Viva Queer Abby!

Rejoice! It's the triumphant return of QUEER ABBY!!!!11

If you're new to the blog, Queer Abby is our weekly advice column where you write in with your deepest, darkest questions and 2b1b's resident lesbian/advice guru extraordinaire, Amy, gives you legitimate, helpful advice and then I weigh in with my quasi-helpful, mostly non-sensical advice. Got a question you want answered? Shoot an email (anonymous or otherwise) to QueerAbby@2birds1blog.com!

(I should warn you that my advice is probably going to be even less helpful than usual because I just got back from Max's 4th of July Pig Roast and I'm still slightly drunk. On pig and otherwise.

Bear with me.)

Queer Abby,

In January of 2009, I started dating my supervisor. We fell in love, and dated for a year, until he left me for a less-attractive girl who still uses gel pens and writes in bubble letters and talks in a baby voice constantly. This is pretty damn far from my own personality, so I'm still a little confused about how he ever loved the two of us, and why he ever chose her over me. But some things we'll never understand, and I guess I can accept that. Or I can obsess over it privately. We'll see.

But the point is, I took it hard. Really hard. Like stay home sick, lose 20 pounds hard. And, in typical girly-girl fashion (gag, I always said I'd never do it,) it made me question my entire self-worth and now I'm stuck trying to like myself again alone, which is way harder than I remembered. I really don't need the whole "don't date your boss!" shebang, because I knew from the get-go, but love is love, right? and for the most part, it was a good year. My problem is that we still work together. and not just your typical office space 9-5 deal, but long hours in a really, really small office. So how do I a) love myself again even though i have this 70-hour-a-week reminder hanging around, and b) turn what's left of us into a functioning workplace relationship?

Sincerely,

Fear and Loathing in The Office

Short answer: Get a new job.

Long answer: First of all, it sounds like your ex isn’t looking for a relationship of equals, he’s looking to be idolized. A guy who dates his subordinate then moves on to someone who's basically a post-pubescent child most likely needs to constantly feel in charge or looked up to in order to feel good about himself. I think the sooner you see that, the sooner you’ll start making progress toward loving yourself again because you’ll realize how little his opinion matters.

The other thing that will help is, obviously, getting a new job. I know you asked how to make the current job a functional situation, but maybe now is a good time for you to start looking around for awesome job opportunities that you can get really excited about. And not just because you don’t need the reminder, but because you can’t be that emotionally engaged with someone who’s effectively your boss. It’s not good for you professionally and that gives him way too much reign in your life.

In the meantime (or if changing jobs is absolutely not an option), make a list of things that would make you really happy: things you’d like to do, things you’d like to be, ways you’d like to grow, dream jobs, whatever. Then pick out a couple and start working toward them for a set amount of time each week. Wanna go to China? Start reading up on it and set a date to buy your ticket. Wanna make new friends? Pick some social activity to get more involved in. Wanna lose 10 lbs? Start a gym routine. Wanna play an instrument?...you get the idea. I know this sounds cliché and won’t make you feel better right now, but the honest truth is it’s just a matter of time— and you’ll feel much better, much quicker if you’re proactive about finding productive and soul-feeding ways to help pass that time.

As per usual, I don't have any practical advice for you. But I do have a slow-clap with your name on it. Because fucking-A; I can't imagine seeing an ex on a daily basis. That's my own personal hell: seeing my ex on a daily basis. At an amusement park. Surrounded by children. And people who refer to themselves in the third person. That is my hell. I don't deal with seeing exes or ex-hookups very well. I like to cut exes out of my life like sugar from a Bret Michael's diet and pretend like they never even existed in the first place. So when I inevitably run into one, I don't really handle myself with a lot of "grace" or "poise."

Two (relevant!) examples:

1.) Three 4th's of July ago, I had a bunch of friends over at my parents house to eat a massive amount of hot dogs, drink some beer and light some shit on fire. Earlier in the day, I piled Alex, Laura and Helena into my car and drove us to the grocery store to get said hot dogs and beer. While pulling into the parking lot, I saw a young man loading boxes of beer into the trunk of his car and the following went through my head in .245 seconds:

"Shit. That guy's hot." → "Huh. He looks kind of familiar." → "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, IT'S HE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS (of ex hook-up who was my nurse when I was hospitalized with diarrhea fame). (And by the way, it depresses me that there's someone in my life who can be described as "ex hook-up who was my nurse when I was hospitalized with diarrhea fame".)

