Susan and the funeral.

 I was a newly divorced, freshly graduated from college, overworked, surviving on 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and freaking EXHAUSTED 20 year old when my dad's first cousin, who was more of a sister to him, passed away after a long struggle with emphysema. My aunt and dad were very close with the deceased, so I knew I had to pay my respects, and like most "funerals" go, they had a visitation the night before for 5 hours (from 4-9pm) and the next day was the funeral. 

We were also understaffed at work (a busy emergency department that never slept) so I was working 14-16 hour days every other week then the next I'd be doing 14-16 hour nights. I lived an hour from work, so I'd drive 70 miles to work, work for 14-16 hours depending on our case load, drive 70 miles back home, try to sleep, then do it again. 

I was (thankfully) on days when my dad's cousin/sister passed away, so I'd gotten off work, drove to town (60 miles vs 70), changed into a dress and boots at my boyfriend's house, then drive to the funeral home. I'd been there an hour when I couldn't stop yawning, and decided to call it. I was exhausted, I had to work the next day, and I'd spoken to all my family members multiple times. I felt it was okay to leave, and my aunt and great aunt (mother of the deceased) both shooed me out, telling me to go rest. 

But then I ran into Susan in the parking lot. Susan was HATED by the deceased. She hated everything about her. In fact, the deceased's husband had told Susan she wasn't invited to the wake/funeral. Of course, Susan gives zero shits about anybody but Susan, so she did what she wanted. She was carrying two $5 hot and ready pizzas. 

She stopped dead in her tracks "Where are you going? Why did you wear that, you look like a whore! DO you want pizza, I brought your brother some because he was hungry." 

I told her that my knee length sweater dress and knee high boots were fine, I was going home to sleep, and no, I didn't think pizza in a funeral home was appropriate. 

Then I got a 25 minute lecture on how my dad will resent me for the rest of my life for not being there for him during his time of need and I was tacky, stupid, and had zero empathy. 

Says the woman who was taking two freaking PIZZAS into a funeral she wasn't invited to. 

 

Susan and the eyeglasses.

 Is anybody tired of Susan stories?  

 

If you are, I’m really sorry. Please scroll by, because this is a Susan story. A short one... But still a Susan story.  

 

I got new glasses today. I’d found frames I really liked and had my prescription put in them. I actually got 4 pair, and they’re... different from anything I’ve had before.  

 

Susan had me at the eye doctor from the time I was a preteen, and for some unknown reason would always choose the roundest, ugliest coke bottle like glasses everrrr then complain that I wasn’t “popular”. Well, it’s hard to be popular when you’re wearing glasses (and clothes) that makes you look like you should be starring in the Golden Girls Reunion. I always leaned towards more cat eye frames (still do, it turns out) which she said was “whorish” and “made me look fat”.  She even accused me of faking my vision issues because I liked to spend her money (a full $25 copay that my dad always paid). 

 

So, I simply didn’t wear my glasses.  

 

Fast forward to now, I’m pushing 30 and legally blind in one eye because reasons, and I really needed glasses... And I spent a week arguing back and forth with myself before finally just getting the ones I wanted. Finally.  

 

Can’t wait for me to have them on in something public and to receive a screeching email about me being a fat whore.  

 

 

 

 

Where were you when the world stopped turning?

 September 11, 2001. 

Where were you when the world stopped turning? 

I was in fifth grade. The teachers all cried. When I got home, I turned on the TV and watched it in horror. I didn't completely understand what was happening but I got the gist of it. I heard the news reporters talking about how they were shutting down refineries for safety reasons, and my dad was a welder in an oil refinery 2 hours away. 

I went to my mom for comfort. Her response? To stop being so dramatic. It didn't effect me in anyway, so I should stop making things about me and go do my chores. New York was so far away and no where I would ever find myself, so just HUSH already. It was one of the very first times I was told my emotions didn't matter (second, that I can think of) and I should just shut up. 

To this day, I feel weird talking about September 11th. I feel as if it's "none of my business" and any form of sorrow or upset is just me being dramatic. 

However, my kids are 6, 4, and 2. They've been to the World Trade Center Memorial. They've been to the flight 93 memorial. We've talked about it, in an age appropriate way. We will continue to talk about it, to discuss the emotional side of things, and my children will know that it DOES effect them, because they're Americans and it effects us all. 

Where were you when the world stopped turning? 

Susan vs Labor Day.

I think I've spoken about Susan and her aversion to anything that might resemble a holiday (or touched on it, at least) … But I want to touch on it a bit more tonight.  

 

“Holidays” aren’t really holidays unless Susan 1) says they are 2) thinks she can get attention or money for them or 3) will have to defend her image for not celebrating. The big ones are Christmas, Easter, Halloween. Sometimes Thanksgiving, though Susan HATES Thanksgiving because 1) Susan hates food 2) Susan hates being reminded that others like food 3) Susan hates being reminded that others can cook more than hamburger helper and 4) Thanksgiving is a ploy by the skinny people to make the fat people (a group I’ve sat in since I was 8) fatter. 

 

 

When a “minor” holiday creeps up, such as Labor Day, Susan would much rather pretend it didn’t exist. Back when we, the minor children, lived with her, she’d bitch and complain that it was a terrible waste of a school day, we should be in school. I don’t recall EVER spending a minor holiday such as Labor Day, the 4th of July, Memorial Day, etc with Susan, probably because she’d inform my dad that she had zero interest in trying to entertain us, and we’d be at his house whether he liked it or not. If I dared ask to go to a friend’s house/camp/whatever for such a holiday, Susan would call their parents stupid for entertaining a bunch of kids for such a ridiculous day and go back and forth to the very last minute on whether I should be allowed to go or whether I should say no and go to my dad’s, to “study”.  

 

I moved from Susan’s at 14, and as a teenager, I had boyfriends and friends. And I didn’t LIVE with Susan, so Susan couldn’t (oh, but she tried!) really dictate what I did. We’d go to the lake, we’d go to the river, we’d fish, we’d cook out or camp, and I (as well as my dad) knew to keep my mouth SHUT about my whereabouts, because if Susan EVER found out I was out having fun instead of sitting at home contemplating ways to get skinny and kiss my poor doting mother’s ass, there would be hell to pay.  

 

Now, my brother and I are okay now, but growing up, we never got along. He was a homebody, he’d much rather sit for days on end and play his video games, and he didn’t give a flying fuck about friends or fun, because why would he? He had every video game console known to mankind and when he was at my dad’s he could sit and play and inhale pizza rolls, hot pockets, and popcorn chicken by the pound without Susan fussing about “him getting fat”. The only problem with ME growing up and getting friends/boyfriends was that I wasn’t there as his buffer. This particular holiday, it was the second week of school, the very next day to Labor Day he would have his summer reading book report due and his book knowledge test, and HE HADN’T READ IT because, well... Video games. In the past, I’d been bribed by BOTH parents to sit and read to him aloud as he played his video games and piece together a semi legible book report for him to turn in, but... I had plans and he had literally waited till the last minute. It was WEDNESDAY, and I was making plans for MY weekend, and he was having a heart attack because he had absolutely nothing done.  

 

 

So, what do you do when faced with such a dilemma and you have a narcissistic mother handy to put the hammer down on her scapegoat? He called Susan. He complained (not that I hadn’t done his school work, he was much smarter than that) that I was going out for a WHOLE WEEKEND and he felt left out because 1) he wasn’t invited and 2) I was “rubbing it in”.  

 

Oh, there was hell to pay. Susan pitched a fit of epic proportions and informed all of us that of COURSE my brother would tell her if I left and went somewhere without him, and if so, she’d take my dad back to court to get custody of me back. That was her main threat, always. She’d force me to live back with her. Never mind that she still got my entire child support and every ounce of support for me she’d gotten from the beginning, even with me NOT LIVING WITH HER. She had leverage, and she’d fucking use it.  

 

I was distraught, because it wasn’t fair. Why was everything I looked forward to ripped from me just because I didn’t do the bidding of the narc and her son with narc fleas? But my aunt (dad’s sister), bless my aunt. She was determined to make it up to me. She immediately booked a full 3 days/nights at the beach with an awesome outlet mall, an oceanfront condo, and promises of good food and lots of shopping. This was HUGE, because my aunt HATES the beach, she can’t swim, and she despises all things hot, but.... This was for me. And my brother (who also hates all things hot and the beach generally doesn’t have an xbox setup) was going, and he’d get over himself. The only stipulation was that I needed to read that goddamn book to him on the 4-hour drive down there... And I did.  

 

 

 

We never did tell Susan about that one. I feel like it was a big fuck you to her. I got a massive new wardrobe, anything I desired (I still remember my blinged out razr phone case), and my brother was MISERABLE. I feel bad that someone was miserable, but he brought it on himself.  

 

 

I wish I could say that he learned that fucking with evil never brings you wins, but it’d be years before he came across that particular lesson.  

 

 

So, that’s my Susan/Labor Day story!  

 

On an aside, my family and I are going out on the boat for a weekend at the lake, swimming and fishing. Somewhere, Susan is clutching her pearls and can’t figure out why, because only “people who are stupid with money” have boats.  

 

Ya’ll have a good Labor Day 😉