Navel gazing

I've been dwelling.

Not in the 'living in an abode' kind of dwelling.  I mean ruminating. 

I've gone through so much in the last year regarding cleaning up my brain.  I've FACED and dealt with the facts of my abusive childhood and I feel as though I've - if not filed and organized, I've straightened and swept that area of my head.  It's better in there than it's ever been.

My broken brain is acknowledged and petted every fucking day.  I just say to myself 'THEY broke your brain, bunny - let's just move along here, not your fault' - this when my thoughts get stuck in either some maudlin pity party or else go all Dexter on me.  [do any of you do this, btw?  do you look at say, a homeless guy sleeping along a river bed and wonder what he would do if you ran up and kicked him in the face *hard*?  Now I've made myself sound like a sociopath and I'm telling you I'd never follow through with anything like that - I give food and shoes and clean underpants to the homeless! but why in the hell does my brain GO to that place?  Even unto myself, like when driving across a bridge and I worry I might suddenly decide to DRIVE OFF THE SIDE.  I am not a thrill seeker and no longer feel the need to go to sleep and not wake up, so WTF?  It's like my brain has this side that is all dark and twisted and icky]

I actually sometimes have worser thoughts pop into my head than the above examples.  I think it is because I was exposed to some horrific stuff, possibly sexual abuse stuff, as a little child and so my brain is broken in that regard.  But as I said, I pat myself on the brain-pan and move myself along to greener pastures.  It's all I can do, I have to just re-direct and move along.

[I hate feeling like I'm crazier than anyone else but sometimes the proof is in the pudding.]

Anywhozle.  As I was saying, I've dealt with so much stuff and now the dust is sort of settling and it leaves me thinking of what an unmitigated ASS I have been in my life.  I've touched on this before, but my GOD I made some completely bone-headed self-serving selfish decisions.  I owe apologies to SO MANY people and one of the most important people I owe an apology to is DEAD for chrissakes (Byron) and so while I assume he knows my heart and soul, I do wish I hadn't done what I did.

All of this stuff - I was constantly making decisions NO.  NO I didn't make decisions.  I let the wind and my varying emotional winds and hormones and fears rule me and I just kept leaping from lily pad to lily pad without ever even knowing I could have taken the time to look for the edge of the pond.  I was panicked and running LONG past the time there were any monsters (my dad) chasing me.  I paid all my bills, but you know, sometimes on the last day at the last minute with change from my ashtray.  There was never any forethought.  No plan of action or 'what next' critical thinking.  No idea that tomorrow I might really regret this decision or that leap.

In no particular order, here are a few of my asinine idiotic life decisions.  I hate myself sometimes.

1.  I was working with a friend (turned out to be a narc *surprise!*) we worked for two attorneys.  There was an auxiliary female attorney attached to the same office and she was married to a guy named Greg.  I started having an affair with this Greg guy.  He was a cop!  yeah.  Jeopardized my job which was always precarious at best.  She found out and hilarity ensued.  It was fucked.  I was scared.  This same guy tried to break my arm and little 3-year old Mike got into the fray.

2.  Met a guy via telephone while I was working for an escrow company.  We enjoyed a long and satisfying long-distance flirt.  He drove up to meet me finally and he turned out to be amazingly great, 5 years older than me and had his shit together.  He ran his own business and was just this amazing older MAN.  He thought I was funny(!) and sexy(!!) and smart(!!!) and really, he thought I was the greatest thing since pockets.  He also turned out to be married.  I kept up with that affair in one way or another (meaning it wasn't always sexy-time but it could have been) until I moved to Maryland 2 years ago.  YEAH.

