And Now, Time for Some STFU!!

I was raised to be kind and to never hurt anyone’s feelings. I was taught to be gracious and accommodating. Trained to listen and smile, nodding my head when appropriate, I was never to interrupt. And I was most CERTAINLY not to ignore or tell someone to please stop talking. Getting breast cancer cured me of THAT shit.

There are pretty much 2 ways people look at getting cancer:

1.) OH MY GOD, how TERRRRRRRIBLE FOR ME!
2.) Wow, this is truly a gift. I should REALLLLLY learn something from this experience!

Well… maybe there are two and a HALF ways of looking at it. How about a twist on way #2?

I found that pretty early on, I was in camp #2. Sort of. While I sure did not see what a “blessing” (whatever THAT is) cancer was, and that it was NOT a gift in any way, I began to think that I just might take another look at my life and change that which was stifling me. I realized that I was tired of being the “good-girl,” the doormat, the receptacle for the verbal vomit and imposition of others.

I decided to rid myself of all toxic things in my life. Oh please, I am still a chronic over-eater, and I still cuss more than a sailor. But this is for anyone clueless as to WHY I distanced myself from you or discarded you from my life. You would do well to heed the lesson it took me 36 years learn: Life is too short to waste at a job you hate, and associating with people you don’t like. Period.

Presenting: And now, time for some STFU

Big brother: After mom died, and I immediately discovered I had cancer, you totally dumped the full care of our invalid dad in MY lap. After choosing an assisted living apartment just 2 minutes down the road from your house, it was I who had to hire additional caregivers for him. I was the one who had to grocery shop and take him to the doctor’s office (a GREAT place for a bald, sick cancer patient with a compromised immune system, BTW). It was ME who cleaned his apartment and scooped his cat’s litter box. I was the one who yanked my wig off because I got too hot and nauseated washing his nasty, moldy dishes.

I learned that I couldn’t count on you for SHIT. You were a total disappointment, and I am sure that Mom would’ve come back to HAUNT you, if she had known what you put me through. You should STILL be ashamed of yourself. Oh, and thanks for still not having our parents’ small “estate” settled although Dad died over 5 years ago! Now, STFU!

Fugly: What can I say? Since you were my brother’s wife, I tolerated you for years. I felt sorry that in addition to being homely, you were socially retarded as well. I overlooked many insults, attributing them to “misunderstandings” on my part. Then I opened my eyes to the piece of work that is you. I chose to no longer overlook just how fucked up you are, when you found it exceptionally funny to try cutting me down when I was bald, sick and breastless. But I waited until a year later when I lost my uterus, too.

Thankfully, my husband (whom you coveted) and I had a terrific sense of humor and had already gone through the plethora of jokes about me looking like a man, or resembling a penguin, or possibly attracting members of the same sex when I was looking butch. But I immediately realized that yours were not attempts at humor, but true barbs targeting my soul. Too bad you missed, you bitch. Now, STFU!

Jabba: I can’t even count the ways you have sought attention from your selfish daughter, Fugly, through the years, but they have included half-assed overdoses and persistent whining about your diverticulitis. You have always babbled incessantly about random, mindless shit at every family function I have ever been cursed to attend. I realize now where Fugly inherited her innate ugly and tremendous sense of “stupid.” The immense stupidity which poured out of your mouth was mind-boggling! But I don’t think I could ever again experience such profound shock at hearing stupid comments, as when my mother lay dying in the hospital.

None of us had known Mom was sick. We had just 3 days prior been given her leukemia diagnosis, and she would die in 2 days. You and I were sitting in Fugly’s living room during a “birthday party” for my nephling. As I mindlessly nibbled on birthday cake, I was preoccupied with the thought of losing my beloved mother. In what I thought at the time was your way of “comforting” me, you said:

Jabba: “Your mother is the lucky one. That she is dying, I mean.”

Me: Blink blink blink. “What?”

Jabba: “Do you know how long I have been waiting to die? I have been so uncomfortable! You just don’t know what I have been through!!”

Me: Blink blink blink. “Excuse me; I need to go home now.”