Genuinely shocked to see that he still existed and not wanting him to see me in my no make-up, powder-blue-American-University-sweatshirt-wearing glory, I screamed, slammed on the gas and ran three stop signs in a row until I was safely in the adjacent parking lot, where a scary older gentleman then pulled up next to me, yelled at me to roll my window down and reamed me out for running three stop signs and almost killing him and his children. I probably could have handled that situation better.

2.) I was at work yesterday, thought I saw my ex and 100% almost vomited everywhere. There it is. But instead of vomiting, I just stared the random schmo down, thinking of everything I would have said if that really had been ex-A-hole and not just some guy with a generic Jew face and a medium frozen yogurt who I was this close to kicking in the nutsack.

My point being, kudos to you for seeing your ex every single day and not kicking anyone in the nutsack. Max has a pig head with your name on it.

Dear Queer Abby,

My girlfriend and I are in a pretty great relationship: longest I've ever had, never bored, sharing interests, etc etc. There is one aspect of our relationship, however, that I'm pretty dubious about.

Our relationship didn't start the way most do. It was the first few weeks of college, and the both of us were kind of being explorative. So we hooked up with each other. And then pretty much exclusively with each other for a few weeks. And then decided we were dating. However, there was never really a sense of exclusivity. When we started dating, I told her that yes, it'd be okay to have sex with other people (because, in my opinion, sex is sex, it's a physical act that doesn't necessarily have as big of an emotional attachment). She said great, and the same went for me.

However, I'm not the hottest of guys, and she... Well, she's a college girl looking for random hookups. So naturally, she finds them. And, while every single hookup she's had has been terrible, from what she's told me, it still kind of niggles at me.

So I guess I have two questions. 1) How do I bring up the "let's be exclusive now" talk when I sounded so open about it before, and/or 2) How do I become okay enough with myself to let her do what I believe should be an okay thing, but obviously feel very different about?

Thanks for all the help,

Mind/Heart Conflict

Short answer: Waitwaitwait, let me make sure I’m understanding you correctly. Your second question is, essentially, “How do I become okay enough with myself to let her [have sex with other people even though I don’t feel okay about it]?”… when i use my words, do you understand why that question hardly merits a response?

Long Answer: Listen, there isn’t anything wrong with you for not wanting your gf to sleep with other people, and there’s no shame in preferring monogamy. It’s not an indication of how confident or evolved you are; it's just an indication of what you want from your relationship. And it’s perfectly valid. Just like it’s 100% valid to want an open relationship. One way isn’t better than the other; they just aren’t compatible. And it won’t do either of you any good to try or pretend to be okay with something you’re not comfortable with.

Now, if the only reason you have a problem with it is because you’re not getting any from anyone else, then yea, that’s some ego-shit you have to deal with. It’s not fair to ask her not to hook up with other people just because you don’t get to the option as much as she does. You know what that leads to? You dicking around with someone else when the option does present itself just to prove (if to no one but yourself) that you've still got it.

BUT, if you really do want, and are ready to commit to having an exclusive relationship, just ask her what she thinks about the idea. If she says yes, great! If she says no, you can try as hard as you want to be ok with it, but what it comes down to is this: the two of you want two different things and you wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors by denying that.

What the fuck does the word niggles mean? It sounds one-part-racist and two-parts adorable. Seriously though, I've never heard of that term in my entire life. Let's google, shall we?

According to Miriam-Webster Dictionary:

nig·gle

Pronunciation: \ˈni-gəl\

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): nig·gled; nig·gling \-g(ə-)liŋ\

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: circa 1616

intransitive verb1 a : trifle b : to spend too much effort on minor details
2 : to find fault constantly in a petty way : carp s, she wears out our patience —Virginia Woolf>
3 : gnawtransitive verb: to give stingily or in tiny portions

According to Urban Dictionary:

niggles	39 up, 10 down
	buy niggles mugs, tshirts and magnets noun. reffering to a black person's nipples Damn! That girl must have some huge niggles.

That, sir, is crass. That being said, Andrew of the Great Juno Debate keeps cruelly texting me pictures of the pug he's currently cuddling with, and part of me really hopes its name is Niggles.

