundlefly at 3:42 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

I mean, it's a giant cock made out of metal, people! How can you go wrong?

Other than in a Tetsuo: The Iron Man kind of way...
posted by brundlefly at 3:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Some days, I really have no fucking clue why I bother to post things here.
posted by zarq at 3:44 PM on June 24, 2011 [21 favorites]

Sweet Jesus on stilts, do you buzzkills know who you are? You are people who for Grigori would not have sold goat, that's who.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

I often wonder what Victor is really like because he plays the grumpy guy in a lot of her stories. He must like her zaniness somewhat if they've been together 15 years.

I didn't really get the sense that it was the cost that angered him so much as the fact that it was an enormous ridiculous looking thing that he now had to live with.

Well, he managed to stop her from buying a large taxidermied boar head named James Garfield until he went back and bought it for her to shut her up. I agree that $100 is a lot of money but find her totally hilarious.
posted by Bunglegirl at 3:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

hey dudes so it turns out that the sixth anniversary is NOT the spider frozen in acrylic anniversary

just thought you might want to know

if you want 6th year lovin
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:51 PM on June 24, 2011 [19 favorites]

My next-door neighbors (Kenneth and Theresa) are a study in tension. We live in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, and Theresa's family has occupied this holler since the early nineteenth century. Anyway, I stopped by their house for something a while back and noticed a very impressive ten-point buck head trophy mounted over the fireplace that I didn't remember seeing before.

I said, "Kenneth, what's with the buck head? Is it new?" "Sure is. I shot that one in November at the farm over in Middle Tennessee. Got it stuffed and up on the wall it went." Now, I wouldn't be too crazy about a giant stuffed deer head in my living room so I asked him "What does Theresa think of it?"

Kenneth looked down and kinda shuffled his feet. "Well, she ain't none too happy 'bout it." "She isn't?" "To make room I had to take down the eight-pointer she got last year."
posted by workerant at 3:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [15 favorites]

I dunno. I found myself giggling at the picture of the giant chicken at the doorstep. That kind of ding-dong-ditch is the sort of thing my wife and I would do to each other; that part of the story I found truly amusing and I'm glad I read it.

However, the husband/wife dynamic left me feeling more squicked out than the good part left me amused. My take on this is that this story is one of three things:

1) Honest, perhaps with mild exaggerations, in which case it is creepy and sad.
2) Exaggerated for the sake of humor, but unintentionally taken to the point of being off-putting in which case it's just poorly written.
3) Exaggerated for the sake of humor, and knowingly written to the point of being off-putting, but without sufficient contextual clues to let you in on the joke, in which case it's creepy, sad, *and* poorly written.

I usually roll my eyes at beanplating, but I ... just didn't enjoy this, it's because of one of those three reasons, and I'm not sure which it is.
posted by jammer at 3:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Isn't it possible she's both exaggerating for the sake of emphasis and kind of a nutjob, which is what makes it funny? Do I have to seriously ponder the psychological machinations behind Hyperbole and a Half each time I reread about The God of Cake or Simple Dog? I can't imagine the time some people spend deeply contemplating silly blog posts written in an over the top style to be amusing.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:53 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Zarq, for the record, I thought it was HILARIOUS - it brightened my day, so there!

Mainly because of the thought of the rooster shanking anyone without respek for the art of silliness.
posted by Alice Russel-Wallace at 3:55 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Koeselitz, I think that you're taking this too personally and overthinking. I'm sorry that you were in what sounds to have been an awful, toxic relationship, but calling each other names isn't necessarily indicative of anything other than people who think that name-calling is funny. My (healthy, happy) relationship with my (loving, awesome) partner isn't all that different from what's shown in this story, only if it were our relationship, someone would've gotten punched.

Not hard. Not in a way that left marks or even hurt. But someone would've gotten punched, and someone else would've yelled dramatically and banged their head against a wall, and then we would have fallen over laughing, because that's what we do. We tell horrible stories about each other to people, because we're okay being the punchlines to the other's jokes--my current favorite story is about what an unbelievable asshole he is, only telling the story usually involves a lot more profanity than that. The first time I told *him* the story--about himself, in which he is the bad guy--he laughed so hard that he literally fell out of his chair.

I read the Bloggess all the time and think that she's quite funny--at least in part, I'm sure, because I see something of my own relationship (which, again, is pretty damn functional) in hers.

I can certainly sympathize with being made to feel uncomfortable by the post, especially if you have a history of unhappy relationships, but I think that it's unfair to make either "character" out to be the bad guy without more personal knowledge than any of us have.
posted by MeghanC at 3:56 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

Zozo: "What if Victor is in on the joke, and finds it funny? What if he doesn't mind playing the straight man in his wife's wacky misadventures? What if you're looking at a totally harmless joke through the lens of your own harmful experiences and seeing things that aren't actually there?"

