Thugs Don't Eat Dry Salad.

For a brief little while, I bought into the idea that I was supposed to give a shit about a lot of things.

Most of this bullshit propaganda was forced on me when I worked at Walton for two years, which was a finance company in downtown Scottsdale, teeming with assholes pulling in high six figure incomes, and the girls who wanted to fuck them.

During my time there, I quickly came to the realization that people gave a lot of fucks about a lot of things.

Things I had never, ever even thought to give a fuck about.

Things like the right way to eat a salad.

The idea that there was a right or a wrong way had not even once occurred to me, let alone had I taken enough time to decide if I gave a shit.

And that wasn't all. There were plenty of other things I found out I was supposed to have an opinion on, or interest in.

Things like matching cardigan/blouse sweater sets, whether my purse was a Spring or a Fall style/color/material, the different flavors of forest floor, apricot, some fucking how blue cheese, in a glass of red wine, always described in ways like "subtleties, nuances, hints, whispers, or splashes".

I remember once attending a department dinner at a reasonably upscale restaurant near our office.

My boss was a fucking prick, so he of course kept us there working until 7 pm before taking us to the dinner we'd all been waiting for all day. I'd gotten a sitter for the occasion to pick my kids up from daycare, I had four saltines and half a diet coke for lunch - again because my boss was a fucking prick - and this restaurant was supposed to be AH-MAZE-ING according to all the girls in my office who had opinions on every $50 a plate restaurant in Scottsdale.

Also it was free and my boss was a drunk, so I knew there'd be alcohol.

I was pretty excited, and also hungry as shit.

A little bit about me: I don't handle being hungry very well. There were many times in my life when I was growing up that we were legitimately fucking hungry - like, there hasn't been anything for dinner except rice or microwave popcorn for 3 days now, kind of hungry - and now if my blood sugar gets too low I have flash backs and lose the ability to control the volume of my voice.

When we got to dinner, I realized very quickly my hunger was not going to be sated anytime soon.

See, the hot shit thing to do these days is apparently for 40 fucking people to sit down at a table together, and order a bunch of small plates of shit, and share. 

All around the table people are saying things like "taste" and "nibble" and "experience", and I'm sitting at the end trying not to sweat from panic, because I don't think I have the calories left in my blood to afford it.

I didn't want to taste things.

I didn't want to nibble.

The only fucking thing I wanted to experience was protein and carbs and not passing the fuck out.

But I didn't say anything.

Yes, I had worked nearly 12 goddamn hours and didn't get a lunch.

Yes, I had bent over backwards to arrange a sitter to not only watch my kids, but to pick them up from daycare and put them to bed.

Yes, I had traded the only couple hours I had with my children between work and their bedtime, for a stupid dinner with people I hated.

Still though, I didn't want to be the asshole who was all "Fuck you guys, I want my own food."

I didn't want to be the girl at the table who didn't know you're not supposed to pour your salad dressing on your salad, but instead dip the tines of your fork in the dressing before each bite, and that's all the dressing you get.

I didn't want people to think I was a fraud.

I sat there at that stupid table, with those stupid people, and ate maybe a combined total of 50 calories between my bites of food and two glasses of wine.

By the time I left I had to get a ride home because two glasses of wine held more alcohol than my body held calories at that point, and I was shit faced.

I remember going through the drive thru at Jack in the Box on my way home, and then sitting on my kids beds and watching them sleep while I ate, because I saw them for 40 minutes all day.

If there's one thing I learned from my time working in the corporate world, it's this:

Every single fucking person you meet has an agenda, and shit that they care about.

It doesn't mean you have to give any fucks about those things, just because they're caught up in them.

Don't try to force yourself to give a shit about the color scheme of your cardigans, or whether your shoes match your ear lobes or whatever the fuck else, if that shit don't come naturally for you.

Don't eat a dry as shit salad like your Jackie fucking O, just because the other girls at the table are self obsessed and insecure.

And don't ever, not fucking ever, give up the opportunity for free, expensive food just to please a bunch of assholes who don't notice you anyway, after you've already given up a night with the people you love, and too many hours of your life.

I will never be the kind of girl who prioritizes perfect hair over a few extra minutes of sleep.

I will never care enough about the calories in my dressing to eat a dry salad. I already ordered a fucking SALAD instead of a burrito, so let's not push this.

I will never be the kind of person who has the trendiest, most expensive or popular clothes, and everything is always matching and put together.

I'm the kind of girl who has been wearing the same The Who t-shirt since her 18th birthday, and doesn't get people who don't wear Chuck Taylors.

I'm the kind of girl you can always kick it with, no matter who you are, or what you suck at, as long as you're fly as hell and aren't too much of an asshole. I'm the one girl in the room that anybody can sit with.

That's important to me.

You be you.

Care about what you care about, and don't let fucking nobody tell you what's important.