Archive for the “Stories” Category

As mentioned before, over the years I’ve heard comments. You wouldn’t believe the crap some people say. Like my neighbor back when I lived in a different state. I had just located my biological family and was telling her about it and she said, “Oh, I could never love an adopted kid like my own. In fact, my grandson is adopting a child, and I don’t even want the kid over here. I don’t consider it my grandchild.”

This from a lady who I knew for five years and considered “nice”. Hey, at least she admits her heart is closed to, um… “it”.

Sometimes, even well-meaning comments were over the top.

In the 5th grade, I was getting ready for a talent show. Me and my friend Laura were dressing up like cats and singing “We are Siamese.” I was in the bathroom applying my whiskers with eyebrow pencil when our teacher Mrs. Rush came bursting through the ladies room door. All the girls crowding around the mirrors stopped what they were doing, sensing something was horribly wrong due to Mrs. Rush’s demeanor.

Spying me, she hurried over and grabbed my shoulders. Wide-eyed and upset, she said, “I just heard you were adopted. Is this true?!”

Bewildered, I said, “Uh… yeah?”

With tears in her eyes, she pulled me to her bosom and held me tight. “That just means you were SPECIAL. You were CHOSEN!”

Poor, well-meaning Mrs. Rush. You could tell she felt sorry for me, an emotion I’m wholly uncomfortable with. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t FEEL “chosen”. Hell, I didn’t even remember the goddamn audition!

Besides, I wasn’t chosen. It was the throw of the dice, the luck of the draw. If I had been born a few days earlier or a few days later, I would have gone to a different family. In fact, if my adoptive parents had the ability to choose a baby, I would have been the LAST one they chose. As mentioned before, I was far from a perfect, pretty baby. And I was not a boy. Back then, it was an unspoken rule that if you asked to adopt a certain sex, or refuse to adopt a baby with cosmetic problems (which I had), then you probably would be turned down as a prospective adoptive parent. (Nowdays, you’re allowed to be much more specific on your “baby order” when adopting. People have become more open-minded about adopting different races, but they still want that baby to be a pretty and perfect one.) Bottom line: my parents had to agree to take what they were handed, or they wouldn’t make the list of suitable parents. And they certainly couldn’t take one look at me and say, “Uh, thanks but no thanks!” because they would have looked like assholes. They had already bragged to family, friends, and church members about the adoption process, and let everyone know when they got the call from the adoption agency that they had a baby for them. My parents had to take me; there was no backing out.

At the time of the fifth grade incident, we lived in a small town in Oklahoma. I used to walk home from school, since the bus took just as long, and I was getting bad headaches by then.

One day, my mother’s car was parked outside of my elementary school. I thought it was a treat; maybe she wanted to take me somewhere and do something, just the two of us. As she started driving, she threw a letter in my lap. It was a letter I had written to the advice lady of Seventeen magazine. I don’t recall what it said, but it spoke of trying to find my “real” mother. My mom had dug deep in my dresser drawers to find the hiding place I had for that letter.

I don’t remember what my mother told me, but I do remember she pretty much went off. It was basically a speech to burst my bubble about any romantic notions of replacing the mother I currently had. That if my bio mom had wanted me, she would have kept me, and she didn’t want me now, and I couldn’t find her, etc. She made me feel like a criminal for being curious.

She grudgingly told me as much as she could remember about what the adoption agency said about my biological mother. Hair color, etc. Apparently, she didn’t think the information was important enough to write down for me, so she was going off of memory. She talked as if every bit of information was doing me a favor, yet she was irritated about it like she had sand in her panties or something.

We didn’t speak of my biological background again until I was 18 and pushed her on it. Until then, I was left to fill in the blanks myself.

Say the word “adoption” to people and you get a very interesting array of reactions.

Adoption is portrayed in the media in one of two ways: Either the adopted child is embraced wholeheartedly and lives an idyllic life, for which they are expected to be eternally grateful to the parents who were kind enough to take their charity-case ass in, or the opposite extreme — the noble and saintly parents who adopt a kid and get a “bad apple” and suffer the rest of their lives.

No matter how you view adoption or adoptive children, for some reason, there is still a stigma about it.