Yeah. If you bother to read the blog beyond this one piece, it's pretty clear that Victor is the straight man in her writing, and they have That Kind of Relationship.

For pity's sake, I told my own husband that if he brought home another racing bike, I'd strangle *him* and guess what he brought home last night? But I didn't actually strangle him. Though my reaction would probably have been better had he brought home a metal chicken. Mostly because a metal chicken would be a hell of a lot cheaper and we don't already have five metal chickens. It all depends on the relationship. Again, if you read more of the blog, there's no reason for the Judgey McJudgerson going on about the whole thing.
posted by Lulu's Pink Converse at 3:57 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Wow, that guy sounds like a dick.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:59 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've seen this around a lot and to add to the statistics, I'm a woman and I don't get why this story is supposed to be so funny. For that I matter, it's not like I ever find the Bloggess that funny. This story doesn't rise above the usual for me. (And yeah, the presentation is a little Lockhorns-ish for my taste. Please feel free to send pity Memails to my spouse for my toxic humorlessness; his username is in my profile.)
posted by immlass at 3:59 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Also, it has hints of a J. Walter Weatherman-type lesson... "AND THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T STOP ME FROM BUYING TOWELS".
posted by Alice Russel-Wallace at 4:00 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sorry -- I just didn't think it was funny at all. To me, it had a mean-spirited "oh, I'll show you" vibe that I just don't like. Went over like a lead balloon to me, and there was no beanplating involved. I get the joke -- I just thought it was mean, and can't see why someone would do that to someone they love.

To each their own, I suppose.
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:01 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

MeghanC: “I'm sorry that you were in what sounds to have been an awful, toxic relationship, but calling each other names isn't necessarily indicative of anything other than people who think that name-calling is funny.”

But they didn't call each other names; that's kind of the point. She told a bunch of strangers on the internet that he's an asshole. Isn't that a little different? I mean, do turn to your friends at parties and say: "my husband is such an asshole?"
posted by koeselitz at 4:04 PM on June 24, 2011

Honestly, I think there's value in being with a partner who can surprise you on a regular basis. Maybe Victor had a bad day, he's grumpy about the towels and stuff, then the doorbell rings and ... IT'S A GIANT METAL CHICKEN! It's a totally absurd reminder not to take life so seriously. Like the Internet bunny with a pancake on its head, but in real life.

Then she put the chicken outside his window where he can see it every day, but he never moved the thing. So maybe he doesn't really mind it so much. Maybe he actually likes being married to someone who will go to such extremes to make their lives an adventure, but will never admit it.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:05 PM on June 24, 2011 [9 favorites]

Wow! I can't believe all the vitriol at either of them. For that matter I can't believe I bothered reading to the end of this thread. I wonder if folks would have had the same reaction if it had been $10 instead of $100 in the story. What if she got the cock for free? Personally, I thought the story was great, well told, and about the sort of relationship that can endure this because it is so strong.
posted by meinvt at 4:07 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

This woman reminds me of what I hoped I would grow up to be when I was about 12. That is all.
posted by millipede at 4:07 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure how the prank she played was mean. Maybe it's because she made it seem like her husband was just enraged, but that just read like hyperbole to me. IMO, this was the gist of the story: he's annoyed with how many towels they already have and tells her not to buy any more, she thinks he's being unreasonable, she goes shopping and finds a way to play a joke on him based on the unreasonableness he perceives, joke rubs him the wrong way, she says something that makes it worse, and in the end everything simmers down. I'm not seeing the maliciousness.

This thread was exhausting. Damn.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 4:08 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

I thought this was hilarious. I saw it yesterday via FB, and I'm glad to see it here. Life needs more of the silly (says the woman who wears giant red cardinal slippers in winter, grinds pepper from a plastic Jesus, and collects rubber rats).
posted by flyingsquirrel at 4:09 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not seeing the maliciousness.

To me, it's in the trying to score points off each other more than any of the particulars. But, again, I'm entirely unqualified to speak to what makes a marriage works.
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:11 PM on June 24, 2011

These two people are seriously fucking irritating.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 4:12 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: What if she got the cock for free?

I REGRET NOTHING
posted by elizardbits at 4:12 PM on June 24, 2011 [18 favorites]

koeselitz: But they didn't call each other names; that's kind of the point. She told a bunch of strangers on the internet that he's an asshole. Isn't that a little different? I mean, do turn to your friends at parties and say: "my husband is such an asshole?"

Yes. I mean, I do. I've done it when he's standing right next to me. And then he laughed. He's done the same thing to me (though, okay, usually it's "she's fucking crazy") and then I've laughed. Maybe we're still stuck in sixth grade, but we generally believe that a heaping dose of name-calling makes things funnier. I mean, what makes a funnier antagonist--"the man in the yellow Honda headed east on 78," or "That asshole in the little yellow box"? I'm going for asshole, every time, even if the asshole is my partner.

