Bitching

I met a friend at the library today for Children’s Story Time and spent an entire hour afterward standing and talking to her in the lobby. Actually, talking is the wrong word for it. What we were really doing was bitching.

We bitched about everything and I do mean everything. We started out bitching about our mutal friend’s jerk husband, then bitched about the bitchy moms in our former play group before proceeding to bitch about how another friend’s playgroup was disbanded because of too much bitching. After that, we bitched about the potential for bitching in our new play group, which starts up next month.

Of course, bitching tends to increase exponentially, so it wasn’t long before we’d moved on to Family. We bitched about our mothers and I bitched about my dad. I bitched about my brother and my friend bitched about being an only child. My family being more prone to dramatic and staggering acts of cruel symbolism than hers, I launched into a bitching soliloquoy detailing the wheres and whens and whys and hows of all the rotten things that they’d ever done to me. My excellent friend listened sympathetically and bitched back when she could get a bitch in edgewise, but after two weeks with the in-laws and a third week nursing a salmonella-stricken 12-year-old back to health, I was in rare form. I kid you not, I needed a milk crate to bitch atop, for my bitchin’ attracted a small crowd of folks who pretended to be standing around, but were so obviously listening. And let’s face it, artful and impassioned bitching is something we’ll all make a fake cell phone call to hear.

Out of breath and a little sweaty, I realized I had done enough bitching for one day. I sheepishly bid my friend a fond farewell and hoped I hadn’t scared her out of showing up to meet me the next week. I felt a little guilty about exposing her and her baby to prolonged bitching, but what are friends for, right? I felt purged and clean and ready to find something new to bitch about.

Besides, that’s what women do, when it comes right down to it.

We bitch.

Men bond by hunting and watching/playing/discussing sports together. Women bond by bitching. Friends and enemies are determined by the astoundingly simple Bitching Test. If you can agree on things to bitch about, you likely have found a great friend. If, on the other hand, you find yourself bitching about the very woman you’re bitching to, well, danger Will Robinson.

Tonight, I wrote my friend an e-mail, thanking her for letting me go on a bitching spree. I was even inspired by her kindness to call another friend of mine and listen to her bitch for a good 30 minutes about her upcoming Move to Another State.

Because one good bitch deserves another.