The invitation read:

Hey everyone! Jacob is turning 4! So let’s break out the crabby patties and have a party!
Where: [deleted]
When: [deleted]
Please RSVP: [deleted]
Gift ideas include: Construction toys, dinosaurs, and toy tools!

I grew up in a household where it was taboo to even expect a gift. So the idea that someone would send out a party invitation that also doubles as a shopping list is particularly horrifying to me.

But hey! I suppose it’s a great way to teach your children that people are nothing more than walking, talking credit cards you can use to get more stuff! Why make a celebrations about spending time with the people you love when you can tactlessly and shamelessly turn every event into ‘GIMMEE GIMMEE GIMMEE’ grab time?

Am I the only one who is turned off by the blatant present grubbing that is running rampant nowadays?

My Sister-in-law just got done throwing three separate birthday parties for her youngest son’s first birthday. And yes, if you got ‘lucky’ and happened to be invited to all 3, you were expected to bring 3 different gifts. Ignoring the fact that my 1 year old nephew could theoretically amuse himself with a piece of aluminum foil rendering most store bought presents a foolish waste of money, what the hell does he need three parties for? His mind is mush; he has no concept of what a ‘birthday’ even is! It’s not like he’s going to greet my ass at the door, all, “Aunt V! So good of you to come! Please, toss your coat in my crib and grab yourself a drink!”

I’ll tell you why she did it. She wanted to use his birthday as an excuse to grub for money. Flummoxed by the idea of picking out three presents for the kid who doesn’t yet have the mental capacity to understand he sometimes sits in piss and shit, most people just wrote that greedy bitch a check.

I wish I could say this new trend of shockingly poor manners was reserved strictly for children’s birthday parties. But unfortunately, it’s everywhere.

Bachelorette parties! Bachelor parties! Buy me stuff!

Mother’s Day! Father’s Day! Secretary’s Day! I did my fucking job just like every other shlub on this planet day! Buy me stuff!

Hey! I just moved into a new apartment! Buy me stuff!

How many excuses are we going to utilize in order to convince those supposedly nearest and dearest to us to buy us stuff? And not just any stuff, either. Please only buy the stuff I’ve listed on my gift registry/Wish list/Internet gift guide. Oh, and leave the receipt in the bag in case I get two.

So rude. So presumptuous.

Bridal showers! Baby Showers! Buy me stuff!

A quick word about showers: a long time ago, when a man and a woman got married, it was tradition to bring the bride and groom a small gift in order to help them ‘set up house.’ You see, people back then usually lived with their parents up until the day they got married, so the young couple was honestly in need. Not only that, but for couples living in small towns in the middle of nowhere, it was hard to get your hands on basic necessities even if you had the money to spare. They didn’t have a Macy’s right across the fucking street!

Furthermore, they faced the same trials and tribulations when they had their first baby. Back then, there was no mall and no Babies R Us store. They had nowhere to go to buy a stroller. So the neighborhood friends would ‘donate’ their unused baby items to the expecting couple to help ease the stress and expense.

In short, the tradition of having ‘wedding showers’ and ‘baby showers’ made sense….70 years ago.

However, now we have couples who have been living together for years before they tie the knot and therefore have no legitimate need for anyone to help them ‘set up house’ and Mother’s who actually demand baby showers for their 3rd or 4th child. Showers are no longer about tradition! They are about greed and taking advantage of friends by peer pressuring them into buying designer knife sets when they’ve got their own damn bills to pay.

Valentine’s Day. Sweetest Day. Buy me stuff!

Didn’t I just invite you to my wedding? Please, buy me something from my list to cover the cost of your meal.

(My Grandmother used to say that if you can’t afford to feed them, entertain them, and fill them full of booze, then you have no business throwing a party)

Hey everyone! Junior just graduated from kindergarten/middle school/high school/his first semester of college! We’re throwing a party! Please review his wishlist online for proper gift suggestions! After all, we made that list for your convenience. We wouldn’t want you to actually pick a gift out yourself or, God forbid, make him something with your own two hands. Egad. We’d rather you just donate to his ‘new car fund’ or buy him an Ipod.

For those of you who are tuning in to this little website of mine from a different country, I just want to make it perfectly clear that this is how the common American treats his friends. His friends! Trust me; I know why you hate us. We’re greedy. We’re tacky. We think everyone ‘owes’ us something. In fact, I’m willing to bet money that some lousy fuck is out there right now trying invent a ‘tradition’ that forces anyone visiting America on holiday to purchase a gift for someone beforehand.

