If you think concoction is a dirty word, if you can’t choose a cucumber in a grocery store without blushing, if you can’t bring yourself to use the plural form of ball, if you hate the name Regina but like the name Virginia, if you won’t date Roger from work because then you’d have to tell people he’s a pianist, well then you’re a Pissy Pants.

And if you can’t say the word country without getting woozy, if you refuse to go to cocktail parties, and can’t stand anything with nuts in it, you’re a Pissy Pants.

But it doesn’t stop there. It’s not just some internal conflict you keep to yourself. You really want to teach all of us a lesson, don’t you. You prefer words like restraint, order, and shortbread. You think it would be better for all of us to be like you. We’re all a bunch of hippies living in a commune having sex five times a day with anyone who’s got a joint to smoke because we’re not like you. Yeah, you actually had sex a couple of times, laid back, looked at the ceiling and thought of the Queen. That’s how you got your kids, who are quickly developing all of your neurotic tendencies. Now, you think everyone should hang up their sex gloves and raise kids outside of the city in cookie-cutter houses surrounded by 20-ft. stone walls for their own protection.

Pissy Pants is just a hop, skip and a jump from your work space or any other place you’d like to avoid her. She has a lot of self-imposed stress and she wants to make her stress your stress. She’ll stop you in the hall and talk to you (not with you) in that anguished tone of voice she always uses, and forty-five minutes later you’re looking for a thin plate-glass window to throw yourself against. Because everyone knows that her agenda is much more important than everyone else’s agenda. Everyone has to stop what they’re doing because Pissy Pants is having one of her days (again? really? wow, I’m shocked!) And we all need to band together and help her out. If you confront Pissy Pants (and believe me by the time you confront her you are a ticking time bomb, your whole body shaking with fury and you’re trying really hard not to use the unavoidable word fuck(ing) in every sentence) you know Pissy Pants has her hand inside her purse, clutching her cell phone, 911 on the screen, and bony finger poised over the Send button. Next day you’re in your superior’s office because they want to know why Pissy Pants came in crying about how she doesn’t feel safe in her workplace anymore.

Pissy Pants makes all women look bad. Why does my life have to suffer for the incompetency of others? Pissy Pants majors in deliberate incompetency. This is her focus: I’m a woman so I get to be weak and use this to my advantage so let me go and nab a husband and give him some painfully-delivered kids and never let him forget it and stay home, maybe get a part-time job, but then quit because I suddenly have chronic fatigue syndrome and complain because he goes out and plays hockey twice a week with the guys. Honey, you’re lucky if that’s all he’s doing. At least he’s not at Cheaters telling some stripper he loves her and paying her rent somewhere. Not that she’d need him to pay her rent because she makes twice as much as he does.

Few things make Pissy Pants happy. One thing she looks forward to is when Oprah’s picked another book for her to read. Can’t wait to discuss it with her book club over chips and homemade dip and cut-up veggies. "No cucumbers please, they hurt my ears..."
What?
Pissy pants has a Night. That’s the night in the week that’s hers, but we all know that every night of the week is hers. Nobody can tamper with that night. If you do, you will spend the rest of the month asking her if she’s ok. "Are you ok, Pissy Pants?" and she’ll answer meekly, "Oh, what’s that? Yes. I’m ok...I mean..I will be." Oh for fucking crying out loud!

You’ve got to walk on egg shells around this one. Something happened to her. There’s a past. And even though she just met you/just started working with you, you owe her. You are in the same category as everyone else around her. The category is called "Maker-Upper." Yup.

You can’t inconvenience her ever. She’ll balk at extra work, but complain you’ve made her look bad by staying late to finish up what should have been her job. She won’t come in early for a meeting because that’s her family breakfast time. If she does come in early for a meeting, she’ll feel faint half-way through the morning and be on the phone by lunch time crying to her husband who’s knee deep in shit at work doing the best he can, and asking him to come and pick her up because, well, she could take a cab but would probably have a fit in the car, distract the driver and end up in an accident. The bus??!! Public Transit?? My God, have you forgotten the transfer incident??..

There’s more. So much more, but so little space. Hope to be your happy, visiting shebytch some other time...

Sandra Di Zio is a poet and spoken word artist who has performed/featured at the Rivoli, the Renaissance Café, Free Times Cafe, the I.V. Lounge, the Victory Café, The 360, on i, Nik Beat’s CIUT 89.5 FM radio show, and in the literary magazines, Labour of Love and Echolocation. She has been a featured poet at Nik Beat's Words and Music, at Cryptic Chatter, and is an original Siren, appearing twice in the ever-popular Night of Sirens series. She has collaborated with other artists on songs and poetry, played host on the open stage, and released a chapbook of her collected poems, entitled Presuming Agent Joy, in October 2003.
Webpage: http://sandradizio.coffeehouse.ca