How Screwed Up Is Your Family: V

This guest blog is from Jon. He’s a fellow Kentuckian.


My family is fairly normal, at least the part that came north from Kentucky. The Kentucky half though can look and act like they just appeared on the trailer park edition of "Cops". From meth labs to moonshine we got a piece of all that hillbilly lowlife action. Trailers, mullets, and corn squeezings, oh my. My mom was the youngest of nine, she was the only one not to marry a cousin. No first cousins mind you, but some seconds. I have seen an uncle catch a snake and hold it with his boot while teasing it to try and bite his hand, just for entertainment at the family reunion, which always starts with an area wide visit to the graveyard. Honestly though, we aren't that unusual. My dad's side is the strange one. Lots of serial killer candidates. Strange quiet types who seem to be nice right up until they snap. The lasting memory of them is my ex-wife meeting them at a Christmas event for the first time and getting toilet paper in the gift exchange. It wasn't intended as a joke, I had a cousin who thought it a good and practical gift.


Gotta love a man from Kentucky—the heart of…some place.

And toilet paper, huh?

I would reply to this one, but it seems that our very own Harlequin from Cheshire UK has done it already: “soft toilet paper [is the best]... not that stuff like baking parchment that has a high gloss one side, a fine abrasive texture on the other and edges that you could slice parma ham with... you don't know pain until you've had a paper cut where the sun don't shine....”

Ha! ‘Nough said.

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As always, if you have a "How Screwed Up Is Your Family" story, feel free to sent it to me. I will credit you, or if you're wiser than me, you can go anonymous.

The Life of a Con

Prison, per se, seems to be many things for many people. I’m sure there are scores of people out there that have gone to prison, served the time allotted to them and gotten out to become productive, responsible people. I just haven’t met them. In fact, I’ve never even known one of them.

More so, I’ve known people who have searched for God, found him, just to loose him again once they were out. I’ve known the ones who have “learned how to do good” and can’t wait to get out to just “show everyone the truth” as they have learned it in jail. And I have known the ones who would “rather kill” themselves, than to “go back to that place.”

Of course, within months of being out, they’re all back in again.

You see, Cons have learned one fundamental thing while engaging in their life of crime. And that is how to con people. They con people and the system and anything else that comes to mind.

I’ve learned some stuff over the years dealing with them. Forgive me while I ponder a few things.

1) No one in jail is guilty. No one; ever. It doesn’t matter if they were caught in the act of committing the crime or if their finger prints and DNA were found at the scene. You see the government has it out for the little man, and has plans to get rid of everyone of them. And fingerprints can be planted and DNA, well, that’s just bullshit. There just ain’t no such thang. Oh, this also works for paternity.
2) They WILL pay you back. Every single penny that you give them, either from accepting phone calls or sending packages. You see, there must be some kind of government work system when you’re behind bars that pays them ungodly amounts of money just to pay back the loans that they owe on the outside. This covers the collect calls, putting money on their books—you know, a con has to have funds—and paying off bills.
3) Pictures. They need them, and they need you to send them tons and tons of them. This is to keep a link with the outside world. Being behind bars is madding—of course they knew this from the first few times they were in jail; they just forgot—and they need something to keep them sane. So you must be the one to supply it to them.
4) God speaks to jailbirds. Period.
5) It’s not their fault—now this one goes back to number one, but it deserves it’s own acknowledgement because, well, people just don’t understand. They have had hard lives and IF—and I mean if—they killed someone, it was because they were misunderstood. Jesus, can’t you give a con a break? Yes He can.



You can’t blame the Con really. They’re just doing what comes naturally. Lying. We’re the ones who believe them. They know that most people WANT to believe that people can change, they want to believe that there is something good and worthy inside everyone, even the most egregious person.

Of course before the second or third time someone goes to jail, you can’t tell whether you’re dealing with a simple con or the other one—the one you’ve eliminated from the family tree.

So if you ever go to someone’s home, and you notice there are holes in many of the pictures, where they have cut out whole people, don’t assume they’re a serial killer. They may simply have a lying, penny stealing, picture hog of a con in the family.