So, the electric bill is almost a thousand dollars too. I’ve decided to forgo any more drama, and just shoot myself in the head. Then I think, no, this is my husband’s fault for letting me marry into this family, and I decide, “Hey, I’ve got a .22 and a shovel, why not?” What do you think? Should I?
Hopeless was let out of jail, and everyone was awaiting her call so that we could pick her up. The girls were at my home for the weekend, and we all waited patiently by the phone hoping for the call from her. Every time the phone rang, they’d jump and run to it. I’d answer and it wouldn’t be her. Then finally she called. I nodded to the girls that it was their mother (calling collect—but I didn’t even care—she was getting out), then I noticed that the operator said Atlanta.
What?
As it turns out, Hopeless was released from our county jail, but was immediately transferred to Atlanta, where she had a warrant for her arrest for stabbing Fool in the back. Not kidding!
I had to tell the kids that their mother would not be coming home to them. That didn’t go over so well. I would have rather stabbed myself in the eye with a spoon, than tell them that their mother was not only still in jail, but she was now further away then she had been an hour ago.
Not funny.
#
So, Mrs. Debra decided to pay the electric bill. I suppose the kids can go without food, or water, but the lights, uh uh, no way. That’s an abomination.
Where does she get the money, you ask?
Well, let me tell you about another little scam.
It seems that if your child is deemed crazy, then you can get all kinds of money for it. Not kidding. Schizophrenia, ADD, breaking bottles over your siblings heads…that all counts.
So, Hopeless keeps having these children, and then has them declared mentally ill, and racks up the dough. Just like the food stamps, they give you this neat, little debt card with all kinds of money on it. Guess, they don’t want people to be embarrassed by cashing a check or having food stamps. And the card is welcome in thousands of locations around the world. Un huh.
So, just as we get that problem solved—the lights will remain on—another one comes up... Isn’t that always how it happens?
Fool decides all of a sudden that he’s been wronged—has he ever been right?—and breaks into the house while we’re giving HIS kids a bath. Never guess what he wants. Come on. Guess.
Okay, we’re gonna make this a game—someone might as well get something out of it. The person who guesses correctly what Fool steals out of that house, gets a copy of Dark Dreams, with features stories by yours truly, Zane , Tananarive Due , L.A. Banks and many more. Send your entries to me at chesyaburke@chesyaburke.com
#
Remember everyone, keep sending in those “How Screwed Up Is Your Family” stories. I’ll post them. If you like, you can remain anonymous, while still getting things off your chest. Let me know that I’m not alone.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
I Had Just Missed the Paramedics and a Rush of Cops...
If you’re just joining me, go here and scroll down to “The Beginning of a Nightmare.”
My mother in law tires of Hopeless’ children real fast. It seems that they have some serous problems. Who knew? So she sends them back to their house, with their oldest brother, Don. A few days later, she realizes that children probably shouldn’t be there alone—neighbors are complaining—and goes to the house to watch over them.
I also need a break, so I take them back home, with Miss Debra, too. I feel really bad about this at first. But then, that night, I got decent sleep, for the first time in over a month, and I got over it. Real quick.
The next day she calls me and asked if I could come over, ASAP. When I get there, the guy from the water company is there, bent down doing something to the meter. I ask him, “Are you shutting it off.”
He stares at me with this expression that says, ‘are you kidding?’ but he said, “I removing it.”
Removing it? Removing what? I find out later that there’s a meter in there that they remove only in extreme cases (this, I think, was an extreme case). I walk back up to the house, looking back every couple of feet, making sure that I wasn’t what the guy was hoping to remove. Seriously, I felt like I had been caught doing something wrong, by just being there…but it got a hell of a lot worse when I went in the house.
Don is standing there, a big, white bandage wrapped around his head, over and over again, blood was seeping through the cloth. His eye was completely covered with the dressing, which binded half the boy’s head.
“What in the world happened to you?” He just kind of stands there looking stupid.
Mrs. Debra runs—I mean runs; you have never seen a large, old woman run like this—down the stairs, toward me. “It was Jon. He’s crazy.”
