Real Women Don’T Wear Thongs!

By Donetta Sterling

Its a fact. Womens brains were built to deal with more than one thing at a time. We prove this everyday. We wake up, usually an hour to 1 1/2 hours before the guys. We shower, put on face that says, Look at me, husband, kids, job and house and somehow I still find time to put on makeup. Then off to the closet to find just the right outfit t that will have all the girls saying, Ooh, I love that outfit! Perfect hair, makeup, clothes, now its time to wake up the
kids and debate with them for 5 minutes why they cannot have cookies for breakfast. After 10 Were gonna be late!s Enter the vehicle, fight over whos sitting in front, try to sign the paper your daughter forgot to tell you about the night before. Whatever Ive signed, I know Ill probably have at least a week to figure it out before the event.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781468502688

Donetta Sterling

About the author Donetta Sterling: Who is she? You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you will fall in love with Donetta. From small town Heber Springs, Arkansas, you’ll feel as if you’ve known her your entire life. A normal, everyday, woman who got a chance to write a weekly column at her local newspaper and has turned it upside down. Meet a woman who is sick and tired of a society of excuses and tells it like it is. A mother who’s not afraid of admitting making mistakes. Watch as she has learned to cope with the deaths of her beloved father and step father just one month apart. Her first child leaving home and then joining the Navy during the Iraq war. Learn how she has come to grips with growing up poor and the feeling of never being good enough. Although she has made every classic mistake there is, she has overcome and inspires her readers to do the same. See how this twice divorced, single mother of two, has learned to laugh about life and so can you. So put your big girl panties on and expect the unexpected from a woman that will Say Anything!

Book preview

Real Women Don’t Wear Thongs

by Donetta Sterling

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2008 Donetta Sterling. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/19/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4389-1919-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-0268-8(ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

About the author

The Mind of a Woman

Child Abuse -Someone Else’s Problem.

Real women don’t wear thongs

Banished to the Classifieds

Clueless in Atlanta

As The Mood Swings

I dreamed about Daddy last night.

Does this page make me look fat?

Winners Wanted! (Losers usually accepted)

Warning-Embarrassing Photos will be used against you

My Other Father

How to lose 150-200lbs in 1 day!

I killed the blonde

‘Doing good’ can cost as little as 50¢

Workin’ for a livin’

While I was sleeping

Time well spent

What are you waiting for?

All I want for Christmas

Gifts that keep on giving

Grow up

The Year of Donetta

18 years

How to become an abused woman

CAUTION: Woman falling apart

Dear Dad,

American Idiot

She’s Baaack!!

Judge not

Free Squirrel: You pick up

News Flash: Life as we know it has ceased to exist!

Ultimate Fighter

White Line Fever

Pity Party-Presence Required!

The weight of the world rests on two shoulders

Don’t go

Heck-with-work Attack!

Service Engine Soon

Incoming!

You Go Girl!

Graceland or bust!

Let me be

Hammer Time!

Attention all yard sale people

Adventures in remodeling

Attack of the Killer Chicken

FAQ’s

Happy Birthday to Me!

Just Googling around

Looking back

I can’t breathe

My name is Hurl

Don’t get her started

Taking the plunge

The thrill is gone

Louis has fallen and he can’t get up!

What’s a Jeep thing?

Christmas beans

Hey! Can you keep a secret?

Blonde and Blonder

Deadbeat America

5 years and holding on for dear life!

Guilt-Free Vacation

The Meanest Mother in the Whole World lives right here in Heber Springs!

Louis: All Growed Up

Meet Laura

The Slaughter House Rules!

Why you should never put personal photos on work computers

Are you done yet?

Die trying

Food for advertising

Hannah Montana is coming!

Living Proof

Show me a sign

Almost Famous

Are you here?

Did you know Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday this year?

Driving Ms. Lacy

Get em’ hogs! We’ll starve!

Stop the world, I want to get off!

The nicest place you never want to see

House of Horrors-Welcome Home

I won! I won!

In case of emergency, remember the hospital moved

Blonde Christmas

It’s a Revolt!

