Ain’t it just a bitch?
Not long ago, about a year, in fact, I had a friend diagnosed with breast cancer. I say ‘not long’ because a year in cancer time can either speed by or crawl, depending on your viewpoint. For me, it seems only yesterday that I found another friend at work, sobbing and trying not to make a sound. She had just gotten off the phone with a mutual friend, whom we shall call Ninja. Ninja had breast cancer. This is what my friend told me while valiantly trying to hold herself together. I did not cry, not much. Not because I wasn’t sad, but because I simply did not know what the hell to say or do. To explain, I have to go back a few years to my senior year of high school.
I was just an idiot kid. I thought that good people were rewarded and bad people got what they deserved. I was, if you want to use cute little labels, naive. I was also about to be disavowed of this terribly mis-informed viewpoint. My brother and my sister were both diagnosed with cancer within a couple weeks of each other. My brother was suffering from Lymphnomia – I believe that is how it is spelled, if not, sue me – and my sister had brain tumors. Neither one was a bad person. In my mind, I worshipped them both in my own way.
My sister was always there for me. She would pick me up from school if I was sick, nurse me, come sit by me if I had a bad dream, anything you might expect of a mother. I know, though I never saw her do it, that she always checked me one last time after I went to sleep, because I had a bad habit of pulling the covers over my head and she was afraid I would suffocate. She was fourteen years my senior and dealt well with being saddled with a bratty little sister. Our mother was going through her own health problems, so someone had to handle the kid. She did a more than acceptable job. She stayed with me all through my childhood and is the most prominent figure in my memories .
My brother was out of the house long before I was born, but I remember him because he was always there. He raised arabian horses and he was one of the first I remember bringing home the used and abused animals no one else wanted. He would care for them, try to fix them, love them, and I made a role model of him. I remember many holidays spent watching for one of his restored cars or one of the trucks he drove to appear in the driveway.
I have three other siblings, all of whom are special to me in their own ways. However, each one is an individual to me, worthy of love based on their own merits, which are unique. I could spend hours writing this, dividing them out, but this is not a blog about my crazy, overly large family. This is a post about cancer. It took my brother pretty quick. It was only about two years and he was gone. Forever. No more horses, no more cars or trucks. No more bearhugs or someone to ruffle my hair and ask if I was being good. No more. I was too naive, still, to understand this concept. I was standing at the edge of my life, how the hell could his end that quickly?
My sister was not so quickly felled. She always said she was too mean to let it get her. She said she would live longer than any of us because she was that bad ass. For a long time, I believed her. For one thing, I could not believe that my funny, beautiful, caring sister, the one who taught sunday school and read her bible and always came when I needed her could ever, ever, ever die. But each time the brain tumors came back, it was like some small sliver of her got cut off. It was just a small thing, something I noticed, but tried not to because I still had most of her. Unfortunately, those slivers add up. Eventually, there wasn’t much left of the woman who had changed my diapers and told people in K-Mart… at fourteen… that the baby she was holding was hers. She always did have a great sense of humor, even if others didn’t always get it. About three years ago, I had to open my eyes. I realized that my sister was just a shell and she was, for the first time ever, going to break her promise to me. I had to look death straight in the eye and accept that no matter what I did or how hard I fought, he was going to take my sister away from me. I only believed it in the dead of night, though. In the daytime, I struggled hard to retain the last vestiges of innocence, to deny the possibility of her being beyond my reach.
I don’t know at what point she gave up. I have my suspitions, though. When something just attacks you over and over and over, I think it bleeds your life away in those tiny little slivers and when you notice something is missing for the first time, it has already been gone for a while. I’d been living with my parents and my sister – she was living back home, by then – for nearly nine months. I was waiting for my dogs to get their six months on their pet passports and I was waiting until we had the money to move them. I remember how hard it was to live there and watch her walking around like a zombie all the time, how hard it was to deal with her new quirks and problems. She was so much like a child, then, that sometimes – and I am terribly ashamed of this – I got fed up. I took her places with me, though, and I tried as hard as I could not to hate what she had become. I tried to talk to her every day, even though a simple conversation was nearly beyond her. She would repeat and repeat and repeat the same things over and over, usually well known observations that she had made a thousand times in her life or to tell me – fondly – what a brat I was when I was a kid. I dreaded taking her out of the house; if she saw someone familiar, or someone who just looked familiar, she would start rambling, pointless conversations. If she saw a baby, the whole day was gone. These were just the small things, though. The hard part was having to watch her like a misbehaving child. Here was the sister I looked up to the most. Here was my second mother, the woman I called for advice on men when I got older, the sanest and kindest of us, a fucking adult, and I could not leave her alone in a store. I had to dog her every step because she would pick things up from the shelves, fumble them in her constantly shaking hands, and drop them. I had to appoligize for her to people who couldn’t seem to understand that she was sick – or thought that she should be kept off the streets because of it – when all I wanted to do was get in their faces and tell them to go fuck themselves. It was, without doubt, hard. Not because she fell down sometimes and seemed to forget how to use her legs, would keep them curled under her butt, even if I picked her completely off the floor, but because I knew the way she was and knew that there was no way she would want to be this helpless. Cancer stole not just her health and her life, but her dignity. If cancer were a person, I’d be in prison for tying the bastard down and proceding to torture him in every possible way… in my grandest dreams, this includeds hot pokers, gasoline, and lots of sharp stabbing implements.
