Comments, we get comments….

So there I was yesterday, all happy because I finally managed to get the pattypan squash planted in between monsoon rains, when I get home and am alerted to a comment on my blog, on the Blame it on the Rain post. Anonymous (of course) wrote:

“one would think that you would be happy to be able to feel, smell and see rain since you are on this side of the grass......”

And naturally, this infuriated me for a number of reasons, even though I suspect I may know who wrote this and by now I should be used to her usual inane blather. Nevertheless.

This bothers me on two levels. One is the fact that how stupid do you have to be to not realize that I’m one of the happiest fucking people out there? You’d have to be pretty damn stupid. Because I’d think that’s pretty obvious. Anyone who can take all the bad luck that’s been dumped on me over the years and somehow turn that into Miss Tasha’s Traveling Road Show of Calamity and Fun – has to have a pretty decent outlook on life, doncha think?

Plus I thought it was basically understood that underneath the mien of bitterness and curmudgeonliness, I’m one of those people who takes almost idiotic pleasure in the simplest of things. Melindy snags me a free pink-ribbon nail file at the November BC conference? Hell, I’m leaping about with excitement. The marabou-trimmed pink ribbon pen the girls picked up for me? Swoon! The rose-breasted grosbeaks started coming back to my backyard this spring, and you would have thought the Pope himself had landed back there, I was that excited.

Then the other day I walk into Starbucks and Holly comes up to me and gives me a big bag full o’stuff. Apparently because I donated a bunch of items for their food pantry drive and volunteered at said food pantry one day, I was entered in to a raffle to win some schwag. And I won! Oh BOY! I snatched that bag up to my heaving bosom and without even looking to see what was in there, I happily walked around proclaiming to one and all that hey, I’m a WINNER! Me, a WINNER – yes that makes you all the losers, but I’m the WINNER. W-I-N-N-E-R! And then later that day when I actually looked IN the bag and saw the over $100 worth of coffee and tea (thank you Starbucks!), my head almost exploded from joy.

But it’s not even that part of it that really pisses me off. Oh no. It’s the fact that essentially that comment is telling me that I shouldn’t be complaining about that pesky rain – why, I should be HAPPY that all my hard work in the garden is being destroyed by storms, because heck, I’m ALIVE!

Apparently just that fact should have me leaping out of bed every morning exclaiming hey, I’m not dead yet! To which I reply, who the hell does that? That maybe I should face every day like Mighty Mouse, proclaiming “Here I come to save the DAY!” Well, okay, maybe I actually do that. But still.

And who the fuck all are any of you non-cancerous folks to tell US how we’re supposed to live our lives? To a PERSON, my CancerChick friends are more about living life to the fullest than anyone else I know. This is because we’ve seen enough of our beloved friends die to know that life can be brutish and short, and you need to enjoy it while you’re here. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to complain about stupid shit - because to say we shouldn’t do that is to relegate us to some second-class status. “Oh, I don’t know what you’re complaining about – you should be happy you’re still alive!” WTH? Yet everyone else gets to bitch about traffic and their bad hair days because they haven’t faced their own mortality? I. Don’t. Think. So.

I’ve never been the type of person to tell people they shouldn’t complain about the little things. Even before The Cancer, my theory was always that you can’t take the lowest common denominator approach, because then no one should ever complain about anything, because it could always be worse, unless you were the starving Biafran refuge with AIDS and no legs.

Even post-cancer, I still don’t tell friends they shouldn’t complain, unless it’s about truly ridiculous stuff. They want to bitch about stupid guys or annoying work stuff? Go right the fuck ahead, I say. That’s normal. The two times I’ve ever said anything to anyone were a) when a friend who has the high-paying job, the happy family life, etc., was complaining about “trying to find the time to paint the baby’s room while (his) wife is planning the TWO parties before the Christmas holidays” – and b) a friend who just had her car towed and told me “my whole life sucks.”

And even in those cases, I refrained from telling them to STFU. No, I just told friend A that he should probably complain about those things to someone else, not me, the unemployed broke spinster, and to friend B, I told her that while having her car towed did indeed suck, her entire life did not and she had a lot going for her. So STFU.

But I do have to thank our Anonymous commenter, because truly, we’ve gotten a lot of yucks out of your comment, along the lines of dear friend Tracy telling me that “Tasha, one would think, given the side of the grass you're on, that you would be thankful just to witness someone extreme couponing.” And of course, I get to march around telling people “Hey, I’m NOT DEAD YET! Whee!” – and that of course has its own type of glee.

Plus, best of all, it gave me the chance to resurrect a classic post, which has me being all chipper and stuff.

Be very afraid, eighteens of readers, be very very afraid….