3.  Was sort of but not really dating Byron.  We had been friends since 5th grade and all through high school we flirted (we were in band together!  geeks!) and after high school we started hanging out and he had this HUGE group of guy friends and I was this levi wearing girl who hung out and they treated me like a sister except Byron and I had this *thing* and it was all VERY cute, and very sweet.  This lasted for years.  But we were always dating other people and keep our liaisons quiet.  Then with one thing and another (alcohol, close proximity, horribly non-existent boundaries) I started flirting with HIS YOUNGER BROTHER and thus began the shameful-est part of my life.  SEX WITH BROTHERS.  ("not at the same time in the same bed! but during the same time period!" she hurries to clarify, making her less whore-like, right?) The one (John) knowing and the other, who I really really liked but couldn't really have (Byron) not knowing and then Byron died and I never could understand why all of our friends immediately hated me and it has come to my (much clearer) way of thinking that John told all his (our) friends what a whore I was and so of COURSE they all wouldn't talk to me and oh, this is one thing if I could go back but would have to live through my 20's again, I am thinking I would go back and change this shameful stupid thing.  Also I have learned to HATE John, he didn't have to be a dick.  His brother dying fucked him up but why take it out on me?  He had told me that he loved me, so hell hath no fury like that I guess.

4.  I manipulated the fucking crap out of people in order to get what I needed.  Which sounds so New York but I am talking about couches (used) or rides somewhere or tickets to a concert.  I traded sex for car repairs (not like, on a street corner but by magically dating boys who worked on cars AND who had things like dirt bikes).  I guess I thought I was clever and uh, yeah, I guess that is so.  Women have traded their bodies down through the ages but until recently I never thought of it from that angle.  I just thought I was magically dating car guys.

This is another part of growing up around narcs that we don't talk about much.  they fucked us up as kids and also we have no boundaries, no decision making skills.  I have no passions (except I guess I used to have a passion for married men.  That's not what I'm talking about here tho...) I have no talents besides a small skill at putting my stories out on the webz. 

Picture if you will, a really hopeless Tarzan.  Let's say, Mr. Limpet meets Tarzan.  He flings himself out on a vine, LEAPS to the next one and clutches it with eyes closed, heart PoUnDiNg, and sweaty grip until he's sure he isn't going to fall.  Heart still pounding he LEAPS to the next vine.  And lather, rinse, repeat.  THIS WAS ME.  I could have let go of the fucking vine and slid down.  There was nothing down there.

I could have stopped and built myself a tree house.  I could have just STOPPED MOVING.  Fucking crap. 

Round about the time I met Married Man Via Telephone I was drinking like a fish.  I had just lost all my friends (JOHN) and I was alone and sad and exhausted and tired of dancing.  I met Mike's dad and got pregnant, and while that wasn't the stupidest thing I've ever done as I like Mike's dad and have you met my son?  He's pretty great, it was another in a long line of leaping grasping clutching vine-jumping.

When I turned 39? Mike and I had moved into our last apartment, there in Garden Grove ca.  I stopped dating.  I had realized that the only common denominator in all of my bad decisions was, uh, ME.  So I quit.  I spent almost 2 years single and figuring stuff out.  It was at that time I decided to stop belittling my child abuse and stopped pretending it hadn't happened.  It would take me 10 years to really get it all cleared.

Finding you all helped so much.  I've said it before, but I thought it was just me.  I guess we have all said that, that we thought it was just OUR childhood.  To find out about all of us ULBs... 

I don't really have a point.  I am avoiding looking at or talking about my abusive childhood because I have dug down to the point that I realize some really REALLY shitty things happened to me in Florida.  And some of it makes me sound like a conspiracy theory LOON.  And I just don't want to walk through that right now.

Remember that movie 'Erin Brockovich' and there was this one scene where Erin was trying to get a water sample from a drainage ditch but she absolutely didn't want the water on her - she pulled a dead frog out by the toe and UGH that's how I feel.  If I could research this crap without getting any on me...

But reading about child abuse and thinking about child abuse and writing about child abuse - sometimes I feel like I walked through a giant spider web that was covered in dog crap.  It just gets ALL OVER me, you know?  And I need, recently, to take a (mental, metaphoric) shower and then not get any more on me.

Besides.  I spent all this time (rightfully) blaming all sets of parents in my life for the things that fucked me up.  But recently it has been important for me to acknowledge the ways I screwed up my own self and could have prevented it.