And the fact that it's a black pug has nothing do with it.

Queer Abby,

My boyfriend and I have been together since Jan/Feb, a snopocalypse romance. We were friends first. This whole relationship came out of the blue, and got hot and heavy pretty fast. He's incredible and smart, we have so much fun together, etc. Long story short, I'm falling in love with him.

Before we started dating, he applied to grad school. He got accepted (of course, because he's wonderful) to a school halfway across the country (ugg). He seems pretty confused about the whole idea of going to school. He's not sure it's what he wants to do, or will help him do what he wants, etc. But, with time he seems to becoming more interested in going.

My problem is pretty obvious: I DON'T WANT HIM TO GO. Duh. I want him to stay here. But, I feel like I'm being completely selfish. I want him here, because I want to be with him. I've done a long distance relationship before (DC-NY) and that ended pretty uncomfortably. I am definitely not interested in doing a LDR again. I know he loves this city, and that he's pretty damn fond of me. Plus if he's already unsure of going then....ugh. See, selfish.

I feel wrong asking him to stay for me. Particularly because we've only been together a few months. I don't know where this relationship is going. He's a bit older than me (which totally freaked me out at first, but that just seems silly now). But we are in different places in our lives. I've been out of school for just a year, he's been out long enough to consider a drastic career shift and another degree. Then again, who the eff cares where the relationship is going because everyday with him is an awesome adventure.

My roommate says that it's not fair to him to not tell him that I want him to stay. I think that it's not fair for me to ask him to pass up this opportunity and stay here with little old me. Clearly, we have to have a conversation. I just don't know how to start it, and how not to come off whiny girl asking him to put off his (maybe) dreams for her.

Help!

Selfish Sally?

Short answer: Ask this guy what he thinks he's going to do then say you really like him and hope he decides to stick around, but you'd understand and wouldn't hold it again him if he decides to go.

Long Answer: It’s not selfish of you to want him to stay. It’s not even selfish to tell him you feel that way. It is, however, selfish to ask or expect him to stay here for you. If you want someone around because of the way they make you feel, that isn’t genuine care and respect. You should enable and encourage them to choose a path that’s best and most fulfilling for them…

Now, personally, I tend to think people make better decisions when they have all the facts. However, if he hasn’t asked for your opinion, you aren’t obligated to give it to him. BUT, if knowing he has all the information will help you trust and support whatever he decides, you should totally tell him how you feel about it.

Just strike up the conversation by asking him what he thinks he’s going to do. If he says stay, then say, “I was hoping you’d say that.” If he says go, say, "Bummer, I wish we had had more time together, but I’m glad we get to hang out in the meantime" (i.e.- don’t try to guilt him or make him feel bad). And if he says, "I have no idea"?…. well I would say, "grad school sucks and it’s expensive; don’t go unless you really know what you want to get out of it." Buuuuuut, you can’t say that. So, in that case, you need to say something more along the lines of, “well, keep me posted ‘cause I need to know whether to order a case of champagne or a case of whiskey for the month of September.”

Ooo! Ooo! I was watching an episode of Party Down last night where Henry was thinking about leaving LA to move back in back with his parents and Casey didn't want him to (because she's obvs in love with him), but she was too proud to ask him to stay. But then in a comical and round-about way, Henry admitted that if she wanted him to stay, all she had to do was ask him to and he totally would. So she was like, I hope you stay. And he did.

But then in the next episode, she took a 6-month stand-up gig on a cruise ship and totally broke Henry's heart.

So. I guess the moral of the story is that Party Down is a really, really good show.

...I might be drunker than I had originally led on.

You're welcome.

Announcement, some general notes and a phone call from Dad.

HEAR YE. We found a way to make the purchase of a “Sorr about the” bag even more tempting. A portion of the profits from the sale of each bag will go to starving children in Africa.

SIKE. We’re really going to set aide an amount of the profits to fund a new blog feature, “2 Birds Investigates.” Meg and Chris will be going undercover to bring you, dear reader, the scoop on some of the Eastern Seaboard’s wackiest gatherings and subcultures, filtered through a lens of snark and ethanol. Monster truck rallies! Star Trek conventions! Maybe a bondage club? We’ll be going where you never wanted to go, but always wanted a friend to go and report back. So the more bags you buy, the more hijinks we’ll get into. Coming soon.