Although I’ve written my adoption tales, experiences, and opinions elsewhere, and those that have followed my multiple blogs throughout cyberspace have heard this crap ad nauseum, I’ve decided to re-post them again. Cyrus was good enough to share with me his adoption story, and mine is nothing compared to his - holy crap! But I think it’s good for people unfamiliar with adoption to hear more stories than just the fairy tale sugar-sweet ones, and the ones where the adopted kid turns into a nightmare, destroying small cities and making the sainted adopted parents cry bitter tears.

:deep breath: Here we go.

This week Moose ate a whole roll of toilet paper.  So I can relate to this story.

Written by some guy on the internet.  Slightly edited.  Original post here:  http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html?view=480068

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I Has a Sweet Potato
You know, a lot of times I write up random posts and then don’t post them. But *girlfriend* just called me, and I could not really explain why I was inarticulate about sweet potatoes, so I said I’d go ahead and post this. That way, she can read it at work and know just what kind of day it has been. (Short version, for those who do not feel like reading the whole post: ARRRRRRG. Fucking sweet potatoes.)

The longer version, summarized in conversation form:

Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And *girlfriend* fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.

[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]

[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]

Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog’s gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
Me: …That can’t be good for you. It’s a RAW SWEET POTATO.
Dog: I had to do it. I haven’t been fed. Ever.
Me: You realize you aren’t normal. Normal dogs don’t steal raw sweet potatoes.
Dog, sadly: I was badly brought up.
Me: Yes. Yes, you were.
Dog: By people who starved me.
Me: Oh, no. I am not doing this again.
Me: *exits the room, bearing sweet potato*

[There is a pause.]

[There is a noise like someone is trying to eat a baseball bat very very quietly.]

Me: Oh, for the love of GOD.
Me: *heads off to the kitchen*
Dog: I am not eating a raw sweet potato.
Me: You have sweet potato parts all over your snout.
Dog: But you don’t actually SEE a raw sweet potato, do you? So maybe that’s just - um. A birthmark.
Me: Did you seriously eat a whole sweet potato?
Dog: You don’t listen. I told you, I wasn’t eating a sweet potato.
Me, searching around fruitlessly: Look. NO MORE SWEET POTATOES.
Me: Oh, what am I saying? This is you we’re talking about, here. *goes to hide all the sweet potatoes that are left - which isn’t many - in the fridge, because some people cannot be trusted*
Dog: *attempts to look thwarted*
Dog: *does not succeed, because her tail is wagging so hard small cyclones are forming in the kitchen*
Me: *has a very bad feeling about this*

[There is a pause, during which I do not even bother trying to return to what I was doing. I just stand in the computer room, waiting.]

[There is, as I wholly expected, a baseball-bat-eating noise.]

Me, stomping back to the kitchen: OKAY. GIVE ME THE DAMMNED SWEET POTATO.
Dog, looking up guiltily: What sweet potato?
Me: THE ONE IN YOUR MOUTH.
Dog: Oh, did you want this? I just, um. Found it. Lying here.
Me: *confiscates the sweet potato and deposits it in the locking trashcan*
Me: Let us say no more about this.
Dog: …Nooooo! They be stealin’ my sweet potato!

[I attempt to remember what I was doing before the sweet potato episode.]

[Some ten minutes later, I succeed, and return to it.]

[NOT ONE MINUTE LATER, I hear a noise with which I have become all too familiar.]

Me, bonking head on desk: Arg.
Me, arriving in kitchen: How did you even get another sweet potato?
Dog, smugly: I have my ways.
Me: Are you punishing me for being away for several days? I was at a FUNERAL, you know. It wasn’t FUN.
Dog: How would I know? You didn’t take me. You left me here with only one human to look after my needs. One human is NOT ENOUGH.
Me: *shuts dog in bedroom, conducts a sweep of the kitchen to track down all remaining sweet potatoes, wipes up random sweet potato particles from floor, eradicates all traces of sweet potato from house*
Me: *lets dog out*
Dog, sulkily: Oh, so you think you’ve won.