I assume--or I choose to believe, anyhow--that if the name-calling were an issue for Victor, he wouldn't be in the relationship.
posted by MeghanC at 4:14 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

I felt sorry for Victor and the UPS man, and even for her.

See, I am sort of that whimsical kind of person. I have the giant chicken equivalent, even. One night last winter I was coming home from school and I was exhausted and unhappy and stressed after a fourteen hour day that had ended in a bloodbath of statistical model building and I went to the grocery store so I could buy some food to shove into my maw before I went to sleep.

I rolled through the store until I got to the front, where they have the little display of useless 'home decor' junk. And there, giving me this outrageously snotty look, was a perfectly enormous green china frog. He was looking at me with loathing, and though frogs do not have eyebrows, he was arching his eyebrows at me. This was a frog who was clearly classing me as canaille and wondering why the grocery store let people like me into the establishment. This was a frog with standards.

And after that long, sad, difficult day, a frog sneering at me was just hilarious. I laughed so hard I had to sit at one of the cheap iron chairs they were selling for the patio and put my head down. I laughed until I cried and my stomach hurt. And then I bought Wilberforce and his two smaller brothers, Eustace and Wallace. So every time I round the corner into my kitchen and am confronted by a trio of frogs who appear to be lamenting the low company into which they have fallen, it cheers me up.

She's making Victor into part of her audience, and it really seems like he is not into it. It's not funny to drag people into your theater and shove them into a chair if they're not into it. It's kind of bossy and self-centered. I guess I can see how it would be inadequate as a story if you explain the giant chicken without dragging in a straight man, but it has to be rough on Victor.

I hope that Victor enjoys being her straight man, but this story doesn't really seem like he's okay with it. The detail of him just shutting the door on her and walking away doesn't seem like it. If he's okay with his straightmanishness, you'd think he'd've stayed there so as to milk the situation rather than completely disengaging.
posted by winna at 4:14 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Scoring points is not always malicious. Sometimes it can be lighthearted. Of course, the problem here (I think) is in how people are perceiving the nature of the joke, which maybe is not helped by her tone?
posted by DrGirlfriend at 4:14 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Look, people, this is clearly a couple who have been happily married for 15 years and are very used to and probably revel in each others' general ridiculousness.

exhibit a, wherein she falls in love with a hideous taxidermy boar head

exhibit b, wherein he goes back to buy the damn thing for her
posted by elizardbits at 4:22 PM on June 24, 2011 [11 favorites]

MeghanC: “I assume--or I choose to believe, anyhow--that if the name-calling were an issue for Victor, he wouldn't be in the relationship.”

You might think that, when people are hurt by stuff their spouse says, they either put a stop to it or leave.

But you'd be wrong.

As such, I don't see why it's warranted to assume that about Victor at all, particularly since she gives us no reason to conclude that.
posted by koeselitz at 4:26 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

For the story to work, it has to have a long-suffering, exasperated, irascible yet tolerant partner. Phyllis Diller had Fang; Joan Rivers had Edgar; David Sedaris has Hugh.

This is exactly the sort of thing my best friend would do to her beloved husband of 35ish years -- we've all just accepted at this point that she's the Cat in the Hat and the rest of us are the fish.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:26 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

"bloggess, honey, i've been thinking - i shouldn't be so judgmental about the things you like and i've decided to be more supportive ... remember how we used to talk about getting a pet?"
posted by pyramid termite at 4:27 PM on June 24, 2011

Look, people, this is clearly a couple who have been happily married for 15 years and are very used to and probably revel in each others' general ridiculousness.

exhibit a, wherein she falls in love with a hideous taxidermy boar head

exhibit b, wherein he goes back to buy the damn thing for her

Then as I speculated earlier, this particular blog entry just fell short writingwise. That's all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:31 PM on June 24, 2011

I would love it if my wife brought home a giant metal chicken. Mrs A would love it if I brought home a giant metal chicken.
Especially if it was $200 of free whimsy.


Now my life will not be complete without a giant metal chicken. Thanks, zarq!
posted by arcticseal at 4:32 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yep, that was entirely awesome. And reading some more of her posts, I think I'm going to end up hooked. Damn you zarq! I have other things I should be doing!
posted by bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated at 4:38 PM on June 24, 2011

He should declaw the rooster to get back at her.

Or fight it in a cockfight.
posted by everichon at 4:45 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not even reading the thread. I got in from work and was all "nearly 200 comments? what on earth could that be?"

And then I read it and laughed so hard I cried.

Thank you zarq. What a perfect introduction to the weekend.
posted by hippybear at 4:47 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

I saw the photo of the front door, thought about the metal folk sculpture, read the line about "scaring the snakes", and something in the back of my mind whispered "Texas".

