It’s Viagra of begging – a solution for something that the lack of will not kill you

Under what circumstances would you ask your friends for money?

• Your child needed a heart transplant and insurance didn’t cover it?

• You had to bury your child and didn’t have life insurance on the child because really who has life insurance on their kids?

• You were about to lose your house because you had lost your job and had gone through your savings?

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Would you ask for money to fund a vacation to Europe?

That you are already on?

Because that’s what I saw someone doing. Asking for contributions to a GoFundMe for the trip to Rome he and his girlfriend are taking as we speak.

Yes you read that right.

They are in Rome.

And asking for money to pay for their trip.

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I’m the first person to say “TRAVEL WHILE YOU CAN!”

I might say, “Maybe charge it to your credit card if you’re sure you can pay the trip off in a month or two, especially if you find a good fare.”

I might say, “Join the Peace Corps because then you get paid to go abroad.”

I might say, “Forgo an engagement ring and buy plane tickets instead.”

But I have never said and would never say, “Take trips you can’t afford! It’s OK – just ask your friends for money!”

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My friend Jane was not invited to the wedding of her daughter’s best friend, Susie. But Susie sent a GoFundMe to Jane asking Jane to give her cash for her honeymoon. (She also sent a video of the wedding, which – yeah. That’s the best thing in the world – to watch someone else’s wedding video. It’s the modern equivalent of watching the slides of the family trip to the Grand Canyon.)

Jane told her daughter that if she ever did anything like that – if she asked people for cash, Jane would disown her.

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This is not just me being old and cranky. Even in my 20s, when a kid knocked on my door selling magazines at inflated prices so he could “earn a trip to Europe,” I was not having it.

“I also want to go to Europe,” I told him. “And you want me to overpay for magazines so you can go? Nope. I’m saving my money for my trip.”

That is, I was also young and cranky.

But damn. I took peanut butter sandwiches to work for years instead of going out with my co-workers. I went to the matinee when I went to the movies. I drove an old Chevette. I was determined to pay off my student loans and save money for a trip to Europe.

I have no problem with wiping out student debt. Kids today are taking on ridiculous amounts of debt for college and it’s unfair. Bail them out. If we can bail out the banks, we can bail out the kids. I don’t mind paying for that.

I don’t mind chipping in for a funeral. Or for a transplant. Of course I would help a friend in danger of being evicted.

But dude – you’re on your own with your vacation. The vacation I want to take.

At least (I guess at least? It’s better to recognize your enemy) Butker doesn’t hide his feelings

This story is the sort of crap I mean when I talk about bro culture.

I overheard a man – who is the CFO of a Fortune 50 company – ask the two men who were with him about a fourth man, who was not present but whose name had come up and who was defined as Indian: “Dot or feather?”

No shame.

No looking around carefully before he said it.

No apparent awareness that he was saying something offensive.

No pushback from the other two men.

But they were three white men.

Who cares what the CFO said?

They all know what’s going on, amirite?

They all know they are The Patriarchy.

They are The Power System.

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I don’t know this guy, but I know him. We all do. And I guarantee you that the CFO knew what he was saying.

That he knows this is something he can say only in certain surroundings.

He knows not to say something like that around Sundar Pichai, Shantanu Narayen, or Satya Nadella, all of whom could be his clients.

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On his face, the CFO is charming, warm, affable.

They always are.

He might tell you that he is not a racist or a misogynist or any kind of ist. Maybe he even has Friends of Color.

But look at whom he promotes.

Look at whom he mentors.

Look at whom he invites to play golf.

Whose office he stops in to chat mid-morning.

It’s not one of the two Black men on his floor.

It’s not one of the four (low-level) women on his team.

It’s the –

Oh heck I don’t need to tell you who it is.

You know.

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I am sure this guy is Involved. He’s on the symphony board. He buys a table at the fundraiser for the Arts in the Schools program and for the food bank. He chairs the performing arts campaign. His wife – who does not work outside the home – volunteers for Good Causes.

He’s a #NotAllMen!

And he never promotes women or non-white men.

But I didn’t need to tell you that.

You already knew.

(BTW I also would pick the bear)

Dude, WTF is it with stupid men?