Then the day came that I had to leave. My husband was waiting; I was going to visit him for a month. It wasn’t the first time, of course; I’d gone to visit for a couple of weeks before, but now I was going in preperation of moving the dogs and myself back into a life that did not include my mother cooking me dinner and my dad hovering over me like I was a kid again. It was nice, in a way, to have these things. As an adult, it was good to just be able to relax and not think about what I was going to cook or who could let the dogs out while I ran errands. I wouldn’t have stayed, even if I was free to; eventually, getting treated like a kid again gets old. I kissed my sister on the cheek the morning that I left to tell her goodbye.
“Where are you going?” she demanded to know. She always wanted to know, even if I was going out for a run or just out to my car to fetch something I needed. The question always had the ring of desperation and I think she might have grabbed hold and refused to let go if she had the strength.
“To my husband, in England.” I’d told her this about a hundred times by now, but the surgeons had cut out the part of her brain that captured short term memory. She would, eventually, recall what I’d told her, but it could be days or weeks before it sunk in.
“No you aren’t,” she protested and the way she looked at me made me cringe inside. If I could have cancelled that flight, I would have. There was a plea in her eyes, as if my presence was the only thing that kept her holding on. I know that isn’t true; there were others, far more patient and kind than me, to give her that incentive. That look, though, told me that time had grown short. I was coming back, but who knew if she would be there? The entire trip to Chicago, I agonized. I bit my togue when the urge overcame me to just abandon the trip utterly – and even my husband if I had to – and run right back to her. When the flight took off, all I could think about was how wrong this was.
My intuition was right. A few days before I was due to board a flight back to the states, I got that phone call that made me wish I could have traded places with my sister, I would have. Of the two of us, there is no doubt in my mind which one of us was better. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. I was numb inside. Everything anyone said to me fell on deaf ears; she could not be dead. There was no way it could be real; the world simply could not exist without her. Not until I was standing in the middle of Gatwick Airport without my passport – which was sitting on the kitchen table in our new english house – did any sort of emotion make an appearance. As I faced the very real possibility of not being allowed to go home for my sister’s funeral and say one last goodbye, I started to cry. I scared the people so bad they put me on a flight home anyway, reasoning that I was American and my husband had emergency leave paperwork to proove it; there was no way they wouldn’t let me in the country. All of this, of course, was a blur to me then.
I didn’t stop crying for nearly a week. There were times when I bawled like a baby, times when I just tried to keep it quiet, times when all I could do was cry in my head because I’d already cried all the tears I had. All those years knowing this could happen made no difference. It was like saying I could get in a car wreck; I thought if I was careful enough or good enough or just pretended this wasn’t real, then it would go away. It might be a stupid way to approach the issue, but, really, she promised, didn’t she? And when had she ever let me down?
I don’t know how this goes for other people because I am just me, but let me tell you how death went in my fucked up little world. First there was the numb shock, the disbelief that she was really gone. Then there was the anger. It was more like fury, really. I wasn’t angry at her. I was angry at the gods. I’m not Christian; I stopped believing in that particular god before I was old enough to understand what it was I didn’t believe in. Before you flame me, let me make something perfectly clear. I DO believe there is something more than us, something powerful and wise and worth believing in. I do not, however, live my life according to the words of someone I have never met. I am a pretty good person, though we all stumble once in a while, but I am a good person because I believe everyone has feelings and family that cares about them, not because of the threat of Hell, which I also do not believe in. My mother made me the way I am, and I am glad she did. My gods work for me, usually. But when they let my sister die and forced my mother to bury yet another child, I became enraged. It didn’t last long, because when you believe the gods are truly wise, you have to accept that they know what is best, even if you don’t. After the rage faded, then came the regret. It wasn’t just the regret for all the things I wished I’d been able to tell my sister, or all the things I wish I hadn’t. It wasn’t just regret that I hadn’t done everything possible for her or with her. It was regret for the world. If you are reading this and you never met my sister, you will never meet her. And your life will be poorer for it. She made people laugh. She fawned over their babies – even the ugly ones. She would have given you a view of someone who is not just nice because it is polite, but is nice because she really cared about everyone and everything. I mourn not just for the passing of my sister, but for the world; it is a little darker and colder for her absence. I still, to this day, feel that empty hole where she should have been.
