Please be informed that this post contains that which might offend some people. And I truly do not wish to be called ‘offensive,’ although it is too late to wish that, for it has already happened.

This is really only for two people. All the rest of you are absolutely wonderful and I adore you. And when I say “adore,” what I really mean is ADORE. I’d wait on you hand and foot. I’d share everything I own with you. I’d have your babies, except for the menopause thing. But at least I don’t have to buy “protection” any more.

I know it’s my blog. I know I apologize too much. I know I’m insecure. When people criticize me and I don’t understand why, it hurts. A person is never too old to be hurt by the opinions of others. This one still hurts me. Heck, GARY still hurts me. I’m not a terrible person, honest I’m not. It seems, though, that sometimes my attempts to describe things in a humorous way are really offensive to certain people. According to some people, my blog can best be described as an “offensive blog.” Details on request.

I’m not perfect. I don’t pretend to be. But I’m not offensive, either. Not on purpose, at least.

I shower every day. So there.

Oh wait. They meant the other kind.

I keep looking back at that Mary Poppins post, thinking that somewhere on there is something I need to change or fix or remove or make better somehow, so people won’t think I am a bad person who has nothing better to do than make fun of Pentecostal holy rollers, in spite of the fact that several members of my husband’s family fit into that category and I’ve already made my opinion of their sweet coolness publically known.

And while I’m sure there are countless ways it could be made better, I still don’t find anything that needs to be changed or fixed because of offensiveness. I just wrote about that night, and how I perceived this experience, and how it affected me.

The only fictional part of it was the part where I said the woman looked like Mary Poppins. She really did look like Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins is fictional. That’s the fictional part.

And yes, they really did have umbrellas. And Crisco. CRISCO. In a big round can labelled ‘Crisco.’ That’s why I figured it was Crisco. If it had said “Mazola,” I would have blogged it as “Mazola.”

And I still maintain that when someone expresses his/her desire to NOT be smeared with Crisco, it is bad manners to chase them down and try to smear them with it anyway, and I don’t care how uplifted and carried away you are. Bad manners are bad manners, no matter what the circumstances or personal fulfillment issues.

Being carried away, personally, in the spirit of anything, is still no excuse to disregard someone else’s feelings. It gives whatever your reason for being carried away, a bad rep. It turns your originally good intentioned happy dance into a selfish “you’ll endure this because I’m personally uplifted and entranced and therefore you should be too, and I want you to endure it for my sake so quit trying to escape me and my can of Crisco” thing.

And when she says I phrased it so it would look like the Pentecostals ATTACKED out of sheer determined meanness, I don’t see that, either. I never meant to portray them as evil hawks swooping down on a child to purposely terrorize her. I just tried to paint a picture of people so caught up in their own personal wildness that they didn’t even NOTICE that they were terrorizing a child. And me. When I read and re-read it, that’s what I see.

Or is it that I see that, because I know that’s what it’s supposed to connote?

And now for something completely different. Might as well have the game as the name.

Well, I give up. I give up. I’m just a rotten old woman who makes fun of undisciplined children, their parents, dancing in the spirit. , and holy rollers.

I guess this is the next step.

Just take me out into the street and shoot me now, you two. You know you want to.

As for the rest of you, I apologize once again for any insensitivity. I also admit that this time there was some.

Cut me some slack. I’m old and my son was terrorized last night by a criminal who was probably allowed to act up in public as a child.

And now, that criminal is a little richer, and I bet his self-esteem is soaring. And he probably did the happy dance when he got to his car.

Whoops.