» Siblings

Lisa and Dottie
I’ve got a sister. She’s remarkable in the number of surgeries she’s had, organs she’s missing and various diseases she’s suffered. Only now, she’s your normal 32 year old mum. No fun there.

The tale I wish to tell is about my friend Lisa.

I set the scene: we’re 10 year olds in my backwards cowfucking hometown. We were the social misfits – I was a geek because my dad was my English teacher, Lisa wet the bed on a school camping trip. Our lunch hours were spent hanging out on the monkey bars, repelling all other students with our sheer hideousness.

Then one day a new girl started at the school. Lisa and I traversed the playground to take up residence on our monkey bars, only to find the new girl – Dottie – had beaten us to it. As beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers, we became firm and fast friends with Dottie. Our ‘gang’ expanded to three, and we spent most all of our spare time together. They were my very best friends.

Time came for a familial introduction, and Lisa invited our families to her house. The room went quiet, the tension was palpable. I assumed they all hated one another.

Weeks passed, then Lisa’s family sat her down for a talk. Lisa, they said, you’re adopted. When we lived in Florida, we found a teenage mother – your mother – and adopted you from her. Dottie’s mom is your mom. Dottie is your sister.

Dottie’s parents had, by extraordinary chance, moved thousands of miles to a no-mark town in the middle of the Michigan woods. Lisa and I had, by chance, become great friends with Dottie. Lisa had, by chance, invited Dottie’s parents to meet hers. Lisa and Dottie were sisters.

What a way to find out you’re adopted, by befriending your biological sister.

Lisa, sadly, died last year from cervical cancer. This is for you, Lis…
(Fri 2nd Jan 2009, 10:16, More)

» Neighbours

Rocky
When I was 15 years old, my parents decided that we needed an exchange student. Upon receiving a dossier full of potential new temporary siblings, my sister and I did what any teenage girls would do: we chose the cutest one.

We lived in the most backwards sliver of cow-fingering Northern Michigan. My parents were educated people, but the town was full of the yee-haw gelatinous hillbillies in Nascar t-shirts cloaked in a film of crystal meth, comprised of 2 parts human and 98 parts gesticulating feces. This was the place where the only black man in town was shot in the stomach. We had the highest rates of child poverty and child abuse in the nation. This was a real winner of a place.

The Swede arrived, as handsome as expected. As conversation flowed, it was revealed that he was a serious member of the wealthy bourgeoisie – his mother was an MP and his father a millionaire giant of industry. The Swede was, as one might expect, a fish out of water. My hometown was the perfect antithesis to the privileged socialism to which he had become accustomed.

At the end of his stay, his parents decided to visit. My parents were keen to show that we weren’t Hitlerlusting inbred cretins, but rather hard working members of America’s heartland. My mother repainted much of the house, the garden was full of flowers, thicker books received more prominent positions in the bookcase – my parents were ready. We were proud of being small town folk, and gosh darned it, didn’t the house just sparkle.

We sat down for the first dinner around the table, the menu of which I’ve long since forgotten. I spied the fat neighbour boy, Rocky (for that was actually his name), creeping through the front garden. I saw The Swede’s parents lift eyes and follow this root vegetable of a human being…

Then Rocky pulled down his trousers and shat in our front garden, like a dog.
(Mon 5th Oct 2009, 9:58, More)

» Tales of the Unexplained

He just disappeared.
My father, when I was young, was the teacher in charge of school upkeep during the summer holidays. Once a week, we’d stop through to make sure nobody had smeared shit on the walls, then we’d check the meters and go home. For my sister and I, these trips were particularly fun. We could run through the corridors of a school! We could shout in a school! We could do cartwheels in a classroom! Best yet, we could see what the boys’ toilets looked like!

On one nondescript summer day, my dad, my sister and myself made the usual walk to the school. We got up to the usual bumbling about, while my dad got up to his usual duties. Time came to leave.

“C’mon kids! Time to leave!”
“All right, dad!”

We saw him walking towards the front door, then, I swear to Darwin and Tesla, he fucking disappeared. One second, there was a dad. The next, nothing. Right before our bloody eyes. There was no mist, no image dissolving like in the movies. CLICK – he was gone, and the only place he could have gone was through the front door.