Also, I want to say thank you to everyone who has made me feel welcome to the blog. I appreciate it. I also want to explain that I’d like to comment and interact with our readers more than I do, but I don’t have internet access at home, so I can’t do as much as I’d like. I do read and enjoy your comments, but it’s usually far enough after the fact that I doubt anyone’s still following the thread. I also have access to the chris@2birds1blog.com email now, so… you know, holla. [Editor's note: Also, clearly, Tulane Chris will now be blogging in Ex Co-Blogger Chris Green instead of purple. Is it because I'm too lazy to think of a joke that corresponds with "Meg blogs in red, Chris blogs in purple?" Yes. Yes, it is. And while we're on the subject of Tulane Chris being welcomed on the blog, miscommunication between the two of us was the reason for yesterday's No Post Monday. So kindly direct some of your hate towards him. Perhaps at chris@2birds1blog.com. K, BAI!!!!1]

Several people commented asking about the origin of Giant Camel’s nickname. He looks like a camel (light brown, big brown eyes, sad mouth), is four inches taller than me, and wears a size 16 shoe. It’s not even a story, although I now plan to invent one.

I did have a few closing remarks about the Kotex post. To the commenter who said that a tampon fits neatly in a cleavage: I’m sure it does, but Kotex’s words were “stuff a few.” Stuff. A few. I’m still seeing Hilda Clump grabbing a fistful and putting them all in one cup. It reminds me of the conversation my mother and grandmother apparently had prior to my mother going on her honeymoon in Mexico:

Grandmother: “Put your money somewhere safe, they have pickpockets. I hide mine in my bosom.”

Mom: “Oh, I put mine in my sock.”

Grandmother: “Your sock is not as safe as my bosom.”

Yet somehow, whenever I say I feel “safe as Grandmother’s bosom,” I get looks. As far as Diva Cups go, they don’t alarm me. I know a woman who uses one and swears by it. My first reaction was “that must save money,” and my next thoughts were the usual ones men have confronted with complex vaginal logistics, as in “So it just stays up there? What if she laughs really hard or has an orgasm, does it fly across the room?” We don’t have an instinct for these things, which must be why a friend emailed me a news article about a woman stealing a flash drive by hiding it in her vagina, “nature’s purse.” I would have been worried about moisture damaging it and, you know, explaining myself, but I guess she was in a hurry.

Onward and downward. I have had a shitty two weeks. A family problem came up, not a “I’m-calling-in-to-work-so-I-can-go-to-Atlantic-City” family problem but a real one. Giant Camel is gone for the summer. Finals. You know the drill. Anyway, yesterday I updated my Netflix to the five-at-a-time shut-in Super Saver plan that allows me to get a whole season of “Designing Women” at once, bought some candy, and settled in for a good, old-fashioned sulk. Then Dad called and fixed everything.

Phone rings. “The Munsters” theme song (I love my ringtone so much that sometimes I miss calls intentionally so I can hear it.)

Me: Hi.

Dad: Hey, bud. (He never calls me “bud” except when he answers the phone. It’s a thing.)

[Five minutes of generic catching up.]

Dad: So, I have news. It’s weirder than when Grandpa wanted to get married.

Me: Married to the schizophrenic, or when he tried to elope to Virginia?

Dad: Both.

Me: Oh, God, Stepsister’s not getting married, is she?

Dad: Not even close. Not even the same ballpark. Stepmother swabbed my cheek and sent it to Ancestry.com.

Me: What?

Dad: Ancestry.com has a program where you send in a cheek swab and they get DNA and try to match you with other people in their database.

Me: You just let her swab your cheek and mail it to the internet? They might clone you into killbots or organ donors. Also, why’s she so grabby with your DNA? She has a family.

Dad: She did all hers. Besides, it’s some Y-chromosome thing only men can do.

Me: Like driving and word problems?

Dad: Kind of. Anyway, this kid in Missouri popped up as a 1st-generation male-line match. I call him my “love cousin.”

Me: Don’t… don’t call anyone your love cousin.

Dad: This kid is your generation. His father was born in 1955 in Oklahoma, and was adopted by this woman, the kid’s grandmother, and they don’t know anything about his birth family. So the assumption is that this guy was fathered by someone in my father’s family, one of the three brothers. I think I know who, since it’s polite to assume it’s not one of the two ministers.