Holy-fucking-shit. Through my tears as I drove home, anger bubbled over and I wanted a “do over” of that conversation because I realized what I should have said to you:

Me: “You’re right! I wish it was you who was dying and that MY mother’s worst problem was that she couldn’t eat food with seeds!”

Now, STFU!

Nephling: I loved you dearly as a child. As an adolescent you took a turn for the twisted and I no longer found you sweet OR amusing. Along with your intelligence (yeah, Fugly, I know he is a Talented and Gifted student), you absorbed your mother’s inner ugliness.

I always felt sorry for you that my daughter, who was younger than you by a year, was so totally able to kick your ass anytime you picked on her. Then you chose to be cruel to my son, who was younger than you by 7 years, because you couldn’t understand his speech when he had his orthodontic appliance in place. Yeah, she kicked your ass again, didn’t she? Good luck trying to become a decent human being. Now, STFU!

Freak 1 (see previous post): You make me sick. I tolerated you because you were “fambly.” Then I realized that I got nothing out of the "relationship” except a skin-crawly feeling of creepy.

Through the years, every phone call you’d make to me would ultimately turn to sex; how much you were/were not getting, what you liked to do, what a great massage you could give, and your date’s response….blahblahblah. Then you really crossed the line by asking me what I liked. How many different ways can I say and spell “ICK?” I would cut those conversations off as soon as I recognized that your tone of voice had changed. You fucking pervert.

When I moved and chose to not give you my phone number and address, you discovered me online through another fambly member. Fuck. Now I had to deal with emails of sex jokes and dirty cartoons (that you’d gotten from your DAD), and actual photographs of you! Thank GOD you never crossed the line and sent nude ones, although I am sure you thought about it. And, OH SWEET JESUS, the IM’s from you!

I put you on my “buddy list” only to keep track of your twisted ass. My skin would crawl and I would hiss, “FUCK!” every time you “found” me. Then you would IM your date-sex talk as if we were old lovers and you were trying to turn me on and entice me back into your fold. WE ARE COUSINS! THE ONLY REASON I WOULD EVER TALK TO YOU IS BECAUSE OUR DADS WERE BROTHERS! BTW, I am NOT attracted to dwarves wearing kilts! I don’t care that you are really into our Scottish heritage and attend all sorts of Highland Games trying to find ass from someone else who is as dweeby as YOU! Now, STFU!

Freak 2: You’ve not yet had the pleasure of being introduced to F1’s younger-by-4-years brother, F2. This piece of work is also quite the “tool.” Other than losing his wife to another of our cousins via an online relationship, he is Creepy with a capital “C.”

About 5’8 and well over 350 lbs, he wears his dark, frizzy hair past his shoulders and sports a mountain-man beard down to his breastbone. Add to this a cowboy hat and a lazy eye to go along with a heavy-lidded look and you have F2. And for those of you who feel safe in your homes, he is an over-the-road truck driver here in the U.S., so lock up your children, mmmkay?

His ex-wife (who eventually went on to marry and divorce that other cousin) told me that he’d been fired from one of his jobs for downloading kiddie porn. I don’t know whether this is true or just sabotage by the angry ex, but I NEVER let him near my children.

After a family funeral, when all of the low-life fambly members were enticed to cross state lines by free food on someone else’s tab, there was a “mini” fambly reunion at a restaurant.

F1 was there, as was F2 with a 35mm camera to record the “happy” event. I made sure to sit on the same side of the table as those 2, so that F1 couldn’t stare at me, and F2 couldn’t stare at and photograph my children. I also made sure to keep about 12 people between us and them but I still couldn’t keep the “creepy” factor from settling over us.

F2 would stand up to shoot, and I would block my kids. He would maneuver; I would out-maneuver. I finally approached him (F1 and F2 both thought for a HUG! F1 nearly elbowed F2 out of the way). I pushed F1 out of the way, and sticking my sharp index finger firmly into F2's breastbone, hissed for him to put the camera away and to not fucking DARE to take pictures of me or my kids. I haven’t seen him since, but he never fails to send me a Christmas card every year signed with his first and last name, as if I could ever wash his creepy name out of my head! Now, STFU and quit sending me cards, you freak!