Welcome to our country! Buy us stuff!

Burn us. Burn us all. Burn us before it’s too late.

Hey Americans! Guess what, you dipshits? It’s not a gift if you ask for it! It’s an obligation, presented in the greediest and most classless way possible. Congratulations on managing to take all the heart and soul out of gift exchanges while simultaneously trivializing your personal relationships. You no longer have friends. You have breathing ATMs! Kudos. Kudos to you all.

The sad part is I actually love to give people gifts. I’m a big fan of the ‘just because I love you’ gift or the ‘I know you needed it’ gift. But the rudeness, the audacity, and the horrendous gluttony of some people is enough to turn me off to the whole gift exchange process altogether. I’m a living, breathing person and if my only value to you is what is in my wallet, then we don’t need to be fucking friends.

I’m going to sum this article up with two stories I stumbled upon on the Internet.

The first story I found on Yahoo Answers. It featured an Entitled Bitch asking people whether or not it’s appropriate to send a child to a birthday party without a gift. The reason she asked was because she just got done throwing her child a birthday party and one of the friends apparently showed up sans gift. Entitled bitch went into this big long explanation where she detailed how much she paid to throw the party and speculated on how much the child’s parents made per year. It was quite obvious that she thought the little girl who came without the present should have been excluded from the gathering completely if her parents wouldn’t (or couldn’t) pony up a present.

Hopefully, she’ll pass that devastating good will onto to her spawn.

I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I ran into this next story. I think it was on an Internet forum or something and if someone could point me towards it, I’ll link to it.

However, the true story was written by a girl whose very best friend in the whole world came from a very poor family. One year, this girl was throwing a birthday party and her best friend’s parents declined the invitation because they honestly couldn’t afford a gift. Completely unknown to the little girl, her Mother spoke to her friend’s parents and assured them that a present was completely unnecessary and begged them to send her friend to the party anyway. This little girl’s Mother didn’t want her daughter to have to spend her special day without the presence of her best friend over some silly piece of plastic.

Anyway, on the day of the party, the little girl in question got all caught up in the ‘Queen for the Day’ mentality that comes along with big birthday bashes and started behaving somewhat bratty. When her very best friend in the whole world showed up and rang the doorbell, she keenly remembers answering it and saying simply, “Hey! Where’s my gift?”

Humiliated, the little boy burst into tears and ran all the way back home. Her friendship with him effectively ended for good that fateful day. The little girl/now grown woman ended her story by saying (loosely paraphrased), “I will never forget the look in his eyes when I said that to him. It absolutely haunts me to this day.”

Reading her story actually broke my heart a little. More so because I know most kids nowadays, if placed in a similar situation, wouldn’t think anything of it.

After all, celebrations aren’t about people anymore. It’s all about the presents, baby! Buy me stuff! Buy me stuff! Buy me stuff!

Fuck you all. Buy your own fucking stuff.

Gay Hairdresser: It’s so cool that you’re willing to try new things with your hair. Most people hate change.

V: I’m just so bored with myself. And I figured I could either develop a personality or get a new haircut.

Gay Hairdresser: Haircut is easier.

V: That’s what I thought.

By: BC Woods

We live in an era where the decision to have a child is considered by many to be of less importance than the decision to get married. Given how frivolously marriages are formed and broken, this is not a statement made lightly. The rate of teen pregnancy in the US is significantly higher than in almost all other industrialized nations. For a surprisingly large number of people, the idea of creating a new human life does not immediately imply the responsibility to create a safe environment in which that life can flourish. Would-be parents simply think that they will have a child and the world will somehow fall into place. Worse, the world does not even seem to recognize that this value system is flawed.

When I attended my younger brother’s remedial high school graduation a little over a year ago, a retarded girl was given special recognition at the ceremony. Her accomplishment? She was not yet eighteen years old and already had two children. She was eight months pregnant with another. The crowd saw fit to erupt in applause. Given the fact that every family there, including mine, was dysfunctional, this is not surprising.

Contrary to popular cultural memes, it’s not always a good thing when a child is born. Firstly, a child born to a family without a home or an ability to feed it is a child sentenced either to die or to become a ward of the state. Secondly, a child who grows up in a home where they cannot observe a healthy loving relationship (gay or straight) is sentenced to a myriad of mental dysfunctions. Yet when we see a retarded girl pregnant on a stage we applaud. It is no longer our impulse to demand to know who raped her, because a retarded person cannot possibly give consent. It is no longer our impulse to take her children away and give it to a loving family that cannot have children of their own. No, when we see a poor child totally incapable of understanding the magnitude of what she is carrying inside her, we stand up and cheer. They even gave her a plaque. I bet if she could read it, she would be honored. Maybe one day if she doesn’t kill her children by mistake, they’ll be able to tell her what it says.