A-yup.
posted by benito.strauss at 4:47 PM on June 24, 2011

If we had a giant metal chicken, I would get far more than $100 bucks worth of laughs out of it. That thing would go on a tour to see all our friends.

One day you'd go to the office and there'd be a giant chicken sitting at your desk. Go to visit your in-laws and the chicken would be in the kitchen wearing an apron. Honestly, if it replaced me in my casket I'd come back from the dead to laugh about it.

That chicken would be comedy gold.
posted by 26.2 at 4:48 PM on June 24, 2011 [13 favorites]

I'd guess that Victor likes the ad revenue. She's a pretty popular blogger, if not in the same league with Dooce or Ree. I think most spouse/SOs of popular bloggers somehow survive the mortification.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:55 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Frowned-upon metafilter topics:

Circumcision
Cat de-clawing
Israel / Palestine
Giant metal chickens

sounds about right
posted by lattiboy at 4:56 PM on June 24, 2011 [9 favorites]

winna -

I get Wilberforce and Wallace, but who's Eustace?

Also, I'm glad you didn't name one of them Huxley, as I would have to correct you — It's "Darwin's bulldog", not "bullfrog".
posted by benito.strauss at 5:13 PM on June 24, 2011

Man, tough crowd. Seemed funny to me. It sounds like something Nora would do to Nick.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:13 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

I thought it was funny as hell. Now that FelliniBlank mentioned it, it does remind me of David Sedaris' travails with Hugh. I guess people's mileage varies even more than I thought.
posted by Space Kitty at 5:17 PM on June 24, 2011

Damn, just when I was getting ready to start up my 'I was a childish passive-aggressive dick to my spouse and wasted $100 on a "joke" and wrote a "funny" blog post about it and here CLICK MY ADS ALLCAPS' blog, I find out at there are already plenty of PERSONALITY+++ Dooce knockoffs.

Really a dreadful link, sorry.
posted by waxbanks at 5:21 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

That's an expensive-looking front door for someone concerned about dropping a Benjamin on whimsy. Don't be such a tightwad, Victor.
posted by 0xdeadc0de at 5:24 PM on June 24, 2011

I love the Bloggess. She has brightened many of my days. And I loved this post. The picture of the giant dangerous metal chicken at the door made me laugh for five minutes.

And then I read this thread, and now I have to go lie down. I don't understand what's going on around here these days. Seriously.
posted by OolooKitty at 5:31 PM on June 24, 2011 [8 favorites]

OolooKitty: "And then I read this thread, and now I have to go lie down. I don't understand what's going on around here these days. Seriously."

I know. It's like a whole thread filled with Victors.
posted by koeselitz at 5:42 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

I knew I was right to not read the thread. :)
posted by hippybear at 5:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Dysfunctional relationships are FULL OF WHIMSY
posted by speicus at 5:57 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

This thread is FULL OF WHIMSY
posted by speicus at 5:57 PM on June 24, 2011

robocop is bleeding: "hey dudes so it turns out that the sixth anniversary is NOT the spider frozen in acrylic anniversary

just thought you might want to know

if you want 6th year lovin"

You, sir, have apparently never been partner to an arachnologist!
posted by barnacles at 6:00 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Whimsy my ass.
posted by jonmc at 6:06 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

I get that it's supposed to be funny, and I actually love the photo of the chicken at the door (possibly the funniest part of the story). It (and most of how the Bloggess writes about her marriage) reminds me of Everybody Loves Raymond (and everything of the same ilk), and, to me, that's why it's not funny. I can appreciate that others do think it's hilarious but as someone who grew up watching married people actually treat each other like shit, I don't want to read about married people even pretending to treat each other like shit. It makes my heart hurt.

That said, I'm glad that some of you find it funny. I really, truly do. Hopefully you can understand why it rubs some of us the wrong way.
posted by cooker girl at 6:09 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

These two people are seriously fucking irritating.

Which? There are way more than two fucking irritating people posting in this thread.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:13 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

Have these fucking people reproduced? God help us.
posted by jonmc at 6:15 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

This blogger does not qualify for the Metafilter Seal of Approval.
posted by mrhappy at 6:16 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is why we can't have giant metal chickens, people.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:22 PM on June 24, 2011 [8 favorites]

The chicken is full of STARS.
posted by arcticseal at 6:24 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yay it's time for Let's Fight About Lifestyles! Let me get my chocolate milk.
posted by furiousthought at 6:30 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Upon reading this paragraph from this post:

And yes. That is a GINORMOUS wolf/bear/pig thing and I wanted it immediately. Like, I kind of dropped my jaw and rocked back on my heels in shock a little and Victor was all “What the f…?” and I’m like “I MUST HAVE THAT” and Victor’s all “WHAT?! Where would you even put that?!” and I’m all “In my office, obviously. I’m not sharing James Garfield with the rest of you” and he’s all “You named it? WE JUST SAW IT.” and I’m all “Well, it’s pretty obvious his name is James Garfield” and Victor gave me this hard stare and said “That thing is not going in our house”. Because apparently Victor hates animals. And patriotism. Then I tried to convince him that it was too big of a bargain not to buy since the normal-sized boar next to him was $100 and James Garfield was slightly less than $100 so technically per pound he was practically a steal. It was like they were giving him away. And then Victor was all “They should give him away. Do you see what it says on the tag? ’Damaged. Major hair loss.’ It’s horrific.” and I’m all “Yeah? Well I love you in spite of your major hair loss” and he’s all “WTF? I don’t even have major hair loss” and I’m all “Yeah, but I didn’t know that when I married you. Your grampa was practically bald by 30 so I just assumed you would be too and I happily married you anyway. Because I love you. Just like I love James Garfield”. Then he walked away and I could tell he wanted to slam a door in frustration but he couldn’t because it wasn’t our house. And actually, now that I’m writing this I’m thinking that Victor was probably mad because he thought I was saying I love him just as much as I love James Garfield. Which is just not true. I love you way more than I love James Garfield, Victor. I just meant that I love you the same way. Blindly and with every fiber of my being. So yeah, I think you owe me an apology.

...I think we can conclude a few things.

First off, Victor is not a poor schlub whose wife is mocking him on the Internet. He's playing the straight man, sure, but he's got a certain dry scathing to his responses to her. In the follow-up he mockingly suggests she ought to be in therapy while buying her a boar's head, so it seems pretty clear to me that these two people love each other quite a bit, and this is a game they play with one another.

And second-of-ly, this Bloggess is a very talented humor writer, because every line of that is fucking gold. Deliciously descriptive, perfectly paced, the best jokes kind of blindside you, and the whole thing just drips with love for Victor.

I don't know why people complain about bloggers who use lots of formatting and ALL CAPS and short sentences and whimsy. Yeah, it's an often-done style on the Internet. It's often-done because a whole wave of people who are extremely funny people realized that you don't have to adhere to traditional writing styles when you're on the Internet, and so people who normally wouldn't be writers chose to be writers anyway and they are hilarious. Just fantastic writers.

You can find biting satire and wit online if you're looking for it. But that's not what this is, and this is just as awesome as that, and you all sound like a bunch of get-off-my-lawners. And I'll give you a warning, because guess what? I summer-camp-counseled a generation of 13-to-17-year-olds, and they're even more whimsical and hyperactive when they write online, and some of them are really, really smart, and if you think this is frustrating to read you're going to be exhausted by what comes next. Which is a shame because I think it's something new and incredible that we've never seen before and I'm grateful for it. If you think it sucks then there's just more for me.

Thanks for sharing this, Zarq.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:30 PM on June 24, 2011 [40 favorites]

On my way home tonight I stopped at this weird and great little resturant down the road from me and I was awed and amazed to see this in with the live birds they keep.

What are the odds?
posted by quin at 6:33 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

it seems pretty clear to me that these two people love each other quite a bit, and this is a game they play with one another

see also.
posted by elizardbits at 6:33 PM on June 24, 2011 [12 favorites]

I used to be married to a woman for whom every day was a test to see how many public insults, busts, sarcastic comments, physical kicks in the ass (infamously called a side-glute) and needles I could absorb before I got riled. Then she would mock me for not being able to take a joke. She apparently wanted to know "how much shit can I get away with" every day. And every week or two I'd try and explain that I didn't really see why she needed to do that and I wish she would stop, and then she'd get bitchy and resentful and say that it was the way she grew up and I should just deal with it.

It was usually something I could ignore or just cope with, but some days it just made me freaking miserable. I didn't see any need for it. I was willing to be kind and friendly and genuine all the time, but it seemed to leave her feeling raw and irritated and she'd just get vicious. So in order to keep some moderate sort of peace, I needed to return the jabs in order to keep what she inflicted on me down to only mildly painful. Not fun.

I'm now married to someone who is just as friendly and genuine as I prefer to be. Sarcasm has left my vocabulary. I know that my kind words will never be rebutted with "just for fun" griefing. It is like I used to have a teddy bear that, when I would hug it, would poke needles into my arms. Now my teddy bear is just soft and resilient, the way a teddy bear should be.

And when I visit the ex and she tries to bust me, when I'd use to just smile a little and sigh and roll my eyes and suck it up, I can look her in the eye with a face as dead as a corpse until she stops and realizes that, no, I'm not going to play along with that shit anymore, because I have nothing to lose with her anymore. And, amazingly, we can move on to having a real, genuine conversation.

So, yeah, I get this 100% because I spent 13 years living with it every day and know every single in and out of this kind of behaviour. And if two people are cool with it, then yeah, sure, go ahead and touché every day, count all the coup you want, keep score of the pokes, the insults, the pink towels and the metal chickens.