Which brings us to that day with my friend. I didn’t know what to say. Ninja is another of those people, those wonderful, rare people, who bring light where they are. She is beautiful, though she does not seem to know it, and loving and funny with three gorgeous little girls. She is one of those good mothers with a strong hold on her kids. She is an angel and she is as near and dear to me as any of my family. Could I choose to be just like her, I would. I have never told her this because it is my way to not say what I feel for my friends, a bad habit that I’ve never been able to break. I’m too shy and too reserved for such verbal displays of affection and coming from me they always sound fake anyway. Only in my writing am I ever so honest, so I hope that someday she will read this. Any words of comfort I could have hoped to give my friend stuck sideways in my throat, blocked by the inability to tell the lie to myself. I kew that someday I might have to stand in a world that knew no Ninja. I couldn’t tell her that would never happen because I knew far too well how easily it could. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to collapse on the floor screaming ‘it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair!’. I wanted to hunt down the cancer fairy, tear his little wings off, and stick his wand in the most uncomfortable orriface I could find. I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. I wasn’t aware that I’d still been as innocent as a child about certain things, or that I’d lost that innocence when my sister died. In that moment I was painfully aware of what was gone and utterly unable to get it back, even long enough to comfort someone else.
I wonder, sometimes, how the best of us can be stricken with such difficult burdens. I am not a great person, as I’m sure anyone can tell. I carry burdens that I have made for myself, carving out blocks of guilt from stone to heft upon my back and torture myself with when no one is looking. It is a mental sort of self mutilation. Did I get cancer, I would assume that I deserved it… and I probably would. I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, and I rarely lie. When my husband goes TDY or gets deployed to some god forsaken armpit of the world, he knows that I am home every night playing video games and that the only other male in his bed is my big, dumb dog. However, I can be many not so nice things. I am vain, on the side of wishing I was prettier, I am selfish at times, I forget everyone’s birthday and anniversary, and I tend to turn into a mega bitch when someone is cruel to me rather than turning the other cheek.
Ninja, on the other hand, has done nothing to deserve such a fate. Neither had my sister or brother or the father of an old friend or any of the others I know suffering – and dying – from different forms of the disease. Most, if not all, of them deserve to be healthy and happy forever. They say cancer knows no discrimination, but, sometimes, it seems like it is purposely aiming for those that make this a world worth living in.
This is not a story without at least one happy ending. Ninja handled her cancer with a sort of grace that made everyone else admire her all the more. When she was sick or tired from the radiation and chemo, she tried to smile anyway. She made jokes about her condition and the things she had to face, just to make the rest of us feel better. When her hair started to fall out, she shaved her head and grinned. She wore her shiny scalp with pride and was not ashamed. She decked her bald head out in pretty scarves and crazy hats and she was still more gorgeous than all the rest of us put together. Now, almost a year later, she is healthy again. She has a new rack, one that will never sag or show the ravages of time. She’ll probably be the only granny ever asked to pose for Playboy. So, I suppose that is the point of this post. To show that there is always hope shining on, even in the darkest of hours. And to remind people that those you hold dearest are not permenent fixtures. Sometimes, people die who shouldn’t and sometimes those who deserve to live actually do. And the rest of us benefit if they make it through. Life can be a bitch, but there are times when I’m just happy to be here, to have the friends and family that I do, and hope that someday I can grow up to be just like them… and that I never again allow myself to believe that there will be time enough later to tell them how much I care.
All typos and errors should be excused; the spellcheck isn’t working and I’ve played around enough with this tonight.
You know that moment when…
That moment when you just want to hit something. This moment comes a lot for me. Some of the time it just comes out of no-where, hits me like a brick and looks for any and all reasons to get throughly pissed and aggressive. Some asshole cut in front of me and thirty odd people behind me at the Co-misery (that is a military version of a grocery store, for you civilians) and the asshole in question isn’t wearing a uniform? Well, most days I will politely point out that 1) he is indeed an asshole and 2) direct him to the back of the line of people. We all are in a hurry to get away from the screaming, shopping cart wielding children. That is no excuse. If his wife is in the hospital deathly ill, that is an excuse, but, then, why isn’t he at the hospital with her? Point proven; he REALLY IS an asshole. Still, I am nominally polite. At least I didn’t hit the guy with that jar of spaghetti. Other times, the rare occasions, I will actually contemplate murder by banana.
There are also the times when I am on the road – here in England that can mean anything from a major motorway to a goat path – and someone cuts me off. Or tailgaits me. Or cannot, for the life of them, figure out how to work a round about. A whole lot of the time, I am not a raging bitch. I will just grab my cigarettes, which I have still not managed to quit, and light one up. It doesn’t make anything better, but it gives me something to do with my hands that does not include rude hand gestures. Other times, I want nothing more than to drive them off the nearest goat path and stab them… repeatedly.
The most usual occurences, however, are not the difficult to figure out. Let me give you an example. This morning, while staring at my unusually full bulletin board, which is supposed to keep me focused on the book I am writing, I realized that I hate this story, my characters, and possibly daisies. Not sure where the daisies came from, but it was clear to me at that moment that all I wanted to do was rip down every index card, pull the board off the wall, possibly eat the evidence that I am an epic failure, then go outside and stomp on every daisy I could find. Hard. This happens about twice a week, maybe more if I’m having a hedgehog moment. My point is, if it makes me this crazy, why do I continue on? I think it is because the level of crazy I have now is nothing compared to the level I would have if I quit.