You are either stupid or malicious, but there is no innocence in a 30 year old man ignoring a woman telling him that she is talking to someone else.

And when you persist? That might work in Hollywood, where the movies are written by men who are still bitter about junior high and who think the unattractive (not wealthy, childless, and on his deathbed) older man getting the beautiful young woman is a reality (looking at you Woody Allen), but not in real life.

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What she means when she says “I’m talking to someone?”

It’s not “keep talking to me.”

It’s not “convince me.”

It’s “Yeah I see you and I am so not interested go away.”

But women don’t dare be that direct.

There’s a reason we resort to excuses like “I have to wash my hair that night” or “I have a boyfriend.” That we give out fake phone numbers.

Because if we tell a man we’re not interested, he might get angry and hurt us.

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(Usually, though, bears will go away if you make noise and otherwise discourage them.)

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But you, Our Dude?

You completely ignore her dismissal and instead get defensive, telling her, “I was *just* saying hello.”

Dude.

You aren’t “just saying hello.”

You are not only defying social convention by interrupting and then persisting when you are rebuffed, you are also hitting on her.

You are not “just saying hello.”

If you “just say hello,” show me how many times you have “just said hello” to other men.

Or to women you find unattractive.

Or to elderly women.

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And then, even after she makes it even more clear that She. Is. Not. Interested, you try to convince her that she is wrong.

I don’t think even Hollywood uses that as a plot device. “Oh I can counter her responses with logic and she will then fall into my arms!”

It’s not because you’re not tall enough.

It’s not because you’re not old enough.

It’s because you’re you.

Dude. It’s you. You’re the problem.

Go. Away.

But I won’t be alive to get my satisfaction

Now that I have learned my relative is a misogynistic, racist, homophobic Trump supporter, I understand why people spend so much time planning and changing their wills because all I want to do is make sure that Trumper Relative (TR) gets not one penny of our money if Mr T and I die together in a plane crash in the near future.

I guess I also understand why people threaten to disinherit someone as well. It’s an attempt to control behavior. But that only works if someone cares about inheriting. Mr T’s parents threatened all the time to disinherit him because they didn’t like that he was married to me and they didn’t like me and wanted Mr T to “get me in line,” whatever that means.

Except he was already not in their will so he was already disinherited. I never understood why his parents threatened him with something they had already done.

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Mr T doesn’t care as much about getting TR out of our wills. That is, I am having to coax him into changing our will.

“I’ll be dead,” he says. “I won’t know.”

But I know. I know now.

TR wasn’t always a jerk. I don’t know what happened. He was when I met him, but has since changed. The only good thing about his mother being dead is that she can’t see what he has become.

He did post something on facebook a couple of years ago that made his mother so angry that she commented he was not her son, talking that way, and that was not how she had raised him.

He was a sweet kid when we made our will 15 years ago.

But now?

He re-tweets Andrew Tate and other hateful idiots. He tells people to vote for Trump. He calls women “hoes” and states that they should be virgins (he himself is not a virgin) and that women are golddiggers who use men but also that women should not work outside the home because they are taking jobs that belong to men.

He has become a complete asshole.

And I want nothing to do with him.

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Here’s a trick I was given: If all you’re doing is taking someone out of your will but not making other big changes, you can copy the old will (that is, type it into a document) and make the updates.

I found a downloadable form and compared it to the wills the lawyer made for us. There were only a few differences, so I used the downloadable form and wrote in language from the old will when it seemed appropriate.

And today, two friends will be witnessing my signatures.

And I will mail an original copy to my sister, who is our executor.

And I will tell her that I am intentionally leaving TR out.

He can be a woman-hating, Trump-supporting, Door-Dash driving jerk on his own.

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Make a will.

Make an Advanced Directive.

Designate health care and a financial power of attorneys.

Write instructions for your executor. I have a list for my sister.

• How to reach the friend who feeds our cat and who has a house key.
• What to do with our cat (if catsitter friend does not want to take her – he has two dogs, then return her to the pet sanctuary where we got her and donate money).
• What to do with our bodies (we want to donate them to the med school).
• Our financial advisor’s contact information.
• Where all the legal documents – car titles, electricity bills – are.
• Contact information for our nieces and Bonus Daughters.

Do these things. Do them today.