But it doesn't work for me, and reading about it just makes me cringe.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:37 PM on June 24, 2011 [26 favorites]

me: ”Or in meth. Unless you don’t like meth. Then we don’t either.”

me (to the check-out lady as we’re leaving): We don’t really have a meth lab.

Check-out lady: Oh. Okay.

elizardbits, this is incredible. RSS'd. And Victor's line at the end — "Well, good luck, local meth lab. We’re going to fucking crush you" — I want to show up in the next season of Breaking Bad. Plus it's proof that Victor is awesome and probably madly in love with his wife instead of totally crushed by her.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:37 PM on June 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

Check-out lady: Oh. Okay.

Speaking as a longtime retail worker, I figure what the checkout lady is actually thinking is "Uh-huh, yet another witty motherfucker. Lucky me."
posted by jonmc at 6:52 PM on June 24, 2011 [7 favorites]

The couple in this story sounds playful and happy. Something some of you no doubt have little experience with.
posted by Kloryne at 6:58 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

zarq - thanks - chicken story made me laugh. And, of course:

Metafilter: if you think this is frustrating to read you're going to be exhausted by what comes next
posted by ersatzkat at 7:09 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked this story--very funny, and well written. Thanks for posting zarq.
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 7:20 PM on June 24, 2011

You guys, she has a sex column too. If you've ever felt a strange pang while watching "The Jerk" (or just while being one!), you too may find it wildly arousing.
posted by melissa may at 7:25 PM on June 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

You guys, she has a sex column too. If you've ever felt a strange pang while watching "The Jerk" (or just while being one!), you too may find it wildly arousing.

"Yo, Stephen Sondheim, wanna get in here, make it a threesome?"

"No, I'm 80."
posted by dirigibleman at 7:32 PM on June 24, 2011

There is way too much self-righteous puritanical political bullshit going on in this thread.

Let me spell it out to you "enlightened" progressive* types - blowing a $100 on a gag gift is something no one should raise an eyebrow at. Her family doesn't make more than her fair share. You have settled for too little, to where you resent a fucking metal chicken so much you can't find it funny.

Organize or die. Direct your ire at the ones cutting the paychecks, and demand your fair share.

*Because you're too cowardly to call yourselves liberals. You let Rush gawdamn Limbaugh run your entire political philosophy out of the country on a rail, so you have to change your whole name, and you whine that some lady bought a giant metal chicken for laughs.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:47 PM on June 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

Organize or die. Direct your ire at the ones cutting the paychecks, and demand your fair share.

It's my giant metal chicken, and I need it NOW!
posted by dirigibleman at 7:50 PM on June 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

What a great day! NY passes marriage equality, AND I passed the BIG METAL CHICKENS test.

USA! USA! USA!
posted by sambosambo at 7:51 PM on June 24, 2011

I don't have $100 to spend on giant metal chickens.

But I'm very glad she did -- and that she wrote about it. Because she's been making me laugh about it all day. "Fifteen years is giant metal chickens!"
posted by jb at 8:58 PM on June 24, 2011

In the Gorey household, aggressive whimsy is a punch-in-the-mouth offense.

Don't get me wrong: Mrs. Gorey and I abhor violence; we just abhor the overall waste of time, materials, and money that whimsy represents more. The intentional use of whimsy to effect or annoy others calls for swift, direct corrective action, and few people forget a quick shot to the mouth.

Really, it's a social duty.
posted by Graygorey at 10:00 PM on June 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Violent whimsy haters.

I didn't know people had both the time and misery to piss on someone else's happiness.
posted by 26.2 at 10:12 PM on June 24, 2011

I'll give it a B+. I didn't like the language or the presentation, as it seemed somewhat mean-spirited, but the plot line was funnier than hell. Wondering if the tone would have been different if it were told in person?

I love the metal chicken. Certainly not what I could/would spend $100 on, but it would be fun to have in my chicken yard. Scare the eggs right outta them hens!

Actually, she's late. Steel is listed for the tenth anniversary.

I'm boring. I'd have bought the towels. You can never have too many big, fluffy bath towels.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:20 PM on June 24, 2011

I'm starting to hate whimsy too. It's so easy and inadequate. It's the like overprescribed antibiotics of fun. (p.s. I am sick this week)
posted by Adventurer at 10:26 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love this thread, but I have to get to sleep. I think I'm still going to be laughing when I get up.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 11:36 PM on June 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

And I'll give you a warning, because guess what? I summer-camp-counseled a generation of 13-to-17-year-olds, and they're even more whimsical and hyperactive when they write online, and some of them are really, really smart, and if you think this is frustrating to read you're going to be exhausted by what comes next.

Ahh! Now I want to read that! Please?