Finally, I have some advice for new writers. If you are in it for the money and think it looks like a great way to sit on your ass doing nothing for the rest of your life, get out now. Run away. Go be a game tester or one of those guys that sit in a toll booth all day long. It may still be work, but you can sit while you are doing it. For those of you who write because you hear voices or because you find yourself lost and confused when you don’t, just keep at it. You may never get published – if you are like me, you may swallow your plot points before you have the chance to finish – but you will be some level of kinda-sorta sane while you are trying. And go buy a new bulletin board if you happen to eat your current one.
The Wallflower
I sit on the edges of a friend’s party, watching everyone else – the infamous five or six – playing Rock Band 2, while I sip at a coke and vodka. Sipping is all I do and if I get drunk it will only be because I am a lightweight who only drinks when she is with these people because drinking – just like drugs – is something I never fell in love with. I don’t drink because I am afraid of what I will do or say, because I am afraid of making a fool out of myself. More of a fool than usual, anyway. So here I sit, with my drink in hand, watching as everyone, including my husband, goes nuts on their fake, plastic guitars and drum set, as one of my friends screams into the microphone at top volume. I’m thinking she has a very good voice, especially considering that she’s had about five more drinks than me and is holding on to the mic stand for dear life. While I watch them having fun, I start to wonder about myself. I never join in, not unless they threaten to kick me out of the house, and it is not because I don’t want to be here. I love Rock Band night. It is, like, something worth living for.
My reluctance to join in is nothing new. As a child I could be found sitting on the swing or in the sandbox watching as everyone else divided up into teams to play basketball or tag. As a teenager, I went to every single school dance. I never danced unless someone asked me and that happened about as often as I got an A in math. That would be about twice a year. Instead, I would sit up in the bleachers, in the darkest corner. Our school bleachers were possibly the coolest thing in our school, if you asked me. They rolled in and out on a mechanical sliding system, so that, when there was a game, they were available to seat our school, our rival’s school, and the three other schools that came to make notes on how our rivals played the game. My school, of course, was always the pathetic underdog that only won if half the other team got the flu… or ate the brownies in the hospitality room. On the occasions that the bleachers were rolled back, the person at the controls would double check to make sure no-one was lurking under the bleachers making out because no-one wanted to be the one responsible for a spreading pool of blood on the gym floor. During the dances, the chaperones checked under the bleachers about every ten minutes. They always found some couple groping each other in the dark, and there were always detentions Monday to account for it.
I loved those bleachers with their worn, gleaming wood seats. I used to curl up in that corner, the highest I could get, and watch as my friends had fun. It has taken me over fifteen years to examine this particular habit. Some might say I was shy, and they would be right. I was painfully, terrifyingly aware of my own capacity for making a fucktard of myself. The very thought of tripping or getting sweaty enough to smell bad was enough to make me tuck my head in and stare at my hands when any of my friends came up to drag me down to dance. So why did I bother to go? During Rock Band night, while having a fit of introspection – probably due to the vodka and my already fuzzy vision – while curled in the darkest corner of Ari and Dragon’s couch, I discovered the answer that I was never able to give myself in high school while sitting in my favorite corner watching others gyrate and cling to each other with the absolute oblivion that is almost symbolic of teenagers.
It wasn’t something that was unordinary for me. I was the quiet kid, the one others forgot was there. Even in college and my brief, but ultimately doomed, flirtation with becoming a pot head, I was the one sitting slightly outside the circle, watching and listening. I had no witty comments or advice to impart. On the rare occasions I did make a joke or try to join in the fun, I was rarely heard simply because no one was paying attention to me. They never paid attention and this is not some whiny dissertation on what others did wrong, because I never saw it as wrong. I still don’t. In fact, I kind of like it. This was the first realization I had while making long, slow love to my vodka and coke. When I was a kid, if anyone had asked me what superpower I would like to have, the answer would not have been about x-ray vision or flying. I would have chosen to be invisible. Thinking back on the way people treated me, I realize I largely succeeded. Understanding this brings me quickly to the memory of a teacher telling me not to be such a wallflower. At the time I tried to follow her advice and ‘put myself out there’. I ended up, after five minutes of inept squirming to music I could barely make sense of, back in my corner, wrapped in shadow.