Well, as it turns out, Don and Jon had gotten into a fight, and when Jon started loosing—as all creeps are wont to do—he got mad and broke a glass bottle over his brother’s head. Evidently, I had just missed the paramedics and a rush of cops asking all kinds of questions. Jon had left the house and no one knew where he was.
Just what you’d do in that situation, right? I mean think about it; your mom’s in jail, your grandmother’s sick, there’s no water in the house, and the police has, only a few weeks before, threatened to take you away. And what do you do? You break a bottle across you brother’s face, because you don’t like what he said. Yeah.
I don’t know how they managed to get out of that one. If you could package luck in the bottle, they would own the paten. I swear…
So, Miss Debra asked me to take her to the water company—as if I’d say no—and so Don got the bill. I took one look and almost passed out. $1049.62.
“What?” I could have had a baby right there on that floor, and not only wouldn’t they have noticed there was one more child, but I wouldn’t have been more surprised.
The water company refused to take anything less than what they were owed. It seems that ol’ Hopeless and Fool had been in that house for six months and hadn’t paid a single water bill. Not only that, but they hadn’t paid a bill from their previous house, and somehow it all caught up with them. Right now; while I have to try and figure out what in the hell to do.
So, what did we do? We started carting water, from my house to theirs. We brought lots of water, too; in gallons, bottles, jugs. All kinds of water. But water’s one of those things that you just don’t realize how much you use it, until it’s gone. Doing dishes, the clothes, brushing your teeth, washing your ass, flushing the toilets!
Also, just so you get the idea: there were 11 children and one adult in that house.
So, then we started carting children over to my house for baths.
But no worries, it gets better, because, just as I think it can’t get any worse, the electric bill arrives.
My mother in law tires of Hopeless’ children real fast. It seems that they have some serous problems. Who knew? So she sends them back to their house, with their oldest brother, Don. A few days later, she realizes that children probably shouldn’t be there alone—neighbors are complaining—and goes to the house to watch over them.
I also need a break, so I take them back home, with Miss Debra, too. I feel really bad about this at first. But then, that night, I got decent sleep, for the first time in over a month, and I got over it. Real quick.
The next day she calls me and asked if I could come over, ASAP. When I get there, the guy from the water company is there, bent down doing something to the meter. I ask him, “Are you shutting it off.”
He stares at me with this expression that says, ‘are you kidding?’ but he said, “I removing it.”
Removing it? Removing what? I find out later that there’s a meter in there that they remove only in extreme cases (this, I think, was an extreme case). I walk back up to the house, looking back every couple of feet, making sure that I wasn’t what the guy was hoping to remove. Seriously, I felt like I had been caught doing something wrong, by just being there…but it got a hell of a lot worse when I went in the house.
Don is standing there, a big, white bandage wrapped around his head, over and over again, blood was seeping through the cloth. His eye was completely covered with the dressing, which binded half the boy’s head.
“What in the world happened to you?” He just kind of stands there looking stupid.
Mrs. Debra runs—I mean runs; you have never seen a large, old woman run like this—down the stairs, toward me. “It was Jon. He’s crazy.”
Well, as it turns out, Don and Jon had gotten into a fight, and when Jon started loosing—as all creeps are wont to do—he got mad and broke a glass bottle over his brother’s head. Evidently, I had just missed the paramedics and a rush of cops asking all kinds of questions. Jon had left the house and no one knew where he was.
Just what you’d do in that situation, right? I mean think about it; your mom’s in jail, your grandmother’s sick, there’s no water in the house, and the police has, only a few weeks before, threatened to take you away. And what do you do? You break a bottle across you brother’s face, because you don’t like what he said. Yeah.
I don’t know how they managed to get out of that one. If you could package luck in the bottle, they would own the paten. I swear…
So, Miss Debra asked me to take her to the water company—as if I’d say no—and so Don got the bill. I took one look and almost passed out. $1049.62.
“What?” I could have had a baby right there on that floor, and not only wouldn’t they have noticed there was one more child, but I wouldn’t have been more surprised.
The water company refused to take anything less than what they were owed. It seems that ol’ Hopeless and Fool had been in that house for six months and hadn’t paid a single water bill. Not only that, but they hadn’t paid a bill from their previous house, and somehow it all caught up with them. Right now; while I have to try and figure out what in the hell to do.
