Yappity Yap - Just Shut Your Trap

It's been a bit since I have written. I apologize for those going through withdrawals, it has been a very busy two weeks for me. But today I have a day to myself and I decided to use some of it to post.

For those who do not know already, there's now a facebook page for this blog. I wanted a way to be able to start open communication with my readers and allow you to give me input, suggestions and criticisms as you want. I know that many people have already joined which blows my mind considering I hadn't even advertised it before now. Word definitely gets around on this base, that's for sure. You can find the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Welcome-To-Edwards-Leave-your-Brain-at-the-Gate/408170469298583?fref=ts .

Now on to the good stuff.

I've been debating several different topics of discussion for today's blog. I considered the topic of the Commissary and some of the thing craziness that occurs there, especially on payday. I debated the topic of the BX and how crappy their selection truly is. A couple of people suggested discussing the situation with the squirrels. Finally, I considered writing about bullying on base, especially after the little bit of drama that occurred even here on this blog in the comment section. A few people thought that the bullying topic would be a great idea. I agree.

I might be a bit naive in some of my thinking but generally when I think of the term spouse, I think of an adult individual who has married another adult individual. Maybe I'm wrong and there's a large percentage of 12 and 13 year old spouses running around base because I must say, when it comes to interactions between individuals, people act as if they are in the 6^th grade.

Nobody is ever going to get along with everyone, that’s just human nature. We're always going to say or do something that someone doesn't like. I know there are plenty of individuals who disagree with this blog, I've even gotten some pretty harsh emails in regards to exactly what people think of me and my opinion. Does this give us any right to treat people the way we sometimes do? People are so very quick to defend a helpless animal that they feel is being mistreated but will turn around and treat another human in ways that make me cringe.

We judge people for any little thing – a woman you have never met but who works in your husband's shop is obviously a slut who has slept with the entire flight just because she's female; another spouse is automatically a whore if you believe she's prettier or skinnier than you; or she's obviously a tag chaser who trapped a man by getting pregnant if she's overweight.

Women automatically jump to conclusions regarding people based solely on physical image rather than that persons merits. We refuse to make friendly with people who don't fit what we feel is ideal – to some the overweight spouse is automatically ostracized because she's obviously sloppy or lazy while on the other hand others ostracize the super skinny spouse because she must be anorexic, a drug addict or is out to sleep with your husband. We judge based on what rank the spouse's military member is – if their husband is too high ranking, they are obviously a snotty bitch who thinks their shit doesn't stink or if their husband's rank is too low then they are beneath us associating with because we have “earned” the right to be friends with only wives who's husband's rank is equivalent to our own spouses. We judge if a wife works outside the home, we judge if she is a stay at home mom. We judge if she bottle feeds her infant and we judge if she breast feeds. If a woman gets pregnant, we begin speculating if its really her husbands child without any proof that she was cheating in the first place.

One can't even have an opinion these days without being labeled or criticized. We already discussed what happens if you don't like “50 Shades of Grey” for example. But do you think George Zimmerman is innocent of the murder of Travon Martin? You must be a racist against blacks. Think he's guilty? You must be racist against Hispanics. Think Paula Deen got screwed? Again, you must be a racist or your a backwoods redneck southerner without the brains to know any better. Think she's getting what she deserved? You don't understand freedom of speech and give to much power to the word, making you part of the problem. Don't believe in same sex marriages? You're either a bible thumper or a homophob, or both. Support the gay rights movement? You must be a fag, a lesbian or bisexual making you a freak. Like the President? You must have drank the Kool-aide and you're the reason this country sucks right now. Don't like the President? Well, yeah, you guessed it, you're a racist. No matter what your opinion, someone is going to have the audacity to tell you how wrong you are and criticize your opinion. It's gotten to the point where one cannot think for themselves much less express their opinion about something – maybe we should just elect the know it all bitches so they can tell us what to think or feel. Maybe they can even tell me when I feel like taking a crap? (But then they would probably criticize my diet because my turds weren't solid enough, or too solid, or who effing knows).

Even what we eat gets criticized. If an overweight woman is seen eating a hambuger at Burger King, instantly that's the reason she's so fat. If you're skinny and eating a salad at the same establishment, you've got an eating disorder. Own a coach purse? Obviously you just spent all of your husbands paycheck on it and forgot to pay the bills. Nobody can win, no matter what one does, there's always some bitch who has absolutely too much time on their hands, is in everyone's business and who's got to run their mouth.

It seems like the only thing to do on this base is to either sell crap or judge people – those seem to be the top two pastimes here in the desert. Now we all judge, it's human nature. We all develop preconceived notions about things we see or hear. The problem is that most of the time, you fail to keep these opinions to yourselves and feel that your opinion is important enough to spout off on facebook groups, to your friends and to anyone who will listen. You slander people without any reason beyond that you dislike that individual for whatever reason and you feel everyone else should dislike that person as well. As if YOUR opinion is the end all and if you feel that way about someone, everyone else should as well because obviously your opinion is the only correct one to have. You, my friend, are an absolute bitch.

I cannot tell you the number of times someone has told me something vicious and negative regarding people on this base. I've heard rumors about many of the people who read this blog and have sat there as I listened to individuals rip someone for absolutely no reason. I've had things repeated to me by friends that “others” have said about not only myself but people who I know well enough to know that these rumors are absolutely false. It always amazes me to hear people talk crap about someone they have never even met in the first damn place. I mean, come on, if you're going to judge someone at least have the decency to judge that person from your own experiences with them. Don't be a damn sheep and let those opinions of someone else that were repeated to you influence how you treat someone. 