Why this has come to be is complex. Most of it can be explained away by the fact that people fully expect that the world is responsible for them. They never stop to think that the world is full of people, and that’s it’s the individual people who have to shoulder the burden of their short-comings. No one ever thinks that if everyone has to lean on everyone else, we all die. In this environment it makes sense that people will have children irregardless of the consequences. If someone doesn’t even have to be responsible for their self, why should they have to be responsible for their child? The problem is complex, but the solution is simple.

In our society, a woman has complete biological authority over the life of her unborn child. Growing in her womb, taking its sustenance from her blood, an unborn infant and the mother share a unique bond observed nowhere else among humans. For this reason, when a woman becomes pregnant it is her absolute right either to keep the child or to have it aborted without considering the wishes of the father. This cannot be disputed. However, society, even in legal terms, does not recognize any such rights for men. I would propose that a simple tweaking in the law could fundamentally shift the entire reproductive paradigm for the better.

What I propose will shock you. Your immediate instinct will be to rise up and call me a misogynist. All I ask is that you seriously consider what I am about to propose, and carry it to its logical conclusions:

Allow men the right to legally disown their unborn children. In cases where the father is never told of the child, he should have no legal obligation to assist in the child’s upbringing except by free choice.

We currently have something in the legal system called child support. In the case of a married couple that has divorced this is a fair concept. But we have another situation in which a man that has had sex with a woman he does not love can be held legally responsible for the child she bears. He will then have to pay for this child, and his mistake for the rest of his life. Many mothers would be unable to support themselves without this source of income.

Our sensibilities of course immediately go to the mother and child. What will she do? How will she care for the baby? What if they can’t make rent? What if they starve to death? We know that such children are already disadvantaged. We know that they are predisposed to commit crimes if no one steps up to the plate. How can the world be safe for these children with this too stacked against them? How in such a world can such families hope to exist? Exactly.

You see, in a world where men are legally allowed to disown their unborn babies the incentive on a woman to make certain that the man she is having her baby with has some kind of nurturing capacity and integrity is directly tied to her survival. No more casual dalliances, no more use of babies as bargaining chips, no more families brought together by legal pressure instead of love. With the safety net removed people will be forced to become good parents. If you can’t find a partner you can be sure will stick around and raise your baby with you, you will not be able to have a child.

An immediate criticism of this is that it would destroy American families. What American families are we protecting exactly? Do you think dependable, respectable people raise their children solely out of legal obligation? Do you think fathers who love their children and their wives would be gone in a heart-beat if they didn’t have to be there? The obvious answer is no. This would cause the dissolution of exactly one kind of union: the dysfunctional family.

Of course necessary reforms would have to be made in the welfare system. Namely, individuals on government assistance would not be allowed to have children. If you cannot make enough money to care for one child then having another child is an act of intentional abuse. For those who suggest that this is a violation of liberty, consider the crime committed against hundreds of thousands of children who are born into an environment in which there is almost no hope. Compared to this, a required contraceptive is menial. Those who honestly need assistance can have as many children as they want once they’re back on their feet.

I know a woman who poked holes in her boyfriend’s condoms so he would knock her up and marry her. I know a man who uses his child solely to hand him beers when he’s having sex. I know a woman who sold her baby to his father for $500. I know a man who used to beat his son hard enough to leave bruises the size of baseballs. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Prisons do not fill themselves. I do not find it a bit wrong to create a system wherein this caliber of individual, by their own free choice, is allowed to stop breeding. That’s not discrimination, it is natural selection. No one is being forced, in fact quite the opposite. This is freedom of choice creating a healthier environment for children. We can simply stop letting a segment of society use the government to facilitate its breeding activities.

The other option of course is that in five hundred years the average IQ will be less than seventy, Carl’s Junior will own the government, and people will live in giant Costco villages watering their plants with Gatorade. Let’s not lie to ourselves, if we don’t do something that’s the alternative.

***

BC Woods authors the site DunceUponATime, where he relates stories about events in his childhood, such as being attacked by a fawn, injuring himself with a sword, and his fourth grade teacher dropping dead in the middle of class. While he admits there are thousand of sites on the internet much better than his, readers are always welcome.