I don't know if it's worth it to contact anybody to apologize in person.  None of the above examples!  Those people can rot in hell - but there are girlfriends from long ago that I feel I owe an apology to, or a thank you to.  But it is SO long ago.  And I don't want to renew a friendship with those people - they were broken too, you know?  I want to acknowledge my own part in my past, and maybe that is enough.

No sense stirring anybody else's life-mud to the top. 

Live A Short Time, And Fail Miserably - re: my narcissistic ex husband

*Title of this post is a play on the Vulcan greeting "Live Long and Prosper"

...which is the opposite of what I wanted my ex husband to do.*



I had the following same arguments over and over and over with my first husband.  These days, I see them for what they are - his attempts to narc me.  I was relationship-stupid, but I wasn't going to fall for that crap.  From this distance, I am giving myself a high-five and a 'hellz yeah!'

1.  I told him many times not to tickle me [I have given bloody noses to people who tickle me.  It's not fun, or funny.  It's invasive and torture and I hate it.]  So he would walk behind me and *poke* me in the ribs to startle me, to tickle me.  I would get FURIOUS and then he would get mad at me!  So I would say:  "I ask you specifically and frequently NOT to do a thing.  Then you do that thing.  Then I get upset, and then YOU GET MAD AT ME!?  What in the fuck is that all about??" and he would just huff and walk away.  He had no answer to my logic.  This happened in varying ways several times.

2.  We were fighting (surprise) and he said something, a factual statement that differed completely from his last stance (he went to the store after work vs. he worked late, or something).  So I asked (YELLED AT) him "last week you said A.  Now you are saying B.  So, were you lying THEN, or are you lying NOW!?"  Oh, he hated that.  I have an almost perfect memory for conversations (hello scapegoat narc syndrome) and I could repeat VERBATIM what he had said the first time.  His attempts to gaslight me were laughable, but his reaction when I held his hand to the fire?  He couldn't THINK.  He would mutter something '...well that was...' and I would repeat "were you lying then?  or are you lying NOW?  it's an easy question asshole!  just man up and tell me which time was the lie??"  He would walk away.

Har.  They HATE being caught in lies.  And he wasn't particulary quick on his mental feet.  I'm GOOD in a fight.  Better than good.  Mike's dad has called me a 'verbal ninja' - and I can get behind that description.

I was still low-self-esteemy enough to stay with this disgusting creep for over 2-years.  But his attempts to give me the full on narc treatment were deflected every time.  There is so much more about this guy, that's another post.  But it was my use of Spock-like logic that drove him nuts.  He could not refute me!

OH!  He was driving my little SUV, we had bought a brand new van that I drove (on MY good credit, goodbye good credit!) and every day I would yell at him for smoking in the SUV.  He would try to tell me he wasn't.  Like you can't smell cigarette smoke EVERYWHERE, not to mention one of my super powers is my sense of smell.  One day I took him out to the car and showed him the line of ash on the outside driver door and back panel.  He muttered and stumbled and said 'well, IF i smoke I have the window down' <--if.  IF I SMOKE.  I was completely laughing at him, pointing at him and laughing (I am SUCH a bitch in a fight, you do not want to fight me when I know I'm right) and I was yelling at him "so you ARE smoking in the car!  I TOLD YOU I KNEW IT!  The car smells like cigarette smoke you asshole!  YOU AREN'T FOOLING ANYONE!

Oh, he hated that logic I used.  He hated that he couldn't get one past me.  (I married him, let's not get all egotistical about how smart I am)

He was never physically abusive, but it was going in that direction. 

(Mike, you have said you didn't realize he was that bad.  You were about 3, 4, 5-years old at the time.  I hid EVERYTHING bad from you.  It was my job as a mom to make sure you felt safe.  I'm glad you didn't know how bad it was.  But, uh, I MARRIED SOMEONE I felt I needed to keep you safe from.  MY child abuse was still ringing in my ears, I was still making bad decisions based on my childhood.  I thank every god there could ever be [like that guy from The Mummy] that I had the sense to keep you out of it.  JEEBUS it's like I almost let you get hit by a bus.)