Some people, I think, are born to be in the thick of things. They enjoy all eyes on them, making gossip and entertaining those around them. I think there are also people born to watch. I’m a watcher. I sit in corners and record the details. And the shocking realization that came at the end of this line of thought? I like my role. I like what I do. I love to go to dances and watch the couples on the dance floor clinging so close there isn’t a molecule of air between them one second, and breaking up in a flurry of screaming and crying the next only to slip into the darkness beneath the bleachers to make up – and get detention. I like watching my friends singing into the mic, too drunk to stand solidly, but having a blast anyway. I like to be at a party and sit down, listening unremarked to the myriad of conversations that pass by me. I am, I realized, a fucking writer, whether I like it or not (most days I love it) and that watching is just another part of what and who I am. I am the shadow, the ghost you only catch out of the corner of your eye, endlessly and forever the wallflower, and I’m happy with it.
This is a child-free zone
This has become something of a discussion within my family. I am the weird one, the one who is 32 with no children to show for it, the one who held off until it seems unlikely anyone will ever call her anything but auntie. I’ve told them and told them: I might one day adopt a child… preferably one that has finished college and is currently looking for a job.
I’d like to say first that I love children. I really do. I have fourteen nieces and nephews at last count… which could be wrong because they don’t much like holding still long enough to be counted. That said… I am never fucking having kids. This is a simple enough philosophy. I helped out with some of my nieces and nephews – read ‘played mommy while mommy was off doing her military crap or when mommy was just too damned stressed to deal’ – I enjoyed being a part of their childhoods. Once, not so long ago, I even looked forward to the day when I had my own little ball of brat to thrust upon my unsuspecting and oldest nephew (payback is a bitch). Then, one day, that urge simply died.
Okay, well, I know it wasn’t a simple or quick thing. In fact, it must have been coming on for quite some time. Quietly, in grocery stores and Best Buy, in the local Petsmart, at the BX… You see, you can only get hit so many times by a toddler who, for some reason, has been given a shopping cart to play with or see so many children throwing jars of spaghetti sauce in the aisle while having a screaming fit for that sugary cereal with the vampire on the front before you start to question if you ever want a child at all. In my day, driving a shopping cart intentionally into a stranger hard enough to leave giant welts on their sides and legs while screaming ‘OUT OF THE WAY!’ would have been answered instantly and without remorse by my mother.
I watch these parents and think ‘What the fuck?’ all too often. They do not discipline their children. They talk to them in soft, calm voices about ‘proper choices’ and ‘please don’t do that; it’s not polite’. As if they are having a discussion with another adult. And it is fucking contagious. That is what I fear the most. Looking in the mirror after having the damned kid and realizing I’ve become one of those twats who stares at their children with soft, doe eyes while the kid grabs a stranger’s ass and say ‘isn’t he cute?’(this also happened to me and I almost kicked a field goal with the little shit-head. Five seconds later, it would have been his mother). No. It is NOT FUCKING CUTE! It is creepy and uncomfortable because I don’t WANT a goddamned five-year old goosing me. You should not be fucking laughing because your damn child doesn’t even have a damned dick yet and he is already practicing for rapist’s school.
These incidences routinely lead me to ask that same question over and over in the course of a day if I have more than one errand to run… or even if I just spend more than an hour on base. What the fuck are they doing? Seriously? I really want an answer to that question. You do realize that this idiot child of yours is going to turn into an idiot adult and this is YOUR FAULT? You are the damn parent. You are expected to turn this little pile of playdoh into something resembling a human being with limits and disciplines. We have enough drug addicts and thieves and rapists and little Britney Spears wannabes. Grow the fuck up and do something about your kids because the next time I feel that hand on my ass in the middle of the video store, I’m gonna shove a Sponge Bob Squarepants DVD down the little fucker’s throat.
Further more, do not let your idiot child walk out in front of my car because you are in the house sucking off your husband’s best friend while he is deployed. I am sick to death of slamming on the breaks because some five-year old has just tottered out in front of my fucking car. If I hit him, would you even notice?
Chances are, I am no-one’s idea of a good mother, although my dogs and horse are sure a hell of a lot better trained than some of these kids (my dog only sticks his nose in your ass if you happen to be naked and my husband). I didn’t turn out perfect. What the fuck fun would that be? I am violent, sometimes to the point of scaring random people into choosing different routes to work or home when they meet me on the highways and have the bad taste to A) get in front of me and do 30 in a 60 mph zone while talking on their cell phones and randomly leaning back to scream at their kids or B) make an even worse decision and tailgate me while flashing your lights because you are too pussy to pass and I am doing the speed limit. If anyone you have done that to has ever slammed on their brakes, stuck their head out the window and begun a long and detailed account of why you are going to have something – preferably their car – slammed up your ass, then you have probably met me. Congratulations. I am so protective of my nieces and nephews that, in my home town, I am the bitch that will hunt you down and eat out your heart for fucking with them. I have a deviant sexual appetite – which my husband happily keeps in check. I am, in fact, both a noxious hell-bitch and, at the same time, a sweetheart with more self controversies than Micheal Jackson. Still. Even I have enough damned sense to know when a kid is being cute or when they need a good ass kicking (chill out, an ass kicking can simply be taking away the Wii or 360… that might actually hurt MORE than a backhand and is far more effective, I’m sure).
