My Disappointing Life – Thanks to Pottery Barn

It’s the time of year when Pottery Barn goes out of their way to make me feel bad about my life. All it takes is a little time on the can flipping through their holiday catalogue to remind me how much of a disappointment I am to my wife, children, parents, America and any number of Chinese manufacturers. In no particular order, I am reminded of the following:

• I look fat in sweaters – In Pottery Barn’s perfect world, every dad, mom, son, daughter and friendly, cross-racial and sexually neutral neighbor (who is not thinking inappropriately about your wife or daughter mind you) looks great in a sweater. They are trim, muscular and don’t look like assholes wearing patterns of spruce tree and glazed cookies. I can’t put on a simple gray sweater without looking like I somehow have both a concave chest and floppy man-boobs (moobs) while I am also wearing an inflated bike tire inner tube strapped around my mid section.

• I need to start saving for the dentist – I love my kids, I really do, but if their teeth are supposed to resemble what Pottery Barn children teeth look like, we’re in for some long hours in the chair under the gas.

• My pitbull sucks – Good families have Golden Retrievers. Those dogs are perfectly clean, sit besides the couch quietly, and do not lick their own anuses. My dog rolls in what I think must be rabbit feces but could just be her own poop, licks my face and mouth with a tongue that has seen the dark side of the moon, and bites neighborhood kids.

• I drink like a pussy – Real men have a crystal decanter of scotch on every table in their house. They have it in their living room, dining room and bathroom. In the shower usually. I have no scotch. My wife makes me drink white wine. We don’t even have matching wine glasses from Wal-Mart. Sometimes (all the time) we drink out of plastic.

• I’m poor – If I were rich, I could afford to buy non-sensical crap like a 6-foot plane propeller that apparently you just lean against a wall for some fucking reason, a carpet for Thanksgiving that you swap out for a new one on Christmas and then another new one to celebrate Valentine’s day, or candle holders the size of my children. But I’m poor, so I haven’t replaced the carpet my pit bull shit on two months ago.

Thanks, Pottery Barn. Happy Holidays. I hope you die.

P.S. – Restoration Hardware, you’re on my shitlist too.