But Grandma Told Me To: A Lesson In Violating Parole

Talked to my sister and niece today.  Quite a slow learner, I was dumb-founded to discover Mom decided to ask the newly paroled 22-year old to drive her car on the trip from Illinois to Kentucky.  It wouldn’t be a big deal

IF SHE HAD A F*CKING DRIVER’S LICENSE!

Yeah, they’d just left

the Parole Office

and gotten the papers necessary to transfer out of state when Mom had one of her genius moments.  Of course, you’d think the girl who actually

SPENT TWO YEARS IN A CAGE

away from her children, living with stinky, ugly, sometimes large & horny women, would consider saying, “Grandma, I don’t think I should start breaking the law just yet, maybe it could wait till we cross state lines?”  But NO, of course not! 

I don’t think she even said, “Grandma, do you dream of seeing my face behind a dirty plastic visitor’s window again?”  Or “Grandma, do you miss having cup-a-soup from a fancy machine with me in the waiting room?” 

As I think about it again, though, Mom most certainly went right for the candy machine.  She no doubt would scarf down a Reese’s so quickly it would get caught in her esophagus because of the balloon surgery she had for weight loss and then had to give herself the fisting Heimlich in an attempt to get the swallowed whole tasty treat to go up or down.

My sister was the first one to tell me about the parole violation.  She gave no evidence of upset, just said, “Yeah, Mom thinks she should practice since she needs to get her license soon.”  Other grandmothers teach their granddaughters to make chicken soup or sew curtains, mine incites her beloved granddaughter to go for broke against the Illinois State Police.  

I said, “Oh, well I guess she waited to get out of Illinois?”  (Kentucky officials seem to be amazingly more lax about minor rule violations like tax evasion, shooting neighbor’s dogs and such. When my nephew was given a DWI in Illinois he was ordered into months of counseling.  Then he moved to Kentucky.  The woman he was directed to see there told him to “go to church” and “get a good woman.”  That was it, concise direction in a single session.  Kind of admirable, really.  A “no bullshit” therapeutic experience.)

It wasn’t until I spoke with my niece that she came out with the details: she began driving IN THE SAME CITY AS THE PAROLE OFFICE. 

 Who knows, maybe she drove right out of the parking lot?

Might as well ask the parole officer if he’s got a bottle opener you could borrow for the drive.

This is mother’s specialty, her equivalent to brain surgery, trying to GET OVER ON THE MAN.  I can just imagine the words in her head, “Nobody’s going to fucking tell me what I can do with my own goddam granddaughter!  If I want her to drive my fucking car she’ll drive my fucking car!”  Her beady little eyes narrow and her lip turns up in a sneer, highlighting the scar from when she put her face through the back door just before leaving with the police for the mental hospital 40 freaking years ago. 

Meanwhile, if they’d been stopped and a jail visit followed, it would have been the ticketing police officer’s fault, the State of Illinois’ fault, my sister’s ex-husband’s fault, and quite possibly the black man driving along side of them who clearly should have been stopped instead of some innocent looking white women.

She’s the same woman who assisted her son in hiding stolen merchandise.  He (1) stole his grandfather’s pick-up truck to (2) steal a soda machine from in front of a grocery store.  He hoisted the full machine by himself. 

In later years she peed in bottles so he could pass urine tests for over-the-road truck drivers since he was still doing drugs while driving a semi, something that clearly wasn’t in his best interest as a heart patient.

Considering the fact that he’s dead now and all that didn’t work out so well you’d think she might evaluate her attitude, but that would be like admitting she’s ever been wrong.  I can promise you that is not a possibility.

All of these jackassian nincompoops think nothing of driving without seat belts as well.  One report detailed 4 adults and 3 children in a crew cab pick-up truck (the kind with a backseat) for two hours with my drunken ex-step-father at the wheel.  The kids rode unbelted & my mother and sister screamed about (1) getting lost in the dark and (2) wrong turns and (3) dangerous maneuvers by a mad man who occasionally likes to tell a long twisted story about killing his ex-wife’s lover and (regretfully) the dude’s wife. 

I considered screaming like a banshee that I’d call the police myself if I hear any more of that kind of shit (you’d think I’m talking about the murders, but I’m back to seatbelts).  However, knowing the way children’s protective services handled everything down the line, I no longer trust them either. 

It starts to feel like I’m living in an alternate universe where people actually want to do well by children, escape spending time in a pen and avoid living with shit in their nostrils because their head’s so far up their own ass.

Don’t get me wrong, I can be a total fucking asshole!  But usually when it’s happening I REALIZE it, I can acknowledge it and call myself a moron.  I might even STILL choose to do whatever idiotic nonsense has taken root in my mind.  I mean I am biologically tied to this clan of fools, so what can really be expected?  Certainly not perfection.

* * * * *

We’re starting to think that my sister’s boyfriend, Mike, is the brains of the whole Kentucky operation.  (That would be the dude who’s still married for the fourth time, somehow can’t get the last divorce to go through and make sis #5.  Incidentally, he’s on federal probation for overdue child support in 3 states.  Plus one of the ex-wives went on welfare when he didn’t make payments and so now he must pay the state back for the cost of that PLUS interest.)

He recently sent me a dirty joke by text.  We managed to convince him that since he sent it on my daughter’s birthday I thought it was a greeting intended for the 12-year old, so handed her the phone without reading it.  Then we told him she dropped the phone, began to cry and ran away sobbing. 

He’s apologized several times since and we just don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.