Grandma with the Clapback

Older people who freely speak their mind are not anomalies.  One generally exists in every family. As someone with only one (confirmed) living grandparent, though, the odds that that grandparent would happen to be the free-speaking type seemed a little bit tighter.

I should probably explain the “(confirmed)” comment, though.  My mother’s parents were...not the best. Her mom ran out on the kids pretty early, and her dad took that as a sign that he should put all of his children into a group home.  The state eventually had to intervene. He certainly wasn’t going to stop being a truck driver, so he married a Pentacostal woman who had pretty Draconian ideals when it came to child-rearing.  I remember my mom speaking frankly about being beaten with a garden hose. I learned most of this when my mother explained to my why/how she got married at 15 and left that house for good.

I say “(confirmed)” because, technically, we have no idea whether my maternal grandmother is still alive.  She was last seen in California somewhere. That’s literally all we know.

Now, in terms of my grandma who’s still around, well, life ain’t been no crystal stair. She has survived the death of a child and the suicide of a husband (from a second marriage).  So, she’s definitely earned the brutal honesty that she has developed, and apparently I came around AFTER she chilled a bit.

Apparently, when my mom and dad got married, my mom brought my brother (from her first marriage) to a family event at my grandma’s.  At some point, my brother (who must’ve been like eight years old) called my grandma “Grandma” to which she replied “I am NOT your grandma.”  TO A CHILD! I mean, he was literally my dad’s red-headed stepchild, but still!

That was before my grandma had really given my mom a chance.  She was not thrilled that my dad had chosen a woman who was already divorced and with a child older than his (because of course both of them already had a child).  After time, she saw how freaking awesome my mom is. They are still incredibly close (like, daily visits close) despite my mom and dad divorcing 26 years ago.

Still, this is not atypical behavior.  Once, she graciously accepted my partner and me into her home.  As we were visiting, she clocked my plaid slip-on’s and said, “Nice shoes!”  I was immediately flattered and effusively said, “THANK you, Grandma!” But she wasn’t done.  She finished her interrupted compliment by saying “...the uglier the better nowadays, huh?”

She said it with a smile on her face.  Like a villain from a Shonda Rhimes show!  My boyfriend was taken aback and I was doubled-over laughing.  She is likely the reason why half of my communication with loved ones involves dragging them and then waiting for them to clapback.  Being made fun of is absolutely hilarious to me now. I had to straight up switch schools because a kid wouldn’t stop calling me gay in 6th grade, and my grandma’s solution was to drag my ass on the regular.  And I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.

I’m not suggesting that this is the solution to harassment or bullying, but this skin is pretty think.  I have one or two things that, if pressed, can get me in my feelings. Outside of those, it’s basically an all you can bash buffet.  I’ll even help if you’re not getting there fast enough.

Now, at this point, I’ve painted with some pretty broad strokes, and it kind of appears like she only picks on her grandkids.  Honestly? We’re the safe ones. You should hear some of the stuff she has to say about her own kids.

My father likes to get his way.  If he doesn’t, he is super salty about it.  He will make passive-aggressive comments FOR YEARS to express his dissatisfaction.  This inevitably leads to his target snapping at some point, telling him what they think of him, and then him refusing to speak to the person(s) for...months? Years? He mixes it up.

This is the same man who, one year, just gave entirely up and wore swimming trunks to our Christmas dinner.  I am from Southern Illinois and I have never known a Christmas warm enough to warrant less than a sweatshirt, much less swimwear.  Why trunks!? I can kind of get shorts because white, country boys wear shorts during the winter all of the time around here for reasons unknown to the rest of us. But trunks?  They had no functionality. My mom claims he had just outgrown all other clothes, like when Tim Allen wore sweats to work in The Santa Clause.

Grandma Garland was not going to stand for it.  But she’s also a kind, smiley older lady, so she wasn’t going to make a stink at Christmas dinner.  Instead, she individually spoke to everyone at the dinner and roasted him. Rolling her eyes, shaking her head, and gesticulating wildly, my grandmother spent a solid 90 minutes making the rounds letting everyone know how beguiled she was by her own son’s clothing.  “I guess your dad’s gonna hop in the lake after this.”

Like most family meals, I spent most of the time trying to avoid my father because he had plenty of grievances he wanted to direct at me. “Glad to see you, son.  It feels like it’s been a year since I’ve seen you.” Imagine, however, a dry tone and throw in the fact that it probably had been at least a year. Greetings like this are the warmest reception the man has to offer.

Hence my pure joy to hear my grandma take him to task.  I yipped out a loud “Ha!” and high-fived my absolute favorite person in the room.  

Some people probably have really sweet memories of their grandma teaching them to bake or reading them stories.  I do not envy these people, though. I find the skills she imparted to me have way more value than something I could find on Pinterest.

I'm...Coming...Out

Honestly, though, if you don’t see a bellybutton singing the words to this post’s title, you’re probably lost.  Now scram!

Okay, now that it’s just us, this is definitely my coming out story.