So, what did we do? We started carting water, from my house to theirs. We brought lots of water, too; in gallons, bottles, jugs. All kinds of water. But water’s one of those things that you just don’t realize how much you use it, until it’s gone. Doing dishes, the clothes, brushing your teeth, washing your ass, flushing the toilets!
Also, just so you get the idea: there were 11 children and one adult in that house.
So, then we started carting children over to my house for baths.
But no worries, it gets better, because, just as I think it can’t get any worse, the electric bill arrives.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Just How Screwed Up Is Your Family: Part II
Now I have a little something from our friend Harlequin from Cheshire UK:
My dad could build and use nunchuku. He was a scary individual when it came to MacGuyvering stuff, and being exceptionally good at using it. Spent a little to long 'up country' in what became Yugoslavia to be classed as 'normal' and too long escorting prisoners at Nuremberg not to be a little stir crazy. But I love him anyway.When his mind started going, it did make him a dangerous man to know. He took apart three policemen with a disassembled radiator in the evaluation home I put him in. I did warn the owners. They didn't listen. 76 year old man, quietly spoken who smiled a lot and looked frail... nothing to worry about. WRONG!!! They were lucky there wasn't a death, and Dad wouldn't have been the fatality. That was why I signed on off on them drugging him most of the time, which aggravated his condition. Then signed off on 'By any means necessary' when he started refusing the meds. Otherwise, they could have been liable for assault. Before they REALLY kicked in it was taking four 'non lethal restraint' trained nurses to administer an injection.
Most of his family seemed to die that way... earliest onset is 50. I'm 41. I watch my brother (who's 49) and he watches me. Our mother watches us both. My continuing depressive illness has been a real cause for concern to them for some time, but they cope. The reason neither my brother or I have had kids is because we wouldn't gamble with another person's life. If it was normal odds, then yes, but those who don't learn the lessons of history WILL be doomed to relive them. Statistically, looking at the metabolic oddities that characterized my dad, neither Lance nor I will have a 'good' death (if there is such a thing) And I have to try and avoid morbid fear every time I have a minor lapse of short term memory...
My dad could build and use nunchuku. He was a scary individual when it came to MacGuyvering stuff, and being exceptionally good at using it. Spent a little to long 'up country' in what became Yugoslavia to be classed as 'normal' and too long escorting prisoners at Nuremberg not to be a little stir crazy. But I love him anyway.When his mind started going, it did make him a dangerous man to know. He took apart three policemen with a disassembled radiator in the evaluation home I put him in. I did warn the owners. They didn't listen. 76 year old man, quietly spoken who smiled a lot and looked frail... nothing to worry about. WRONG!!! They were lucky there wasn't a death, and Dad wouldn't have been the fatality. That was why I signed on off on them drugging him most of the time, which aggravated his condition. Then signed off on 'By any means necessary' when he started refusing the meds. Otherwise, they could have been liable for assault. Before they REALLY kicked in it was taking four 'non lethal restraint' trained nurses to administer an injection.
Most of his family seemed to die that way... earliest onset is 50. I'm 41. I watch my brother (who's 49) and he watches me. Our mother watches us both. My continuing depressive illness has been a real cause for concern to them for some time, but they cope. The reason neither my brother or I have had kids is because we wouldn't gamble with another person's life. If it was normal odds, then yes, but those who don't learn the lessons of history WILL be doomed to relive them. Statistically, looking at the metabolic oddities that characterized my dad, neither Lance nor I will have a 'good' death (if there is such a thing) And I have to try and avoid morbid fear every time I have a minor lapse of short term memory...
I think we were written by Poe...
Well, Harlequin from Cheshire UK, let me tell you, don’t take your eyes off that brother of yours. And tell your mother…to MOVE, quickly. But on the bright side, it could be worse than being written by Poe. You could have been written by me. Then no one would have ever read about you.
So, what about you? Join the fray, it can be quite therapeutic. Send your stories to me here.
Well, Harlequin from Cheshire UK, let me tell you, don’t take your eyes off that brother of yours. And tell your mother…to MOVE, quickly. But on the bright side, it could be worse than being written by Poe. You could have been written by me. Then no one would have ever read about you.
So, what about you? Join the fray, it can be quite therapeutic. Send your stories to me here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
