So the other day Mae, my 13-year-old daughter came home upset about girls being mean to her at school. I comforted her and explained that "Mean Girl" behavior is just a part of life and that I still had to deal with it as a grown-up. But why do I?

I really thought as we get older they would go away. I was wrong very wrong. Come on ladies,  we have enough to fight against in this world. We already have to deal with inequality, sexual harassment, and P.M.S. - isn’t that enough? Where do you we find the time? Most of my gossiping happens in 5-minute increments between me and my best friends and that's when we can fit it into our ever-changing and busy ass schedules. Yes of course I gossip. Everyone does and you know it. I just keep mine between my oldest and dearest friends. That way, I get the urge out but it stays in my nice tiny group. I do the proper thing - I keep my shameful behavior limited to a small group that has just as much dirt on me as I have on them. We function under the threat of assured mutual destruction.

How am I dealing with the same thing my 13-year-old is? When all I ever do is work, run errands, raise kids and when I am feeling crazy venture away from the porch after Sunset (like you know once every six months). How does the middle-aged Mom with no social life affect your life in any way? Really if you're taking the time to make sure I am ostracized from your “groups” of people you may want to re-evaluate your decisions. I am a horrible choice, I already live like the troll under the bridge. When my fiancee asks me “Do you mind id I go to so and so?” My only answer is “Only if I don’t have to go”

Want to spread rumors about inappropriate comments you think I have made? I’ll save you a step - just come talk to me. I can put my foot in my mouth with the best of them. I am pretty much a run-on sentence of the wrong things to say. Thank God my friends know to ignore my mad ramblings.

As I thought about this, I couldn’t help thinking how many women like me are doing this? Staying home and hoping to live under our cloak of invisibility when we have to socialize. So I thought of some tips for my fellow under the bridge dwellers.

1. Don’t engage. The few times I have done this ,only made it worse.

2. Get out your frustrations the mature way - have your best friend check out their social media and prepare a list of insults for your personal pleasure. This hurts no one and you get the satisfaction of being not the better person in your little private world. If you have a group of overachieving smart asses like me, this will also lend to a lot of healing laughter.

3. If you do have to go out into the viper pit of mean girls, dress up. Hell... get a new pair of shoes or whatever makes you feel good. Don’t let those women know they got to you. Walk in with your head held high and give them the  aloof “Hi, nice to see you again,” then immediately hug the person next to them and exclaim, “Hey yoooooou, boy have I missed your face.” Now the chance you won’t know this person is strong so scoot off real fast before it gets awkward. Don’t worry they will just wonder all night who you are and avoid you.

4. Find a fellow mean girl victim and make sure to bring them to social events where you can cozy up to the bar and take selfies to put on social media. It's sure to drive your attacker crazy.(Look y’all I didn’t say I was above this or more mature I just said I keep it hidden in my shame corner)

5. The final and most important tip - plan a get together with your small group of kick ass ladies. We like to get a pool cabana at a fancy hotel and proceed to drink too much Champagne, offend all the rich people and watch the staff slowly get looks of concern that they may or may not have to have us removed from the building. We have only been asked to leave a couple places. A pretty good average for this loud-mouthed group. To be fair I always warn them "You may want to seat us away from the sensitive folk.” It's their fault if they don’t listen.

Does this prove I am not the better person? Yes. Am I trying to do as little damage as possible by keeping it close to the chest? Yes. I am sure there will be females who read this and are going to call each other and talk about me. Please do. If you can, make the snarky remarks good ones. I mean if you're going to trash me make sure its damn funny. I can kind of appreciate it. Here’s a good one to start with “Girl, have you seen her blog? It’s like an escaped mental patient who stopped learning grammar in the third grade wrote it.”

All this talk about the mean in the world made me want to put something sweeter in it. 

Louisiana Sweet Dough Pies!

A much loved Louisiana dessert. A soft not cloyingly sweet crust filled with almost anything you can dream up. Mainly you find them as hand pies here but they can be made as small open-faced pies or a whole pie. Just adjust your cooking temps.

Today we do my favorites Lemon and Pumpkin.

Next time the meanies come at ya just give them one of these and say “Here you need this more than me, I got sweetness to spare.”