Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On

by Jenny McCarthy

  The other negative side effect is his using up all of your products. I remember walking into the bedroom and seeing John with a mud mask on his face. Then there’s not being able to find your stuff because men never put things back where they find them.

  “Where the hell are my tweezers?”

  He replies, “I had an ingrown pubic hair.”

  Ew, gross!

  Although I must say I am glad that men have started to groom down below, and if your man hasn’t ever done it, I encourage you to get him to try. Men’s pubes can really grow out of control, especially if you have a hairy man. The guys who have a carpet that starts at their neck and ends far south of the border need to groom the carpet once it grows past the belly button. It needs to feel like we are entering a different room when we go down there. Take us from the shag carpet to at least a throw rug. If they don’t, by the time we hit the meat and potatoes we’re coughing up fur balls. If he owns an electric razor, tell him to set it at number two. It seems to be the perfect length.

  Now let’s move down a little farther. To the balls! I thought it was a little, um…not right for guys to shave their balls UNTIL I ventured down there and was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. I really liked it. It was smooth and because they were now hairless, there was no cheesy odor that sometimes accumulates down there. And men say that it gives them extra sensitivity. A definite thumbs-up.

  I would highly recommend having your man avoid waxing at all costs. Men can’t handle that kind of pain on their elbows, let alone their balls. If stubble starts to bother him from shaving, simply lie and tell him how that turns you on as much as his bald balls.

  So if you’re not sure what to get your man for Christmas, keep in mind getting him a nice razor. Tell him that you’re really in the mood this year to suck on some smooth jingle balls. If he doesn’t want to try it, let your own lawn grow out for a while. Let’s see how well he does. I guarantee it will get him hummin’ your tune!

  Don’t You Know Me by Now?

  This one just kills me. You’d think that after being with us for such a long period of time our men would know us completely inside and out. I bet some of your men don’t even know what color your eyes are. It’s mind-boggling to me that men have the ability to either tune us out or simply ignore the details that make up our likes and dislikes.

  A perfect example of this is gift buying. It’s pretty good in the beginning of the relationship. You’ll get jewelry or a nice leather coat. Then once you take your vows, he starts buying you earrings with peacocks hanging off them. “Oh, wow, honey, these are so much better than that zebra necklace you got me last year.”

  Whenever my birthday was approaching I got nervous. I begged John just to spend the money on a nice dinner and not to buy me anything. Of course that never happened. After dinner he would pull out a box and I would be hoping to God I didn’t have to fake this one. I would slowly unwrap the gift and usually force a pretty good smile. On one occasion I pulled out a deck of…“magic cards.”

  He said, “You didn’t want me to spend a lot of money, so I thought you might want to learn some magic.”

  Learn some magic? What the hell was he thinking? Sure, let me put my son to bed, load the dishwasher, and then read my book of magic tricks to learn the craft before I go to sleep every night.

  It also amazes me that when men try to buy us clothes it’s usually something we would never wear. I was always worried when I pulled something out of the box. “Is this how people see me? In a sweater vest with hearts on it?” Every day I wore the same sweats over and over again. What made him choose this?

  He said, “You should expand your wardrobe.”

  “So I can look like a dork?” I replied.

  Besides taste, I don’t think men comprehend sizes. I’m sure some husbands still don’t know their wife’s size. They go shopping and find a saleswoman who fits their wife’s build and ask her to either try the item on or hold it up to her. John would buy me things that weren’t even close to my size and he’d explain, “Well, that’s all they had left.”

  So what part of my ass cheek does he think is possibly going to fit into a size 2?

  Another great gift-buying fiasco is when your man buys you lingerie as a gift. I’m not talking about a beautiful bra and panties, because that would be nice. I’m talking about sexy lingerie you can’t wear under your clothes. The ones made strictly for sex. This is NOT a gift for us. It’s a gift for THEM. It’s not like I’m going to run to my drawer at night to put on my crotchless underwear because I enjoy the nighttime breeze. It drives me mad. And they’re not even comfortable or flattering. Just keep the tags on and return them for some pretty undies, and when he asks you to put on the naughty ones he got you, just say, “I’d rather be naked, honey.” That response should work every time.

  Last but not least is the food buying. John would come home from the store and tell me he bought me my favorite candy bar and then pulls out a Twix. In the seven years I was married, I had never even said the word Twix. And I swear to God when I tell you this happened at least five more times with the same freakin’ Twix bar until I finally shouted the word RAISINETS!!!!!! He then came home with three boxes of them anytime he went to the store.

  Coming home with takeout was another fun surprise. He’d pull out a breaded chicken sandwich, telling me I was going to love this, when I hadn’t eaten chicken in ten years because I hate the taste of it. I just stood there with this look of awe on my face as he sank his teeth into the burger I wanted.

  Even though this is all trivial crap, it’s still funny to watch the person who is supposed to know you better then anyone buy you the rainbow-colored coat you never would wear in a million years. But like they say, it’s the thought that counts, right? Um…only if the tags are still on it.

