[Today we have one of my favorite things: a guest post from a guy! Clay's girlfriend seems to take Lent to some serious extremes. Thanks, Clay, for sending this in!
I've been a little - ok, A LOT, behind on getting to Guest Post and Photo Friday submissions but I promise that I will get to them all. (And we will make a return to a more regular Photo Friday shortly.) So keep sending in those stories and pictures to myhusbandisannoying@live.com!]
My girlfriend is a Catholic. Lent starts this month. Lent happens to be a time where people give up certain things for a given amount of time or in my girlfriend’s case, a near death experience every year.
Like every good Catholic is supposed to do, she observes Lent faithfully every year and gives up something of meaning to her. One year she gave up texting and the year after that she tried to go with chocolate bars and so on. This is a wonderful thing, right? Wrong. My girlfriend goes through an extreme stage during these forty (or however long it happens to be) days. The symptoms of this stage go from just cravings to really bad moods. One year during Lent I took her shopping and she got mad at a lady in front of us for not swiping her card fast enough if this is any example as to how cranky she is during this time of year. My girlfriend does various things to keep her moods at bay. Her favorites including playing the same song over and over again and talking to me and everyone else involved in the human race. In fact, one year to keep her frustrations at bay she made a song that she has made a tradition of singing every year. It goes as:
On the first day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me a candy bar to clog my arteries
On the second day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me two steak dinners and a candy bar to clog my arteries
On the third day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me three soft drinks, two steak dinners…(I’m putting an elipses there simply because I’m too lazy to fully type out the rest and you know how the 12 days of Christmas goes…I hope)
On the fourth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me four curse words, three soft drinks…..
On the fifth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from five Starbucks fraps, four curse words…
On the sixth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me six Big Macs, five starbucks fraps…
On the seventh day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me seven days without Facebook, six Big Macs…
On the eighth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me eight rude remarks, seven days without Facebook…
On the ninth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me nine real hot showers, eight rude remarks….
On the tenth day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me ten road rage free days, nine real hot showers….
On the eleventh day of Lent that Catholicism took away from me eleven Little Debbies, ten road rage free days…
On the twelfth day Lent that Catholicism took away from me twelve days of anger management, eleven Little Debbies….
Actually, my girlfriend goes on past twelve days until Lent ends. However, as a courtesy I’m not going to continue. I can’t decide which is more annoying my girlfriend’s actions during this time of year or the carol she made up that she sings every year.
–Clay
I love this! Every year my boyfriend goes – will I survive Lent this year?
Last year I gave up chocolate – he barely survived.
This year, I gave up cheese – it’s only day 2 and I already threatened to taser him 3 times.
My husband will not let it go that Ash Wednesday happened to fall on his 24th birthday this year, and he couldn’t even have meat for it. Ha!
I am Catholic also. And at the risk of lecturing, when I went to church on Ash Wednesday, the priest reminded us that we don’t always have to give up something (because of what it might do to the people around us), but that we can/should DO positive things instead.
Try to better ourselves that way 
Good reason not to be Catholic, I guess
I gave up ging out to eat. Of course today is my husbands 21st bday n hes out w/ friends n im stuck here not going to get a pizza-or anything.
my daughter’s father was a practicing catholic for some time. he decided to give up meat for lent.
i told him that HIS decision was not going to affect the things that *i* put on the table for the rest of the family. (me, daughter, my grandmother)
he started bitching, i said something along the lines of giving up SEX for lent. funny, he didnt have any objections to what i chose to make for dinner any longer. (i respected his choice, i made things that were tasty without meat, but our daughter and my grandmother were having issues with keeping weight on at that point.)
i’m not catholic but anything to get my point across! hee!
15 years ago before i gave up god altogether, i gave up red meat for lent and havent had a bite since. Since i didn’t miss it i saw no reason to go back to it once the 40 days ended. However my SIL has given up driving for lent and i’m pretty sure my BIL is going to crash their car into a wall by mid next week.
“Sweetheard, honey, dear, for Lent this year I’ve decided to give up the pleasure of your company. See you in forty!”
Damn, it’s good to be a pagan!