I've seen people gang up on individuals on facebook groups because people didn't agree with them or didn't like the way their posts came off. I always find this pretty funny to observe – to judge someone based on words typed out on a screen. It's so easy to misinterpret what someone says in text – a person might not have the right words to really get across what they mean or you cannot hear the manner in which they wrote it. And I've seen time and time again where if people are discussing an individual without mentioning names, everyone wants to know who's being discussed so they can join in on the fun.

Hell, Jane Doe has been a topic of judgment for many. Truth is, I have yet had a single person come out and ask me if I was Jane Doe which tells me I'm flying under the radar pretty well. Yet in conversation, I have had people I know say they have been accused of being Jane Doe. People are racking their tiny little brains (which if you remember have been left at the gate in the first place) to figure out who I am and have pointed fingers and gotten pretty ugly about individuals when they think they have figured it out. Nothing points this out better when a reader of this blog was called out in a very ugly way in the comments of this very blog. While I do not know the entire story behind that particular attack, what was relayed to me was that a group of individuals who had nothing to do with this base decided to take it upon themselves to call out the reader as being me and bombarded this blog with several long, debasing comments about the person. While the attack was vicious, I do believe it points out something very telling about people who bully others – their mentality is pretty childish. Need proof? Two words - “Eat Dick”. (Those who were reading that exchange will know what that's about.)

Bullies seem to be stuck in a mentality of perpetual high school. Actually, I take that back, I know high school kids who act more mature so let's say middle school instead. There's always that bully in middle school, the boy who shoves the geeky kids head in the locker or the girl who rips on the other girl who's outfit came from a discount store. These kids never grow up, never mature and never learn how to respect others and then continue the cycle with their own children. Whether its because mommy and daddy spoiled them rotten and convinced them they are above all others or maybe because they are insecure about themselves and must destroy others to make themselves look better, I do not know. Beyond the one psychology class I was required to take for my degree, I didn't study why assholes act like assholes. Unfortunately, we give these people way too much attention. There's a reason why shows like Jersey Shore, Buckwild, Bridezillas, Housewives of whatever and the likes get high ratings on television. We enjoy watching self adsorbed people make complete asses out of themselves. We wait for these types of people to self destruct for our entertainment. The same holds true for the same type of drama on Facebook pages or out and about on base. When a post goes nuts and people go apeshit, people lurk just to see what will happen and then discuss it among each other in private.

Trust me, this base has no deficit in the self adsorbed types. You know who they are – the ones who post to add absolutely nothing of any substance to a conversation other than to see themselves post. An example of this would be when someone asks if anyone has done something in order to gain advice or insight and some ass posts “no”. They're the one who throw the “breast is best” argument out when someone asks about a specific brand of formula and then proceeds to tell them what a terrible parent they must be not to love their kids enough to pop a tit in their mouth. They're the ones who throw their husbands rank around as if it gives them any special bonus to negate your own opinion. They're the ones who are quick to tell you how wrong you are and why and how their reasoning is superior to your own. And they are the ones who message you in private when some sort of drama occurs that doesn't involve them but they feel the need to gossip about it anyway.

It's also the bitches who every time someone pisses them off, instantly uses the “I'll contact your husbands First Shirt”. This is something I will never understand. There is no other job out there where if a woman upsets or offends you, you run to their husbands place of employment to tattle on them. Let's put it like this. Let's say Suzie's husband Josh works at McDonald's (hey, everyone has to start somewhere). Suzi pisses Joanie off so Joanie loads up in her car, drives to McDonald's and tells Josh's manager that Suzie pissed her off. Can you see how absolutely ignorant and childish that scenario is? So why do wives think just because our husbands put on a uniform every day, it changes things?

Somewhere in the scheme of things, we've forgotten what respect is. The golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has fallen to the wayside and instead has been replaced with “Bash that bitch first before the bitch is able to do it to you”. Wives are notorious for saying things like being a military wife “is the hardest job in the military” - while I won't agree with this statement I will say that you are the reason it's so hard. Rather than making friends with other spouses, you rip each other apart. Rather than making a large circle of friends throughout the entire base community, you pick and choose who's “worthy” of your friendship (most of the time based on who will be most likely to buy your shit) and alienate the rest. Then, when your close “friends” PCS out and your husband is off to Korea, you realize you have absolutely nobody. Day in and day out you're stuck in your house, maybe taking care of a kid or two, miserable and bitching because nobody wants anything to do with you.

As a military community, we should all pull together and support each other. After all, we're all in the same boat. We leave our lifelong friends and extended family behind to move cross country or across oceans because the military dictates where our home will be. We make friends at one place, only to either have them pick up and move or for our spouses to receive orders and have to do it all again. We laugh at movies from the 1950's where when a new family moves in, the rest of the neighborhood rings the doorbell, introduces themselves and gives a housewarming gift but maybe that's what we should be doing? Instead, we alienate people because we don't like the way they look when we see them moving in without giving anyone a chance. Maybe if we didn't do this, there wouldn't be so many posts on FB asking for some stranger to babysit on a Saturday night because you would have a whole community of friends willing to switch off sitting duties?

I personally would rather have several fat, skinny, ugly, pretty, geeky, moms with too many children, moms with not enough children or even no children, or disheveled haired friends whom I could associate and trust then only have one or two “perfect” friends. I'd rather be friends with the outcasts then those who never outgrew the bully phase of middle school. After all, its the geeks who had their heads shoved in the locker who grow up to become the CEO of Fortune 500 companies or the Neville Longbottoms of the world– the bullies usually end up even more mean and bitter because their lives never amounted to much of anything.

Until next time...