Me: Oh. Well. Uh.

Dad: The kid was very polite on the phone. He seemed to know it was going to be awkward. Here’s the punchline, though. He said his father is “very dark-skinned.”

Me: We have black cousins.

Dad: Well, I don’t know. Your cousin John is dark-skinned.

Me: No, John tans. He’s not “very dark-skinned.” We have black cousins.

Dad: Well, maybe. I’m going to ask for pictures. I’m sending them ones of me and my Dad so they can see do we look alike.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. My great-uncle had an… “adventure” and now I have black cousins, just like those Jefferson descendents. Here’s the best part about it: that kid is probably typing on his blog right now, “I have white cousins.” I have no idea what the etiquette for this situation is. Should we invite them down? They’re family, apparently, but we’ve never met them, so it seems kind of… abrupt to just have them down for the weekend. On the other hand, they’re our cousins, so we should. Also, no lie: I kiiiiiiiind of hope they invite us up to Missouri for a trip to Branson, America’s Ozark Wonderland. I imagine Branson as Dollywood without the grace and glory that is Dolly. Eager families pushing past each other to fill up at the buffet in time to catch a The Band cover band called “A Band” is not my idea of a great time, but my God, I would have blog material for a month. Also, does anyone remember “The Patty Duke Show” about the identical cousins, both played by a pre-drugs, pre-Lord, pre-moving-to-Idaho Patty Duke? It’s a long shot, but WHAT IF THIS KID LOOKS JUST LIKE ME? Think of the crazy stunts we could pull!

Also… what if he’s hot? I figured it out. We’re half-second-cousins (I think.) It’s not that related. We have two out of sixteen great-great-grandparents the same (I think), which is further apart than most Hapsburg or Kennedy marriages. I’m just keeping an open mind, is all. And it’s not like we’d accidentally make kids with flippers and tails. God, this just turned into a Jeff Foxworthy moment. “If you go on Ancestry.com to get dates, you might be a redneck.”

But what if they’re awful? What if they try to convert us to some weird, recent religion that Chinese people do in the park? What if they’re in a really shitty father-son Sublime tribute band? (Why are those the first two potential problems that come to mind?) How do you get rid of long-lost, ethnic family members if they suck? “It’s not the long-lost thing…and, uh, it’s not the race thing… it’s just… I’m sorry, we just can’t stand you. You clean your ears with your keys, and then clean your keys on your pants, and I’m fairly sure you peed in the houseplants. Here’s your ‘Sorr about the’ bag and a box of Thin Mints. I need you to go.”

So now it’s your turn. You knew what to do about widescreen DVDs, menstruation, and parasites as allergy relief. I turn the debate over to the loyal 2Birds Army. What do I do? What do I say? What do I wear?

Reflections while watching a DVD: A Tulane Chris Production

First of all, why I hate Memphis. EVERYTHING, except granted good ribs.

- You have to drive through SO MUCH MISSISSIPPI to get there from New Orleans.

- I have never been so lost in my entire life. We went to the airport twice trying to get back to the hotel.

- Black people at Kroger. I didn’t mind them at all. What I minded was Giant Camel giggling like a loon, poking me in the ribs every thirty seconds, and saying, “Chris. You’re the only white person here. Chris. Look. Look at your arm. Now look at anyone else in the store. You’re the only white person here.” HE TELLS THIS STORY. As an anecdote. As though it had a plotline.

- Graceland, oh my God. I was told you could just go in and look at the grounds and the grave, without taking the mansion tour. WRONG. You have to wait in a line of about 200 people to pay $40 to take a bus across the street, and you must stay with the group. I hate staying with the Goddamn group. Graceland was the point of going through Memphis instead of Atlanta and was just a total wash.

- The worst men’s room ever. On our way out, we stopped at a gas station for a standard road trip drink-and-pee. There was a metal plate protecting the lock ON THE GATE, and it took about three minutes to contort everything to open the GATE to get to the men’s room. It was so filthy. The water in the urinal was black, and the less said about the commode, the better. I used the drain in the floor.

Second, I had no idea I had so many feelings about DVDs/movies/Netflix until I started planning this post.