I am (usually) a responsable adult. Because my parents made me that way through multiple years of discipline. Never once was there a whispered conversation in the middle of McDonalds about how I would get an ice cream if I would just, please, this once, not throw a tantrum. Hell, I didn’t even get to go to McDonalds. I was fed at home and I damn well liked it. I have witnessed this, as well as the spaghetti sauce incident, by the way. It was the most disturbing thing I think I have ever seen. Remember that movie ‘Children of the Corn’? This was worse, perhaps because the mother in question looked as though she would gladly beat the crap out of her daughter if someone would just come take the little brat.
This incident took place at the BX, standard entertainment for any of us overseas with little or no money for actually going someplace good. You go, even if you don’t need anything, because you don’t have anything better to do. My husband was in Afghanistan and I went to the BX in the desperate hope that this would stave off a few more hours of the sentence without the usual blank look at T.V. and computer while wondering what the hell I was supposed to do without him. This was the very first time I ever suffered in his absence, because I’m not like that. I’m okay on my own because I have a terribly vivid imagination and enjoy listening to music so loud the windows shake… and it is rare I need anyone besides the voices in my head. Anyway, here I am, minding my own business, when this mother sits down beside me with her devil child (we’ll call her Becky) and her devil child in training (an infant in a stroller). The little girl proceeds to inform her mother that she wants ice cream, not the pizza she had. This was pretty much the conversation.
Becky: I want ice cream.
Mother: After you eat your pizza.
Becky: I want it now (cue the chubby little hand slam on cheap, wobbly table)
Mother: Well you need to eat that first.
At this point, little Becky threw herself on the filthy floor of the food court in a screaming rage, kicking everything, including the baby stroller with her sibling in it, as hard as she could. The infant, of course, starts screaming.
Mother (in very tired, strained, helpless tone): We had this talk in the car, Becky. If you don’t stop that right now, I’m taking you back to the car and we are going home without any ice cream at all.
This affects dear little Becky not at all. I think, in fact, this was a common, well known play. Her screaming does, in fact, get louder. Her face turns a peculiar and interesting shade of puce. Now she is not only kicking and screaming, but trying to spread herself out enough to hit the surrounding tables where people sat, gallantly trying to ignore this charade. I think if I would have offered her mother a knife at that point, she would have gladly slit her own throat and I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to have ear plugs. I wanted to grab her child up off the ground and proceed to give her ass a little of my mother’s logic. But I refrained. Because prison orange does not go with red hair.
Mother: I swear I will take you back to the car.
Becky’s screams have hit that note that only a particularly nasty and spoiled brat can hit – doesn’t matter what age they are, they can hit it every time – at which people nearby go into spastic seizures, heads explode, and other children look around to see if there is anyway they can use this to their advantage by joining in. She may be screaming ice cream, but any words are lost in the high pitch, there is only that endless shrieking.
Mother: Fine, I’ll get your damn ice cream, but you are never coming to the BX again.
Becky got her ice cream and I saw them a week later having this same episode at pretty much the same table. My first response was to jump verbally up and down on the mother, flaming her to anyone who would listen as a spineless sack of shit who ought to have her hole sewn up so that the demons of hell crawling out of it would be unable to escape. Now I still am verbally abusing of this lady, but mostly because she was listening to one of those idiots with a doctorate in child care… yet no children. I never once hit or otherwise touched my nieces and nephews in anger. Yet, at the age of sixteen, I understood how children work. I understood, in short, the theory of manipulation. Every fucking book you can get on raising a child in this day and age is so saccharine sweet it makes me want to puke and not one of them works half as well as giving a child a good reason to fear that his video console is about to become mulch when it gets fed to the lawnmower (never did it. Never HAD to; my nephew just saw that I most definitely would and was very quick to change the attitude). As if there is anything sweet or angelic about children. Anyone who knows them knows they are all little demons or capable of being such. That is not to say I don’t love them (like loves like) just that they have to learn to grow up and NOT be demons. At least, not all of the time.
Several mothers I know employ the time out as a way of pretending they are actually doing something with their kids, as if this is proof enough that they did not just have the baby so they could dress it, feed it, play with it like little girls and their cabbage patch dolls which they then toss aside when it stops being cute enough to draw ooooohhhhss and aaaaawwwwwssss. Time out? Seriously, if my mother had tried that crap, I would have been the boss of our house before I could walk or talk in full sentences. See, time out would not have made me more compliant, it would have given me much needed quiet time to figure out just how to make things go my way. I was a genius among brats, just so you know.
My point – if I have any, and I so rarely do – is that I shall not be having any form of mini me in the near future, which should, if you have read this whole blog, give you the warm fuzzies inside. Because I might raise a demon child of my own, but I might do it on purpose just so I can watch my nasty little viper stomp all over yours. Given that I routinely punched boys and made them cry as a child, and that my sisters are very much like me – there is one even meaner – I would say that this wouldn’t even have to be something I worked toward, but something that was as genetic as the green eyes and red hair every female in my family has inherited except one (she’s a blond, my niece, but she is also the meanest of the lot. She’s like a little pit bull, and OH, how I love her… she is my kindred spirit). On the off chance you got lucky and my child picked up some of its daddy’s softness… well, I’m sure I could still manage to fuck it up somehow. So I’ll stick to that dream of finding a college graduate to adopt so I can have the pleasure of telling it right off the bat “go get your own digs; mommy wants to give daddy a tongue bath”:D
It must be the hedgehogs.
