Friday, December 30, 2016

Separated at Birth - Maryland's Governor and Wormtail

You never see them in the same place at the same time.



In an article published today Maryland's Governor, Larry Hogan, who has a 30" neck, who told said that he would never vote for Trump called Vice President Elect, Mike Pence one of his very best friends.  And though allegedly voteless for Trump, he has apparently scored tickets to the President Elect's Inaugural.

Which gives this Separated at Birth image a bit more of a "bite", and conferring upon Hogan the appropriate title of Wormtail, and all that comes with it.


Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Another death, and a story about afterlife



News has filtered through the ether that Debbie Reynolds has passed away, just about 24 hours from the passing of her daughter Carrie Fisher.  They are reunited in the hereafter.

While 2016 has been a one for the records for deaths, when I heard of Debbie's passing, I am reminded of the events of November 26-27, 2011, when something similar, much closer to home happened.

I have written back then of the events in 2011, just check the annual index at the side.  You can't mess with those dates.  Maybe, if you read this, you'll see what I mean.

First off, you know by now that Cookie has a very deep respect for genealogy - its is my passion and my obsession.  And I was raised at my mother's knee, so I was her captive audience for all the tales of her youth, and all of the farming families in that community where she grew up.

By the time I was 10, I knew those families well enough that its wasn't much of a stretch for me to step back from 1972 to 1932 in my imagination.   Mother's roots run deep in that part of Ohio, and in eight generations, we are either related, or family friends.  Their were no strangers in that part of our state.

But, I am my father's son as well, and that means I am a skeptic, and I have an even shorter view of bullshit and bullshitters than the old man had.

But back in that November, 2011, the husband and I were at home, and he had the day off.

I got a call from Karin, who is a distant cousin and a fellow genealogy hobbyist.  She called to say that another woman, Lucille, who was my mothers age, and who was Karin's mother's cousin was at the local hospital as her daughter had had an "episode" and was on a ventilator.  Out the door I flew, as the hospital was just five minutes from our home in Columbus.

Lucille was in her 90s.  On her mother's side, we were related through Mom's paternal grandmother.  On Lucille's father's side - an even more distant connection - but on my mother's paternal grandfather's family.  I knew Lucille growing up because when we would visit my grandfather in the nursing facility he was in at the end of his life, I would also visit Lucille's parents and their eldest daughter Jean, who was paralyzed in an auto accident from the neck down.

Jean was just about 17 when the accident happened in 1937.  Before 1930, sedans built in the US were still built with some wooden sub-members with steel encasing the outside.  Roofs on these sedans had large cutouts on top that were about four by seven feet.  To enclose the roof on these sedans, wooden cross members were factory fitted, and then a canvas top was stretched in place.  Owners then used a dressing on the canvas to keep the fabric weatherproof.  Only custom sedans had full steel tops as it was an expensive stamping given the technology of the 1930s.  It wasn't until 1936  that automobile manufacturers got really serious about making all steel bodies ALL STEEL.  GM came out with its "Turret Top" sedans with steel roofs and everyone else finally gave in.

But the car that Jean was driving was one of those pre "Turret Top" sedans.  And on a Sunday, the three girls were on their way home from church choir practice when the car Jean was driving hit a patch of loose gravel and the car fishtailed into a curve.  The impact was so strong that Jean was flipped out through the canvas roof of the sedan and her body thrown into a barbed wire fence, snapping her neck.

Lucille came too and found her leg bleeding very badly - she took off her belt and tied off her upper thigh and then applied direct pressure.

Only Mary Joan, the 10 year old sister didn't have any visible injury, she was talking, but felt light headed.

Their mother was working in her kitchen when she heard the wreck and she and her husband tore out and down the road.  Other farmers who had heard it were on the site and the sheriff was on his way.

While everyone fussed with Jean and Lucille, Mary Joan started going down hill.  She died shortly after getting to the hospital.  The coroners report showed a ruptured spleen and lacerated liver.

For the rest of her life, Lucille took a backseat to Jean's care.  And when Jean's parents could no longer care for themselves, let alone her, that care fell to Lucille.

And Lucille had her own problems.  He husband, a devilishly handsome man, suffered from debilitating bouts of depression.  Pam, their daughter fought with pyschosis.  And the son that followed Pam was born profoundly retarded, Lucille being exposed to rubella by one of students before she knew she was pregnant.

