Here’s a post I wrote in November 2018. It’s mostly “as/is”.

Negative comments are interesting.  A lot of times, they inspire me in ways you wouldn’t expect.  I have kind of a strange mind sometimes.  It goes off into tangents, some of which turn out to be totally goofy.  Yesterday, Bill and I were directed into goofy territory when I looked up the meaning of the expression “bite me”.   A couple of days ago, I wrote a post entitled “Hate my blog?  Bite me.”  My inspiration for that post came, in part, from some drama that has erupted on my blog recently.  It’s not just “Wondering Why’s” negative comment about how I’m so bitter and post so much “inappropriate” stuff.  It’s also because of other people who feel the need to try to “police” what I write in my blog.

“The Overeducated Housewife” is my first and probably most read blog simply due to the fact that it’s eight years old (ETA: in 2021, it’s 11 years old).  But around these parts, it’s my travel blog that gets more notice (no longer true).  Because of the community I live in and the fact that military folks can be excruciatingly uptight about some things, I try to keep the travel blog somewhat clean.  Every now and then, a little profanity slips in, and I make no secret about how much Bill and I enjoy booze tourism.  We aren’t necessarily a “wholesome” couple.  But I do try to keep the personal drama to a minimum on that blog.  It’s somewhat PG by my standards.

This blog, by contrast, gets a lot of weird shit posted on it.  Some of it is very personal, profane, and “inappropriate”.  Some of it’s kind of silly and funny.  I use a lot more swear words on this blog.  It’s “rated R”.

Then I have the music blog, which I update maybe once or twice a month.  I would probably delete it altogether, but for some reason, people are obsessed with my post about Richard Carpenter’s daughter, Mindi.  To date, my post about Mindi Carpenter has garnered well over 100,000 hits.  It’s my most popular post of all time.  I really don’t know why, but as long as it gets hits, I figure I might as well get some ad revenue. (still thinking of deleting it because I never update it much anymore, but I want to get paid, first)…

Anyway… back to the subject at hand.  I was writing about tangents, and it’s time I came back from the latest one.  A couple of days ago, I wrote my post about people who hate blogs and bloggers.  I used the expression, “Bite me.”  I used that expression because it’s a somewhat sanitized version of saying “fuck off”.  In truth, I am much more likely to say “fuck off” than “bite me”.  In fact, I can’t think of any time recently that I invited someone to “bite me”.  It’s just not a phrase I use very often.  “Fuck off”, on the other hand, is a favorite expression of mine.  It’s very ladylike, you see. 

Sometimes I get curious about language.  I find the origin of words and expressions fascinating.  I love to read Urban Dictionary, where people post definitions for common slang words and idioms in the English language.  I looked up “bite me.” and, sure enough, Urban Dictionary had a definition.  But then I stumbled across another site called English Language & Usage.  Six people also included information about the origin of the expression “bite me”.  The first answer posted was rather pedestrian, but the second one was fascinating.  Have a look…

This made me laugh hysterically for a few minutes.  I was especially amused by a subsequent comment left by someone who said it was equivalent to saying “Eff you”, then apologizing that he could not bring himself to “say” it.

While you can use the phrase when you mean “deal with it”, I am of the opinion that it most emphatically doesn’t mean “deal with it”, but instead is closer to when you don’t like what the other person has said or done, and express your contempt. It’s really not different than “eff you” (sorry, I can’t bring myself to say it). – ErikENov 27 ’12 at 9:04

Some people really cringe at the idea of using vulgarity and being “inappropriate”…  I think they must live very constrained lives, but if it makes ’em happy, what’s it to me?

The person who provided the above screenshot information immediately charmed me for being so apologetic and polite about the original raunch factor of “bite me”.  I had no idea.  There are several more answers posted about the origin of “bite me”, most of which caused me to giggle and reminded me of the old show, Crank Yankers, which used to be aired on Comedy Central a lot.  Crank Yankers consisted of comedians using puppets to act out crank calls they made to people.  There was a character on that show named Niles Standish, who was “inappropriate” on the phone as they pranked some unsuspecting guy who was looking for some phone sex.

I don’t often say “bite me” to people, because to me, it’s about as non-sensical as calling someone a douche.  I have ranted about my aversion to the word “douche” used as an insult on several occasions, so I’m not going to rehash it.  I’ll just say that, to me, calling someone a “douche” doesn’t make sense, nor does it make sense to say “bite me”, although I do know the conventional meaning of both expressions.  I just used “bite me” a couple of days ago because it seemed less profane, and I’d rather not be profane in my blog post titles, if I can help it.  But then, if you think about it, calling someone a “douche” or inviting them to bite you is actually very offensive if you consider what those expressions really mean.  It’s just that they’re used so often that people are now kind of unfazed by them.  They’ve become almost sanitized… and even somewhat “appropriate”.  You might even hear someone say it in church.

Because I enjoy oversharing, as regular readers of this blog certainly know, I shared on Facebook that Bill and I were having a stimulating discussion about vulgar English idioms.  I wasn’t surprised when a number of my friends who know me well had a good laugh at that.  Bill and I often discuss things that would never cross anyone else’s minds.  That’s why we’re perfect for each other.  We ended the evening by watching early episodes of America’s Next Top Model, where there was certainly a lot of “inappropriate” behavior.  I think many people secretly love it when others are “inappropriate”.  It’s the sticks in the mud who feel that a high level of decorum must be maintained by all means that ruin it for everyone else.

I’m sure plenty of people read some of my posts and wonder “WTF is wrong with that woman?”  They wouldn’t be the first to wonder that.  My own mother used to loudly exclaim, “Where did you come from?!” whenever I said or did anything she found inappropriate, obnoxious, or weird.  I always wanted to tell her that I came from an unfortunate night she spent fucking my father… and then I slid out of her womb, between her legs, all purplish and wet, kicking and screaming into the hellhole of life.  But, because I do have a sense of decorum and did not want to be knocked into the next month, I did not tell her where I literally came from.  The fact is, I came from their come…  She could have spared us all a lot of grief if she and my dad had just taken a cold shower and gone bowling or something.  Ah well… I will keep thinking and writing about goofy, inappropriate shit that upsets, shocks, annoys, and offends people.  Then, some blessed day, I won’t be able to write anymore and the world will be spared these weird, inappropriate postings from me.