Here’s a question I’ve been asking a lot of people lately: What makes a human a human? Define humanity. What sets the human race apart from any other species of animal on this planet? How are we ‘better?’

When confronted with this question, most people will parrot all the typical scientific answers. We have larger brains and a more complex thought process. We have opposable thumbs and the physical ability to build some pretty amazing things.

But the size of our brains and the mechanical ability of our hands is just dumb evolutionary luck. Why should we develop ego over something about ourselves that we have no control over?

Some people insist that humans are better than animals because we’re at the top of the food chain. However, the tendency to judge the value of society strictly by its ability to kill the most efficiently makes me a little uneasy. For one thing, it creates an awfully slippery slope. Are Americans more human than the members of some tribe in a third world country simply because we have bigger guns? Furthermore, citing ‘ability to kill’ as the most important asset of the human race kind of sells us all short.

Lastly, some people claim humans are better because we were chosen by God. As an Atheist, I find ‘The God Excuse’ in most matters to be counterproductive at best and actively harmful at worst. With that said, it’s almost deliciously ironic than in this circumstance, the God mongers are as close to right as anyone has come yet

Of course, the idea that we might have been ‘chosen by God’ is not only silly, but completely irrelevant. What is relevant are the possible reasons why we would have been chosen if God actually did exist.

The answer to that lies in the human brain. Or, more specifically, our ability to ‘see the big picture.’ In short, if God existed, he would have chosen us because our thought process is complex enough that we are able to comprehend how are actions affect others.

The difference between a human and an animal is an animal is solely focused on his own genetic survival. He wants to stay alive and he wants his children to stay alive. The rest of the world and how it works is beyond his comprehension.

A human, on the other hand, possesses a survival instinct as well a desire to preserve and protect the rest of the world. Animals don’t give a shit about the rain forest or the plight of the giant panda. Humans do. An animal never stays up late at night worried that another animal, unrelated to him, may be suffering. Humans do.

Are humans sometimes misguided, illogical, or just plain wrong? Sure. But at least they care. The ability to care about something greater than yourself makes you a human. It’s only in the execution where mistakes are understandably made.

The ‘top of the food chain’ jerks like to fancy themselves these amazing predators. This couldn’t be further from the truth. After all, a predator kills to survive. This instinct is necessary. When a lion kills a gazelle, he does so simply to fill his belly. Afterwards, he probably takes a nap. He does not go out and kill 100 more gazelles he has no intention of eating just because he can.

The fact is modern day “humans” rarely display predatory behavior. They don’t spend their lives acquiring overly large houses, ipods, and shit made out of diamonds because they need them to survive. They do it because they’re mindless consumers who need more, more, more. And once they have it, they want it again…only bigger, better, and faster. Why they want it doesn’t matter. Just shut up already and charge it to their credit cards!

This behavior is in no way predatory. It’s parasitic.

Make no mistake about what I’m trying to imply here: if you live your life mindlessly consuming, without thought or consequence, completely oblivious to how your behavior affects the rest of the world, then you are not a human. I don’t give a flying fuck what your DNA suggests. You are an animal. You are a parasite. You have no more intrinsic value than that of a common maggot. In fact, I would go so far as to say you have less value than a common maggot. The maggot is at least doing his job. You’re just being repetitive.

Existing at the top of the food chain is not a privilege. Nor is a free pass to rape and pillage and plunder. It’s a responsibility. As humans, we have an obligation to contribute to this world and protect all the creatures and resources that come with it. That’s our job.

If we want to continue to insist that humans are somehow ‘better’ or ‘different’ from the rest of the animal kingdom, then we have to be willing to embrace that which sets us apart. It’s not all fun and games, this ‘being a human’ business. It’s fucking work. But we do it, because nothing else can. So if you’re not ready, willing, able and even eager to do your part, please return your ‘Human Card’ now. Quit demanding recognition because you were blessed with fancy thumbs.

The problem with this world is we have too many parasites and not enough contributors.

Look, I realize that a vast majority of the population longs for a world in which everyone happily does their own thing without it affecting anyone else. I felt the same way as a child. I also wanted unicorns to be real. Unfortunately, we have a better shot at inventing unicorns than we do at creating a society where people can do whatever they please with consequence to others. A society without individual consequence to the whole is fucking impossible. We don’t live life in a vacuum!

If you lie, cheat, steal, litter, waste or ignore, those actions will affect others. Likewise, if you help, clean, give, or heal, those actions will affect others. Everything you do and everything you don’t do feasibly affects someone else. You can’t even speak on this planet without affecting another person. You can’t breathe on this planet without affecting something else. Hell, you can’t even kill yourself without creating a consequence for someone else.

