Never substitute a life lesson with a CBS Schoolbreak Special instead of a Lifetime tv movie. Mother Gussie tried it once with the episode entitled “Other Mothers.” Instead of learning, the family and I just laughed at the ridiculousness of this gay family and how uneducated and incompetent the writers must have been.

Look at the lesbians! They play tennis! They wear pants! They introduce themselves as lesbians to perfect and total strangers in the early 90s! Bigots be damned!

Oh, and Corey Matthew’s dad was there too.

Christine and I were very limited with our Barbie play time.  We couldn’t have Ken or Skipper because Mother Gussie didn’t want to start a new wardrobe.  We also couldn’t have the Dream House.  Instead, our Barbies’ entire existence existed through a suitcase and the Barbie Office.  We played the crap out of that office.

One afternoon, we went to the closet to retrieve Barbie and her office and found the office to be missing.  It just vanished like something out of Lost.  Fast forward about 10 years later, and we found out that Mother Gussie had thrown the office away one night.  Her reasoning?

“There was a bed in that office.  What kind of profession requires a bed in their office?  Only one kind.”

Apparently Mother Gussie was really concerned about us becoming prostitutes.

One Sunday, Mother Gussie sat us in front of Lifetime to watch the twisted movie where Zack Morris raped DJ Tanner, She Cried No. Mother Gussie’s main take home objective was for us to not take drinks from an open container because you never know who may have slipped a roofie in them.  Oh, and don’t go to frat parties because frat boys are idiots.

As evidenced by my college days, I never took any of these lessons to heart.  I spent the movie trying to wrap my head around the fact that Zack was raping DJ.  Oh, the tangled webs Zack weaved.

Let’s be honest; Zack Morris would have never raped DJ.  Would he would have forgotten about her after about 22 minutes (plus commercials)?  Probably but he would have taken her out for a Max burger and then danced with her by the jukebox first.  Rape though?  No way.

Mother Gussie had us watch the Tori Spelling gem, Co-ed Call Girl. I learned if you’re going to be a hooker, wait until you graduate college. Pimps really interfere with your schoolwork and dating Barry Watson.

Everything is better with Sweet’N Low (or SNL if you’re cool), including wine.

Grandma was a lot like Madame Odie-Louisiana born and bred, only she wasn’t black and was deaf instead of blind.  She always had pearls of wisdom to share when we stayed over.  The most of important one was passed down from her mom,

Don’t forget to wash your pussy-may.

Heed her advice while you’re in the shower today, ok?