She had watched her sister die, her son die, her father die, her mother die and her sister.

Pam was all she had left.

That late afternoon in 2011 we sat with Lucille.  Her friends had driven her the sixty miles from home while Pam was life-flighted to Columbus.  The doctors wanted to meet with her and she asked me to join her two friends and herself in the meeting.  We sat, we asked clear questions,  hard questions and we made sure that Lucille heard those questions, and comprehended the answers.

When the doctors left, we were silent.  Lucille began to speak.  She said that she had dreamt about Mary Joan every night of her life after the accident, and that the dreams had stopped after Pam was born.  And she said that the Monday night before, she got up in the middle of the night, which was unusual because she slept through the night soundly, but she got up because something told her to look in on Pam.  So the 90 something mother made her way down the hall and looked in on her 60 something daughter who was sleeping soundly.

"Then I went back to my room and felt like I had to look out the window, I don't know why.  And there, in the next door neighbors front yard, was girl, about ten years old, dressed like Mom and Dad used to dress us in white cotton dresses.  Here hair was bobbed like we used to wear our hair. And she must have been cold.  Why was she out by herself? I opened the window and called to her, but she turned and went into the dark."

Then she got quiet for a minute.  She looked up at me, eyes drilling into me and said "Cookie, you know who that girl was don't you."  It wasn't a question.  It was fact.

And I said, as fact, not looking for something to say but said "It was Mary Joan, come for Pam."

Lucille thought for a minute and said "It was Mary Joan."

Pam died early the next morning, about four hours after coming off the ventilator.   Karin, the cousin who had told me that Pam was at the hospital stayed with her until she was gone.  She also made plans with Lucille to pick her up the following day to go to the funeral home and make arrangements.

That Sunday morning, no one answered the door at Lucille's.  They found her dead, in her chair in the family room.

When I told events of the night that at the hospital during the eulogy, I said that there was no way for me or anyone else to know that Mary Joan came for Pam, and for Lucille as well.

Lucille's life was one of loss and victory over death.  But God in his wisdom gave her sufficient strength to live through what she needed to live through to see the people around her shepherded through their lives, then she could rest.

Perhaps this is what happened with Debbie Reynolds.  Perhaps, it was her job to nurture and protect not only her talent, but the talent of Carrie Fisher too.  With Carrie's departure, Debbie too could pass on.

None of use knows why we are here, how long we'll be here or what our real purpose is.  Sometimes. we're lucky enough to get a hint of what it could be.

I do not believe in ghosts, but I believe in something greater than all of us, just as much as I believe in the reliability of math or science.

In Lucille's life, and her death, and in Mary Joan, I found my answer.

I am grateful to have that veil lifted that one time.

And I hope that Lucille and Debbie are enjoying one and other's company.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Pictures from Your Family Gathering



Your father.  Mention "Hillary" and you get this. 



Your Mother, who says "Now, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] was it really necessary - really necessary - to mention Hillary and send your father's blood pressure rocketing skyward?  I swear, sometimes I think that you must be intent on making me widow..."




Kitty Carlisle, who pukes when there are too many people around. 




Your partner's Step Father.  Just don't ask. 




Aunt Rose, the gravel voiced scotch drinker who smokes Lucky Strike's unfilitered.  No one knows how, or if, she is related, but she's known the family for years and is a fixture at every holiday gathering.  And you can't not invite her.  She's worth millions, has no children and she's just your FAVORITE (Cough) aunt there is.  And her laugh is akin to Whooping cough.




Cousin Cedelia - the artistic cousin, with the far away stare and interpretive dance in her blood.  In college, she will eschew colorful clothing for black sweaters, leggings, skirts and plain black hair dye.  She will eventually grow out of it, become a Republican.  Or a Lesbian.  Or both, 



Uncle John.  He's been to Santa School.  But refuses to play Santa because he hates screaming, crying children.  Every year he asks but one question: "Is the game on yet?"





The Centerpiece.  Someone thought this a good idea.  Its execution is never quite as good as the pictures would imply, and someone shoos you away as you pick at its central body admonishing "Stop it!  You'll ruin it."  So for the rest of the night you'll hear a plop as pieces release.  Mayo only works as glue for so long.  Trust us. 



