There's a big "O" in AsshOle

My mother has her own blog (grandmaschronicles.blogspot.com). In it, she talks about her grandkids, her past and her odd obsession with potato salad. LOL

She has mentioned my biological father, O the idiot, but not much. She thinks that she might upset me if she caps on him. She's also worried about being disrespectful of the dead. I am personally of the opinion that if someone was a jerk while they were alive, they don't become a saint when they are dead.

I am posting this to show my mother that she can say whatever she wants about him. This isn't nice stuff, so if you believe that we should blindly respect our parents, you may not want to read this.

My mother says she feels bad about saying things about him, because while she is no longer related to him, we always will be. My answer to this is, yeah but you found him. We just got stuck with him. Neener neener neener. Of course, in Mom's defense, he was a different person during the courtship. Apparently, he picked up a bottle on the honeymoon and never stopped for the next thirty some odd years. (Eleven of which we spent with the bastard.)

O was the town drunk, not like Otis in Mayberry, but like Linda Blair in the exorcist. He came complete with spinning head and pea-soup spewing pie hole. He wasn't all bad. Sometimes when the hangover had eased up and he was only on his second beer, he wasn't too horrid.

O was lazy. He didn't work, because it interferred with his drinking. He sat on the couch with a bottle of Maalox in one hand and vodka in the other. He was King of the Castle, Lord of all he surveyed. I think he left a permanent ass print on the couch.

O was bitter, because he had a horrible childhood. He never got over his childhood. In return, he ensured that our childhood was awful also. Not a big thinker, O.

He lurked like a spider in its web waiting for us to screw up, so he could lunge out and open up a can of whoop ass.

The day the kids on the bus told me that they heard on their police scanner when the cops came out, and arrested him for public intoxication, that was the proudest day of my life.

Eventually, my mother gave up on O, and left him. Nobody cried, except maybe O. (But I'm sure a quart of vodka fixed that right up.)

O died in his sixties from a pickled liver. The hell, you say! I'm not sure where he's buried. If it were close to me, I could go dance (badly) on his grave.

What did I learn from O? I learned that just because I had a fucked up childhood, that my kids don't have to. I learned that comfort from a bottle only lasts until you're splayed over the toilet and trying to remember what you did the night before. (Okay, maybe I learned that one on my own.) I learned that not taking personal responsibility for your actions fools nobody but yourself. These were some good life lessons.

Am I angry anymore? Not often. Am I fucked up a bit? Well a little, but it makes for a great warped sense of humor.

Ode to O, you made me what I am today.

There Mom, now write some of the really mean stuff about him!