My stepfather is an interesting man. By interesting, I mean he’s a total freakshow. My mom and dad divorced when I was very young, around 3 years old, and they both remarried almost immediately. My dad married a lovely woman of intelligence and poise, and my mom married… well… HIM.
HE, spent his career as an environmental scientist in the field of solid and hazardous waste. You have no idea how many jokes started that way. We used to say that he must have used his whole brain at work, because by the time he got home at night, it seemed he had not an ounce of common sense left. Over the years, there were so many ridiculously comical incidents in our home, I’ve joked that the eventual book royalties will almost make up for my traumatic childhood.
Here are a few of the chapter titles:
1. The First Time He Fired a Gun Inside the House
2. What Happens When You Light Yourself on Fire
3. Dog Fights Should Be Left to the Dogs
4. The Second Time He Fired a Gun Inside the House
5. That’s Not Your Wallet, You Have a Dead Mouse in your Underwear
6. Never Sit on a Railroad Spike when you’re Wearing a Breechcloth
7. “I Promise, This Time It’s Not Loaded” -or- The Third Time he Fired a Gun in the House
8. Please Don’t Tell My Stepdaughter I Almost Shot Her Husband (I Didn’t Think It Was Loaded)
9. Never Pee in your Best Friends’ Hat
10. Never, EVER Drink Bleach Just Because it’s Sitting in a Glass by the Sink
11. Never Stand Sideways on a Cattleguard
12. (My personal favorite) Never Knock Yourself Unconscious by the Side of the Road Next To Your Campaign Poster when you’re Running for Public Office
People, I could go on. And on. But I really wanted this to be more of a coffee table book, not a novel.
My stepdad is retired now; he has been for about thirteen years. It gives him a lot of spare time to do stupid things. The most recent was the cattleguard incident; he turned sideways on the cattleguard to talk to my eternally annoyed mother who was sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck, and boom! both feet slipped between the grates and his big beefy calves became horribly lodged, and of course, immediatley began to swell. My mother quickly tried to swing the door open and jump out of the truck to assist, and succeeded in whacking him soundly in the head with the door. By the time she scooted out of the passenger door and ran around the front of the vehicle, the two of them could not pry his pudgy legs out of the steel slats. It took almost twenty minutes to get him out.
God, I wish I had been there.
Even now, a year and six months later, you can still see the long scarred lines across both his shins where he was stuck. They go nicely with all the other various and sundry souveniers/scars of his previous escapades and misadventures.
Lots of times during my youth, I was frustrated, irritated and impatient with my stepfather. We never saw eye to eye, we argued constantly. As I’ve grown older, I have learned to appreciate my stepdad for the reasons I can find – first and foremost, the fact that he’s always good for a laugh, he will LET me laugh at him, and he can laugh at himself.
If there’s one good thing I’ve learned from him, aside from NEVER EVER ASSUMING A GUN IS UNLOADED EVER EVER EVER… it’s that.
The Nest 