(a love letter to boundaries, beer, and the bliss of irony)

You ever have one of those moments where the universe looks down, shrugs, and says, “Let’s see how much patience she’s got left”?

Yeah. That was me this week.

My soon-to-be father-in-law — a man who cracks his first beer before most people brush their teeth and never quite stops — decided to send me a video titled:

“The Dumbest Women in the World.”

I wish I were kidding.

Five straight minutes of a guy ranting about how women are “so dumb they want equal pay for doing nothing.” Five minutes I’ll never get back — unless eye-rolling counts as cardio.

Ah yes. The classic tale of female stupidity. Right up there with “witches float” and “she was asking for it.”

Now, this is the same man who, a couple weeks ago, walked behind me and said, “Yup, I’m looking at your ass.”

So I’m already marinating in that little cocktail of rage and restraint when this video lands in my inbox like a fart in church.

I could’ve ignored it.

I could’ve pretended it was a joke.

But I’ve hit that phase of womanhood where my give-a-damn has an early bedtime.

So instead, I said what every menopausal woman with a backbone and dwindling supply of estrogen-fueled patience would say:

Awe… you found content at your comprehension level — irony isn’t dead.”

And he actually replied with,

“I don’t understand that message.”

Exactly.

That is the irony. Dictionary.com couldn’t have written it better — and I checked, just to be petty.

Irony is sending me a video calling women dumb… and then immediately proving maybe it’s not “women” being dumb.

Cue SpongeBob GIF. Cue “sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Hmmm… you send me a video about how dumb women are, and somehow I misunderstood your intention?

My eyes rolled so hard they nearly hit perimenopause twice.

Listen — I don’t hate the man. I know who he is and what to expect. He’s simple — like a Wi-Fi signal powered by beer and conspiracy theories.

But I am done with pretending it’s fine.

I’m done with sexist “jokes,” inappropriate comments, and trying to just act like I’m “too sensitive”…Dude, I grew up around a bunch of Navy SEALs. Forget sensitive — I’m more trained in verbal combat and sarcasm deployment.

Rick didn’t have his dad around much when he was younger. The man wasn’t exactly what you’d call present. So now, I think part of Rick likes having him nearby — maybe even sees it as a second chance to make up for lost time. And I respect that. But honestly? Maybe that absence was a blessing in disguise. Because the man Rick became is proof that you can grow up without an example and still turn out nothing like the one you were supposed to learn from. His father doesn’t get to act like it’s 1953 and everyone else just has to cope. At some point, “that’s just how he is” stops being an explanation and starts being an excuse. I don’t need perfection — I need boundaries.

Because apparently common sense now requires bullet points…

Here’s the new rule: