Update 0n Crazy Employee. No, she did not get fired. She's still not a salaried employee, though. She told Information Superhighway (who, by the way, is a friend of mine) that she thought Superhighway is "mean" to her and "picks on her." Hello? Are you five? In her defense, the Superhighway is probably the most rational and fair person in Crazy Land.
Not only was she not fired, but she retained her vacation and sick leave time, despite missing more than her allotted days for the year. I've missed an enormous amount of time, too, so there's not much I can say about that except that it seems to me she's been rewarded in a sense for being psycho. Ah, Crazy Land.
Memories keep on coming. This morning, out of the blue, I remembered my father running away from home. His wife (two years older than I) had finally had enough of his abuse and escaped, leaving their daughter behind. My dad, whom had never admitted to me that, (a) they were married and (b) the child was his daughter, had to confess.
He called me into his bedroom. That, in itself, was a surprise. All big news, punishment, and a fair amount of the verbal abuse that he inflicted on me was meted out in the bathroom. His entire family had a thing about bathrooms (which I've mentioned in much earlier posts). The confession was delivered as he sat on his bed, getting ready to leave.
My father told me he had to hold onto his child and that he was going on the run. That meant, of course, back to his Mom who could be counted on to support all of her adult male children no matter what. (She had a major preference for boys.) Had he not been so self-absorbed, he might have noticed the rage and contempt on my face. I think my (appropriate) fear of him kept me from saying much. Besides, I was focused on how much I hated him at that moment. I not only hated him for the destruction all of this had wreaked on my life, but also the fact that he thought I was stupid enough not to know what was going on. They were sleeping in the same bed, for God's sake.
So off he went with child in tow. I was glad. I never wanted him to come back. My mom and I continued to live in the house for about a week until one night when his wife, her sister and brother showed up in the middle of the night. They broke into our house. It was the only moment in my life when I've felt capable of killing someone. If my dad's gun had been handy, I might still be in prison because I most surely would have killed this person whom I felt had ruined my life. I was only 18 at the time. As an adult, I'm very clear about who ruined my life and it was not she.
My mother and I left, went to the police station and were treated like scum. I suppose we must have seemed like it when we informed them that all of us were still living together: my dad, his wife and kid, my mom and me. We were told to go away.
When we returned home the next day, the contents of the house were all gone. My bedroom furniture, my books (my books!), all gone. I was devastated and enraged. Once again, my father's actions had stripped me of something else. Specifically, they had taken my intellectual identity, which was really the only identity I was allowed to develop and hold onto.
After that, they showed up at my high school for a couple of weeks, waiting for me to come out. They surrounded me and verbally assaulted me and threatened me with violence. I'm sure my dad knew about it, because he spoke with my mom regularly. Did he give a damn? Well, no.
I'm not up for recounting the rest of the story today...and it's mind-numbingly long. The memory spoke to why my father killed himself. He always solved his problems by running away from them. The only real difference was that last time, he decided to run away forever.
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