10/12/2025
So, to continue the saga of my delightfully chaotic childhood… My real dad spent most of my early years in prison, which honestly made family tree assignments at school way more interesting than they needed to be. When he finally got released, I was around 10, and the court decided it would be a great idea for me to spend every other weekend with him. You know—just some casual bonding time with a man who was basically a stranger with my DNA.
After a few weekends of pure anxiety, I finally put my foot down and said, “Nope. Absolutely not. I’m done.” I was genuinely convinced he was going to kidnap me and take me to some off-brand version of a family reunion I did not sign up for. And sure, “home” wasn’t exactly a Disney Channel sitcom, but it definitely beat the “stranger danger but make it biological” vibes with my dad.
When I refused to go anymore, he handled it super well and called to say he’d burn our house down. So… that was fun. But eventually he gave up, probably because arson is inconvenient.
Meanwhile, the household partying continued like we were hosting a low-budget reality show no one asked for. One night, I woke up to screaming and fighting between my mom and one of my stepdad’s friends. I had to call 911 because apparently I was the only sober and responsible adult in the house—at age, what, 11?
During the chaos, my mom—demonstrating Olympic-level decision-making—kicked out the bottom panel of the storm door and almost severed her Achilles tendon. A+ choices. Very inspiring.
Another time, my uncle came home from the army and joined the party. When my mom decided she was ready for bed, she tried to lock up the house. My uncle refused to come inside… so she did what any caring family member would do: she locked the doors anyway and went to bed.
A few minutes later, my drunk uncle punched through the glass, twisted his arm inside like he was cracking a safe, and unlocked the door himself. Blood. Everywhere. It was like a low-budget horror movie but with less plot.
And of course, guess who had to clean up the blood and broken glass? Yup. Me. Again. At this point I should’ve been getting paid like the world’s youngest crime-scene cleanup technician.
Too be continued.
