Little Stories

Found an amazing clip of acrobatic bullfighting - amazing skill on those guys, and a humane alternative to bullfighting. Sent it to a bunch of my coworkers. One responds “how is this different than the guy with the cape?” 

(I work at HQ for a regional self-storage company. General industry standard is that after 3 months of non-payment, storage units go up for auction. Usually, calls about auctioned units are angry customers, this one seemed pretty nice, just had one request).

“I know you sold my unit at auction this month, and that’s fine (???). Before it’s cleaned out though, could you have the guy who bought it set my yurns aside?”

“Your yurns?”

“Yeah, I have two yurns with family ashes in them. Could you have them set those aside for me to come pick up?”

In high school, I went through a period of depression and self-hate as, I’m sure, everyone does. One day, at my best friend’s house, we decided to finger-paint as a release (that’s how bad-ass we were) and I did the usual skulls and knives and “I want to die” motifs... in my favorite colors - greens and blues. We set the papers out to dry, and I went home.

The next morning, went to school, said hi to the people I knew (including best friend), and went to class. Halfway through first class,the school nurse comes and pulls me out of class, plonks me in the her office, and tells me I’m not allowed to leave until my parents come pick me up: my best friend had given my painting and the 3″ (pink) pocketknife I’d left at her house to the nurse and said she was afraid I was going to kill myself. No mention of this that morning to me, mind you, just to the nurse.

My mum, being the compassionate person she is, said she was too busy and couldn’t be bothered to pick me up until after school. Busy with what? Running errands and shopping - she was a stay-at-home mum. So for six hours, I’m trapped in the nurse’s office, not allowed to go to the regular bathrooms (they had a stall in the office), or my locker for my lunch (one of my better friends brought it to me), or even a book to read (the only book in the office was Watership Down, a very uplifting book), because I might off myself in the school hallways. 

Other than the friend who brought me my lunch, I wasn’t even allowed visitors, because you know how crazy teenagers are. The 21-year-old stalker I’d acquired that year was allowed in, unescorted, unsupervised, because he was an ADULT... alone with a teenage female. Logic.

After everyone else had gone home, my mum finally show up to collect me, and is ordered to take me to the local psychiatric hospital. We had all heard stories about this place - chaining residents to their beds, keeping them heavily medicated, not feeding or cleaning them well - and these were given extra weight because my best friend’s mom worked there, and could verify them. So we’re heading there, my mum so angry she’s not even acknowledging my presence in the car, and I’m wavering between royally pissed off and scared for my life - of the hospital or what will happen when we get home, I”m not sure. 

Get to the hospital, get plonked in a plain white room, alone, and told to wait. Nothing to look at, nothing to do but stew in my fears. After a while (no clock in the room, I’m not allowed belongings), a doctor comes in, asks me if I’m okay (”FINE!”), if I”m happy at home (”YUP!”), if my parents sexually abuse me ((wtf??) “Nope!”), if I wanted to kill myself (”Nope!”), if my parents sexually abuse me (”Nope!), if I feel safe at school (”Yup!”), if my parents sexually abuse me (”Nope!”)... see a pattern? 

For three hours, I sat in a stark white room, not allowed to talk to anyone but a succession of doctors who would interrogate me on their pet theory of why kids are f**ked up: sexual abuse (from family, friends, or strangers), drugs, sex addiction, drinking, gambling, money issues, low self-esteem... never made any mention about mental or emotional abuse, curiously. For three hours, I used every bit of skill I had to fake being the happiest, care-free, sane, together, untroubled producer of sunshine and skittles that I could because I was more afraid of them than of what was waiting at home. Finally, after growing tired of my unchanging stream of happiness, they decided I wasn’t a threat to myself and sent me home. Total bill: $350 (that would have been half our rent for a 4-bedroom house at the time). 

The ride home was, alas, not so silent. My mum didn’t even ask for an explanation, she went off the deep end about how I was an attention whore, wanting to be special, all I had to do was ask if I wanted to be paid attention to, why the f**k did I pull this stunt, did I know how much money that cost, that would be paid for by my allowance, I was grounded for a month, stop wasting everyone’s time, I’d ruined her day, what would the other parents think, etc etc. 

I was sent to my room on arriving home, only grudgingly allowed out to dinner (which was late, my fault, and she made sure everyone knew why it was late), and my sisters weren’t allowed to talk to me over the meal. I was told to stay in my room til they’d finished getting ready for me, and was allowed 5 minutes to do the same on my own -  no talking. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well.  

16-year-old me got a job at the new Ren Faire in town, coolest first job ever. Requires appropriate clothes, though, and the family didn’t have that kind of extra money, much less 16-year-old me on an allowance. Can’t you just... make clothes, though? We had a sewing machine, though mum claimed not to know how to use it. Worth a try.

(Male) friend’s mom knew how to sew, so I asked her to help me make a simple shirt, skirt, and bodice. Bought fabric on sale and a basic sewing pattern, headed over to friend’s house. Took a bit of time: she’d teach me something, I’d go home and sew until I run into a problem/ question, then arrange to go over there again. 

The fourth of fifth time this happened, I told mum where I was going with half-finished gear in my hands, she shot me a look of disgust, said “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. I know you’re sleeping with him, you whore,” and went back to reading her book like ndb.  

I have never like veggies. Part of it is that we were poor, and my mum didn’t believe in making food tasty; it was there to sustain you, not to enjoy. Dinners were a constant battle on who caved first: me, choking down enough boiled, unseasoned lumps of chlorophyll to get permission to leave the table, or everyone else getting sick of waiting and my mum sending me to my room for the rest of the night as “punishment.” 

One night, mum tried making crab cakes with imitation crab, white bread crumbs, egg, mayo, and frozen spinach, thinking there was no way I could pick all the spinach out of the cakes. I refused to even try, despite being hungry. An ultimatum was delivered, “you will sit there until those are gone!” and everyone else left. 

I managed a few bites, choking them down with water, but quickly ran out of water and was told I couldn’t have more until my plate was clean. Three hours later, both my sisters in bed, parents ready to go to sleep, and I’m still sitting at the table, stomach rumbling, refusing to eat the leaden, unflavored, boiled-green crab cakes. Mum came by to check on me again, saw no progress made, and hit her enrage timer.

She grabbed my hair, pulled my head back, snatched up a crab cake with her other hand and literally crammed it in my mouth, holding her hand over my mouth so I couldn’t spit it out, and screaming at me to eat it. Dad heard the commotion, came and pulled me away from mum, and told me to go to my room. Got to listen to them yelling at each other for hours until they went to bed and I could creep back out in search of edible food. 

10 years old, singing the nursery rhyme Georgie Porgie. Mum edges into view, waits for me to finish, and announces, as proudly as a two-year-old who’s correctly identified that the cow says moo, “Georgie Porgie was a f****t!” 

10-year-old me, caught between “wtf” and “did that really just happen,” manages to say “if he was kissing girls and running away from boys, that probably means he likes girls...??”