My sister and I thought he was playing a joke, a bit of a scary hide-and-seek. We ran through the building, searching every locker and cranny. Nothing. Then we started crying out, scared. Nothing. Surely a father – and my dad was the greatest, at this point would sheepishly emerge to calm us down. Nothing. Three hours passed and we had no sign of our father, we couldn’t go home because we were locked in and we couldn’t get to a phone to call our mother. So we sat in a corridor and waited.

“Are you coming, kids? What are you doing sitting down, I told you to come here!”

And there was dad again, standing in the same spot.

“DAD! WHERE DID YOU GO!! WE WERE SO SCARED!”

“I, well, I didn’t go anywhere, I’ve been standing here the whole time, sillies.”

“NO, DAAAAAAAAAD, you disappeared! We were sad! We cried! We looked everywhere for you!”

“Don’t be stupid, kids. Obviously, I…”

And then he checked his watch. Indeed, three hours has passed. He turned a whiter shade of green, and we walked home in silence.

I had spent the years following assuming that my dad had played a dirty trick on us, that he took it as an opportunity to skip out on his kids so he could go to the bar or something. I brought it up again a few years later.

“I swear on your mother’s life, I didn’t go anywhere. I remember calling out to you kids, then suddenly the two of you were sitting down. Three hours were gone, but not a single second had passed for me.”

“Yeah, sure, dad.”

“I swear on your life, I didn’t hide from you. And in those years since it happened, I lie awake at night wondering what happened to me during those three hours. I – [voice cracking] - don’t know what happened…”

I’m inclined to believe my dad and to believe my own eyes (HE FUCKING DISAPPEARED!!!) But was it a dad playing a particularly devious joke on his kids? Eh, I’m not so certain of that. I certainly can’t explain what happened, and dad’s admitted to all of his other practical jokes by now.

There was only one way he could have run away to hide, and that was through the door. That door was locked. All I know is that he disappeared right before my eyes.
(Thu 3rd Jul 2008, 10:46, More)

» Karma

Karma
I married my childhood sweetheart just a smidge before my University graduation. We had been overjoyed and loved up in one another’s company for many years at this point, so I had no qualms in giving in to marriage at such a young age. We were destined to be together forever, you see, God smiled love upon us. I was riding the dot com boom and made a fortune; I bought a house, purchases nice cars, ate nice meals, took nice holidays, and generally lived the good life, rutting as often as the clock chimed.

Moreover, as happens when people get married, things changed. It was not the typical ‘can’t put your finger on it’ alterations to everyday life. He started beating me with regularity and severity. “Never in the face!” he would proclaim, knowing that it would be difficult for me mask a black eye. Rumours of his gay cottaging dalliances began to emerge, details retold to me by those who saw him getting his end off in a notorious public toilet. Then he started to drug me; I would often wake up with sore, bleeding nether regions. He spent our money wildly and freely on fripperies he kept secret from me. Life was miserable; I could not carry on. I hatched a plan to leave; I had to, I was afraid for my life.

I began saving every penny I had, squirreling it away in my ‘escape’ bank account. I bought the plane tickets, I put in secret notice at work, I had a new flat is this faraway location. Few people knew of my plans, but my plans leaked. My phones, you see, had been tapped by my father-in-law (who also hit me, as did his mother and his brothers.) My ex-husband’s brother turned up at my house for the specific purpose of killing me, but managed only to beat me instead. I did not call the police, I was meant to leave in two days. Nothing, not even somebody trying to kill me, would stop me.

I woke up the next morning and set about getting my things in order. By this time I had saved £16,000 which I was going to transfer into a different bank account (I had stupidly, to avoid suspicion, given the ex access to my account.) I had nothing. Everything I had was gone. I went home and found my ex-husband gleaming, polishing his brand new motorbike. He threw me against a wall for one last ‘hurrah’.

And so I escaped with nothing to my name, just a couple of suitcases crammed full of sentimental items. I arrived without a penny to my name, unable to afford the flat. I moved into a crack den in a bad part of town, ate a cup of rice for every meal, and snuck onto buses until I got a job a couple months later. Life changed its miserable nature, but at least I was away from him.

Then word started coming back to me – my family did not believe my story. Such a ‘nice boy’ would not do such things, you see! How dare I try to ruin this poor man’s life because I did not like being married! My family – my large, extended family – became hostile towards me. I was, they said, I liar. While they persecuted me, he was invited to family gathering and children’s birthday parties.

He told tales of me racking up massive credit card debts. He told tales of my infidelity. He told people I was an emotionally abusive alcoholic. He told people that my behaviour had driven him to suicidal thoughts. With every flourish, people ate it up. How could they not? He was such a ‘nice boy’.