  The Back Door Is Closed

  Let’s face it, there are only so many sexual positions out there to choose from. And lately I feel like you have to pay me to be the one on top. It’s a lot of work! I’m not very good at it, and after having a baby, I find being on top can cause serious injury to self-esteem. It looks like somebody grabbed my nipples and pulled them to the other side of the room and let go! So if I’m bouncing around on top, the things my boobs are doing are absolutely embarrassing. When I was younger I used to hear older wives talk about how they kept the lights off during sex. I never understood that when I was a dumb twenty-two-year-old girl. NOW I GET IT!!! If a light is ever turned on while I am naked I started screaming. High-pitched shrieks shake the walls of my house to make the f*cking light disappear as quickly as possible.

  Let’s slide right into a different position now. The doggy-style position. Most guys like it because it’s different and your ass is smiling right at him while in a vulnerable position. As I got older, I noticed that men started to enjoy touching my back door. I always considered my back door to be an EXIT, not an entrance. But for some reason men like to find their way there. I don’t get it. Don’t they care that it’s a poop chute? I think for them it’s kinky and much tighter, so they are drawn to it. I’ve heard guys say that when they were very young, like nine, they used to stick their penis into anything that had a hole in it, a Jacuzzi jet, a toilet paper roll hole, anything that they could fit their penis into. It doesn’t surprise me then when they eventually ask to play with the back door.

  Guys also like having their own back door played with. Personally, I have a problem playing with the back door. I had an ex pull out a tub of Vaseline once during sex and when I asked, “What the hell is that for?” he smiled and replied, “For your finger.”

  EWW!!!!! Gross. Go clean out your own backyard!

  There are some women who are actually into it. My girlfriend is one of them. When I asked her about it, she said it’s kind of kinky for her, too. Sometimes she likes it, but she has to be really warmed up. She also said when she agrees to it she usually gets whatever she wants for about a month.

  Being a curious sexual person myself I have indeed tr
ied it for the sake of spicing things up, and I gotta tell ya, I freakin’ hated it. Thank God I’d had a few drinks ’cause it probably would’ve hurt a lot more than usual. I toughed it out and then screamed to get it out. It lasted all of about thirty seconds, and I’m proud to say my back door has been closed ever since.

  If you are ever going to let your man visit your “dark side of the moon,” be sure he wipes off his penis before he re-enters your vagina. If not, you will have the worst bladder infection you’ve ever had in your life.

  So you can either be like me and permanently leave your back door as an exit only or be the brave soul who leaves it open, awaiting the eager dragon that is so desperate to get inside. Ouch!

  Please Don’t Make Us Go to YOUR Mother’s House for Christmas Again!!

  Oh, the holidays! Every year families come together from near and far to join in a celebration of love and unity. They share stories and give thanks for all the beautiful blessings that have come into their lives, and they spread goodwill for one another’s future. If this at all resembles you and your family, I would say you are on crack. Don’t get me wrong, I love holidays, I just don’t like the drama that usually comes with them.

  When you’re little it’s amazing how oblivious you are to the politics that go on with the adults. All I cared about was what Santa was going to bring and if there was enough Jell-O for me to gorge on after dinner. Little did I know that my mother and aunts were watering down the men’s drinks so they wouldn’t become too intoxicated to drive the family home. I didn’t know that half the family hated the other half and that they wanted to kill each other at the dinner table. I remember thinking that everyone has police cars showing up at Christmas to break up fights between drunken relatives. My little cousins and I used to shout, “Yay, the police cars came to our party again!” Oh yes, those were the innocent years.

  If weirdness in your own family isn’t already enough, you go and get yourself married and add another dimension of insanity to your life. If you get along with your new family tree, good for you. Some people aren’t so lucky. The biggest problem could be figuring out whose house you’re going to spend the holidays at. Is it his mom’s for Thanksgiving and your mom’s for Christmas? I think I would rather get two extra Pap smears a year than have to figure out whose house we are going to for the holidays. Once you have kids I think it should be a law that everyone comes to you. If there are many kids on each side of the family, then it should be the house with the youngest baby. It should also include everyone else cleaning up because the duties of a new mom are much more important than dishwashing.

  Traveling with children during the holidays is truly hell on earth. No one gives you sympathy in airports when you’re hauling your child through terminals. They tend to look at you as if you’re diseased or like you just shat in their Cheerios. People are honestly happier to see a dog board the plane. “Oh, look at the cute shih tzu. What a pretty dog you have.” Then comes the family with children boarding the plane. The first-class passengers whisper to one another, “Thank God those dirty brats are sitting in coach.”

  Even if you get the luxury of winning Christmas on your side of the family versus your husband’s, you still have to deal with another holiday downer…. your own bad blood. There is always ONE embarrassing family member. We have a nutbag in our family who brings up shit that happened to us when we were in third grade.

  I would say, “Can you pass the gravy?”

  She would reply, “Why should I? You wore my brand-new gym shoes in high school without telling me and stepped in dog poo and lied to me about who did it.”

