Evil Joy Lurks Below the Surface of The Sisterhood

Alright,we are just gonna lay this out for you: we have a great friendship. We laugh, we hang, and we respect each other. Truly. You have heard us wax poetic about each other here, here, and here. We started this blog together because our parenting styles are so in sync. Hello? Sensible Moms.

But every once in a loooooong while, we just take the slightest, teensiest, most microscopic joy in watching the other one squirm. Most of the time, we are both just one missing shoe away from losing our minds, so watching the other teeter on the precipice provides validation that no one is perfect and we’re all just doing the best that we can to keep the crazy train on the tracks.

Butttttt, it also provides pure, indulgent entertainment.   If that makes us slightly evil, we are 100% A-OK with that because we look darn good in black and have been diligently practicing our maniacal laughs.

 

10 Evil Joys of The Sensible Moms

1. Scanner Bite in the Butt

Erin has been telling Ellen for no less than one year that she is about to hook up her scanner. So far, it has only bitten Ellen and the blog in the arse until last Thursday . . .

Erin: Oh my goodness! This morning, like at 6:45 AM, I found out that Biddie (14) needs a 2 x 3 baby picture of herself  for her school’s yearbook and the deadline to email it is TODAY! She was born pre-digital! Ahhhhh! I’m headed over to a friend’s house right now to scan one before the bell rings.

Ellen: Oh, is it inconvenient for you not to have a scanner? I can’t imagine what that feels like. Oh wait, I can.

Erin: Not quite the support I was looking for.

Ellen: How about this? Plug in the blasted USB cord.

 

2. Throwing Gasoline on Girls’ Night Out

Ellen: Erin gets plenty of flexibility training patting herself on the back for her peacemaking abilities . . . and she really should because she has mad skills. She is the one we turn to all of the time to cool down heated discussions and and to salve hurt feelings. But every once in a while, she loses her ever-loving mind over the most unlikely subjects.

Erin: I’m sorry, but Andy Griffith really is not that great.

Ellen: That’s right, folks. She ground not one, but two soirees to a halt because she could keep silent no more about her loathing for Mr. Griffith.

 

Erin: Seriously? Do we need to rehash this? We already covered it here and, I might add, we decided that I deserved a sliver of vindication.

Ellen: Take your sliver if it makes you feel better. I’m just over here enjoying the chuckles it still gives me.

 

3. Keening Over Keens

Ellen: So while we are on the subject of Erin losing her mind over the most unlikely topics . . .

Erin: I’m ready to start spreading the evil joy around to someone else . . .

Ellen: There was this one time, while on our Big Love camping trip, that she wanted to stage a photo with all of the Keen sandals.

Erin: C’mon, it was pretty cool that all 5 moms and all 13 kids had Keens. It was like an advertisement!

Ellen: I am totally with you that it was a great picture . . .

A photo like this just doesn’t happen.

 

Ellen: But here is what YOU always like to refer to as “the rest of the story.” Seriously, if you want to see behind the curtain of The Sisterhood, you MUST watch this.


 

Erin: The shoes were not matching up because Biddie(14) wasn’t paying attention when she grabbed her Keens out of the garage and picked up TWO DIFFERENT SIZES. And I had to ask a bajillion times for her to even do that.

Ellen: I still maintain that while she made a blister-inducing bed, she snuggled down in it and NEVER complained once that her shoes weren’t fitting. What more could you want?

Erin: How about owning up to it when I was LOSING MY MIND because it looked like we were missing two shoes because of the mismatched pair?

Ellen: Fine. But what is your excuse for the Christmas tree debacle?

 

4. Christmas Farm or Funny Farm?

Erin: Oh, Ellen, might have been slightly jealous of my Christmas tree-getting tradition in the past. With its rosy glow of familial harmony, it was practically a Hallmark commercial. But that was all in the past. This year, things got ugly on my end and it was Ellen’s turn to smirk. Apparently, there’s only so much Norman Rockwell to go around.

Ellen: I took my evil joy with a side of fabulous family memories topped with some Beyonce-level awesomeness.

 

5. Bloggers Dance Meltdown

Erin: Back in May, we played with the gracious, funny Kerry at House Talkn who hosts Blogger’s Dance

Ellen: Let’s be accurate, I played. YOU were still struggling with some of the more technical aspects of blogging and STILL telling me you were about to hook up your scanner.

Erin: I did try to talk you out of it.

