The Death of a Disliked Family Member

I got into a car accident the day before yesterday. I think it may be karma beating my *ss.

 

See….

 

My uncle died the day before my accident.

And I could care less.

And I feel somewhat ashamed of that.

See, this man tortured and molested his siblings. He did drugs and even at one time was a pimp that prostituted his own cousin. He’d been in and out of jail, in and out of drug rehab programs.

His stint as a reformed preacher didn’t last long.

He beat the crap out of his sister’s children and who knows what else.

Some years ago when my son was staying with my mom (and I was away at training) I found out he was living there. That my mom was allowing him to stay, but the kids had to keep their doors locked at night. That she kept a bat for if he came in “crazy” off of alcohol and stolen/bought prescription drugs.

At my grandmother’s wake he stood on a pew and took pictures laughing as he put his baseball cap on her dead body.

“I gotta laugh or I’ll cry.” But he still did. From guilt of how he treated her and others that for better or worse were his family.

I’m praying that the funeral is during the week so that I’m not expected to show (can’t take the time off). I don’t want to have to show up, and pretend that I don’t feel relieved that my cousins don’t have to deal with a horrible excuse for a father.

I ashamed, but it doesn’t change anything. My eyes are dry. I can laugh and joke with people. I’ve only mentioned his passing to my son and my boss. My day has not stopped, or changed course.

Am I horrible? Or just being true?

Tales of Growing Up: The Wacky Tobacky Trials and Why I Can Never Smoke Even When Legal

Once upon a time I was a teenager. And like all teenagers I wanted to show I was bad, tough, all the retardedness of being a teen. So at 13 I started smoking cigarettes. Less than a year later my cousin was offering me marijuana while I stayed the summer in the hood.

Since I was in full on rebellion stage, I was super terrified, but willing to do stupid things. So we walked the hood to meet up with a friend who sold weed. As far as I remember, my tryout was free. And the guy was cute (my eyes were really bad then, or time has not been kind to the hood’s local weedman). And I wanted to impress my cousin. Exact opposite happens.

Right in some random neighborhood weeddude lights up. I’m as jittery as a guy about to see his first boobs at a strip club. We’re doing this in public?! Out on the street?! Where anyone could see us?! Egads!

I am not nerdy enough, nor was I that nerdy then to say Egads!

Embellishment. Ahem. To continue…

Egads! I cried in my head, as the weeddude to a puff puff and passed to my cousin. And she puffed and puffed and Wow she has great lung control.

And then its my turn. I’m sweating like a hooker in church, and its laughable but I’m actually praying right then and there that inhaling this mess doesn’t randomly kill me or make me crazy for LIFE.

I inhale. And try to hold it in as I was told to do, but this crap burns like tear gas that I’m less than 10 years away from experiencing when I join the military. Instead of exhaling all smoothly I hack it all out, and Oh My Sweet Baby Jesus lying in the manger with swaddling clothes this mess burns like the fires of Hell!!!

I swear I turned into a cartoon at that moment because I felt the burn and fire pouring from my ears! And while weeddude and the cuz are roaring laughter I feel my ear drums dying and my throat crying. I call to my cousin to ask the obvious. “It burns cuz! Why does it burn?!” Which sends her into another roll of laugh at my newbie pain.

I barely get a buzz that time, and of course, I have to redeem myself. Weeks later, back visiting, I try again, this time at weeddude’s house. I’ve learned my lesson and fight my throat not to cough. And I get totally weird and wrong. The first thing that starts to bother me is that my eyesight and started to go in and out of focus like a drunk video camera. The second is that I’m in one room sitting, but feel like I’m about to tip over and fall out the window… in the next room. And third, my natural paranoia went to “Warning Will Robinson” levels and I was sure everyone could read my thoughts and that the police were on their way from reading my thoughts.

Not to mention, weeddude’s eyes turned into demon eyes.

This. This is what I saw.

And it wasn’t just the one time. Each time I tried, things got weirder and weirder until I had to stop myself and ask “Is this really fun, or giving you nightmares and destroying your mental stability more than your normal crazy?” When cows begin to nod their head to the music that is only playing in your head. When green buildings begin to look like Emerald City, when you start to not know the difference between reality and what the drug is telling you is real… Well, you’ve entered the real life version of the movie “A Scanner Darkly” or you just have a bad reaction to the wacky tobacky.