Photo of a Ranty Pants - perfect example of my narcissistic father's rage

 

This is what a narc looks like when he’s about to lose his shit.  Notice my poor sister Leslie, trying to get him to calm down like he’s a fucking 2-year old about to throw his toys.  I don’t know who was taking the picture, but oooh!  I bet they BURNED from that cranky look!  HA. 

This picture is just a piece of a BIG picture of our whole family.  It was taken during my back-yard wedding reception (1^st marriage) (to THIS guy) in ugh – July or August of 1998?  (Parade Street house, Anaheim, CA.)  There were 15 people in that picture.  All of my sisters, all of our assorted kids, and the two parental units on either side.

It was hot as a – um, something REALLY HOT, we all wanted to get back to the wine/sodas, and it was taking a while to get ONE shot of all of us looking at the camera and smiling.  This was one of the rejects, oh ho ho.  There were a pile of rejects and one good one – somehow I ended up with all of the copies.  I was going through them and this one totally caught my attention, and made. me. laugh.

I was 36-years old at this time.  I was at the complete other end of the family group.  NOBODY else besides my poor sister is paying any attention to him at all – this wasn’t the way it was back in the day, dammit!  I AM THE ALL POWERFUL ALEX!  You will RUN from me and ask if I’m ok and LET ME RAGE!

Here, I’ll show you the rest of the picture, no faces blurred, cos what do I care:

(That’s me on the far right in stripes next to NM.  Mike is in front of me in white shorts)

You can see we were all trying to get a group shot (and this one wasn’t it) and poor Ranty Pants over there was getting hot and his knees probably hurt, and the photographer (a family friend or a bro-in-law most likely) kept saying ‘one more!’  and NOBODY was paying attention to old Ranty!  Except the one sister who could feel his Ranty Vibe and probably got triggered and a little freaked out.  He’s standing just enough separate from the group to tell you a thing or two about how much fun he’s having I HATE THIS I HATE SG I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE.

This is the face I remember - a temper tantrum is on its way and you had better stand by.  There was always a beating following this look.  Remembering how that look made me feel from back when I was a child really gives me the creeps.  By THIS time, the time of the picture, I had already (a few years before) had it out with him and had been staying away from him.  I never really thought about him much again (ßtotal lie – I DID think about him but in terms of how to avoid him and all that.)  This particular situation was unavoidable (to me, at the time).  But this had been a scary guy.  Make no mistake – this is the face of my misery and the reason I am so CrAzY.  He’s dead too!  Ha.

 

Now this pic:

 



This is the narc I married.  Here I am sitting his LAP and this is making me sick to my stomach, right here while I’m typing this.  I think because I CHOSE HIM and he was yet another narc.  Ugh I hate this picture.  I was so conditioned at this point to being prey that I didn’t even think twice.

What I see here is that I was skinny as hell due to STRESS and fear.  I do NOT look like that now, 15 years, 50 added pounds and serious menopause (oy) will do that to a person.  (also raising a kid MIKE).  But I managed to (eventually) get my poop in a group and traded all that stress for peace and I wouldn’t go back now even if those shorts WERE back in style.

 

UGH this was a disgusting post to write.  Hello, triggers!  How are you?  Long time no SEE! *shudder*

To get free from the narcs, first you have to get angry. ANGER does not smell like 'prey'

In my opinion, human beings grow to be one of three types.  Predator, prey, or the nebulous OTHER.

The predator is a hunter, first and foremost.  In the human predator, the endgame is not eating the victim (unless you are like Jeffrey Dahlmer, in which case ew).  The ultimate goal for the predator is THE HUNT ITSELF.  It is the whole point, and it is what feeds them.  Sure, they need food like a regular human, but without the hunt they would shrivel and die.   A predator is born into this world, and discovers his/her natural abilities to hunt along with the knowledge that this is the only thing that can bring satisfaction.  They spend their lifetimes honing this skill.  A predator can grow to be a psychopathic killer, sure.  But they also grow to be police.  Detectives.  Corporate lawyers or criminal defense attorneys.  They become our heroes – the ultimate hunter, Navy Seals or the Green Berets or Marine Corps Snipers – they hunt, and in these cases they hunt the enemy.  If you are ever in need of an attorney for any reason, I hope like hell you get a very hungry predator of an attorney. 

