What brings this on? Well poking around in my junk trunk has produced a VHS of The Jerry Springer Show. Not just any Jerry Springer show, this is one of the Jerry Springer episodes before he got all the heat from the television PTB’s. We’re talking chair throwing, cat fighting, ugly shit. And I’m going to trot it out her for your entertainment. To be perfectly honest, this was my life but I didn’t really take it on the Jerry Springer Show. If it had made it to Springer it might have looked like this:
***”Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. I use the term extremely loosely because we all know who ‘really’ watches my show, I’m Jerry Springer and today we bring you “Assholes and the family members who carry their children”. On stage I’d like for you to meet Candy. She is 5 months pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby. We’ll meet him later. So Candy, what do you have to tell the audience?”
Candy: “I just love Tad so much (eyes well up with tears) I just can’t believe that he would leave the state to get away from me and his baby”.
“Now Candy is there anything else you need to tell us about your situation?”
“Well, he’s also my step brother.”
****audience****oooooohhhhhhh
“And he’s seeing someone else”(she dissolves into tears)
“That scoundrel, let’s get him out here”
****audience*****booooo! booooo!
“Okay, Tad, have a seat there on the other side of the stage. Candy, has been telling us about the situation you got her into and are now trying to run from” *explosive cheers from crowd*
“Okay, okay....everyone just settle down. Is it true then Tad that you are the father of Candy’s baby?”
“Yeah, that’s what she tells me”
“And you are also her step-brother? Exactly how long has this been going on?”
“Since my mom married her dad.”
“And that’s....”
“A few years. It’s not like we grew up together or anything”.
“I see and the reason you are trying to get away from her and your baby?”
“Uh, because she is a controlling bitch and I don’t conform for anyone.”
****audience**** boooo! booooo!
“Okay, so I have a little surprise for the both of you. Would everyone like to meet the other woman?”
*crowd cheers wildly, candy starts crying again and Tad starts to look a bit green*
“Tory why don’t you come on out now” *comes out to a lash of catcalls and boos* She barely has time to sit down and get her bearings before....
“You’re a home wrecker! Slut!” cries Candy before launching out of her chair and hurtling herself with astonishing speed for a pregnant lady toward the defenseless Tory. She manages to land a few blows and draw blood from Tory’s cheek with her ridiculous fingernails before being pried away by ‘security’ and crumbles into loud sobs again as if she were the one who has just been attacked. *****
*DISCLAIMER - She seriously was a controlling bitch, and I really wasn’t trying to steal anything from her. I just sort of genuinely enjoyed his company and lacked the requisite good judgement to walk away.
And as Paul Harvey would say....here is....the rest of the story.
Imagine if you will, I’m 20 years old living with my mother and paying rent along with two other housemates. A nurse and a carpenter. This is starting off like a bad joke already....but I am rabbit trailing. The nurse is not important the carpenter is. He was cute and about 5 years older than me. Bright blue eyes and an easy manner. When mother decided to rent to him I took her aside and hissed at her... “You can’t take on attractive renters!” She looked at me like she honestly didn’t know what I was talking about.
It didn’t take long for he and I to start sleeping together. I mean honestly, how convenient that we lived in the same house? We liked spending time together too. Then I started learning more about him, because honestly we couldn’t fuck ALL the time. Come to find out he had moved down from up north getting away from family and all the pressures that went with that. Then find out that he has a pregnant girlfriend who followed him down in hopes of convincing him to move back with her. This is where it starts to get really twisted, stay with me now. She’s also his step-sister. That’s right, her dad and his mom were married.
Long story short, he caves and goes back to the great northern hinterlands but not before inviting me to come with him. What ever in the world made me think that I could be anything next to a pregnant step-sister girlfriend I’ve no idea, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t pack up everything that I owned into my hatchback and follow him up north when he asked. As I’m sure you can imagine this didn’t play well with his pregnant step-sister girlfriend (I keep saying that because even now, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the reality of it) or his mom, or her father, or his full sister who happened to be best friends with pregnant step-sister.
I stayed up there for a few weeks, she tried to have a cat fight with me over him a couple of times but somehow she ended up looking like the victim (which I hated because I never touched her). She failed to realize a key aspect and that was that I wasn’t there to steal him from her (he was never really hers), I didn’t really want him all that badly. I was simply being 21, floating along the currents of life. I was reasonably sure, in the way that only those in their early 20s can be, that whatever happened it would all be alright.
I hope this little narrative doesn’t make you dislike me. I never wanted to inflict emotional or any other type of damage on anyone. But when you talk about colossal lapses in judgement, I’ll say that is right up there for me. Possibly even a record when I think about it. One of those smack yourself in the forehead later and wonder “WTF was I thinking?”
Please tell me I’m not the only one who has done colossally stupid things.