When the divorce proceedings began, I could not afford a lawyer. At this point, I had moved on to being able to afford two cups of rice a day. He, on the other hand, hired a bastard of a solicitor. Together, they were bent on screwing me. I submitted papers to the courts outlining the abuse; I sent pictures of bruises the size of dinner platters. They were never entered into argument.

In the end, he got my house, my cars, the boat, my £16,000 – everything but two suitcases worth of sentimental trinkets and clothing. Everything of value that I left behind with my family and friends had to be given back or sold for cash, which was to be handed to him. If you ever hear somebody say that the courts are always on the woman’s side, remember my story.

I still do not speak to my family – they still believe that I made it all up. He now works a high profile job, receiving a mighty pay package. I open newspapers to find him staring out at me. He travels the world drinking champagne, one might say he truly leads a great and happy life. In the end, after selling my house (love the London boom) and cars, he pocketed a cool £130,000. After all that abuse and fearing for my life, I had absolutely nothing.

I now have a great job, a decent house, and a loving partner. Oh, and I’m not a fucked up mentalist after all of that. The dude was nuts.

Karma? I don’t believe in it.

Apologies for the length, I really really really REALLY like words.
(Fri 22nd Feb 2008, 9:53, More)

» IT Support

IT adventures
I was once hired by a swanky London meeja agency as their resident nerd because I ‘looked good bending over’. Having great tocks generally doesn’t send a girl geek to the dizzying heights of IT support mastery, but it got me a job and that job paid for beer.

One of the reasons that they needed a fine filly to crawl around underneath desks was because of their high-profile clients. These were international stars, genuinely some of the biggest names in the world. No multi-hojillionaire man with fine taste in silicone and sports cars would ever want a computer monkey that looked like a potato stuffed in a dirty sweat sock, right?

~~~~~

I was once blindfolded when tasked with fixing a star’s home computer. I was bundled into a van, confused by the driver through some deft swerving maneuvers and manhandled inside this man’s doorstep. It felt a bit too much like a kidnap; I was ever-so ill-at-ease until I was then informed I had to also fix his computer without the essential benefit of sight. He angrily hissed into my face, “There are things on this computer you aren’t allowed to see.” Like, apparently, the screen. I did my best to convince the man that, in fact, I required the sense of sight and couldn’t do my job without it. I was bundled into a car and again sent back to my office. Meanwhile, the lawyers hashed out a contract which would grant me the power of vision. Back I went, again blindfolded. I both fixed his computer and found out why he was so concerned about my peeking in his files – porn. Now, I’m partial to a bit of todger porn myself and, I figured, if the rumours were true, I might just catch a glimpse of a 9+. No, oh no, his entire porn collection was full of the 70+. Ahem.

~~~~~

I received another laptop in from an international star. The laptop was caked in sperm. It was splodged everywhere, and there wasn’t any way I was going to bloody touch it. I decided to have a word with the MD of the company:

“I understand that X is a very powerful man, but he submitted his laptop and it was covered in…white stuff.”
“Ah, don’t worry, TheSnark. He’s got a bit of a problem with cocaine.”
“Ah, erm, ah, no. I meant that every damned inch of his laptop is covered in ejaculate.”

An ungodly amount of antibac wipes and rubber gloves later, I found out that his laptop was well and truly fried after a year of semen seepage. Did he never consider cleaning up after himself?

~~~~~

There was another man who did always play it straight. Girlfriends, denials of sexuality, kiss-and-tells – he was 100% heterosexual male and he had the credentials to prove it. I received his laptop to fix and was excited with the frisson of hot manliness that came with it. Find out, the hot manliness also extended to the contents of the computer – the desktop image was this gentleman with his boyfriend. I mean, I’m pretty sure they were together, as he had his hands all over the other man’s soldier and submarines. It quickly came to note that the computer was entirely full up. This star had come up with a rather good porn indexing system based on hair colour and sexual acts, i.e., brownhair_fisting001.mov and blondehair_snowball034.mov. It was merely that he overdid it and probably shouldn’t have downloaded that last chain gang penetration video. He can be as gay as he likes, but I’m still rather annoyed when I see him with a new girlfriend misrepresenting himself so he can pull in the big bucks. Girls: consider yourself very fooled. Gay men: oh, you lucky sods, you.
(Mon 28th Sep 2009, 15:25, More)