I stopped. And learned later through my mother that my father had the same reactions. That he lost a whole weekend not knowing who he was and just wandered, making snow angels where there was no snow.

I believe marijuana should be legalized. I know many people with my medical condition (hidradenitus suppurative, see my previous post: http://dimensionthe5th.com/2012/12/06/god-is-an-alien-and-put-alien-babies-under-my-skin-rare-medical-condition-woes/) that are so severe pain that it’s all they can take. But for me, oh no. No thank you. Give me some percocet or something NORMAL for me.

Fun With Side Effects! Yay!

I would probably be a bad mother if I continue to giggle as my son has the skin crawlies/twitches from his new ADHD medicine right? I guess I’ll try to keep the snorts to a minimum, but he he’s jerking around and looking like he got a bad batch of something. Luckily between laughter I was able to tell him he wasn’t crazy and it was a side effect I’d seen in children before.

It happened Thursday (about a week of him taking the meds). He’s sitting at the table, playing and online game while I relax on the couch, doped up for my back. I glance over at him as he twitches, shakes it off, then twitches again.

Me: what the heck is wrong with you?

Monster Teen: I’ve been feeling like something was crawling on me all day! But there’s… Nothing. *twitch, twitch*

Me: *pause as I think, lightbulb!, stands up and points at him* oh snap! Stephen Mtyzplizk!

Monster Teen: whaaaa?

Let me explain. Once upon a time before I joined the military, I spent a little more than a year as a pre-school teacher. If the pay had been better I might have never left, although I always wanted to join the military. Anyways, during that year I was pretty much a teacher for the 4/5-year-old class, those that would go on to Kindergarten next year. A class of 24, and there’s only on person’s name I remember: Stephen Mtzylpltzik (the name has been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent). Stephen, from his mother account, had severe ADHD. I’m not so sure about that. I just know in my 17/18-year-old mind, I thought he might truly be the Anti-Christ.

Stephen would come in screaming and crying and trying to run away everyday. He’d yell at everyone, saying he hated them. Even his mother. He’d grab the edges of the front door and scream as his mother tried to remove his fingers and we tried to pull him in and close our security door. We’d try to distract him as we got him into class. Usually that would only end in bribing with chocolate chip cookies (mother approved).

Stephen would also take his dose of Ritalin that morning at the daycare. Why his mother didn’t give it to him at home, I don’t know. I do remember it being chew-able and apparently nasty flavored because he needed juice and another cookie to get the taste out of his mouth. And then he would begin to act like a normal child… For a couple of hours anyway. But boy oh boy would the side effects start to kick in.

He didn’t want to eat lunch. No appetite. And he couldn’t take a nap. He’d sit there on his mat rocking back and forth, picking scabs. Stephen would pick at his skin until his nose, scalp, and arms bled. And after nap time, when it was outside, or indoor play time, well that’s when he really lost his teacups. Stephen hallucinated. And it wasn’t anything pretty. He saw bugs… What he called buggies, everywhere. His scratching went up a level, he’d start to twitch like a crackhead missing a dose, and he’d mumble under his breath about the buggies. Before you feel sorry for him, around this time of day he also became an extra from Children of the Corn. He’d push, pinch, hit, trip, make cry all the other students he could whenever the teacher’s eyes weren’t directly on him. And I will admit that after trying the nice tactic of moving him gently away and softly trying to tell him that we don’t hurt our friends… well one day I finally lost MY teacups dealing with him. To be fair, this was after a week of writing incident reports, him cutting out 666 and pasting it as his artwork one day, and getting injured trying to keep him under control. I began to use his hallucinations against him. I told him I could make the buggies appear if he didn’t behave. And once I told him that, they didn’t actually “appear” to him unless I told him they were there when he was terrorizing another child. The power of suggestion for the muthafrackin win!

Anyway, I really expect to see Stephen Mtzyplzk as a Senator or serial killer one day. As for my monster teen, I explained that all to him, and said that his twitches were probably normal as he got used to his meds, but to tell his doc about it at his next appointment. Of course my son said I’m evil for how I treated Stephen, but how should you treat a real life demon child in your class? Monster Teen luckily only has the one side effect. If he starts drawing 666 though, this test of ADHD medicine is at its end!