Narcs ß(ah ha, we have gotten to the nut of the thing) narcs hunt prey humans.  And prey humans – we look and act a certain way.  We are the wounded antelope to the narc’s lioness.  As prey, (and oh boy, have I been prey) we are uncertain.  We are SO UNCERTAIN we have crippled our decision bone.  We ask for advice, and need a lot of it but heed little of it.  We walk with heads down, shoulders hunched, as if against a wind.  Life is blowing us around and we grab at anything to stay still.  We do not heed our internal gut instincts – instincts that shout:  do not date that man/woman!  Do not get on that bus, get out of this alley, etc.  We pick up parental figures on our way, strong people who can anchor us and TELL US WHAT TO DO, for chrissakes tell me what to do?  How do I save money/how do I fix this bike/how do I cook a roast JEEBUS we are unsure, awkward, and uncertain.  And that, people – that smells JUST LIKE PREY to a narc.  They find us with unerring accuracy – (or we are born to them, and they hone their skills at home and we are TRAINED from the womb to be prey – that’s how adult narcs find us later).  But even narcs with children hunt for other prey – the HUNT is the point.  I keep hearing how it is some sick game to a narc – it is not a game.  It is life or death.  It is NOT a game.  Not to the predator.  And the hunt doesn't end when they capture you - it is fear that feeds them so as long as you are in their grasp, they are hunting you.  Daily.  Hour by hour.  You know it's true - you actually FEEL like a mouse cornered by a snake.  They just keep stalking you.  Right there in your house, in your living room.  Hunt, hunt, hunt.

The only way to avoid these people or win your freedom is to become “not-prey”.  This is the nebulous “other” I was speaking of.  We do not hunt, and we will NOT be hunted.  We live much like elephants I guess – nobody fucks with them and if it DOES happen, it ain’t pretty.  I am more than happy to leave the hunting to the predator animals.  I love that there are detectives and military personnel and attorneys who will fight for the rest of us.  (God forbid if I become prey and a Navy Seal or a really aggressive attorney is hunting me.  Hunters scare me and that is GOOD, they are scary).  But I stay out of their way.  After I got free of the narcs I stopped inviting predators into my world.  Before that I had dated two different cops, then a military guy and also worked for attorneys.  I was used to being prey, and these people were familiar to me even if they made me uncomfortable.  I HAD BEEN TAUGHT TO BE PREY.  I was giving off ‘hunt me’ signals like the RKO radio tower.  Like the scent trail in a cartoon about baking cookies, they follow that smell and it is like heaven to them. 

 

I like that the good hunters are out àthere.  I certainly don’t invite them into my world anymore.  And I can smell them now too – sense them.  I actually can’t even stand near a hunter (good OR bad) in a social situation or even in line at the store.  I get a ‘vibe’ that overrides every circuit and I have to move away.  It’s a handy skill.  You will learn it.

In order to get the narcs out of your life – you have to stop smelling like prey.  YOU HAVE TO.  And the short answer to that is self-confidence.  Which sounds all self-helpy and new-agey and ugh.  But if you want to stop them hunting you, you have to emit a different signal.  Those of us who have learned the hard way, AND those people who never were prey to begin with – we all are giving off a different ‘smell’.  And those of us who learned the hard way?  That different smell first smelled like RAGE.  Absolute, in your face, look at me or touch me again and I will rip your throat out RAGE.  There is strength in anger – it means you are protecting yourself and will not stop.  To beat this hunting metaphor to death – imagine the lioness attacking a huge crocodile instead of you, the wounded antelope.  What does the croc do?  RAGE.  Attack back.  Read that again.  ATTACK BACK.  Show your teeth, beat with your tail, charge into them and SNAP off a leg.  Rage.  It’s what’s for dinner.  Only after you show a hunter that you will NOT be prey will they back off.  AND THEY ALWAYS DO.  They can find easier prey.  Sadly, it is always out there.