Meanwhile, A Message from Cupid: To all the people who beanplated and buzzkilled the giant metal chicken, if you're single, I recommend you go over that thread about the bus-waving-costume-wearing-dad from a couple weeks ago and pick the beanplaters and buzzkills on that one, you'll find your soulmates!
posted by bitteschoen at 12:18 AM on June 25, 2011 [3 favorites]

I am glad this sort of person is not closely in my life.
posted by AzzaMcKazza at 1:15 AM on June 25, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have read exactly two posts from the bloggess. This one about the chicken and this one about post it notes. Both stories have featured towels as plot motivators. Does anyone here read her stuff regularly? How often does she talk about towels? (Really, any more than a coincidental twice and I have to think that maybe she lives in crazy town.)
posted by phunniemee at 1:26 AM on June 25, 2011

To me, the writer was trying too hard--the story didn't seem very "natural," for lack of a better term. "I'm going to go out and make something gosh-darn wacky happen" rather than "now here's something wacky that happened the other day." It's the difference between the affectations of someone who is naturally eccentric (and who doesn't think of themselves as such) versus someone who is desperate to be thought of as eccentric.

I hated the McMansion front door, if not the idea of leaving a giant chicken in front of it.
posted by maxwelton at 2:31 AM on June 25, 2011 [8 favorites]

For the story to work, it has to have a long-suffering, exasperated, irascible yet tolerant partner.

This oddly describes me and MrM. He still finds the fact that I meticulously planned his 30th birthday cake, down to getting the mould imported from the US, then stuck it in the oven and GRILLED it.

The writing here didn't do it for me, but for those of you thinking that $100 is too much for a gag gift...well, that's what signing your partner up to the Franklin Mint catalogue is for.
posted by mippy at 3:35 AM on June 25, 2011

Zarq, this was great. I really wish people would stop reducing ever single female humorist who jokes about marriage to Lucy Ricardo.
posted by mmmbacon at 5:55 AM on June 25, 2011 [6 favorites]

That hit the nail on the head for me, frankly. I am probably taking this personally. I was married for a few years to somebody who didn't respect me at all, and who used words like "asshole" and "motherfucker" about me, and who told other people that we'd had arguments and that I was a stuck-up jerk. So, yeah, I read this and felt a little sick.

Me, too. This sounds a lot like my first wife. laughing at me, not with me. Playing against me rather than on my team. Sure, I'm projecting, but I also vote "not funny".
posted by Meatbomb at 8:19 AM on June 25, 2011 [4 favorites]

26.2: “Violent whimsy haters. I didn't know people had both the time and misery to piss on someone else's happiness.”

Yes, people like Victor should not be allowed to exist.
posted by koeselitz at 8:25 AM on June 25, 2011

For the record, the line about the chicken it will cut you was pretty amusing, as was the the piece overall, though there were some elements that made me squick a bit, which would suggest that she has a future in British comedy writing.

But here's the thing I don't get - labelling people who have had a different reaction to this as joyless or overthinking it or whatever. Thanks for minimising the experience of people who post here just because they disagree with you.

I do realise that the blog post was full of hyperbole, obviously, but dealing with passive aggressive behaviour is not much fun, and it is a worthwhile target of satire. However, for a thought experiment try trading husband and wife roles in this story.
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 8:29 AM on June 25, 2011 [3 favorites]

Typical of "arty" stores, the kind where chairs are painted in Mexican folk art style and spoons are shaped like animals.

I hate these stores and whenever I go into one I imagine the supposedly creative artists toiling in sweatshops to make these items, the ownership of which supposedly expresses your creativity.

I feel the same way about embroidery, beads, appliqués, and those laser-cut flower thingies on women's clothes.
posted by bad grammar at 8:30 AM on June 25, 2011

Well, shoot, nobody else has picked up on this, so I guess it falls to me.

Metafilter: Yet another witty motherfucker. Lucky me.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:59 AM on June 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

Moral of the story:
Don't marry the manic pixie dream girl.
posted by Yiggs at 10:01 AM on June 25, 2011 [9 favorites]

Does anyone here read her stuff regularly? How often does she talk about towels? (Really, any more than a coincidental twice and I have to think that maybe she lives in crazy town.)

I don't mean to be overly insulting, but I think you really don't know where your towel is.

*shakes head sadly*
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:12 AM on June 25, 2011

This is one of the saddest MetaFilter threads I've read.

My genuine sympathies to all those for whom this was a trigger for bad relationship memories instead of funny.

I just came in to thank zarq for introducing me to a funny writer. I like her stuff.
posted by straight at 10:47 AM on June 25, 2011

If I can't giant metal chicken, it's not my revolution.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:08 PM on June 25, 2011

My genuine sympathies to all those for whom this was a trigger for bad relationship memories instead of funny.