[I watch her go about her business with the same sense of overwhelming doom that heroines of Victorian novels get when they meet Count Sinistrus Grimblack for the first time.]

[Half an hour later, there is a wetter, juicier eating noise, as though someone was eating a very moist baseball bat.]

Me, wearily: What NOW?
Dog, hunched over the remains of a butternut squash: *says something garbled because her mouth is full*
Me: Okay. Fine.
Me: *stomps over, empties entire vegetable bowl into trash*
Me: WE JUST WON’T HAVE ANY ROOT VEGETABLES ANYMORE. THERE. ARE YOU HAPPY?
Dog: I’m not even remotely sorry. I told you I was hungry. And you went to a funeral without me.
Me: ARRRRRRRRG.

[A half-hour later, there is another baseball-bat-eating noise from the kitchen. The dog, who apparently does not know how to win gracefully, has found another sweet potato, or possibly caused one to materialize from the Rift.]

Me, hauling chewed sweet potato parts from the mouth of a dog very reluctant to part with them: Oh my god how is this my life?
Dog: Don’t you think it would just be easier to feed me?
Me: EVERYONE GO TO THE BEDROOM AND STAY THERE. EAT NOTHING.
Dog: Actually, I feel…um…not so good.
Dog: *throws up* *vomit is very bright orange*

[Unfortunate details ensue.]

Some time later:
Me, attempting to rescue something from the wreckage: So. What have we learned from this?
Dog: Sweet potatoes are yummy!
Other Dog, looking thoughtful: I should pay more attention to crunching noises. Sweet potatoes are probably yummy.
Me: I need a lobotomy.

FUCKING SWEET POTATOES. ARG.

I got in the car and buckled my seatbelt. The bright yellow “Student Driver” billboard perched atop the automobile could not cause enough humiliation to temper the joy of a 15 year old heart in possession of car keys; albeit temporarily.

My driver’s ed teacher Mr. Moore (not his real name), was a coach at the high school. I remember that my Driver’s Ed textbook was the only textbook where I actually read at least half of my assignments. That includes every class I ever took, through graduate school.

I also remember Mr. Moore had a penchant for showing every conceivable “Blood on the Highway” film made between 1955 and 1976. It was because of those films that I feared all “classic” cars with fins, because I had seen a film clip of a body skewered on the fin. I also feared the metal guardrails on rural roads that didn’t curve away from the road or toward the ground. I had seen bodies skewered as the metal guardrail pierced a windshield like a finely-sharpened sword.

Looking back, the seed was planted that a decade later would blossom. I grew into an adult that would see doom around every corner. Not so much for myself (for I fear nothing but spiders and an undetected run in my pantyhose) but for others. Those films, viewed at the age of 15, coupled with my EMT training, then Paramedic school, then endless clinicals in intensive care units and onboard ambulances, and finally nursing school, all culminated into a picture of a world that was a trauma alert waiting to happen. Now, I see something as simple as a teeter-totter as a potential implement of death.

But I digress.

My budding nervousness about driving was unaided by two inalienable truths of my 15 year old reality:

1. My father, who had gone to great pains to teach my brothers how to drive from ages 12 and 11 respectively, could not be persuaded to help me develop the skill.
2. My driver’s ed teacher had a bizarre nervous habit that was very distracting. What was this bizarre habit that Mr. Moore possessed? He said everything three times, three times, three times! The more upset he was, the more prone he was to give in to his subconscious compulsion.
3. My driver’s ed teacher took deep delight in using the “panic brake” that was installed on the passenger’s side of the Driver’s Ed car. Apparently the intent of the panic brake was to avert certain disaster. Mr. Moore thought it was to scare his students shitless. He’d jam on it on the dry pavement occasionally, but his Coach-ness must have detected the lack of sport in that. His main joy was to jam suddenly on the panic brake when you were driving on ice, sending you into a skid. “You have to practice pulling out of a skid! A skid! A skid!” he’d choke out between gails of laughter. We’d tell him not to do that, but apparently the siren call of the panic brake was too tempting. Just when you thought he’d given it up, it would call to him. “Jam on me! JAAAMMMMM on MEEEEEE!” And another 15 or 16 year old pimple-faced kid would have instilled in him or her a long-lasting fear of driving on slick roads.