Your father's cousin Shirley (who looks decades older than she is), her husband Mort, and their annoyingly accomplished late in life son Adrian.  Jesus, it's always "Adrian this and Adrian that. Blah, blah, blah, Adrian."  And Adrian is like a sixty year old man in a 12 year old's body.  "Adrian, wouldn't you rather go out and play with your cousins?"  "No thank you, I'll just sit here and read War and Peace."   Adrian's latest piece of art work is of his mother bear breasted, and when she shares that proud moment, it comes with a "He really is advanced in his composition and light distribution."  



Your mother's sister, "Flounce".  She was born in the mid west and her name is spelled Florence.  But twnety years ago she moved to Atlanta and now she's "from the 'South'".  



Your Brother Walter.  Walter lives in a downtown tenement, and loves to share the bounty of the world.  Walter bathes once a week because the CEO of Nestle wants to keep the world's water hostage and he thinks being stinky will cure that problem.  Then he met a wonderful woman named Amy.  But Walter insisted on calling her his "special Lady."  ("Walt, stop it - you're embarrassing me.") Everyone hoped he would marry Amy - she was the first normal girlfriend he had.  But she left. She couldn't put up him biting his toe nails.  Just - don't ask.




Cousin's Estil and Corliss.  They just stopped in "to look and everyone before we up to Corliss' Mother's house."  You offer them food and Estil says "That looks too fancy for us.  We're plain food people."  They'd just love to host Christmas next year.  

And of course:



Your next door neighbor, Miss Mannish.  You just hate the idea that someone is alone on Christmas, so you invite Miss Mannish,  You are not sure of where Miss Mannish falls on the gender identification spectrum, but since Miss Mannish introduced their self as Miss Mannish, Miss Mannish it is, and Miss Mannish it will be until you hear otherwise. 

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas*, and *the appropriate legal disclaimer



From Cookie and The Husband, we send you our holiday best, and holiday wishes - may your Christmas is merry and bright.*


___________________________________________________________________________

*DISCLAIMER

The following Terms and Conditions may apply.  By reading this Christmas Wish, The Cookie and Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights (DHTiSH) do not guarantee, indemnify or otherwise promise, hint, suggest and or otherwise deliver any said "wish", may it be expressed by the host of this blog, or used by the reader when redeemed.

Said sentiments are legal in your location, if allowed by local, state and Federal law, and may also be used if said reader is a resident of any other friendly nation to the United States, and are available to any adult over the age of 18 without a felony conviction in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi or Florida.  Those reading this blog under the age of 18 must do only after submitting a notarized parental permission slip.

Furthermore, said reader shall not misconstrue any such statement of wish to mean anything other than it meanings in the most abstract terms.  Do not attempt to use said wish if you, or anyone else is operating a motor vehicle or heavy machinery.   In the event of an emergency landing you will directed to the nearest emergency exit.

Delivery of said wish is the full financial responsibility of the "Wishee" as are all appropriate taxes, licenses and permits needed or required to own, operate, store or build.  In some cases, you may need regulatory permission, and this wish does not cover any legal fees associated with your wish, the making of the wish, or the placement of said wish.

Discontinue the use of this Christmas Wish if exposed skin develops a rash.  Call you doctor if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours.  Do not cross go, do not collect $200 dollars.  If cabin pressure drops below a certain level, a mask will drop from the compartment above.  If you are traveling with small children, please place the mask over your own face first before placing one over their face.

DO NOT remove tag under penalty of law.  Do Not take more than then one wish, the recommended dose, as serious injury may occur.  Stop using your wish if you develop shortness of breath tenderness, loss of appetite, ringing in the ears, throbbing in your temples or a bit of the dry vag.  If the wish causes you to cough for more than 14 days, see your doctor, because it may be an indiction of other underlying conditions.

This wish is not guaranteed, however it may be void if you live in a flood zone as your standard home owners insurance may not cover damage from any high water that may result.  Eating an under-cooked wish my expose the Wishee to unsafe bacteria - please thoroughly cook your wish to an internal temperature of 175 degrees, Fahrenheit.   Do not flush said wish down the toilet because it may cause sewer issues, and repair to such is not covered by said wish.

