Before I turned 19, I was in an absurdly abusive relationship, lived through a gross sham of a parent, and had 2 homes burned to the fucking ground. I have been through some serious shit in my day.
There’s no book to get you through terrible things in your life; you get burned and you learn not to do that thing that burned you ever again. You live and grow and hope that with your knowledge and experience, you can help others learn from your mistakes.
This generation has it a little easier. They have books to guide them; namely, the totally appropriately gender-delineated ”How To Survive Anything,” series.
Boys learn how to fend off Polar Bears, Zombies, T-Rexes, and Vampires while learning how to recover from tornadoes, broken bones, and earthquakes. A little off-center, but entertaining and semi-useful nonetheless.
Girls learn how to get back in the kitchen and make some goddamn sandwiches while not talking to anyone about that bruise on her cheek.
Chapter 1. How to survive a BFF Fight
We all know the stats. Millions of girls will fall victim to BFF fights this year alone, and most won’t make it out alive. Girls, hear this now: there is literally nothing more important than learning how to make up with a BFF after she tells your cousin that you looked fat in that shirt.
Chapter 2. How to Survive Soccer Tryouts
Because you’ll never get a husband if you can’t kick a ball, you chubby-ass klutz. Sorry Cheerleaders, Volleyball players, Basketball girls, Field Hockey girls, and Knitting Club girls–life is over for you. Soccer is where it’s fucking at.
Chapter 3. How to Survive a Breakout
Surviving a natural disaster? Your life will be a natural disaster if you don’t get that zitty-ass mug of yours under control. No man wants pimple cream transferred to their crotches mid-blowie. Talk about faux pas!
Chapter 4. How to Show You’re Sorry
Learn to apologize early for making him hit you because you didn’t make chicken for dinner like he thought he wanted.
Chapter 5. How to Have the Best Sleepover Ever
When I look back at my life, I have only one regret, and it’s not knowing how to throw the best sleepovers ever. That could have saved me from years of heartache and pain and would eliminate the number one cause of divorce in this nation.
Chapter 6. How to Take the Perfect School Photo
Useful later in life when you look back and remember when you weren’t a washed-up sorostitute and take another drink of Arbor Mist Rosè and a long drag off a Marlboro 100.
Chapter 7. How to Survive Brothers
Because brothers will straight-up murder siblings with uteruses. Watch your back, girl.
Chapter 8. Scary Survival Dos and Don’ts
Full of tips like not throwing things at ghosts so you don’t piss them off. Of course, we all remember this being the main political platform of Susan B. Anthony: “Don’t Throw Shit At Ghosts, Bitches Need Votes.”
Chapter 9. How to Handle Becoming Rich
After you take the perfect school photo and get your face under control, you’re gonna land a rich one, gals! Life is going to be all cake and roses and champagne and hedge funds and….
Chapter 10. How to Keep Stuff Secret
you’re gonna need to shut your face about your husband stepping out on you 4 nights a week if you wanna keep that money, honey.
Chapter 11. How to Survive Tests
Why is this even here? The only grades you need to know are the diamond ratings. A clear publisher oversight.
Chapter 12. How to Survive Shyness
Alternate title: How to stop being a fucking weirdo and have some goddamn friends already. Seriously, why are you even sitting with those girls at lunch? Can you not wear black today?
Chapter 13. How to Handle Sudden Stardom
My biggest problems as a tween girl were learning how to not wear only blue shirts and conquering sadness after they took Gundam Wing off Toonami. I was oblivious to the fact that all other girls in my grade were allegedly dick-slapped by sudden, intense fame and fortune. Regrets–I have many.
Chapter 14. More Stardom Survival Tips
Jesus Ham-Eating Christ. Apparently sudden stardom is an overwhelming problem in the tween set these days. Enough of a problem to warrant editors not to combine two chapters together or think “what the fuck are we encouraging our girls to read?”
Chapter 15. How to Survive a Camping Trip
Xanax and Wine. These tips are just Xanax and Wine.
Chapter 16. How to Survive a Fashion Disaster
Benazir Bhutto credited this chapter with her being a tour de force of women’s rights and equality. When asked about it, she responded, “If I hadn’t known how to recover from that nip-slip in my Hollister bikini in front of Justin, I never would have been an icon for women everywhere.”
Chapter 17. How to Teach Your Cat to Sit
Mother of God.
Chapter 18. How to Turn a No Into a Yes
Also known as, “just the tip, c’mon,” “no means yes,” and, “look, it wasn’t rape, ok?”
Chapter 19. Top Tips for Speechmaking
And here, right in the middle, is a real skill that so many girls could use. I’m surprised. I’m impressed, maybe the authors finally pull their heads out of their asses and thought, “Girls are worth more than we think. They’re not all tampons and hormones.”
Chapter 20. How to Survive Embarrassment
Fuck. Clearly I was wrong about Chapter 19.