Welcome to reality, folks! There are no unicorns here either. Yet.

Convincing people that it is impossible to opt out of society even if they really, really want to is hard work. I’ve noticed that if I try, I produce 1 of 3 results.

1. They put their fingers in their ears, scream ‘La la la! I can’t hear you’ really loudly and outright refuse to believe that a world where they can take care of only themselves without any negative consequences to others will never, ever exist.
2. The lament the unfairness of it all while simultaneously embracing the role of perpetual parasite.
3. They accept their position on this planet and start working for something greater than themselves. They contribute.

Again, I say the problem with this world is we currently have too many parasites and not enough contributors. We have a generation of people who would prefer to live in a bubble, but no bubbles to give them. We have more maggots than we have room for. Even worse, we have maggots that speak. We have maggots that won’t let a day go by without curtly informing you what they are not responsible for.

Want an example?

A bunch of loan officers gave money to irresponsible people who were financially incapable of honoring the terms of the loan. As a result, people defaulted on their loan in droves creating an economic crisis. The value of the American dollar plummeted and gas prices rose for everyone. At the end of the day, who is responsible? We’re all affected, but no one is accepting culpability.

Loan officers continue to insist that the irresponsible people shouldn’t have accepted the money in the first place. The irresponsible people point at the greedy loan officers and cry trickery. Everyone is too busy playing the victim role and pointing the finger at someone else to accept personal responsibility in creating suffering or strife for others.

So who is really responsible? The human or the animal? Obviously, it’s the human’s fault, every time. Remember, an animal is incapable of seeing the ‘big picture’ and therefore needs human protection. The animal, through no fault of his own, victimizes others and if he’s unlucky enough ultimately victimizes himself as a result.

The question shouldn’t be who is responsible in this scenario. The question should be: between the greedy loan officers and the irresponsible people, which one is the human? The answer to that is also simple: the first one to raise their hand and say, “It was my fault.”

An animal will never accept culpability for anything, ever. An animal will idly watch another animal beat the shit out of some poor kid and when you ask him why he didn’t intervene, he will say shit like:

“It’s none of my business.”

“He’s not my kid and therefore not my responsibility.”

This befuddles the human race because we understand our responsibility towards creatures weaker than ourselves. Whether they are biologically related to us or even belong to the same species as us is a moot point. We’re human and it’s our job to protect them. Because if we don’t, who will? No one else is capable, so the responsibility lies with us. Furthermore, humans realize that allowing animals to ‘parent’ potentially human children creates dire consequences for the rest of the world.

An animal will ignore that child, but you better believe he will be the first one to cry foul when that same child grows up and rapes his daughter. He’ll gladly place the blame on the parent, claiming that it was the actual beatings and the neglect and the molestation that turned the child bad. He’ll even blame the child and try to convince us that the kid willingly chose to become a monster. In reality, it’s his short sighted animal mentality that is really to blame. He feigns helplessness, refusing to consider that his intervention could have prevented a tragedy.

I know I’m starting to ramble. I know I’m being vague. So instead of going on and on and on with this lecturing, I’m going to tell you how you can tell whether or not you are a human or an animal. Revisiting my last example, I’m going to set up a scenario for you. Afterwards, I’m going to ask you a question.

A parent beats a child. A neighbor knows the child is being beaten, but for personal reasons, refuses to become involved. The child grows up to become a monster.

Who is to blame? Is it the monster’s fault for merely existing? Or is it the parent who twisted him, arguably a monster himself and so mentally fucked in the head that he likely didn’t realize that beating his child was wrong in the first place? Or is the fault of the completely sane and stable neighbor, who knew it was happening, who knew it was wrong, who possessed the ability to see the ‘big picture’ and still refused to do anything to stop it?

Thank carefully about this question because your answer determines your level of humanity. Furthermore, if you need the answer spelled out for you by me, I can almost guarantee you that you answered wrong. Welcome to the animal kingdom.

Don’t worry, us humans will eventually figure out a way to take care of you, too.

Just so everyone is aware…

My Birthday Charity Challenge ends tomorrow, so donate while you can. As it stands, it would take a fucking miracle to make our $10,000 goal, but donate anyway. Donate because sometimes doing the right thing is it’s own reward and lecture, lecture, lecture.

I wish I could be more inspiring than that. However, if this contest proves anything it’s that I fucking suck at inspiring the masses. Sorry.