For starters. The way my Dad and Miss Crazy-pants met is bizarre and creepy. She dialed the wrong phone number, switching the last two numbers, and instead of calling her nephew ended up with my Dad. It's a little unclear to me what happened next, but suddenly they're talking all the time over the phone and my Dad is the happiest he's seemed since the divorce. I think she may have said once that "he has a really sexy voice." Not something you want to tell the daughter of your boyfriend. Ever. The mental images that arise unbidden in my mind, as I curse my vivid imagination, are horrifying and filled with droopy over-tanned flesh and grey furriness. Because my Dad looks like bigfoot and she's a over-tanned tiny person akin to a bag of bones. With dentures. Because she's "from the South Side, honey, we didn't have it like that." which apparently means they didn't have dental hygiene on the south side of the city. Who knew?
Next thing I know Dad is upset and mopey. Turns out, they were going to meet at a hotel and Miss Crazy-pants chickened out and wouldn't let my Dad into the room. So she calls to apologize and he's all upset and I ended up with the phone somehow, demanding "What are you doing to my Dad?" My interference patches up their "relationship" and smooths over the incident. How my Dad didn't see the "WARNING: CRAZY" signs all over this I don't know. Lonely people do such strange things. They resume regular conversations, and eventually (obviously) did meet up and hang out and had a good time.
Fast forward to the part where she moves in to our tiny 2-bedroom Duplex two years ago.
This, for me, is when the shit started to hit the fan. Then I see just how much they drink and smoke cigarettes (part of the reason Mom eventually left him) and enable each other. Miss Crazy-pants thinks Dad has the hots for the neighbor, brings it up in conversation, and makes it extremely uncomfortable for everyone. The neighbor stops visiting. Then there was the short phase she thought that the neighbor was my Mother.
Miss Crazy-pants has a tendency to repeat herself, and harp on one thing that bothered her at work for the 5-7 hours she and Dad are awake at home together. Or repeat the same phrases on a regular basis, such as "I'm not Miss-Suzy home-maker" in reference to not running the vacuum for three weeks. Or the "I love your Dad, you know that? Are you okay with me being here?" And she asks those sorts of questions when there are as many people around as possible, so it's impossible to say "Uh, not really" without making a huge scene which no one wants but holy shit do I wish I had done earlier. (Because by the time I did make a big scene it was already way, way too late.)
There was this one horrible, cruel, mean, and only funny to people-not-me joke that Dad and Crazy-pants played on me and her son (1 year younger than me.) They gathered us together, sat us down, and said "We have an announcement to make." Oh god. They're getting married. No. They smile gleefully. "...What is it?" we ask. "I'm pregnant!" she bursts out. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, NO! I deadpan. He son isn't having any of it. "No way." says he. She takes a sip of her beer. "Are you serious?" I ask. "Because if you're serious give me that beer right now." they continue the charade, giggling. I grab her beer and take a huge swig, which increases the giggles. "No way mom. You had your tubes tied, you can't get pregnant." You little... I left the room. Thank all that is holy she had just an ounce of enough sense to get that done after her son was born. She actually panicked and apologized and made me tell her it was all okay and forced a hug on me. See that's another thing about her. She invades your personal space like no other I have ever met.
So last year Dad decided that they should buy a house. Not get married, thank god, but buy a house. I was still living with them at this point. I think this may have been the point of no return. This is where the true crazy came out. The Story of The Salt Shaker.
It had gotten to the point where I hid out in my room constantly when at home. (I made efforts to be at home as little as possible.) I needed to do my laundry, so in order to achieve optimal contact-avoidance I took my laptop into the basement with me. Yay wifi. My laundry is trundling happily away as I browse the net when I hear from the kitchen above me: "You think you're funny? You think you're fuckin funny?!" I assume Dad said something stupid again to upset her. (It's easy.) I ignore this until Dad comes down into the basement to ask me "Did you open the top of the salt shaker all the way?"
You can probably guess my reaction.
"...what?" he repeats. "....um. No.... why?"
"She went to put salt on her pizza" (who the hell does that anyway?) "and it dumped out a whole bunch. She thought I was playing a joke on her."
"okay...."
"so you didn't do that on purpose." has her insanity infected his brain too?
"Nope."
And that should have been the end of that.
But when I went up to my room later for something I had forgotten to put in the laundry, I met her accidentally in the hallway. "Did you open the salt shaker all the way??"
"Um, no, why would I do that?"
:I don't know, (my name), why would you? Do you not want me here? Do you want me to leave?" um.
"What? No. Why would I do that? That makes no sense."
"I hope not (my name), I hope not. I love your Dad." at which point she went in the bedroom and slammed the door, leaving me in a completely bewildered state, and not for the first time. She pulled a similar stunt over the location of the potholders when I said it made no sense to have them completely across the kitchen from the oven. Himalayas out of molehills?
And those are some of the reasons that Dad Needs a New Girlfriend. There are more, but I think that should be enough evidence for now. The December Fight is its own chronicle related to why I needed to get the fuck out of my Dad's house.
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