It’s time to go home

Long live the 80s!

Lorie in Love

Loss of Conscienceness

Movin’ on up

Someone to watch over me

Stuff happens!

The Wanderer

Lost in Tulsa

Remember me

Romeo, Romeo, where art thou?

The pizza guy must die

Yaaaah! It’s Daddy Weekend!

Justifiable Homicide

Doing time

Two days

Grandparenting: when all the rules change

And the winners are….

Living the American Dream

Sun-Times Employees win in the Powerball!

Donetta goes to prison

Suffering from CRS

How to get a blonde to run around in the rain

Goodbye my friend

There goes my baby

I’m Rich!

It’s Official- I’m Old

Swing Batter Batter Swing!

Romantically Challenged

Things your mother forgot to tell you

Life’s tough, but I’m tougher

About the author

Donetta Sterling: Who is she?

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you will fall in love with Donetta. From small town Heber Springs, Arkansas, you’ll feel as if you’ve known her your entire life. A normal, everyday, woman who got a chance to write a weekly column at her local newspaper and has turned it upside down.

Meet a woman who is sick and tired of a society of excuses and tells it like it is. A mother who’s not afraid of admitting making mistakes.

Watch as she has learned to cope with the deaths of her beloved father and step father just one month apart. Her first child leaving home and then joining the Navy during the Iraq war. Learn how she has come to grips with growing up poor and the feeling of never being good enough. Although she has made every classic mistake there is, she has overcome and inspires her readers to do the same. See how this twice divorced, single mother of two, has learned to laugh about life and so can you.

So put your big girl panties on and expect the unexpected from a woman that will Say Anything!

What amazes me most about Donetta Sterling is she actually came out with a book and she doesn’t even READ!

Lorie Thompson

Co-Worker and former friend (She’s jealous of Ms. Sterling’s success, but she’ll get over it)

Donetta Sterling’s short stories are a great combination of hilarious and poignant, taking you from a lump in the throat on one page to laugh-out-loud funny the next. Lots of people write books. But when a smart, sensitive, and funny blonde does it, now that’s a book I want to read!

Randy Kemp

Former Editor

You will find what I call Donettaisms throughout this book. You should have tears in your eyes with each page, either from laughing or crying. She speaks from the heart and from what mind there is.

Louis Short

Co-worker

The Mind of a Woman

It’s a fact. Women’s brains were built to deal with more than one thing at a time. We prove this everyday. We wake up, usually an hour to 1 1/2 hours before the guys. We shower, put on face that says, Look at me, husband, kids, job and house and somehow I still find time to put on makeup. Then off to the closet to find just the right outfit that will have all the girls saying, Ooh, I love that outfit! Perfect hair, makeup, clothes, now it’s time to wake up the kids and debate with them for 5 minutes why they cannot have cookies for breakfast. After 10 We’re gonna be late!’s Enter the vehicle, fight over who’s sitting in front, try to sign the paper your daughter forgot to tell you about the night before. Whatever I’ve signed, I know I’ll probably have at least a week to figure it out before the event.

Finally, you’re at work. Thank God! Now we have only one boss to please. Spend 8 hours trying to change the world, all the while making a mental list of things we need to do and what we have to pick up at the grocery store after work.

At the store we are trying to remember if I used the last of the toothpaste, will we have enough toilet paper to last until Thursday when I have to come back to pick up pictures from being developed because I haven’t got a lot of money today. All the while telling the kids why they cannot have all the things they are trying to throw in the buggy. Finally, you’re checking out and knowing you have forgotten something and you’re looking around hoping something will spark your memory as to what it is. It’s your turn to check out and you give up because obviously it wasn’t that important or you would not have forgotten it. You’re out the door pushing your buggy, wondering what the heck you’re going to make for dinner while being a safety guard trying to get your children safely to the car.

HOME! I’m starving Mom! What’s for dinner? Can I have a snack? And in this moment you still haven’t figured out what you’re making for dinner so you’re calculating if it’s okay for them to snack without spoiling dinner. Mom! Are you listening?" So you give them a snack so they will go away for a few minutes.