Ellen: That is one of the more helpful things you did because it did set me with a fit.

Erin: You took to the tech-y side of blogging like a Gremlin to water . . .

Ellen: I’m not sure that analogy is complimentary . . .

Erin: So it was with the wee-est, teensiest, most minuscule bit of joy that I watched the video have its way with you.

Ellen: Dude! Part of the problem was that YOU couldn’t get the video off of your camera and I had to construct your part on Paint  (I know! Right?) with a photo MARY emailed to me because YOU never sent me one.

Erin: What’s done is done because the end product was so worth every hour spent, tear shed, and drop of alcohol consumed. You can read the original post here. Or just get your boogie on with the video . . .

If this inspired you to get your groove on, there is still time to dance your way into Kerry’s Valentine’s Day link-up.

 

6. Crock O’ Something

Erin: Whilst Big Lov-ing with some of our Sisterhood friends this summer, I thought I made an interesting discovery while making our awesome Chicken Bar-B-Q. I felt like Erin The Science Gal.

Ellen: Here it comes.

Erin: But to feed the army that was five families camping, we brought two crockpots—Ellen’s with the dark crock and Erin’s with the white crock. Same ingredients.  Same time. Same everything. Different results. Hmmmm. Well, the theories started a-flying. I believed the color of the insert made a difference.

Ellen: I think that is a crock of you-know-what (Pun!). The entire Sisterhood, not just me, delighted in the way this knocked Erin off her rocker.

Erin: I may or may not be planning a legit science experiment to prove my point. Stay tuned.

Aww, does this look like a group who would throw down over crockpots?? Why, Yes. Yes, it does!

 

7. Mother’s Day Madness

Ellen: Nothing can send a woman over the edge faster than her family proclaiming that they will devote an entire day to her and her needs when she knows them better than anyone and knows that ain’t gonna happen—no way, no how.

Erin: Mother’s Day 2012 took Ellen down and hard. I, not yet knowing that Andy Griffith, the Keens, the crockpot, and the tree farm would do me in, delighted in Ellen’s monumental Momma meltdown.

Ellen: Oh, Karma is one sneaky devil, she is.

Ellen, Post-Tasmanian-Devil-Style Flip-Out Over Mother’s Day, her calendar, etc.

 

8. Travel Team Tantrums

Erin: Having kids on travel teams for soccer for the last few years, I almost choked when Ellen told me Coco (14) was joining a travel volleyball league. And then I laughed. But I swear, it was really more in commiseration. I was laughing with her, not at her.

Ellen: Yeah. To be fair, I did my research and the team had NEVER gone to ANY all weekend tournaments. . . until this year, that is.

Erin: I thought I had told you that Travel Team is code for Gas-Guzzling, Time-Sucking, Money-Grubbing  Sports Enterprise.

Ellen: I think you undersold it.

Erin: Well, I think in this case the joke’s on both of us.

 

9. Will Smith Gets Us But No One Else Does

Ellen: Remember wayyyyy back in the day when the Fresh Prince sang, “Parents just don’t understand”. He felt us. Honestly.

Erin: Our families and friends get that we blog. But let’s just say the majority don’t get why or how and, frankly, really don’t understand it. At all. Which is totally OK. But we do get a little evil joy when one of them says, “Well, maybe I’ll go write a blog too”.

Ellen: To which we say, “Peace out. Rock on.” And then cackle into our magic mirrors.

 

10. The last evil joy

Erin: I’ll admit that there was this one time I got a little smug about my triumph on the blog. We were skewering a children’s book for Ninja Mom’s Character Assassination Carousel, and we thought it would be better to read it aloud, like a read-along story. After HOURS of working (Read: crying, stomping my feet like a two year old, and throwing back some whiskey sour slushies like they were water), I finally got the audio player on to the post. My first thought? I showed Ellen.

Ellen: And MY first thought was, “Ha! I’m glad that you had a hard time with it, because the tech side of blogging has been sucking my time like a leech.”

And on that note . . .

 

Click the link to read some other great posts over at  Monday Listicles!