First, you get angry.  Angry at them, angry at fate, and very, very angry at whatever instinct you were born with/into that made you prey.  This is important – not to beat yourself up, but to force yourself to examine what makes you prey, and STOP IT RIGHT NOW I MEAN IT.  It takes some time, and introspection – but you do not have time to sit by a tree and strum a lute and ponder.  You have all of this information now, all of these blogs.  And we are teaching you step by step, how to do this.  And it has to be soon – you will only get weaker as you bleed out and the narc gets stronger.  YOU MUST CHANGE.  Stop being the prey animal.  Become the croc.  BE the croc.  Then the self-confident elephant.  (then we buy a zoo and live happily ever after I AM INSANE WITH THESE ANIMALS SOMEONE HELP ME)

I think I am making this sound so easy, just make a decision.  IT IS NOT EASY.  We have been very well trained to be prey animals.  Overriding that circuitry takes great concentration, and incredible force of will.  It is very, very difficult.  But you are fighting for your life.  You can do it.

 

Really, the first and only NECESSARY step is to stop them in their tracks (the croc move) and then get the fuck away from them.  Get out.  Somehow, some way, get away from them.  No phone, no email, no visits, nothing.  Get away from the predator, they only want to hunt you.

 

But while you are struggling to get away, to get out, you must fight back.  Fighting back requires skill.  And cleverness.  One must be sly and tricksy like Hobbitses when enmeshed with the narc.  But that is the second step, and Tundra Woman and I are already devising an online course (lol) for those of you interested in our nefarious plans of attack.  Right now we are in my comment section cackling and cooing over a great caldron of stewing revenge.  Come on in if you can stand the smell – we has ideas, oh yes we does, and we need yours!

 

Beware the Moon

I don’t know if these old stories of my uh, FORMATIVE years are great reading. But I also wonder if they HAVE to be great.  Maybe all they have to do is BE.  Because, I have a theory about all of us, all of us who are writing about our narcs.  And here it is:

 

Maybe we are paving the way, like putting big orange cones and caution flashing yellow lights along a road – maybe we’re doing that for the next generation of kids raised with narcs, or people who date/marry narcs.  They will be searching searching, all over the interwebs, just like we did – just like we found each other.  And now, because of us, they will have road maps and signs – they will be able to recognize this bullshit.  SEE it sooner in their lives.  For most of us, it takes till we are in our 50’s and beyond.  But what if people start seeing this and LEAVING it (because there seems to be no other way – there is no cure) sooner?  So their exposure is much abbreviated.  And therefore the likelihood of them contracting any fleas or ticks and becoming a narc themselves is lessened.

Because sometimes it happens that way.  Sometimes, being around a narc makes you act like THEM.  You begin to think that up is really down – that wrong is right and wrong is MIGHT.  You never grow your empathy bone.  You start to believe the little narcissistic megalomaniac who is training you (not raising you).  It almost happened to me.  I almost tried to un-man my son.  I ALMOST TRIED.  There’s the difference and the difference was ALL OF YOU.  Anna Valerious and Upsi and Q and Mulderfan and Tundra Woman(<--where is your blog I can't find it!!) and Charity and Jonsi and a SLEW of others who came before me.  Who made me stop and realize that a 21-year old MAN doesn’t have to want to live with his mama anymore.  That a 21-year old MARINE can buy a motorcycle and it has nothing to do with his mama JEEBUS I ALMOST DID IT.  I almost cried and sobbed and begged him to come home and live with me.  I'm ashamed.  I was telling him ‘you used to want to be my best friend’ and ‘remember when you were 9??’ and OH MY CHRIST ON A CRACKER.  I shudder.  And I wasn’t even living with and haven't been with a narc in over 15 years.  But I stopped it, and I found pride in my son for being a grown adult making grown adult decisions and making FINE DECISIONS and it was because of all of you. (He owes you.  I’d collect from him and soon because MOTORCYCLE)

Imagine if someone finds us and doesn’t marry the narc to begin with?!  Or finds us and leaves home at 18, instead of 30, or 40?!?  That’s why I’m here.  Telling my stories isn’t fun – it’s gross and disgusting to sift through all of that bullshit from 50 years ago.  Nobody loves talking about the abuse we suffered as kids and teens and adults.  I’m (mostly) over it.  Definitely past it.  But I go back to light some warning flares and – as I told Q on a comment on his entry – to leave picks and shovels and tarps.  And maybe some antibacterial wipes.  HEED THE WARNING.  Beware the moon.  Stick to the roads.