As you unload the food, you still can’t remember what you forgot at the store. It’s nagging. But push it aside, again, if it were important you would have remembered. Cook, do dishes, some laundry in between, homework, baths, teeth brushing and story. Almost done and it’s only 9:00 pm. You think, I might actually have a few minutes of down time! What did I forget?

It’s 10:00 pm and you would love to stay up just to sit and do nothing but you know in your mind 6am will come early enough. Your husband, who has been in bed for an hour or two watching TV, decides it’s Amore’ time. Your thinking, You are kidding me!! I finally get a chance to rest and now you want me to do one more thing!!! But if you stop and think about it for a moment, you love this man and he’s is so important too. Then you remember…..tampons. Goodnight!

Child Abuse -Someone Else’s Problem.

We all feel bad when we hear how harshly a child has been treated. We sympathize and say a little prayer to comfort the child and family. We cannot imagine how parents or anyone else can do such bad things to kids. We get angry and wonder why no one saw it coming, somebody should have had a clue that something like this would happen. We would have reported them. We would have done this or that. In our minds we play armchair Judge, Jury and Executioner. We talk about, if it were our child what we would do. The more we discuss it, the larger the problem becomes and we begin to see it as impossible. I am not the person for this job, you think to yourself as you push it aside and go back to life as usual. Well, at least you tried.

I’m just as guilty as the rest. But what do you do when you get the call to stand up and step in? What do you do when the voice on the other end is asking if you will come get them because their parents have beat them up? You go! You go as fast as you can to wherever they are. You pray the parents won’t find him first. You pray that maybe it’s just a few bumps and bruises. You know if you can just get there in time, he’ll be okay. You arrive to find a red, tear filled face that’s still trying to figure out why his parents do this to him. The strangers, who have taken him in, still have the look of horror on their faces. Are you the one he called? they ask fiercely protecting him. I am," I say. You’re watching all the way home, you’re afraid of being seen by the parents of this child. If they see him, they will take him back before you can get to the police with him. Now you feel like the criminal. After speaking with the police, you find out the cold hard fact that the parents are not only not going to jail, but they can come and get their child back at any time.

After being furious, that kicking a dog would probably get you into more trouble than beating your kid, you realize, you have to keep him out. You are mentally counting your money, rearranging the bedroom situation, figuring out what his schedule is going to be and how to adapt to make it work into yours. Do I want to be involved? No, I wanted to go happily along with my life just the way it was.

Like most of you I’ve got plenty of my own problems. I don’t need anymore. But who’s going to speak up for this child and say, Hey this is wrong and I’m not letting it continue. You may never get that call, but you may witness something or know something is just isn’t right, please get involved. You may be their last hope.

Real women don’t wear thongs

Don’t you hate those women on TV and in magazines who walk around the house in those slinky little outfits? What about the ones they have walking down the street in some tight t-shirt and cut-offs and the wind is blowing through her hair. I know they are the reason that my big 2XXL t-shirt, with the big stain on the front, doesn’t seem quite as appealing as it once was. I know guys love this but they are not the most sensible things in the world. Have you ever tried to get breast milk out of silk? Give me my big t-shirt anyday. Why don’t you dress like that? is a question I’m sure most women have been asked at some point by their fellow. Here are the answers I have found to be true in my life. He gets jealous when I dress like that. He doesn’t want other men looking at me like he is looking at the women wearing those things and when he finds out the price of those little hot numbers, he decides he can live without them. Young girls are now concerned with their underclothing just as much as they are with their outside clothes. Maybe it’s just me but I’m not exactly thrilled when my teenage daughter, (name withheld to avoid total humiliation), shows me something that could have gotten you arrested for in years past. Thongs have become more popular than ever. Who thought of these things? And this is payback for the jock strap? Every woman has probably bought a pair and after wearing them for 10 minutes figure out, this could be all it takes to send them over the edge. We ought to be entitled to a refund as well as something for pain and suffering! I’m wondering who decided this was the next sexist thing for us to wear? I know there are a handful of women out there who swear by them but frankly I don’t get it.

