I thought I’d take a moment to remind everyone (all ten of you) of the definition of a “rant”. I know, I know… you already know, but it is one of the tags I use when I decide I just can’t take it anymore and I can’t think of one “near witty”, “perilously close to being humorous”, or “I kind of wiggled the edges of my mouth and thought “tee hee”” thing to say.

So, for those of you who saw the tag “rant” and sent me a note saying “you sounded angry to me” – here’s the definition:

n.
Violent or extravagant speech or writing.
A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence: “The vast majority [of teenagers logged onto the Internet] did not encounter recipes for pipe bombs or deranged rants about white supremacy” (Daniel Okrent).

rant. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved July 08, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rant

Whew, we got that cleared up. Now, if you don’t mind I have a rant brewing.

My mother wasn’t a saint or maybe she was, but to my knowledge she was never officially canonized nor beatified, but she was my Mom and on days when we weren’t doing that thing that sometimes mothers and daughters do best, I kind of liked her and vice versa. I hold my Mom in high regard, because she deserves no less and I’m probably even more sensitive about that today since she isn’t around to speak for nor defend herself.

So… let’s get to it – the ranting – it’s why you’re still reading.

I’m at lunch yesterday and the subject of my Mom comes up – about how she always made a former co-worker of hers laugh. About how my Mom would tell a juicy story and get to the “good” part, the part told in low voices while checking to see if anyone is listening whom she didn’t want to overhear and she’d whisper, “…and then we held hands… each others!” like she had divuldged something particularly risqué.

Johnny Penis, who was there for the conversation and who thinks he’s God’s potential gift to the gene pool had been talking about all the women who had wanted to “date” him from this old office – Mom’s old office – where he’d started working at while my Mom was slowly dying at home. He never met her. He’s also sleazy. And he was getting antsy that the conversation had turned from his penis, which happens to be his favorite topic when he’s not busily denigrating women. He’s adorable. Really, you should take him home to meet the parents.

“I’d wrap my tamale around your Mom.” I blinked. “I’d do your Mom.” … and he made suggestive hand gestures just in case I misunderstood.

WTF?! Now I could do the back and forth dialog between me and Mr. Penis, but you can probably imagine how the conversation devolved – and once again, I could kick myself for holding back – I felt I couldn’t just let someone completely have it in public (being reserved SUCKS) – my brain got tangled up in the self talk of, “oh no, there are people around and some are his friends, I shouldn’t make a scene” which made me very angry at myself for not defending my Mom full force.

But seriously, who says that? We’re talking about MY MOM. Even if she were alive, you don’t say that about anyone’s mom EVER unless you’re (feel free to insert a slew of appropriate adjectives that would turn this post from PG-17 straight to X for vulgarity (no nudity here folks) – and if you can imagine those words and them coming out of my mouth while I bunched up my face and spit, then that’s exactly how I finished that sentence). And in my head, while he made several disgustingly lewd and salacious remarks, I was playing out what Mom would have thought, which would have mostly been of the PG variety and involve words like “classless” (she was far and away classier than her daughter).

So, just to wrap it all up:
I’m ranting. I am, in fact, kind of angry about the whole thing – thus the tag below – and I am completely, totally, utterly (and every other applicable -ly) appalled . AND I’m mad because I have to still confront this person and tell an adult what is and is not appropriate behavior, something HIS mother should have done.
UGH!!!!