Said wish may not be used to wish, inflict or cause harm to any person, living being or national interest.  The delivery of any fuel, chemical, natural resource, man made or natural chemical compound that may cause harm to others is hereby excluded from this wish.  Said compounds may include fuels, alkalies, acids, patent in-force or patent pending proprietary formula that can react, fizz, smoke, explode, or otherwise harm a living being.

You must be this high to ride.

And wish that can transmit, receive or otherwise emit a signal, a pulse, an electronic wave must first pass FCC approval channels.  Likewise, if you wish requires the writing of a check, it falls to the Wishee to comply with any and all ID requirements.

This wish may not be exchanged, tendered, traded, resold, and it has a cash value of 1/1000 of a cent.  Said offer may not be combined with any other wish.  One wish per visitor.

The Cool Cookie, i.e. the wish grantor, reserves the right to withdraw this offer at anytime and without prior notice rescind, modify or terminate the Christmas wish procedure.  The wish grantor also reserves the right to withhold said wish until an amount equal to the tax owed is received or a bond equal to the amount owed is posted and named Internal Revenue Service is cited as the beneficiary by the Wishee.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS include not breaking the seal until ready to use, do not shake, jostle or otherwise cause the wish to become agitated.  With six, you get egg roll.  Flush eyes with water for one minute.  Do not push the red, shiny button.  Please leave the airplane bathroom clean for the next passenger.  This is a coaster - use it.  Proper dress required.  Look both ways before crossing.   Do not spit on the floor.

Do not leave oven unattended.  Surfaces may be hot.  Freezing may cause separation of ingredients.  Be kind, rewind.  Keep hands and feet, and other body parts away from moving parts.  If you see something, say something.  Keep Off. No Parking. Yield.  Wipe your feet before entering.  Sit up straight.  Clean your plate.

And, most of all...

Do not SASS me.


Friday, December 23, 2016

Christmas in the House of the Mirth's



Can you feel the magic of the season?

Huh?  Can you?

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Most Hated Woman of Christmas 2016, And For Good Reason

The Ugly, Old Hellkite, Herself


2016 has been a motherfucker of a year, no doubt about that.

But as 2016 draws to a close, the woman in this picture has emerged as the ugliest of Americans.

Yes, there are worse things done in this year, but this grandmotherly woman from Kentucky has become the poster child for everything that is wrong with the US.

This malevolent foul mouth creep in the blue sweater, with the Green Box, in the midst of the Christmas season - the season where we celebrate the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ mind you - let loose a racist rant on the woman in front of her because the woman let a family member throw a couple items in on her tab at the register.

That was her sin - letting someone add three or four items to the pile of things she was buying.

And it was ALL caught on video.

Of course it was.

Now, I know that tempers and emotions can run short in the Christmas season, but what came out of this every-woman's mouth was beyond vile.  Besides her obnoxious behavior, her offensive mode of "dress" (Call it white trash lounge wear), and her foul mouth, the scene she created has so angered and embarrassed people that:

  1. JCPenney has apologized for its role in training its employees to call for manager backup to get this bitch to shut her pie hole.
  2. The Mall has apologized for not knowing about it so they could send mall security to deal with this old and ban her from their property for the rest of her natural born days - and - 
  3. The Mayor of Louisville has apologized to the world for what this woman said because it reflects badly on his city. 
The only person that we haven't heard from is Kentucky Governor Matt Beven, and we won't because he is batshit insane himself. 

If you haven't seen the video, you may have some questions of your own - like why didn't anyone step up for the woman at the register, who showed considerably more grace than the Most Hated Woman of Christmas 2016. 

Frankly if Cookie were there, I would hate to think about what the jail cell I would be in for clocking the old hellkite and knocking her out cold. (No offense meant to other Hellkite's, I was just using it as a figure of speech.)

Perhaps it is the person who took the video may not have stopped the verbal assault, but she documented The Most Hated Woman of Christmas 2016 so we all can be appalled. 

The identity of the woman is not known, yet.  Her name will come out eventually.  It always does.  Right now she is probably holed up in house in a Barcalounger, muttering to herself about how unfair the world is. 

If she thinks its unfair now, just wait until learn her name. 

Full story HERE

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Real and Fake X-Mas Sentiments


We have finally got our Christmas cards DONE.

If you aren't getting one, do not I fear.  I love you so.   There are a core of people that Cookie and Husband send cards too.

And that would be the people who send cards to us.

That we like.