Men should just get over it and accept what we choose to wear. They shouldn’t be so picky about what we wear. We accept them, holey boxers and all!

Banished to the Classifieds

Well, I’ve finally done it! After only 3 columns, I guess I went too far with the thong article. So here I am, banished to the classified pages. Completely away from all the legitimate columnists. That’s okay though. I like it back here. After all, I am the one who builds and designs these pages. Yeah, I think I’ll like it just fine. For one thing, I won’t have to compete with all the rest of the columnist for your attention. Here I can be the center of the universe, the Queen. Hey, I kind of like that idea!

Truthfully, we normally have a more wiggle room back here, so here I am. I am truly thankful to be able to write this column no matter where it goes in our paper. Thanks to Randy Kemp, our editor, and David Lee, our publisher, for giving me a chance.

I have been after Randy for quite some time for my own column. Finally he said one day, Write something. Well, it was put up or shut up. I thought at first a gossip column would be so fun but I quickly realized, in this town, any gossip would be old news by the time the paper got printed (mainly because I can’t keep my mouth shut). A relationship column! Yes, that is what it should be. But all of my coworkers said I should be the last one handing out advice. Doesn’t experience count for something? Listen, if you ever need some advice from a twice divorced woman, on the verge of a nervous breakdown most times, who probably should be on some type of medication, please email me at [e-mail].

They say, Write what you know, and judging on how short my columns are, one might think I don’t know much. But I know about God, marriage, kids, family, friends and how they should always be the most important things in life. I know about falling away from God, divorce, a threat to your child, fights with family and friends and losing a parent without any warning.

No, I don’t have a degree. Just lots and lots of experience.

Clueless in Atlanta

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I could not believe my good luck when my cousin, Joyce Langley, ask me to go to Atlanta, GA with her this last weekend. She was going with her union for a rally and her husband, at last minute, decided he didn’t want to go. We both thought we were going to rally for more money and benefits for her and her co-workers that work for the Health Dept. A weekend getaway with virtually all expenses paid, traveling on a plush chartered bus with an open bar, a chance to participate in our political system and they were giving us free t-shirts! Jealous?

We talked all week about how fun it was going to be, what we would wear and how we were leaving all troubles at home. Look out Atlanta, here we come!

We traveled to Little Rock to get on the bus. It seemed everyone else was running late. We noticed there was a lot of African-Americans showing up. No problem, after all we are in Little Rock, we knew the other Caucasians were just around the corner. (our town was mainly white) I must say how nice everyone was to us. As they would walk by us they would say, We are so glad you are here! Thank you for coming. We would look at each other wondering why they are so grateful. After all, we wanted to help the cause too. My cousin, who has been at her job for over 13 years, should at least have a paid vacation.

As the 2:00 departure time passed, we were still standing by the car waiting for the white people to show up. Finally one did. We looked at each other with relief. We just knew the rest would show up any minute now. We immediately talked to her. Now, what is it exactly we are rallying for? I asked. The right to vote. she said. Who’s right to vote? asked Joyce.

The blacks and minorities of course. It’s the 40th anniversary of the right to vote. We are rallying because there are some parts of the bill we are afraid the President will not pass. We watch her walk away before we look at each other in horror. What the heck are we going to do? I whisper as everyone is loading on the bus which already had out luggage on it. I don’t know." she said. Somehow our carefree trip had turned into a Civil Rights Movement! We were already there and do agree they should have the right to vote. We decided to go.

As we pulled out on the bus, we looked at each other and busted out laughing.

After a 12 hour bus ride with one lady who talked nonstop, we arrived at the hotel at 2am the next morning. We had to sleep and be back out of the hotel by 6:30 in order to have breakfast at a local church. After eating, we were back on the bus escorted by the police and a discussion as whether the KKK would be there. Hearing the National Guard was going to be on hand somehow didn’t make me feel any better though.

Were we scared? Absolutely! I was trying to figure out what we the best position to be in during the march. Marching next to the street, we were leaving ourselves open for people to throw things at us, in