Balls of Steel

There are lots of words for it. Chutzpah, brass, nerve, gall (my mom's favorite -said forcefully while exhaling cigarette smoke), stones, audacity, but my favorite is "balls". As in "he's got balls the size of basketballs." It means that someone dosen't feel ridiculous for doing something that would make most people cringe in shame. They're shameless. And the less shame they feel, the bigger the balls.

Women can have balls. And not just Madonna. They're not real physical testicles, of course, but there will be examples of blatant shamelessness which are nevertheless ball-like. Sarah Palin has balls. She went around telling the world that the President wanted to establish death panels when she had to know it was a huge lie.

Although I cringe at the mere mention of his name, Rush Limbaugh has balls. He used the word "retard" over and over when the aforementioned Alaskan Airhead was railing about its use. That guy is such a piece of work that he probably needs a hand truck to cart his balls around. Now, having balls is not the sole purview of Republicans (although they are into teabagging) nor are they always a negative thing. President Obama has balls, the rest of the Dems, not so much. Spines either.

But I digress. Today, I was talking to my Afghan friend and she told me a story about her ex husband. I thought about it later and I realized that "Geez - that guy has some huge ones -another hand truck user..." Apparently, this jerkoff called her eldest son (his kid, too) to sing my friend's praises as a mother. "That's funny,"I said, "I thought you were a whore." She said "I know, I was a bitch, too, but now I'm a great mother. And I'm smart, too." " Cool," I said "What did he want?"

"Well," she said (and here's where the balls come in )" He's married another woman in Afghanistan and she has a two year old boy (his kid, too) and he thinks she's too stupid to raise him well." So he wants my friend to come to Afghanistan where he will sign the paper so she can adopt him and raise him well, like she raised her three other kids. He said after all, if her kids had babies she'd help with them, so why not?

I stood there listening with my mouth open and my eyes blinking over and over. I said "He's shameless!" She agreed. Then we started laughing. Well, we took about thirty seconds to feel sorry for the baby, and then we started laughing again and I told her to tell her son to say that he asked but she hasn't stopped laughing long enough to answer him.

She said" I'm going to tell him Sure, I'll do it - as soon as he deposits five million dollars into my bank account - I'll come and get the baby." This is the guy who used to beat the crap out of her on a regular basis, My friend's ex may need a hand truck to wheel his balls around, but Lord,she needs a freakin' moving van!