Karma

My ex-husband and I - we were fighting. So it was a normal weekend. We were at my apartment in Buena Park – I don’t think we had the kids that weekend, so it was just the two of us. Sunny and hot - probably 90-degrees. And he was out in the parking/garage area, working on his truck. It was a 1963-or-so Chevy truck, and he was trying to restore it one piece at a time. He didn’t know what in the hell he was doing and we had no real tools. This was an ‘on the fly’ operation, and smooth as sand in butter. The part about how we were arguing – we were always arguing. I married him anyway. I used to be retarded.

The truck looked something like this:

And it had a steering wheel that looked kinda like this:

Now, these old steering wheels – they were plastic and skinny and could be slippery. They often had little tiny ridges molded into the plastic on the side facing you – to help you keep your grip on the wheel.
It looked like this ---> (IIIIIIIIII).

So, with this old truck – there were problems with the steering. He needed to take apart the whole steering column to replace a part and re-pack it with grease and blah blah car repair stuff blah. In order to get to all of the column, the steering wheel would have to come off. As you can imagine, 30 years of rust and dirt and grime had created an almost impenetrable force field around this thing. All the bolty-things had been removed, screwy things un-screwed, and yet there was something wedged down in the steering column against the blah-dee blah steering wheel party thingy, and everything was stuck. Where once there were many, now all was one. Fused, as it were. To put it in a nutshell, he struggled.

But, he had a weapon – a professional tool. He had one of these:

A great beast of a rubber mallet. And he was using the crap out if it. He was – people. He was sitting in the driver’s seat. And he was hitting the back of the steering wheel, hitting towards himself, you see. Towards his own face. He needed that thing OFF and it was good and STUCK and we had been arguing and he was MAD. So what he did was, he would BANG BANG BANG that steering wheel on the back side with that great big rubber mallet, and then JERK and TUG that steering wheel, and YANK it around to the side, and then grab that big mallet and WHACK BANK WHACK the thing, and then JERK and TUG, and this was with all his might, and he was angry – did I mention? So his ‘might’ was FUELED. And this went on, and on. He was out in the hot sun, in a gigantic 1963 tin can, pissed as a wet cat, and – well, he was sorta stupid.

I went out there at one point for some reason, and just stood watching this Poseidon Adventure of a disaster unfolding in a sort of horrified awe. There is no way, on any kind of dare or bet, that you could ever. I mean EVER. Get me to swing a gigantic rubber mallet as hard as I could at a skinny little curved bar right in front of my own face. Even an infant could have seen that this was not a good plan. And this story is not going to end the way you think it is.

I had been back in the house for about a half an hour. It must have happened right after I walked away, and he stayed out there that long hoping against hope that it wasn’t as bad as he thought. But there were mirrors in that truck. He could see the damage. He came in the house, still mad as hell. And across his forehead was a huge red welt. About 2 inches across. And neatly, primly lined up like stitches on a dainty vintage hanky, were the clear, beautiful imprints of those ridges I told you about that were on that steering wheel.

He had yanked. And it had answered. That steering wheel had loosed its grip and he had *yoinked* it right into his own face.  And I almost died right on the spot from an aneurism, trying not to laugh. He had to walk around with that red badge of honor shining in the middle of his forehead (and if you think it didn’t swell up as big as an un-canned biscuit, you are crazy) for over a week. And people, there aren’t many ways to get that kind of injury – there was no way to cover that up. The story had to be told. He had to go to work like that. It was awesome.

He and I never, EVER spoke of it. We divorced years ago and I have never seen him again.  But to this day, yea, even unto this very minute, this story gives me a small, bright, mean spot of GLAD, right in my soul.