Apparently, Mr. Moore thought I was a remedial student. He had me drive in reverse around the “island” (circle drive) in front of the school endlessly. “Miss Drunkbunny! Back it up, back it up back it up! Keep it straight, keep it straight, keep it straight! Turn the wheel, turn the wheel, turn the wheel! Not that much! NOT THAT MUCH! NOT THAT MUCH!” After hours of backing up, my neck aching from looking behind me, my classmates snickering from the back seat, I finally learned to back up with skill.

Of COURSE I’m not done! »

Then, it was time to learn to drive forward. I became a bit more at ease behind the wheel, and as a result, more easily distracted. We tackled side streets first, then major thoroughfares. It was hard for me to stay focused. After all, there was the radio to adjust. “Miss Drunkbunny, if you don’t pay attention and leave the radio alone, I’ll let someone else drive! Someone else! Drive!” Ugh, FINE. This is a good song anyway. Everybody, sing! “I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can… watch you blah blah blah…” (who can understand that exotic Canadian accent?)

I also couldn’t help but stare in the rearview mirror. Because, the gorgeous hunk of manhood Shaun McGorgeous (not his real name, but close) was always smiling and cute in the back seat. If I happened to make eye contact with him, I was enchanted.

“Miss Drunkbunny! Watch the curb! WATCH THE CURB! WATCH THE–” THUNK! Oops. Shaun laughed, and his mischevous eyes sparkled, and I was embarassed and enamored at the same time.

Driver’s ed saved my life.

One weekend when I was 15, I went out with my friend Misty. She was 16, and had a 1968 Chevy Camaro that her rich dad had customized for her. New engine, new paint job, those little padlocks on the hood, and even her name painted on the side. We’d “drag Douglas” and get tons of attention.

One Saturday night, her car was in the shop so we took her mom’s brand-new Firebird out dragging. We kissed some 21 year olds and got them to get some Everclear for us. We then went to the KwikShop and bought a gallon of fruit punch, and poured out 1/4th of it, and filled the rest with Everclear. By the time we were headed back to the country to Misty’s house, I was plastered.

Even in my drunken state, I could vividly remember the latest “Death on the Highway” flick that we viewed in driver’s ed class the Friday before. For the first time EVER, on the way home I put on my seatbelt. I then passed out took a lil’ nap. Misty was driving.

The force of being thrown against the shoulder harness is what woke me. We had been tooling along on the highway (at about 60 miles per hour) when a carload of girls drunker than ME had run into us. No one was hurt in the accident; however, I knew that if I had fallen asleep without the seat belt on, I’d have woken up to the sensation of my head hitting the windshield instead of my body being thrown against the seatbelt.

So, say what you want about coaches being teachers, and how they rely on films to do their teaching. Mr. Moore’s vintage gore films saved me from certain injury. Certain injury. Certain injury!

(Originally written and published by me on Rant-O-Rama, 2003)

I called my mom right upon leaving work, knowing that listening to her talk would be a good way to kill some commute time.

Forty-five minutes later, she’s still going strong. Having not said even one sentence the entire time, I interject: “Well, I’ve just pulled into the driveway…” She continues to talk as if I hadn’t just given my graceful call exit segue.

So, I unpack my car. She’s still talking. So I let Moose out for a walk. He pees twice, mom is still talking. Then Moose takes a huge dump. I’m holding the cell phone in one hand and trying to pick up the poop using a plastic bag with the other hand. At last - an excuse to get off the phone!

Me: Mom, I have to go now.

Mom: So then I sold her the Mary Kay Raisinberry lipstick, which looks good on everyone! And she said…

Me: Mom, I gotta let you go.

Mom: She is going to come back next weekend and buy some moisturizer. Which would bring my open house sales to around $400…

Me: (Thinking: If I cuss, it will startle her into listening to me.) Mom, I’ve got to go! I’ve got a steaming pile of shit in my hand.

Mom: *pause* Oh. Well, your father and I are going to have chicken for dinner.

Me: What?? No! I’m not talking about dinner! Obviously, I’m not going to have shit for dinner!