Chapter 21. How to Be a Mind Reader
Seriously, you should have known he wanted chicken for dinner because he thought about it around 4. It’s still your fault that he hit you.
Chapter 22. How to Survive a Crush
This weekend, I overheard this conversation:
“I think he raped me.”
“But was he hot?”
“Yeah.”
“Then just go with it.”
That’s the entire content of this chapter and of the sadness in my heart.
Chapter 23. Seaside Survival
Pro-Tip: Don’t have your period, because sharks will stone cold eat a bitch.
Chapter 24. How to Soothe Sunburn
You didn’t listen to any tips in the previous chapter you dumb cunt, and now you have a sunburn. Enjoy your impending sun-damaged wrinkled skin.
Chapter 25. How to Pick Perfect Sunglasses
LIES. No one knows how to do this.
Chapter 26. Surviving a Zombie Attack
The ONE TIME this book chooses to address survival skills and recovery and they choose Zombies? Oh, right, silly me. Periods again. Zombies can smell the iron in your pussy from miles away.
Chapter 27. How to Spot a Frenemy
Is she holding this book? There she is!
Chapter 28. Brilliant Boredom Busters
Learn to occupy the grating silence-filled times between when your husband leaves for work and when Consuela and Hector comes to water your begonias.
Chapter 29. How to Survive Truth or Dare
Always ask for truth, but lie when you’re asked if you have self-respect. If you must Dare, don’t make out with your hand or a hot dog. That shit will never leave you.
Chapter 30. How to Beat Bullies
The tips from “How To Teach Your Cat To Sit,” are just copied and pasted here. Pussy joke.
Chapter 31. How to be an Amazing Babysitter
Finish with a wang, that’s what I always say. Chapters 30 and 31 are the equivalent of watching The Godfather for the first time and hearing a fart right as the credits begin to roll.
Gender Roles and Sexism: Clearly still a pretty big problem.
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What was your favorite chapter in this?
– Favorite Comment From The Last Post: From Carrie-Cannibalistic Nerd: “Wait a second, I’m in my 30s and don’t have a little somethin somethin on the side. I didn’t realize it was a requirement for my age group. I’ve learned so much.”
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Please, please, please tell me that these aren’t chapters in a real book? Of course, I realize they probably are but I want to be in denial. How to Handle Sudden Stardom? Who’s the douche that wrote this?
Meg recently posted..But Maybe I’m Crazy
That is ridiculous! There is NO way you can teach a cat to sit.
Oh, the rest aren’t so realistic, either…
Mayor Gia recently posted..Ducky and the Duck Trail
Wow, I wish I would have had this book to help me through all the hard life crises I found myself in as a teen. Now I am just left with my man hitting me all the time. Hopefully he doesn’t find this comment and teach me another lesson I should have learned….
Lacey recently posted..Our Kind of Pillow Talk
I totally dodged a bullet in the Seaside Survival skills. I can’t tell you how many times I was stupid enough to go to the beach while ON MY PERIOD and didn’t even BOTHER to look for land sharks.
Thank you Jesus.
Tomorrow I become a nun out of gratitude… if I don’t become famous, that is, on my way to the convent.
Dani recently posted..Guest blog: Atypically Relevant: Vote Mandi for Jesus 2012
Wow. I feel somewhat assaulted by that entire thing. Now I need to go buy that book so I can learn how to use makeup to cover the bruises and create a realistic sounding story about how I am just so clutzy I keep walking into walls. I probably deserved it, though. And the book did apologize, so I know it won’t happen again. It really DOES love me afterall.
Misty recently posted..Abercrombie & Hootch
23 was my favorite.
I love your writing Noa.
Becky recently posted..Swedish Dirty Joke
OMG what a wealth of knowledge here! If only I had known these things before fighting with my BFF who knowingly invited me to swim in shark infested water, while on my period, and I nearly lost a leg.
Not to mention all the times I failed to read my husband’s mind and he beat me while my, still angry, BFF (I really wronged her at my elementary sleepover when I answered a Truth or Dare question that involved her) stood by and laughed (she really holds a grudge).
On a semi-serious note: I’m pretty sure that book put the woman’s movement back a thousand years.
lisa from insignificant at best recently posted..The Man Cave Filler Giveaway!
I know how to pick perfect sunglasses, I just end up losing them after about four days. If this book explained how to located said lost sunglasses and actually did reference Susan B. Anthony, then maybe…Nope, it’d still be a load of sexist crap.
Jillian recently posted..My Real Friends Don’t Even Care About My Pancreas
Cue bleak laughter.
Did you see Scholastic’s press release? Talk about getting bitchslapped… My interpretation: “They’re suffering from hysteria! Here, do some catalog shopping – bitches like shopping, right? – while we dump the rest of our supply on libraries so we can break even on this low-selling title by writing it off as a donation. Then we can say we don’t sell it anymore if anyone asks!” Or, “We aren’t having another printing run anyway so sit down and STFU. Buy something else for your crotchlings in the meantime.”