  I would just stare in awe that at thirty-three years old I had to hear my childhood mistakes being compared to turkey gravy. Unfortunately, issues like this come up all the time during holidays because people haven’t worked past their own shit or childhood dramas and feel the need to remind you of their pain at every holiday. Even your own parents, who might be stuck in their old-fashioned upbringing, can bring you down by telling you things you don’t want to hear anymore. “Yes, Mom, I’m quite aware that Jesus died so we could all be here today to eat this dead bird.”

  So the next time your relatives try to force you to come to their house for the holidays, simply be honest and let them know that you were really looking forward to having it on your own. If that doesn’t work, tough it out the only way I know how: “Can we add some more rum to this eggnog?”

  What Happened, Jenny?

  I think you’ve all come to realize by now that I’m very honest and truthful about everything in my life. I couldn’t finish this book and not write about what happened with my own marriage. Most celebrities think personal matters should remain private, but after writing a chapter on trying “back door sex,” how could I not be honest about my own breakup?

  This book was originally titled Marriage Laughs. When I began writing, I was having a really great time breaking the code of silence about the things women have to experience in marriage. As I was writing it, the book started to become very Oprah journal-like. Soon I started to struggle when it came to writing things that were loving and caring about my husband. I would write a chapter and then look at it and say, “Holy shit, I’m lying to my readers.” I closed my computer and cried really hard. And couldn’t stop crying. I realized at that moment I couldn’t brush my shit under the carpet anymore and hope things would change. As I lay on my bed with my computer yelling at me because the battery was dying, I dug deep into my soul. I wanted to figure out what went wrong.

  The day I met John, I told him I was going to marry him. Literally. Two weeks later I was engaged, and we got married six months later. We seemed to be so similar in so many ways, but something was always a little off. I kept telling myself that no one is perfect and to just deal with it. We were always very respectful of each other and had great sex, yet in my heart something felt sad. I couldn’t figure what it was. There wasn’t an actual problem I could point to and say, “Hey, could you fix this?” I was so confused. So I put myself back in time to the beginning of our relationship. It then became obvious to me…after a few therapy sessions. I married a man I never got to know. I created an absolute fantasy of who I thought this man was, and all these years he couldn’t live up to that fantasy. Most of the time I blamed him for doing things wrong because in my head my fantasy man would NEVER do that. I realized I didn’t fall in love with John, I fell in love with the fantasy of who I hoped he was.

  I knew I had just had a very big Oprah lightbulb moment. The question I had for myself now was, Do I tough it out for the sake of my kid? Or do I set myself free and hope that I can find love and allow John to find someone who loves him for himself? My mom and dad stayed together for thirty years for the sake of my sisters and me. Growing up in that environment made it obvious to me that I should not repeat that cycle. I knew what had to be done.

  I was driving in the car with John one morning and looked at him and sadly said, “I want a divorce.” The look on his face, needless to say, was utter shock. He kept pleading, “Why?” I asked him if he was truly happy also. He took a moment and replied, “No.” We both cried and talked at the side of the road for a few hours. We talked about trying to save us but knew it was too late. We had needed to save us seven years ago by really getting to know who we were.

  Believe it or not, we had a truly amicable divorce. We realize we’re much better friends than we were a married couple and even better parents because we are both happy. He comes over every day to put our son to bed, and I love that I can say he is now one of my best friends and an even better dad to our son.

  We might not have beat the odds in the Hollywood, where “dreams” come true, but at least I can say I followed my heart, and that’s where I expect all my dreams to finally come true.

  The Juggling Mom

  Ever since I was a little girl I have had a problem with learning how to juggle. I would throw the balls up in the air and whisk my little hands around trying to catch them as they f
ell. As an adult the only balls I learned how to juggle were my husband’s. Now that those balls are gone, I’m constantly dodging the rest of life’s incredibly large balls.

  How do women do it? I still don’t know. I find myself bursting into tears while I’m trying to do laundry, talk on the phone, make chicken nuggets, and change a diaper in the same breath. If God had made us like octopuses I could see how we could get a lot more done. But God didn’t. We are expected to uphold the same traditions from “back in the day” yet still bring home a paycheck. If you are a working mom, you give everything to your job when you are there. Then when you get home you give everything to your kids. By the time you tuck them into bed you have no energy left to satisfy your husband’s throbbing dragon. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day…EVER! I was trying to think of a comparison so a man could truly understand, and the only thing I came up with is telling him to imagine having to run one mile in thirty seconds. He would reply, “It’s impossible. I need more time.” I would then say, “There is no more time. That’s all ya got. And while you are trying to make it to the finish line, whip up a pot roast, feed the dogs, wash the baby, and load the dishwasher—all in thirty seconds.” That’s honestly what it feels like.

  I have had the experience of being both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom since my son was born, so I can at least give an honest and accurate account of the pros and cons of each. I work sometimes for a month straight and then I’m home for three months. To this day I have never had a nanny in this house while I’m not working. So if I say I’m cleaning up my son’s poo-poo diapers while vacuuming, it’s true.