People from my hometown and longtime family friends.  This card thing started right after Thanksgiving.  Then they sat on the dining room table.  I would say to my husband "We really need to get on this...,"  and he would respond "OK...," then something would come up and the cards just sat.   This past week I finally had it and started on them.  They were mailed today.   Even though we use labels on the envelopes - because my hand writing is so bad - the notes inside are personalized to each person.

While I love getting the "The Family and Friends" letters they all seem a flat of the last couple years. When I read these I have a morbid fascination on how far people will take them, but with Facebook, people know you can check up on them so they hold back on the bragging and the imaginary accolades that they used to drop in, like:

"Last year Van earned a huge promotion, and a corner office.  To celebrate, we took our dream vacation to ..."

Now you can look up on Van's Facebook page and see that he is still stuck in a cube farm and hates his cube mates, and that vacation turned out to be a drive to Ohio to see the Blue Hole, or to Hayward, Wisconsin to see the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.  All perfectly acceptable things to go and see.  But they aren't something that the normal person brags about, you know?

As a side note, Cookie has been to both places.  The Blue Hole, was what my Grandfather considered a vacation.  Everyone into the 1955 Buick Special and an hour and a half we passed under the stone arch and once our tickets were paid for we marched down the path with dozens of other people to look a hole in the ground filled with crystal clear, ice cold, blue water.  That was the Blue Hole.  Nothing more.  Simple pleasures.

The Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in upstate Wisconsin has things you can do.  Like go inside the gigantic fiberglas fish.  Up the stairs and you come to a balcony that looks out of the one fishes mouth.  And that's that.

Anyhow, Christmas cards seem to be the one tie that I have to the analog world, and as long as they make them, I will send them, with a personalized message.

Our picture of day is a faked Christmas image from the 1950s.  It's been fixed - when Cookie found it in its original state, the reds had been replaced with magenta and the blues had turned gray.  Blame it on that God damned Ektachrome film that Kodak pushed out after the War.  Unlike Kodachrome, which produced luscious colors, crisp lines and was very stable, the cheaper Ektachrome film was faster, cheaper and terribly unstable.

Overtime, the green dyes broke down leaving things PINK, MAGENTA and PURPLE.  If you know what you are doing, its snap to fix these images.  If you don't - like me - its an effort of playing around until you find something that works.

Besides the fact the image is posed, the snow on their laps is fake and there is no snow ground, which makes it hard for a sleigh to travel.  Actually the fake, wire posed "reigns" that the guy is holding are only about nine inches long.

What's ironic is that if you are a certain age, and your parents were from that generation, you remember these images.   And they do stand for something - a reminder to the Christmases the way we insist that they used to be, not the way they were.

Just like Christmas cards, I will believe in these images as long as I can.


Tuesday, December 13, 2016

DHTiSH 2016 Christmas Holiday Bingo Card



Cookie gives you his 2016 Christmas Holiday Bingo Card.

Retired for this year are:

* "What do you mean your gay?"
* Getting hammered in front of Mom,
and everyone's most dreaded
* Wet kisses from your grandfather.

New for this year are:

* Christmas at Disney World
* Tree Toppled Over by Cat
* Carolers in Restaurants

And remember, this Christmas isn't about making more than your stuck up brother, or buying your child's love with more toys than they have sense, or even feeling guilty about why you haven't given your mother any grandchildren.

Christmas is about simply getting through it without doing something or saying something that will cause drama and a family schism.

There, now isn't that easy?

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Mike and Carol Brady raised her better than this.



Every family has at least one child that seems to drift away from the values and lessons that the rest of the family have embraced.  And eventually, the kid will drift back.

But if the parents are total assholes, in the very least, dysfunctional one would hope that the kids could escape that and get help and live fully healthy lives.

Then you have a lovely, lovely family, like Mike and Carol Brady.  Never mind that they are fictional. The lessons taught on their show about understanding, honesty, respect for ones self and others are lessons that an entire generation of American child, now adults, embraced.

Sure it was make believe.  But when a Brady kid did something, like wear a big brown wig so she could not be in her big sister's shadow, developed a terrible imitation of Jimmy Cagney Disease, they would get a talking to.  And it had to be something terrible -  for some horrible transgression, like when Cindy Brady tattled on others, then they got hauled into dad's den.