Andrea recently posted..Victory. And tornadoes.
Let us not forget about preventing the world destroying Boob-Quake. Seriously ladies, if you show the cleavage, G0d will destroy the Earth. Or maybe just parts of the middle east…
ColinP recently posted..Nope, that just won’t do
I decided I didn’t want my uterus anymore, so I removed it, thus making me safe from getting fucked UP at the beach. Which is good, because honestly, the thought of death by shark is just terrifying.
NATurally Inappropriate recently posted..99 Whipped. Yes. Please continue whipping me.
Chapter 15 is pretty accurate… lol. Love your shit, noa.
Jaime recently posted..decisions, decisions
I had a neighbor tell me to “stop being a tomboy and bake a fucking cake already.” So I did, and I brought it to him with a smile. It had plastic army men lovingly baked inside.
Chooplah recently posted..9 Lies You Tell Your Coworkers
I love you so damn much right now that it’s unfathomable. Because I did something similar with barbie doll parts.
I would like to stalk you, if that’s cool with you.
Mandi E. recently posted..I’m here all week! Tip your secretary!
As I was watching new blog posts pop up on my reader ticker, this one ticked a little fast, so I totally read it as “Wangs cause cupcakes.” I mean, I’d heard of “icing” and “baby batter” but the possibilities were somewhat horrifying.
Mandi E. recently posted..I’m here all week! Tip your secretary!
I think you should include how to beat the shit out of your siblings and make it look like an “accident”. Or maybe the art of spitting in the food of people you hate without getting caught!
Jana recently posted..What happens at the cabin stays at the cabin…(pffttt, bitch, I’ve got a blog!!)
When they say “speech” I think they mean less “presentation in a work or school context” and more “how to effectively convey to a group of your friends that the whore who stole your boyfriend is a jealous, cunty hater who is going to give him syphilis anyway”.
Jaclyn recently posted..So, You Think You are Having a Heart Attack
Sudden fame, like the kind that comes with becoming pregnant with your gym teacher’s baby?
They could have at least had it “Teach Your Cat to Dial 911,” it’s almost like they didn’t put any thought into this thing.
Carrie – Cannibalistic Nerd recently posted..The All-New Super Friends Round Up S2 Ep4D – “Fire”
What kind of sexist bullshit is this?! I want to teach my cat how to sit, too!
As for chapter 21… if there’s one thing facebook has taught me it’s that I absolutely do NOT want to be able to read minds. Judging by the bulk of the shit people post… the vast majority of humanity walks around with some vapid trifling ass shit running through their minds.
Todd recently posted..Road Trip Memories
I feel like they should have included “Don’t go camping when you’ve got the Red Sea pouring from between your legs” in Chapter 15, because you know, bears can smell the menstruation. Xanax and wine still apply.
I’m guessing the foreword goes something like this:
“If you’re reading this book, then you are old enough to know what it is you will have to survive: Sexist assholes like this author and also shitheads like the one(s) who ‘gifted’ you with this book.
But keep your chin up, Princess! You’ll be able to see the glass ceiling better that way.”
Dana the Biped recently posted..Making your neighbors think you’re batshit crazy and/or stupid? Priceless.
How to survive Truth and Dare?!? I fucking ENJOYED Truth and Dare. Thanks a lot, Scholastic. Further proof that I’m doing this womanhood thing ALL WRONG.
Andi Davies recently posted..Another Renfrew, Another Show
Holy fucking shit… I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. From having the absolute worst sleepovers to kicking the ever loving shit out of my brother.
I suck at being a girl. I’m gonna go buy a strap on.
Hugs!
Valerie
Valerie recently posted..No good will EVER come from canned meat
This is from an actual book I own: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljzpxa9Ncn1qhx208o1_1280.png
Also, if the boy is the one who chose which movie to go see and you didn’t like the movie, never criticize. You can always say, “The photography was lovely.”
Dana recently posted..Photo
Holy shiz, Noah. You must have gone through a terrible relationship. How can you not know what he was thinking??? Come on. Who needs a book to know how important that is?
It’s easier to lie about those bruises if you include how klutzy you both are. Then you’re not hiding that he was involved and it’s a little more believable.
Andrea recently posted..A short list
I like reading your post most especially number 26 which is surviving a zombie attack. I like watching zombie movies and reading books about zombie apocalypse. I want to know how human survive on the existence of zombies.
Willa Taley recently posted..Boost up you Ejaculation Volume Naturally
Ah yes. My aunt got me this for my birthday one year. Threw it in the back of the closet and never read the damn thing. Maybe I should go hunting for it.
Think she also gave me the boy version with some snide comment about how this will probably work better for me or something. My aunt is kind of a bitch now that I think about it.
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