Mom: Why aren’t you going to have any dinner?

Me: What? I am! I’m just not going to have shit for dinner.

Mom: You said that. Why aren’t you going to have any dinner?

Me: (catching on) - I’m going to have dinner eventually. But right now, I have a steaming pile of Moose’s shit in a bag in my hand, and I have to get off the phone. I told you this, and for some unknown reason you started talking about what you were having for dinner.

Mom: I thought you were talking about what you were having for dinner. That’s why I was talking about what your father and I are having for dinner.

Me: Well of course I am not having shit for dinner!

Mom: This again. Why aren’t you going to eat?

Eventually I got off the phone, but to this day I don’t know how.

I entered the darkened abode, shaking off the chill of the cold Colorado fall evening. Immediately, I sensed that something was wrong. Very wrong.

I looked around my living room. It was trashed! Debris everywhere! Revolting filth, mind-boggling chaos!

A split-second of panic, and reflexively my hand went for my cell phone to alert the authorities.

Then I recalled my weekend of sloth, spent watching tivoed South Park and TV Funhouse episodes while dozing in and out of consciousness on my couch.

Slightly relieved upon realizing that I was the one responsible for trashing my living room, I loosened my grip on my cell phone. But yet, something was still amiss. Fifteen years of seeing the worst violence humanity could dole out to one another have honed my “spidey senses”.

Something horrible had happened here tonight. I could just feel it. The abomination. The unholiness.

Then I saw it. The empty shell. The insides had all been eaten — oh, the humanity!

Who could have done such a heinous evisceration?

I was only gone a few minutes. Yet that was enough time for the criminal to take what they wanted. No concern with the fact it wasn’t his to take. No afterthought about who would be hurt.

Yes, my entire takeout carton of Boston Market Macaroni and Cheese was completely gutted!

Following the violent pattern of drool and cheese splatters on the wall and carpet, I came upon the one responsible for the slaughter.

His eyes plead innocence. However, the ring of yellow on the muzzle and nose told me everything I needed to know about the evening’s events. A scene of gore and brutality that flew in the face of God.

My macaroni and cheese. Gone. Snuffed in the prime of it’s take-out life.

Goddamnit Moose!

Originally posted 10/10/02

One of my friends in high school, who I dearly loved and was a wonderful person, was kind of an airhead (bless her heart). In fact, that was her nickname: “Airhead”. But she was so sweet and happy you couldn’t help but like her. For the sake of anonymity, I will call her Rhoda.

One time our sophomore year, we were outside our school campus one night. There was a football game going on, but we preferred to stay outside on a side street, drinking beer. (It’s not as bad as it sounds; at the time I was an amateur and could barely get half a can of 3.2 down). We were in the covered bed of a parked truck, so no one would see us drinking beer. Of course, we didn’t know whose truck it was!

Anyway, Rhoda had to go to the bathroom REALLY BAD. So she decided to run across a practice field and go over to the football stands and use the bathroom. However, the borders of the school campus were blocked off by those low stumps with steel rope strung between them; you know, the kind that they put in parks to keep you from driving off the road? It was so dark out that Rhoda didn’t see it, and she tripped. And fell. And peed her pants!

Later, it was senior year, basketball season. We had all been drinking before the game (we had gotten good at it by now; it was a German Catholic high school). A whole group of us were leaving the basketball game. In Kansas it doesn’t snow, it ice storms. It had ice stormed during the game and the parking lot was like glass. Rhoda had on these purple cloth pants, and was rushing ahead of the whole crowd streaming out of the stadium. You guessed it: she slipped, fell, and peed her pants in a BIG WAY, in front of a parking lot full of people.

We (her friends) were laughing so hard that WE had to sit down for fear WE’D pee OUR pants. She had this huge dark stain on the front of her pants and down the legs (you know how purple is when it gets wet). Rhoda was running from person to person, begging someone to drive her to a nearby friends house so she could BLOW DRY HER PANTS. No one wanted her in their car!

Oh, I have a million Rhoda stories. But the peeing stories are especially funny to me, because this was when she was a teenager. Now, she’s had like five or six kids. I can’t imagine how often she accidentally does it now!