In others families, it was that family's version of Devils Island - your room.  But with Mike and Carol, it was always about reason and self awareness, not being back handed for sassing Alice.  

But who would have ever thought that Cindy Brady's Susan Olsen, with those golden sausage curls and innocence enough to carry a Kitty Carryall doll when she was young would turn out to be such a fat, foul mouthed, Cheeto loving right wing "Coughing Until Next Tuesday"?

Apparently, Susan has been fired from her job on radio following a number of vitriol laced posts on her Facebook page.  How bad could it be?



Yes, sad to say that even Carol Brady would be appalled at how Susan Olsen turned out.



But, just as there was a lesson to be learned, Susan now has plenty of time to reflect on her actions.  Her employer has kicked out on her ass and locked the door behind her, so reports the New York Daily News.  

Even Jan is disgusted. 

So for once, it isn't Jan who is feeling sorry for herself, it's Cindy who is kicking herself for her big, fat mouth.

*Used in the British sense.

See: Actress Susan Olsen Fired From LA Radio Show

Sunday, December 4, 2016

"...Why I'm the nicest person I know!"




Bobby Brady knows a bitch when he comes up against one.

Gay men do a damn good job at taking the shit that people throw onto us and sling it back.  But sometimes, the hurt cuts a little deeper than we can freely admit, and the cut never really heals.  And like they say, hurt people hurt people.

At the last high school reunion I went to, I made a promise to another 50+ year friend that I would find it in my to forgive one of childhood tormentors.  A woman named "Benita"*.  As a child she was short in stature and in temperament.   She was the type of person who, after you raised your hand and giving the right answer, because you had done your homework, would call out "Mr. Hawthorne, Cookie just stole that answer off my homework notes."  Never mind that she was writing down what I was saying while I was saying it in pink ink, this was Benita's game. And she was good at it.

Benita would say things that ended in a sneer.  She would see a project that you had worked on and just put you and it down.  "Is that your paper?  I don't need to touch to know that its pure shit."

Mr. Hawthorne, who was a sister in my spirit, pulled me aside and complimented my work.  "You really loved writing about this, and it showed.  Your sources were excellent.  And don't let others tell you that you didn't deserve that grade.  Trust me, you did the work and it showed, I gave them what they deserved for the amount work they showed."

I loathed Benita.  And had carried that loathing through decades.  Kick a dog, and they remember.  And shame on you Benita for kicking me.

In my new high school, there was none of that.  Yes, there were bitches, but truth be told, I never had to deal with them like I had to deal with Benita, who drifted away and out of mind.

But, my allegiance is to my friend Rachel because, well, after 50 years when you are really friends with someone because they are good people who make you a better person, you know that they are on to something.

So at last reunion I made it a point to speak with Benita.  I was about to say I was letting go of my anger when she asked "Where did you go after 8th grade?"

We moved.

"But why?  Why leave Shaker?"

Because.

"What do you mean because?  Shaker was just the best, ever."

And I stayed silent.

Then I said "We left Benita, because the opportunity came up for something better, and it was.  I got to go to high school with great people, I got a great education."

And Benita says, I kid you naught, "But we could never have been friends.  I am never mean to anyone, but we had nothing in common.  Why I am the nicest person I know..."  And she continued "Me, I, Me, blah, blah, blah, Me!"

And there it was - that click with the whole "Who me?  Why I am the nicest person I know..."

After Benita got done talking about herself, she left for her table of friends every step thinking she had just made my day, I turned to Rachel, who was standing there and said "I tried."

And Rachel said "I know.  I try every day." She gave me a hug.

The lesson that you need to learn yourself, after telling others it for years, is that an honest to God real bitch is clueless about their impact on others.

They don't care.

They don't care to care.

And they will never care enough to care enough to wonder "is it something I said?  Something I have done, ever?"

They don't care that you care.  In fact, according to them they are wonderful, you are the one with the "problem" because they are the nicest person they know.  

Nope, because a bitch like Benita sails through life thinking that they are nothing but the nicest person on earth, and they will shit all over your parade because that is the way they are bolted together.  And in her mind, anyone she shits on should be happy.

Surround yourself with Rachel's.  Rachel's are worth more, anyways.  And Benita?  I wish her well.  I gave her a chance, and this time she got the answer wrong, all on her own.  B-bye Benita.

*And no, her real name isn't Benita.