Well, if you are reading this and aren’t one of the five or six people I know, I think you are far too bored and I feel sorry for you. However, I feel the need to tell you what the other five or six already know. I’m not rated for children under the age of twenty-five. In fact, no-one of any age, ever should be subjected to me in a mood, which is, unfortunately, the only time I write blogs. That said, I also feel the need to point out that I have a very nasty mouth and brain damage which will not allow me to filter such petty things. I’m far too busy being annoyed to care, in other words, and Crackhead - one of the five or six – is to blame anyway. Tourettes is apparently contagious.
I digress. Why get a blog? Why bother writing down my thoughts when I know it is only going to be a spew of god knows what when the real writing becomes a fucking impossible task set before me and I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever written that is worth a shit? Because it gives me the warm and fuzzies, that’s why. Because I don’t have to worry about what the hell Betty the blond is doing in that creepy hole or how long it will take me to find a properly large, hairy, vicious monster to eat her all up. Because a blog is the one place where my stupid, weak plot with more holes in it than swiss cheese simply ceases to matter, grammar is not my most active concern, and spelling becomes something I shall think about later. And, finally, I want a blog because I want a place to fucking bitch. If you don’t like hearing what I think about religion, whores, moments of simple stupidity, stupidity of people in general, or hedgehogs, then you probably want to leave now. Like, right now kind of now. Still wondering why my friend count is five or six? Depending who is pissed with me, of course, or who I’ve forgotten to call, that number gets real hard to pin down.
So, I wake up this morning in a state of particular depression which can be linked to hedgehogs. Yes. Hedgehogs. I know what you are thinking. Who gets depressed over hedgehogs. Well, it isn’t really the cute, spiky guys in general that have me depressed, it is their apparent lack of intelligent brain cells. See, I have a dog. He’s a big dog, about 130 pounds worth of rottweiler, and that means he weighs more than me. He is sweet, if a little brain-dead - who says pets don’t resemble their owners – and usually he listens pretty good, so long as I’m not asking him to give me back the hair tie he is currently holding in his mouth and soaking with his copious amounts of spit. He is also a hedgehog addict. He fucking loves the quilled ones, and I don’t mean in an ‘I want to hug you, and love you, and play with you’ sort of way. It is more like a frenzied ‘quit being a spiky ball so I can bite your head off’ sort of way.
Now, this wouldn’t be so bad, not really… if he was a purse dog. Unfortunately, nut bag that I am, I wanted a big dog and big is what I got. So, when he gets something he is not supposed to, it is suspiciously like dealing with Jaws on meth. His eyes get all big and bright while his pupils turn into black pinpoints. He starts to drool in thick, nasty shoestrings – you know, like a freaking bulldog – and he becomes impossible to hold onto. He’ll knock a guy over, even a strong one, and he’ll send a girl like me flying. Enter the hedgehog. They are usually nocturnal, they are practically indestructible, and they are indigenous to England. This wouldn’t pose such a problem if they were not also stupid.
Most animals can smell a predator miles away. They even go to great lengths to avoid them. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, seem to seek out my dog like a kid following the sound of the ice cream truck. My backyard is hedgehog central. I imagine they must have little meetings out there to talk about quill size and length or maybe just to discuss how hard it is to run with those stubby little legs. Whatever. All that matters is this: hedgehogs love my yard.
This said, I am sure it is not too difficult to picture me standing outside in the cold, waiting for my dogs to go potty – we dare not let them out on their own for fear they will be under our fence in ten seconds flat – and listening to Dropkick Murphey’s on my ipod. My first sign of trouble is our smaller, female dog running to get under a bush. She is not addicted to hedgehogs. She has, so far as I can tell, absolutely no interest in such mundane things. What our female dog likes best in all the world is watching her big brother get in TROUBLE. Read that not as ‘little bitty yelled at trouble’, but the ‘I’m locking you in a room for the night and taking you to the pound in the morning’ sort. If she can point out a nest of baby birds to him, she will. If she hears another dog coming down the road – or someone jogging along at a pace too fast for her liking – she will alert him with a tiny ‘woof’ then sit back to watch me scrambling to catch him and throw him back in the house before he jumps the gate. Hedgehogs, though… well those are the best. She knows mommy likes the little brainless balls of spikes, maybe only because they remind her of herself. So if there is one anywhere within our fenced in property, she is bound to find it and point it out – and she does point in supreme fashion. If there was a contest for most perfect point, Luna would win it so long as it was at a hedgehog and Demon was nearby being a big, goofy, oblivious mess. These are the moments of my life.