Reflections while watching a DVD: A Tulane Chris Production

• Netflix knows I’m gay. I had a conversation about this months ago with Ex-Co-Bloggeuse Eddie, and it’s only gotten worse. Netflix is cannier than a thrice-divorced aunt, and they can peg you for a homo from fifty yards. They start out casual and low-pressure. “Chris, based on your taste preferences, we think you’d enjoy The Golden Girls: Season 5.” Well, DUH. Add The Golden Girls, and then “Chris, based on your preferences, we think you’d like Ellen: Season 4.” Okay, great. And then “Based on your apparent homoseuxality, we think you’d like Brazilian Boy-Toys Number 6: A Lot Of Hispanic Guys Going At Each Other.” And… granted, but I don’t like Netflix being that perceptive. And for all their sneakiness, they have the sensitivity and aesthetics of a mai tai-drunk fag hag on the prowl. Their recommendations quickly take on the same shrill tone as “Do you want to go shopping? It’ll be FABULOUS!” Netflix has recommended to me about seventeen hundred “light-hearted” gay romantic “comedies” with this plot: Nice guy wants more than just sex. BUT HOW DO YOU FIND THAT in the WACKY GAY SUBCULTURE of [New York or Los Angeles]? Gym rats playing out Protestant morality plays in the Western world’s two least livable cities sounds like a pitch for a satire, but isn’t.

• Since Netflix knows all and sees all, who do I think I’m kidding? I have a short attention span and an infantile sense of humor. I like to watch goofball sitcoms and movies that follow this rubric: (Zombies/giant insects/an unseen evil) attack (townsfolk/villagers) while creating a terrible mess. As intelligent and urbane as I like to pretend I am, I don’t have the attention span for examinations of the human spirit. Viscera, sure; spirit takes too long. Yet I still add all these Herzegovinan historical epics to my queue so I’ll seem “worldly,” and then one of two things happens: I either keep bumping up Designing Women to avoid them, or I forget and actually get Mishtenka, billed as “a Communist Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” I proceed to put it on while I wash dishes, send it back, and claim to have seen it.

• Widescreen? Really? Widescreen itself doesn’t bother me, but people who insist on it do. Granted, I’m a bigger Philistine than Goliath, but I refuse to believe it makes any difference. I lump these people in with other people I believe are lying: people who claim to like Jackson Pollock, people who claim not to like pornography, and people who claim that they like to drive stick shifts.

• Das Boot, my most recent “Oops I meant to get Ghostbusters,” is three and a half hours long. Fuck me. No movie needs to be that long. If someone tried to tell you a story that lasted three hours, you’d call the police and start reading the news on your phone, but if some German auteur with dots in his name does it, he gets called “subversive.” I also hate when cultural artifacts like TV shows or movies are called “subversive.” They never are. Cannibalism is subversive. Arson is subversive. Mass entertainment is the opposite of subversive. I don’t care how many jokes about Republicans are in it, if Disney, Viacom, or Exxon gets a penny from it, it’s not fucking subversive.

• The remote is the same color as the carpet, and the frustration this has caused has probably shaved a measurable amount of time off my life.

• DVD extras have gotten as out of hand as the Gosselins. Why does Soccer Dog need a Romanian language track? Cast bios for Night of the Living Dead? Who cares if “featured corpse” bought a Honda dealership? And, my favorite to hate, commentaries. I don’t care, I don’t care, and I don’t care. They never have the extra I want, which is a bloopers reel. Vivien Leigh calling Clark Gable a motherfucker. Adrien Brody just a little too drunk to make it through the scene. Robert Downey Jr. way too drunk to get through the scene. Bea Arthur punching a boom mike operator in the mouth. Jane Fonda falling into the mud. That’s an extra. Woody Allen trying to explain why his impotence led him to make boring movies? PASS.

• I think one of the clearest indicators that the world is in decline is the shift in the meaning of “piracy.” Circle the situation that is badass: Gold-hungry marauders in the pay of a queen blasting away the defenses of a Spanish settlement and looting it – OR – downloading Three Men and a Baby from BitTorrent. This makes me wonder what petty crime will be called “terrorism” in three hundred years. My money’s on prank calls.

In closing, this week’s “Sorr about the bag":

“When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother, ‘What will I be?’

‘Will I be pretty, or will I be rich?’

Here’s what she said to me:

‘Sorr about the bag.’”