Thanks! I'm clearly in some sort of Eeyore mood today because I just felt sort of bad for the husband and the retail clerk. This is the only thing I've read by her. I can be a little down on whimsy, the woman who wrote it seems like a capable writer who, to my eyes, was trying too hard, so I concluded that I am not her target audience. That seems fine with me. Everything doesn't have to be for everyone. Maybe I'm just some grump who can't find humor in stories where people yell at other people and call them names because I have a bad childhood or maybe I just have a different sense of humor from other people. There is no such thing as objectively funny-to-everyone humor, really. I'm not sure why people think there might be.
posted by jessamyn at 2:38 PM on June 25, 2011 [8 favorites]

this story is cute and all, but I want to know more about the drunk lady that bought the first one.
posted by lonelid at 8:21 PM on June 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

In the comment thread that followed the entry, she explained that Victor was supportive enough that he'd been working to fix the hosting issues caused by the popularity of the piece. Until I read that (and the explanation about the towels), I was feeling somewhat badly about how hard it had made me laugh.

So hard that - even after being taken out of the "moment" by the threats & name-calling - I unthinkingly took a sip of my beverage then had to mop it off the laptop screen because I continued reading.

Anyway. Laughed but felt bad, then read comment where she explained their situation more, which made me feel better about it. I guess she could have pre-loaded the funny with all that info or slapped on some disclaimers, caveats, and warnings...but I think that would have undermined the piece, ultimately. It's cavalier humour, and a lot of the impact comes from being outside of comfortable norms.

I'm over-sensitive. Grossly. I doubt anyone here is aware of my posting history or has any interest in it in the least, but it absolutely paints the portrait of someone who should have been bummed out by this whole thing, even down to the lifestyle their front door represents (and she wrote a reply that addressed that, too). But reading through it quickly and allowing her writing style to become a "voice" took me out of that judging space and I laughed until I was crying and had to mop up rootbeer.

I totally get where the naysayers are coming from, and it's sad their experience has ruined even a cartoonish representation of a prank like this one. Stupid jerks who make you spend the rest of your life analysing and overthinking and cringing is draining and annoying, and sometimes you can't help but be put back into that place even if you're currently happy and generally have a great sense of humour. And sometimes it's just that the humour train doesn't stop at your junction.

Unplugging the critical thinking for a little bit was totally worth it for me. Thanks, zarq!

"Dude. Nice chicken." "It is NOT a nice chicken!"
posted by batmonkey at 2:31 AM on June 26, 2011 [11 favorites]

The middle class almost deserves to die off.

Someone has to make the giant metal chickens.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:17 AM on June 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Haters gonna hate.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:13 PM on June 26, 2011

I read through all the comments here with bemusement, because my reaction on the piece was, "Wow, I SO need a best friend like Laura!"

Jenny (The Bloggess) and her best friend are absolutely in tune with each other, and it is awesome.

And the line about, "This chicken will cut you"? Priceless.

So, anyway, The Bloggess is a great person. Really. I've met her in person several times, she's a lot of fun, she's done good stuff like raise money for charity, blah blah blah. But that's not what's important. We'e talking about just this one post of hers here.

So, as far as that goes, I understand the criticism from those that sympathize with Victor because they feel like he's been portrayed as a bit of a humorless ass here. If you haven't read more of her blog, if you don't know either of them, and you're just going by this one piece, I could see where you might think it was mean-spirited, rather than just poking fun. Her humor can be biting sometimes, but he gives as good as he gets. The two of them have this rapport and it seems to work for them, but that doesn't mean you have to like it.

But the criticism in the thread about the quality of the writing seemed less than generous to me, to put it mildly. It left me wondering if some frustrated writers who do NOT have half a million visitors to their blog every month, or a published book or two under their belts, might not just be a little envious, and letting that envy tarnish their critiques.

Seriously, asking who she is trying to be? Jenny doesn't need to pretend to be this writer or that caricature. She's just being herself, and one of the things I like about her is that she doesn't feel the need to apologize for that.

Thanks, zarq. Great post!
posted by misha at 5:47 PM on June 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

One cares more about money, one cares more about funny, and neither one seems to have much respect for the other. Damn shame to be throwing away a perfectly good chicken like that.
posted by davejay at 1:54 PM on June 28, 2011

Missed this until a MeTa comment pointed it out, because I'd already seen the post on fb, so why click through on MeFi? Oh, for the delicious commentses!

For the love of giant metal cocks, people, it's SATIRE. Bloggess as in "female blogger," because she's parodying a certain class of insufferable female 'humorist' bloggers. When you read it like that, it's hilarious.
posted by Eideteker at 9:15 AM on June 29, 2011

I don't read it like that, and it's hilarious. It isn't satire. She exaggerates for the sake of a good story, but she's not parodying anyone.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:45 AM on June 29, 2011

if you read the follow up, it's pretty clear that Victor gives back as good as he gets and that they complement each other nicely.
posted by bendy at 8:52 PM on June 30, 2011 [2 favorites]