As soon as I notice her diving into the bush, I head for my dog. Too late. He is off in a streak of barely seen black and gold and within seconds I hear the tell-tale growls and thrashing. Luna emerges and heads right for the door, hops happily in the house with a glance at me to make sure I understand just who is the good child in this household. Uh huh. She leaves me to deal with the now psychotic and hyperactive beast on the lawn.
This is how my rottweiler goes after a hedgehog. First he hits it with his paw. Cue that curl into a ball of needles. He then precedes to bat at it again, I assume, because the first time hurt him and he does not deal well with pain. When that hurts as well, he proceeds to slam his nose down, grabbing the hedgehog in his jaws. Although he is determined, it is impossible for him to hold on. That first time, he always lets go, like he forgot just how much that hurt. The second time, though, usually done when he sees me hurrying across the lawn, he gets hold of that sucker and nothing is going to make him let go. Throughout all of this, of course, he is uttering growls that would make the most determined dumb ass robber head for the next house down the road because he does, in fact, sound like something that crawled up out of hell.
This situation is not that bad, you might say. Eventually he will spit it out. HA. You obviously have no experience with my dog. He will not let it go. He will chase and bat and chew until both paw and mouth are hamburger, then continue doing it because he has no more sense and a severe anger complex, just like mommy. I, being the way that I am - read EXACTLY THE SAME with a few over emotional tendencies - am unable to simply walk away and wait for him to kill and eat the offending creature. Seriously, once we had a fight lasting nearly three hours over this particular fetish of his. It wasn’t until my husband returned home from work that the hedgehog, curled into a state of spiky bliss, was rescued and both the dog and I were returned to the house in a state of bloody, muddy exhaustion.
We have, in recent months, come to a sort of arrangement, by way of desperation. My husband, you see, works nights. So he is rarely able to come home and be the valiant knight rescuing both hedgehog and wife from destruction and madness. Destruction for the hedgehog, madness for the wife. So I have had to find my own way of dealing with this without leaving my dog to turn his mouth to shredded loosemeat and the hedgehog to a pile of quills. First I ask him to give me the ‘ball’ which is a highly effective for getting him to drop plastic balls, rubber tug-of-war rings, or even my hair ties if I offer him a milkbone in return. This, of course, does absolutely nothing. It has the effect of treating a broken leg with aspirin. Next is the threat. “If you don’t drop that ball, I will never feed you again.” This has about the same effect as the first effort, only I feel it. I intend to make him suffer as I am suffering and as a dog that thinks only about ‘feed time’, ‘not time to eat yet’, and ‘okay, who wants a milkbone?’ I figure my best bet is to hit him where it hurts. In the feedbowl which will, from the second on, remain empty. When this fails to make my dog – who only understands about three out of every four commands – drop the hedgehog and run for the house with his little nubbin of a tail tucked, I turn to begging. And pleading. Back to threats. Then, finally, I have to grab his collar and lift him off the ground. If I do this fast enough, he drops the hedgehog out of pure shock. Then comes the fun part. I have to actually get him in the house and behind locked doors. This is a fun-filled trip that usually threatens to spill me on my ass in the mud and back to square one if I am unlucky enough to hit a slippery spot or if I let him get all four feet on the ground for more than a second. I usually win. Because I am a mean bitch like that. Then I go back, get the hedgehog – no worse for the wear – place him outside the gate and tell him to run for his spiky little life, knowing that he, or his buddies, will be back tomorrow. When I return to the house, my arm hurts. I’m wet. I’m tired. I’ve forgotten every plot point I had meticulously planned out for the idiotic book I’m working on, and what is more, I don’t care. I want to go to bed.
In the house, Demon is dripping blood and saliva all over the floors – which are tile, so that part isn’t so bad – he looks at me with those sorry brown eyes and mopes about being beaten once again by the hedgehog. I feed him because he looks so pathetic and I am over emotional. I go to bed and wake up in the morning feeling depressed and exhausted. Every time this happens, I have to think a little. ‘What happened to make me feel this way? What am I upset about? Where have all my happy faces gone? etc.’ Then, after I’ve had my first cup of coffee and seen the bright spots of blood still on the tiles in the conservatory, I remember and I say, “Oh, it must be the hedgehogs.”
This has become my litany for anything that makes me feel as if I’ve eaten a big slice of the life-is-shit cake. PMS has become passe for me since I apparently suffer from it every fucking day of the month. Tire went flat? Must be the hedgehogs. I screwed up and got someone mad at me AGAIN? It must be the hedgehogs. The bumper fell off the car? Why those little fuckers. I tore airman so-and-so a new asshole, called her a twat AND a fucktard before I demanded my god damned ration card so I can go get a fucking pack of cigarettes because I’m not quitting ANY FUCKING MORE? Well, of course it must be the hedgehogs. I suggest you try it too. Now leave me alone to mope; the hedgehogs ate my plot.