 

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54 thoughts on “Evil Joy Lurks Below the Surface of The Sisterhood

  1. Vicky

    I love this. There is nothing better than having girlfriends with whom you can share hysterical private jokes. My BFF and I used to take junior high students to Europe for tours. I can not tell you how many inside jokes or hysterical memories we created. In fact, 9 years later, we still bust out laughing after simply making eye contact- no words spoken. We both know we are reliving the time we lost each other in a mall in France. No one quite gets us but that’s why our friendship is so awesome! Love that you ladies clearly have that as well!
    Vicky recently posted..It’s Valentine’s Day- Feel the love!My Profile

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      1. Vicky

        Everyone says that but I swear the kids were awesome! trust me! Trouble makers typically didn’t want to spend 10 days of summer break with a teacher. Typically it was my best and sweetest students that came. They were a blast. The only downside was that I only had a 6 month old the last time I went so I was fooled into believing how awesome it woudl be to travel with kids. I forgot to remind myself these kids were 12-14 years old, not 6 months- 6 years old. BIG difference. Older kids are waaaay more fun!
        Vicky
        Vicky recently posted..I get by with a little help from the universe, the manufactuer of sheets, the guy who created sock labels, a pharmacist and my Keurig.My Profile

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  2. Kerry B

    you two sound like my dear friend and me. I call her Fufi because 20 some years ago her Fuji bike got stolen and she told the cops it was called a Fufi bike. They kept asking her “what?” and we kept snickering. To this day we call her Fufi, the girls call her Aunt Fufi and we refer to her boobs as the fufettes because they are so big.
    I love your blog aside of being funny, it reminds me of our days living at the beach being evil kidless and stressfree!
    Thanks ladies for the laughs!
    Kerry B recently posted..Ten Things That Bring Me Joy….You?My Profile

    Reply
  3. Diane

    I almost had to stop reading when the topic of Andy Griffith came up again. Sorry Erin but I’m with Ellen on this one. 🙂

    The Keens pic cracked me up.

    Reply
    1. The Sisterhood Post author

      We ran an Andy Griffith experiment in the post we wrote about it and after much scientific deliberation, I have to back Erin up on her stance. Sorry. I still probably wouldn’t stop a party over it. 🙂 Ellen

      Reply
  4. Kim@Co-Pilot Mom

    There is definitely a difference between crockpots! I never thought of the insert colour being a factor, but I used to make a mac and cheese in my old crockpot – I had it down: time, ingredients, everything. But the first time I made it in my new crockpot, it burned. And yes, they have different coloured inserts: green and black. Interesting…. 🙂
    Kim@Co-Pilot Mom recently posted..Ode to Joy – 10 Small Things That Make Me HappyMy Profile

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  5. Jackie

    I never have gotten into Keens, but apparently I’m missing something. And as for travel teams…something I am so not looking forward to. I am forever indebted to my own parents for the countless days they have lost of their lives sitting in pools across the greater Philadelphia area.
    Jackie recently posted..Etsy, Bitsy, Teeny, WeenyMy Profile

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  6. Jen

    My scanners hooked up, but I don’t know how to use it. I’m always getting error messages, or upside down scans I can’t seem to adjust. Recently I asked someone if I should fax some documents. She said just email them to me. I said, sure, when I get my act together. Read that as NEVER.
    Thanks for the laughs. Visiting from Listicles
    Jen recently posted..10 {tiny} secret things that bring me joyMy Profile

    Reply
    1. The Sisterhood Post author

      You just made me spit my seltzer out. Erin just had a woman IRL tell her that she had the perfect family. Her response? “Well, we all can relax then if I’m the standard for perfection.”

      BTW, I haven’t washed my face today. Ellen

      Reply
  7. Kate

    I love the keens picture. You should tweet that to them. It’s a great one. I like the chicken dance in the video too. Where were the sprinkler, driving the bus, and ordinary white-guy moves?

    BTW, a coyote *did* take off with my cat. I wrote about it today in response to your question.
    Kate recently posted..A Coyote Ate My CatMy Profile

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  8. Ducky

    I’d like to say I remember exactly what I read. However, at this point I don’t remember anything. We are snowed in today and by WE I mean THE ENTIRE FAMILY. Just as I was enjoying the post and excited to have some time to finally catch up on the stuff I WANT to do this week, the kids start screaming at each other. Its like they purposefully come from where ever they are hiding just to be bossy and nasty to each other.

    Someone is likely to not survive the day. Could very well be me.
    Ducky recently posted..Team VaginaMy Profile

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  9. Stasha

    Seeing the dance video never gets old!! Also most of your evil joys could be sorted with an app 😉 Like there is a scanner one and a shoe organizing one…
    Stasha recently posted..GlassesMy Profile

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