I wish I could tell you that I woke up at 13, watched MTV’s Undressed, saw a gay storyline, had some feelings and came right on out.  That’s just not how things went down.

I definitely DID watch my fair share of Undressed, though.  For the uninitiated, the show had almost no substance and basically consisted of barely dressed actors constantly talking about sex and then supposedly having a lot of it every time the plot jumped to a different storyline.  Still, at 11 pm, after mom went to bed, I LIVED.

I think the intention for the show was to have an almost soft-core vibe but still be able to air on cable.  For me, though, the show was just the only access to gay people who were close to my age (as opposed to the handful of celebrities who took major hits in popularity after coming out at that time). They existed!  They were happy! People were relatively cool to them even if those people knew they were gay.  It was a novel concept.

Still, I definitely wasn’t ready to BE gay.  I even made deals with myself. Gave myself the occasional week where I wouldn’t yell at myself every time I had a gay thought.  Little did I know, I was taking the first steps toward accepting myself.

I knew I was different before that point.  Or rather, I was told I was different on a regular basis from many of my peers.  One of the reasons I switched to the “city” schools after sixth grade was that I was being pretty viciously bullied by the first kid to call me gay.  I had to ask what it meant, the first time he said it. Granted, the first time he said it, I was all of seven years old.

Comically, he was older than me and half my size.  He is also the only person I’ve ever physically fought to this day.  And that was a joke. He got as close to my face as he could possibly achieve and I knocked him to the ground.  That was it. My glorious battle.

Even after that, though, he was pretty relentless.  I basically lost all guy friends due to fear of being thought gay.   I wasn’t even twelve years old, but apparently, I took to recruiting early.

After switching schools, I got to start over, but I was wounded. I basically clammed up. I didn’t want to give anyone any hints about my abnormality.  That meant I basically couldn’t do or say anything since I wasn’t really sure what Blake (and yeah, that’s his name) saw in me to ridicule in the first place.  But clearly there was something and that needed to not happen again, so silent I was.

Still, I was never really great at not talking, so I found my way to choir and met some extroverts who helped me navigate my way through a place 10x the size of my former school.  I found my voice, as much as I hate that the context invites a pun.

All the same, that voice couldn’t speak truth.  I wasn't entirely sure what I was, yet, but I definitely wasn't the standard. I also got SUPER religious at this point.  I made church friends and that was actually really fun for a while.  Everyone was positive and supportive.

I lived like that, happily, for a while.  I tried dating girls, knowing that I wasn’t really interested.  It’s so embarrassing to know that I used girls as a social shield rather than just having good friends, but I suppose I can honestly say it seemed like a good solution at the time.

Then came Andrew.  Beautiful, tall, in-the-running-for-the-Olympics-in-swimming Andrew.  He came out as gay his junior year and most of the school abandoned him.  I was a sophomore who admired the shit out of him for doing it and I made that clear early on.  Suddenly, I had a new friend.

But really, I got several new friends.  It turns out, he had set up an entire support system of allies before he came out.  And they were older which felt like I had somehow managed to trick upper-echelon peers into thinking I mattered. Turns out, they were just cool (but how I would use that word today, not how gaybie Stephen would've used it). It was in this group that I was finally able to come out. It doesn’t really count when you let someone test the waters for you first, but still, I came out and was met with immediate acceptance (albeit from a handful of people who were sworn to secrecy).  That was the summer of my sophomore year, and I only really had one problem to deal with: I was still dating the sheriff's daughter.

I quickly had a long, tearful conversation with her.  She was very confused and certainly not as accepting and loving as my trial run.  Then again, why would she be? Just because I saw us as amazing friends doesn’t mean she hadn’t been banking on a bit more.

Still, I didn’t expect her to tell the entire school.  And she didn’t really. She just told three people who, well, you can figure it out.  Regardless, I spent the first day of my junior year seeking out all of my male friends to reassure them that I in no way wanted to have sex with them.  That was more a remnant of my elementary school days than anything else.

This is every gay kid's biggest fear, but it's also a normal part of the coming out process. Growing up in the age of social media, my generation tends to want to curate the narrative. We get lots of practice by making our Facebook page lie about how much we're enjoying every moment of life. Still, with something so personal, it felt like this was information that only I should get to decide when and to whom to disseminate it. The moment someone took that away from me, it felt like things were spiraling. I was desperate to get ahead of the story. At the same time, I was horrified that my sexuality was now a rumor rather than a fact. People who didn't hear it from me wanted confirmation, forcing me to answer that dreaded question, ("I heard you were gay. Is that true?" asked the CIA waterboarder). Having the courage to say yes felt kind of good, but it meant that I'd have to keep doing that. All year.

My perspective on that was probably a little off, too. Really, the people who were disgusted by the revelation (including a person who later tried to become my financial adviser by tricking me into a lunch because he sounding lonely/suicidal) never asked. They also never spoke to me unless it was absolutely necessary from that point on. SO many guys (some of whom used to say really shitty things to me) started treating me like I was invisible. I should've been thrilled by the people who asked. They wanted to know me. The silent majority were the ones deserving of my ire.

Also, coming out completely disarmed the homophobes. Literally, the worst thing the could call me was a fag. And that word had totally lost it's punch when 2,000 of my peers knew that I would willingly (sometimes, enthusiastically) have sex with a guy. That's not to say that they didn't still say mean things behind my back. I remember the finance guy, when we used to be best friends, tell me that Andrew coming out was one of the most disappointing things he had ever heard. That he used to be proud of Andrew, but now he's just disgusted. Cool. Still, the first and last time I was called a fag to my face at Centralia High School, I looked Travis straight in the eyes and said, "What are you, the news?" Done. Finished. Accepting myself was the cure to the small town bigot. They were no longer parroting the ugly thoughts I had about myself because those thoughts were gone.

Word also got around at church.  I hadn’t heard anything, specific, but then the pastor gave anti-homosexuality sermons three weeks in a row.  That marked my break from organized religion (followed by my break from all religions several years down the road).

Anyway, I was the second gay kid in my school during my tenure. By the end of junior year, I was the guru to the closeted kids that somehow started existing out of nowhere. I also got involved in theater that year, so I basically put out an APB?  And that’s how I came out to my mom.

It was the summer and everything was perfect.  I could still drool over Andrew before he left for college and I somehow didn’t lose all of my friends after revealing my true self (or rather, being exposed for who I truly am?).  I had a support system of my own. I was going to spend the summer getting tan and getting a man.

Cue a 3 a.m. call from a questioning boy we’ll call Jimmy.

I was Jimmy’s Andrew, and I knew it even at the time.  Just like Andrew had no romantic interest in me, Jimmy didn’t really do it for me.  We had already shared multiple awkward moments in cars where he would try to say something, then think better of it, or grab my hand out of nowhere and lay his head on my shoulder.  Jimmy was struggling because he came from a religious family and even had intentions of joining the ministry.

So he calls, right?  And it’s hella late! I knew I’d wake my mom from talking on the phone (I’d been busted too many times), so I took the phone into the back yard and talked to Jimmy.  He asked how I knew I was gay. What were the signs? How could I be sure? And I told him the best way I knew how at the time. I knew because saying it and being loved all the same was the best feeling I had ever known.  I knew because if Andrew ever changed his mind and laid a kiss on my lips, I would’ve phased into a liquid. It seemed truer than any other aspect of my identity.

And then my mom walked outside and said that we needed to talk.  She had heard the phone ring and stayed on the line the entire time.  In thirty minutes, I went from being closeted to my family all the way to my mom knowing how much I wanted to kiss the upperclassman who took me under his wing.  She was convinced he had somehow bamboozled me into homosexuality and certainly didn’t want me spreading the good word. Her biggest fear was that I would affix a label to myself that I wouldn’t be able to remove.

It took her YEARS to get past this.  Multiple boyfriends. Tons of awkward visits.  She loved me in all aspects except for my romantic life.  That was a topic that I brought up at my own risk. Still, in time, she realized that, rather than giving myself a permanent label, I was actually trying to remove the one everyone had affixed to me at birth.  That the only thing I diverged from was her expectations.

Even so, during the rocky times, she made it clear that I should not tell my father.  He had always been openly homophobic. He loved a good gay joke and accused most women around of being lesbians to ridicule them.  And his own goddamn sister is a lesbian.

I followed my orders, especially once I was in college.  There were still some financial responsibilities they helped out with despite my full-ride.  Mom made it clear I would not be able to stay if Dad pulled his end of the funds.

So I bided my time, and sure enough, I got outed again.  This time, by my stepmother. She knew and was super cool about it.  She hated how my dad made shitty jokes and one day, to shut him up, she told him that his own son was gay.  And that was not ideal, but his reaction was. At least according to her account, he looked up and said, “I just want him to be happy.”  Even if that’s a lie, I accepted it in exchange for forgiving her.

Yeah, so it turns out, I really only came out the first couple of times because coming out in a small town is like taking out a full-page ad in the newspaper.  That said, anyone in the LGBTQ+ community knows that once you come out, you have to do it for the rest of your life. And it’s way easier now. I mean, not easier than having someone else do it for you, but certainly easier than emotionally abusing myself and waiting for God to “fix” me.  As far as that strategy goes, Monique Heart said it best: “NOTHING HAPPENS, AMERICA!”

Snow Crash

When I was 8, my dad got me the coolest present an 8-year-old could ever receive.  He bought me a four-wheeler!

To be fair, I'm fairly certain he bought it mostly for hunting purposes.  That was never a conflict for me, however, because my mom always had me when my dad would go to the Love Shack.

Yes.  He called the hunting cabin "The Love Shack."  It was an odd name for a huge shed filled with aggressively straight men and their beer farts.

Now then, my four-wheeler was amazing.  I could burn my legs on the exposed engine or even flip the entire vehicle on top of myself.  How could an 8 year old not love every moment of that? I never lost that zeal. Especially when I got to ramp it at my favorite spot: The Muddy Mountain.

To understand muddy mountain, we're going to have to go back.  Since the day I was born, my father has been building a two-story house with a loft and basement.  It could be beautiful. He even brought in these Amish hitchhikers to put in a stone and mortar fireplace.  Gorgeous.

Unfortunately, my father took several drinking breaks during construction.  After the siding went up, very little happened to the house. Eventually, the property tax policy changed and lines were redrawn. For these reasons, my father chose to stop construction entirely and leave the home unfinished and unlivable.

In the early phase of construction, though, they had to dig out a foundation.  Normally one would either haul off or repurpose the dirt. My family, however, let me play on it and fall in love with it.

I would climb it, throw clods, and roll down it.  My muddy mountain became so ingrained in my play fantasies that we named it.  As I grew, clearly, I got bored with it. But then, my father bought me, an 8-year-old, an ATV.

I mentioned flipping earlier.  Here's why: I put my life in peril so many times on that pile of dirt that my parents definitely should've had DCFS called on them.  But who would call? The parents who let their children wield guns? My friends had knives on their belts. They were 10! I STILL have no need for a belt knife.

That said, my muddy mountain was not the most dangerous aspect of my four-wheeler activities.  Picture snow. Everything was white (well, white-er). I took full advantage: rolling around, making snow angels, throwing snowballs at the trees that stood as proxy to friends since we lived in the middle of a corn field.  After the initial joy of playing in the snow wore off, however, my dad grew restless.

I’ve never claimed to understand the man, but I imagine he thought, “This kid seems to have a death wish...I can work with that.” Inspired by the lake activity called tubing, my dad tied a rope to the back of my four-wheeler and tied the other end of the rope to an inner tube.  At that point, he sat his youngest son on the tube and started the four-wheeler.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, but I'm going to lay it all out for you.  At first, it was amazing! I held on tight and zipped across the snow. It was like super sledding.  I reached speeds only achievable in that time and place by putting yourself in danger of going into the lake.  My buddy Joe and I had several close calls seeking just such a thrill.

Eventually, though, the inevitable came, as it does.  At the peak of one of the pulls, my tube went directly into a super avoidable tree which I hit head-first.

This is the point where it’s actually fun to imagine my dad’s inner monologue: “Shit!  Now I’m going to have to pay for college!”

I don't remember it hurting.  I just remember being shaken and confused.  It's this day I always look back on when I wonder how my life would've turned out had I received a higher ACT score.

My dad reacted as dads, big brothers and other known fuck-ups tend to in these situations.  He rushed over, grabbed my shoulders and asked if I was okay. In retrospect, this would’ve been the perfect time to come out.  In reality, I was just so scared that we wouldn’t get to take another ride. As it turns out, after seeing his angelic, sweet boy T-bone an oak with his face, my father finally decided he was no longer willing to whip me across a snowy yard with your SUV.

As for me, I’d totally do it again.

Peanut-Peanut-Peanut Butter

I've never felt comfortable having one uniform set of silverware.  Sure, I'm barely an adult by my own standards. But let's be honest, plenty of people have their shit together by now.

x

Now, let me blame my family.  My father's house didn't just have two sets of mismatched spoons.  There were at least 5 different sets in the same drawer.

Why?

Peanut Butter.

Allow me to set the scene:   It's a 90+-degree day. The lake is like a tepid bath.  I've already almost died at least three times from jumping off the second story of my dad's boat dock.  I'm with every child within three years of my age and we all smell worse than you're probably imagining.

Parents didn't want us anywhere near their air-conditioned homes.  That was avoidable for a while. We had trampolines, electric mini-vehicles, 4-wheelers, slingshots, broken bottles, etc.  We had plenty of entertainment.

Unfortunately, children eventually get hungry.  Luckily, all of the country parents were oddly prescient when it came to our nutritional needs.  The moment I felt that first grumble, I'd see some adult coming out of one of the four homes with kids.  What would the adult have? Peanut butter in one hand and spoons in the other.

We'd  run, joyously to said adult, grab a spoon and dip into that jar.  All of the moisture would leave our mouths as we smacked our lips desperately trying to get the peanut butter from spoon to stomach.

Were the parents making sure our nutritional needs were being met? Sure.  Did that also shut us up for up to ten minutes? Absolutely!

What happened to the spoons, you ask?  Everything!

They would go into our pockets. They were tools, musical instruments and they served as a ticket to more peanut butter.  Therefore, they inevitably ended up wherever we did (home). Now, don't get me wrong. We certainly lost some of our original spoons this way as well.  Eventually, a statistician could tell you that there was a near-even distribution of spoons between all of our child-bearing neighbors.

This may sound like the same method people use to trick dogs into taking pills.  That’s fine. This particular “neighborhood” loved dogs as much if not more than people.  Being treated like a dog meant we were being treated like the most valued creatures around.

Now a tangent about the neighborhood dogs:

Every single neighbor (with the exception of the house that had 45 cats) had at least one dog.  They all ran around unhindered by kennels or chains. They often slept in the middle of the road that only four adults ever used.

When I was about four, my mom and I took our daily walk to the mailboxes (at the end of the road, but not the sexy Boyz 2 Men version).  On our way, Mama Buns’ dog, Shadow, was sleeping in the middle of the road. We passed him and nothing happened, but just wait.

On the way back, he was still there, but something felt off.  Maybe it was some type of intuition children have, then learn to doubt and suppress.  Maybe my own anxiety actually exacerbated the situation (but that feels so victim blame-y).  Regardless, I told my mom that I thought Shadow was going to bite me.

My mom looked down at the seemingly unconscious dog and told me I was being silly.  I resisted, she doubled-down, and so I tentatively started walking, giving Shadow a wide berth.  Moments later, I was knocked over. I really only remember black fur and pain. Shadow had lost his shit.

I next remember being lowered into a bath of ice water (like that kid from Secret Garden, I think).  I was cold, confused, and starting to form the foundations of a distrust of my mother’s reassurances that everything would be fine (or when she tried to tell me that I loved meatloaf which is the definition of slander).  It was a dark time.

I wasn’t given much time to actually voice any complaints, though, because before I even got a chance to consider getting out of the tub, I was handed the biggest spoonful of peanut butter I had ever seen.

If people question my steel spoons mixed in with my yellow gingham spoons, I probably won't tell them that all of my friends were given peanut butter instead of air conditioning, but know that that's what I mean when I look them in the eye and say, "I'm poor."

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I was not unlike most children when it came to animals (except for horses…those things are gigantic and horrifying).  I rarely met an animal I didn’t want to bring home and care for until my parents discovered it, saw the level of responsibility I had shown, and allow me to keep it as my pet.  Things never really panned out that way for me, though.

I blame my parents for making me like animals so much.  When I was born, they had two pitbulls, a male and a female.  The girl wouldn’t go anywhere without a blanket with which she would cover herself when she reached her destination.  One of my first memories is sitting on the porch with them walking around me.  Eventually, one got into a fight with a neighbor’s dog and the neighbors made my dad put them down.

There were also about a million cats living under our porch.  Every night, after dinner, my mom would toss out the leftovers “for the kittens.”  While most of them were fully grown, there were always kittens because those incestuous perverts were definitely not fixed.  My dad, however, hated cats and had plenty of methods of population control before I knew that PETA or the ASPCA existed. 

Be cool, dude...

After the divorce, the tiny pride made their way over to our neighbor’s house.  My best friend lived there, but I never liked going there because it smelled horrible.  Honestly, it’s probably for the best that my parents split up, otherwise I would’ve had much higher chances of being the smelly kid.  It’s about time I found an upside considering those jerks insisted on having holidays and birthdays together.  Think about it: I have to constantly explain that my parents are divorced but I never once got two Christmases or two birthdays.  They never competed for my love with gifts or money.  They were clearly the worst.

My first real pet was only mine for about a month.  He was a half-Rottweiler/half-German Shepard puppy.  In what was to become a trend of me picking out terribly unoriginal pet names, I dubbed him Rex.  I loved him more than anyone or anything in my life.  He was always trying to sleep (as puppies do), but when he would get up, I would follow him around the house with a curiosity normally reserved to urchins on a journey to see a dead body out by the train tracks.  That’s right.  I followed him.  I was an only child.

Rex ate everything he could tear into mouth-sized bits.  One time, I watched him eat an old dishrag, vomit it up, and then eat it again.  I was in awe.

A buffet for my first dog

My mother, on the other hand, was not.  She was a single mother working 50+ hours and a new puppy wasn’t really something she was ready to keep alive.  After that one magical, vomit-y month, Rex went to my brother’s best friend’s house.  Hopefully Little Larry gave him a better name.

After Rex, I was devastated.  I didn’t understand why my dog was going to live with someone else.  I had so much love to give.  So many places to watch him walk.  So many things to watch him eat and regurgitate!  This time, my dad took the reins.

Ruff (yes, I named him Ruff…because that was the noise he made.  I already explained that I wasn’t good at this.  I’m done apologizing.), was a golden lab.  When I was at my dad’s, he and I did everything together.  He even grew to my height in only a few short months.  By that point, he could go swimming with me.  He even learned how to rescue people who were drowning.  Unfortunately, he never really knew the difference between drowning and regular swimming.  Also, his rescue method consisted of pushing you under the water and scratching the hell out of you.

His tail literally never stopped wagging.  For instance, one night, while Dad was playing darts with me in the garage, Ruff stood too close to the wood-burning stove and burnt his tail on the one section that kept hitting the stove.  I don’t mean to insinuate that he just singed his hair.  He had a hairless scar on that part of his tail for the rest of his life.  Ruff was not the smartest dog, but he was mine.

Ruff’s brother lived next door for a couple of years.  Those two did NOT get along.  They would get into full-blown fights while I stood and watched in horror.  I would’ve run and separated them, but I never got to know Ruff’s brother and I’ve never trusted strange dogs.  That’s my mom’s fault.

Ruff's asshole brother...Look at him, clearly instigating.

Before my parents’ divorce (so age four or younger), my mom and I would walk to the mailbox if the weather was nice.  In the country, all of the mailboxes for everyone on the road are at the beginning of the road.  We lived on the opposite end.  This was more involved than simply walking to the end of the driveway. 

On the day that stole my dog trust, a neighbor’s dog, Shadow, was lying in the middle of the road.  Since only three cars regularly used that road, this wasn’t odd or dangerous.  On the way to the mailbox, Shadow was asleep and I walked right past him.  On the way back, however, something felt different.  I slowed and my mom walked past him.  I stopped a few feet back and told my mom I was scared to walk past him.  I looked in her eyes and told her I thought he was going to bite me.  I still don’t know how I knew this.  Maybe he was quietly growling.  Maybe I’m a pet psychic.  Maybe my fear caused it (though I’ve always found that to be a dickish assumption…very victim blame-y).

Conjecture aside, my mom told me Shadow was asleep and to walk.  She told me I would be fine.  I took a few reluctant steps and Shadow made his move.  I was rolling around in a ball of black fur and pain.  I don’t remember much else until my mom set me into an ice bath.  I still think of Shadow when I see someone in a movie get set into an ice bath (especially The Secret Garden).

Therefore, Ruff was on his own until I could go get my dad.

One day, while in the garage that my dad used for both recreation and work (he had tons of printing equipment in there.  I think he did some side printing jobs while he was working at Graphics Packaging.  I’m not sure, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask.  Anyway, this is a huge garage.  It’s detached and made for two cars.  There are also two rooms in the back.  One was an office and the other had another garage door big enough for a compact car.) I heard a mew coming from the back.  That was odd because that’s where I kept my ATV.  I was nine years old by this point and spent a fair amount of time at my dad’s just wandering around.  I went into the back to investigate, but couldn’t locate the sound.  Then, I heard it again.  It seemed like it was coming from the rafters near the door I had just come in.  I walked to the door and looked up just as I heard a shuffling.  I held out my hands just in time for a tiny gray kitten to fall into them.  It was like magic.  I don't even know why I held out my hands.  I didn't see anything fall.  I just caught a kitten that materialized out of thin air.  Like a boss.

Since cats falling from the ceiling was new territory for me, I ran and got my dad.  He found three more nestled on top of a thick, wooden door frame.  The momma cat was nowhere to be found.  He got a box and set them in there, but they were so little that we couldn’t get them to drink milk out of a bowl and their mom never came back. When I went back to my mom’s, miraculously, the kittens came along for the ride.  My mom set them up a little nest with an old stuffed animal for them to cuddle.  She managed to get them to drink out of a dropper for a while, but it wasn’t incredibly successful.  One day, they weren’t there when I got home.  I didn’t get a chance to think of names.  That was actually probably better for them.

My mom was over pets for a long time after that.  Then came Christmas when I was twelve.  My mom walked into the house with her best friend, Lisa.  They looked really happy, the way people look around small children that must be instinctual because it seems reflexive.  Lisa sat down next to me and put her brown, leather purse in between us.  My mom said I had a surprise and it was in the purse.  I could see something white sticking out of both ends.  Beanie Babies were really popular during this time, so I started to sum up the energy to pretend to love it when Lisa yelled, “Hurry up before it pees in my purse!”

I lifted the flap and saw a tiny, white Maltese puppy looking back at me.  I was definitely excited because I always wanted a pet at my mom’s house, but she was so little.  I was always tall for my age and I wasn’t the most graceful child.  I was worried I’d break her.  I treated that pup like a Faberge Egg.  I also took my time naming her because by this point, I was smart enough to realize I’m terrible at naming animals.  Eventually, my mom got tired of me “dragging my feet” on the subject and named her Stephie.  She thought that “Stevie and Stephie” would be super cute.  The feeling you’re squirming around with right now is an amalgamation of pity, discomfort and maybe just a dash of endearment depending on how affected you are.

Definitely not my sister, mom!

My worry about breaking Stephie never really went away.  She eventually bonded with my mom far more than she had with me and for that reason, I don’t consider Stephie my dog.  She was always really my mom’s.  She never shed and would always growl/bark/bite if anyone got too close to my mom.  I eventually resented her because she was so loud and yippy.  The only thing I can really say for her at this point is that she kept my mom company when I moved out and went to college.  Now, when I come home to visit, the house still feels empty without her.

Ruff is also gone. My dad has a new golden lab, Brody. He’s just as stupid, but I don’t see the same love in his eyes.  I refuse to swim in that particular lake anymore, so I have no idea what his lifesaving skills are like.

Getting to grow up surrounded by animals is definitely one of the benefits of growing up in the country.  I’m glad I got to experience it, even if it was only part-time for most of my developmental years.  I’m also glad I eventually wore my mom down and got a dog in town.  This is the same woman who nursed a wounded squirrel back to health in a cage in her trailer with my dad, so she definitely needed to have animals in her life again.  Oh, and don’t worry. The squirrel can definitely be seen in some of their wedding photos. 

When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

I love my roots.  I love where I came from and how that past contributed to the person I've becom.  I even love my hometown.  My favorite view of it comes from my rear view mirror. 

I knew from a very early age that I needed to get out of there.  This knowledge probably stems from my mom regularly telling me that I needed to get good grades so that I could get a scholarship because we were poor.

8-year-old me pulling an all-nighter before a spelling quiz.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take everyone I love with me.  That means I have to drive back to Centralia, IL on an almost monthly basis.  While my father and I have a strained relationship, he has made this list and, through association, so has his girlfriend and her children.  I attended grade school and high school with them.  We’ve always been a part of one another’s lives.

These people are a mess, so I clearly get them.  Last Thanksgiving, they decided not to invite many people and were able to host in my dad’s single-wide trailer.  There were two types of turkey (smoked for Rhonda (the girlfriend who is now my stepmother) and roasted for pretty much everyone else) and all of the usual suspects of sides.  My stepmom even made bacon-wrapped asparagus.  It was awesome!

Having grown up in Southern Illinois, though, I always expect one appetizer at holiday dinners: pickle wraps.  They’re basically slices of ham smeared with cream cheese and then wrapped around dill pickles ham-side out.  Once sliced into bite-size pieces, they look like pupil-less green eyes.  They’re both repulsive and delicious.  I blame my sodium deficiency.

White trash caviar

I looked all around for them, but didn't ask because I didn't want to accidentally spark a conversation. I’m the only extrovert in my biological family, but Rhonda’s kiddos know how to small talk, especially about things that matter in their own microcosm of the world.  They’re not entirely self-centered, though.  Each and every one of them asked where my partner at the time was.  He had never attended a Garland Thanksgiving.  He always went home for that holiday and came with me on Christmas.  Still, they never failed to ask.  I've yet to decide whether I appreciate or hate that fact.

Despite my carefully toeing the landmines of actual conversation, I, nevertheless, was pressed to try a new dip.  It was in a bowl the size of which I would associate with holding an entire bag of microwave popcorn or vomit (avoid popcorn bowls in my house).  For dip and the number of people in attendance, the serving seemed superfluous.  The medium was white and suspended in it were pink and green chunks of indiscernible flora and fauna.

As I spread the mystery dip onto a cracker and had it nearly to my mouth, I asked, “What is it?”  I didn't consider this a bold or adventurous move.  Most of the food my family makes is fairly bland.  Eating strange animals hasn't been an issue for me outside of the one time my dad mentioned “bullet cat stew.” (I’m still hoping he was kidding, but he swears a recipe is floating around his house (trailer) somewhere.) Saltiness was the only flavor profile they hit hard, and that wasn't a problem for me.

The cracker was already in my mouth when my “sister” said, “It’s pickle wrap dip!”

NOT TODAY, SATAN.  NOT TODAY!

This is as good a time as any to explain my stepsister, Sam.  She is almost the exact same age as I.  We were in the same grade, but we didn't really take the same classes or like one another.  Then, our parents started dating and suddenly I was “brother.”  Growing up in Centralia, I knew when to take my lumps.  I returned the favor and we've gotten along ever since.  She’s especially easy to like considering the way my father treats her.  I’ll take his indifference to the constant barrage of insults he tosses her way any day.

Sam stayed at my dad’s house (trailer) for about a year after she developed some disease I never cared to remember.  The symptom was fainting?  Insomnia? Celiac disease?  Regardless, she was there.  When my brother and his family made one of his biennial visits, my father and stepmother insisted they spend at least one night with them.  They were staying at my mom’s with me while she stayed at my “stepdad’s” place around the block.

Sam's doctor, I'm assuming

The only way Shawn, his wife and his daughter could stay at the lake, though, was for Sam to hit the bricks.  In an effort not to make Shawn and co. feel like they were kicking her out and bail out of guilt, though, my father did the honors himself.  Everything Sam owned, including her toiletries, were moved to the unfinished house my dad stopped working on when I was four years old.  Since my father also hosted a barbecue that evening, we all got to hear this first-hand from Sam herself.

Thankfully, her boyfriend at the time brought a tent and sleeping bags (along with his four children from a previous relationship) since it was going to be thirty-three degrees outside that night.  In the end, my father’s stratagem proved successful. Shawn and his wife felt so much responsibility that they HAD to stay in the trailer.

I felt bad for Sam after that…until I ate the dip she invented.  Now, I totally get it.  That fainting, not-sleeping, gluten-fearing jerk had it coming.

She turned pickle wraps into a dip!   And it was…awful.  She used a combination of dill and bread and butter pickles (Note: In no way am I claiming that using only dill would have made this dip edible).  I shame-swallowed this monstrosity in my mouth and quickly fled the table devoted solely to one of the worst things I've ever allowed past my teeth.  When asked, I politely effused over how happy I was that something so good was made into a dip.

My niece and I spent the rest of the night in a horrified silence normally reserved for people who dress up in pirate costumes for a pirate-themed wedding only to find that they are, in fact, the only ones who assumed costumes were part of the theme.

The struggle is real.  Let your guests know in no uncertain terms whether or not you want them to dress up for your wedding that has a ridiculous theme.

I'll Take You to the Candy Shop

For the son of a functioning alcoholic, it may be surprising to learn that I didn’t know the difference between a bar and a liquor store until I was well into high school.  My parents had split custody after their divorce when I was four years old.  Because of this, every other weekend, I would pack a bag and my dad would take me from the bustling metropolis of Centralia, IL to the sticks.  Before we would make that drive, however, my father would take me to the Blue Goose for anywhere from thirty minutes to four hours.

The Blue Goose was a magical shack.  Free standing, though no larger than a convenience store, the walls were covered in shelves of dusty bottles I never once saw anyone purchase.  The floor was mostly filled with boxes of beer and the centerpiece consisted of three barrels filled with beer and ice.  It was from these glorious troughs that my father and his friends would shovel out their libations.

Four-year-old me thought this was totally natural.  The only man I ever saw working there, Dennis, used to throw pieces of Double Bubble at me when I walked in or whenever I got those dead hooker eyes that said, “I guess this is my life now. I’ll sleep on that case of PBR.   There’s plenty of soda and chips.”  I never saw Dennis do that with anyone else.  It made me feel special, which is awesome because I needed that.  I was obviously too stupid to realize this unique relationship was only unique because my recently-divorced father was the only man who would bring his child into a liquor store for more than a quick stop.

A child's only hope of happiness in a liquor store

To be fair, I was basically an only child (both brothers were moved out by this time), well-versed in entertaining myself.  I was the poster child for bringing your kids to liquor stores that operate as bars without proper bar licensure.  I would just curl into fetal position and hum to myself…LIKE ANY NORMAL CHILD!

When I got involved with chorus and speaking in junior high, my dad told me he was so happy I grew out of that shy phase.  I just couldn’t tell him it was all a result of having to ignore my present situation and absorbing way too many adult conversations at an early age.  My schoolmates didn’t understand my humor.  My dad could call a lady a drunk slut and get a shack-full of laughter.  All I got were looks of fear, but not the badass Machiavellian kind.  The kind that’s mixed with pity.  The kind one might have of a concerningly-dissheveled person walking too fast toward one.

Maybe you're just scared of how much you care?

If I had been better at reading context clues, I might have avoided developing my father’s colloquialisms.  This is the same man who wore a t-shirt and swimming trunks to our family Christmas dinner. 

This is why I am never in a rush at the liquor store.  If there were ever a reason to camp out at one, I would be perfect at that!  In addition, I almost never walk out of one without candy.

This is also why my boss thinks I talk like an 80 year old.  I’m not saying, “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” because I want to look older or retro; I’m saying that because I thought that’s how you told people, “I’ve had three beers and need to piss.”

It blows my mind that some counties/states won’t sell liquor and beer at the same place.  If the Blue Goose were under those constraints, they’d either lose all of their decorations or unceremoniously go out of business.  Conversely, anyone not from Centralia gets a similarly blown mind when he or she discovers that all of our liquor stores are drive-thru liquor stores.

Fast forward to Christmas of 2012.  My brother was up from his home in Florida, so Dad and his live-in were pulling out all of the stops. 

A moment to explain my father’s live-in.  My family doesn’t marry.  I mean, at one point, they did.  But then they all got divorced and apparently decided they were over it.  My father has been dating his girlfriend for over a decade.  She is, for all intents and purposes, my stepmom.  Her children call me “brother.”  That is less clinical than it sounds.  I call my real brother “brother.”  I call my cousins “cousin.”  It’s just a thing we do. 

Another moment to explain my brother.  He moved to Florida when he was fourteen.  He even dropped our last name for a while when he was married to a woman named Noel.  Apparently, she didn’t want her name to be too Christmas-y.  He’s now back to the Garland clan.

My old sister-in-law.

Back to the main storyline: my father and “stepmother” took my brother’s wife, his child and him to every place of note in Centralia.  One destination conspicuously not on the agenda was the Blue Goose.  It seems the ownership has changed in Centralia’s version of a hostile takeover.  The entire Blue Goose Crew (BGC) fled to a bar/liquor store (because, why not?) called The Caddy Shack.  I was worried that my father had learned how to drink in an actual bar (This isn’t entirely fair.  One holiday weekend, I went out with some of my friends from home to a dive bar in town.  My dad was there.  He was so happy to see me talking to females at a bar that he bought us all a round.  It was sweet.); my fears were assuaged, however, when he took us to the liquor store side of the establishment, reached into an all too familiar barrel and cracked open a Bud.  To this day, I’ve never seen the bar section of The Caddy Shack.

My imagined idea of what the bar in The Caddy Shack looks like.  I'll probably never know.

Not to be outdone, my sister-in-law and I got a bottle of Shiraz and passed it back and forth.  I am my father’s son, after all.