Alright children, gather 'round the fire.
Apparently I can't hit tab on my keyboard anymore.. but in other news.
Things are not going well. I recently returned from a week's stay in Kansas with a few mental scars, and many a story to tell. None of them are happy or uplifting, so if you're having a bad day yourself and can't spare a shred of pity, stop reading. Now.
Are you gone? Okay, good.
Well, let me start by saying the whole reason we're moving to Kansas is because my mother fell for a guy who lives there. Ouch. What a rash decision, eh? Yeah. They haven't been acquianted for the greatest amount of time, but you know.. I should trust 'ol mommy dearest, right? Indeed. I thought that to be the truth at the time, but I've come to find out perhaps I was mistaken.
Enter Dave. He appears to be a very nice and funny guy when you first lay eyes on him. He's supportive. He's a quick-thinker. Perfect guy right in front of you, you might think. But then he invites you to his humble abode down in Shawnee, Kansas. Alright. Shall we? Okay, we shall. Things are going well. But then I begin to realize a few things.
Dave is a down-right crazy conservative who will scoff at any liberal appearance before him. Well, that bothers me. Right from the start, I seem to be the inferior person in this relationship. I tried to cope with it. Having lived with liberal parents my whole life, I wasn't used to dealing with such a nutjob. I can recall a few conversations Dave and I have had, and quite a bit of them seem to end in conflict or strife. Namely, him looking down his nose at me when I said I'd never fired a gun in my life. Oh lord. He then makes a comment about me never hunting.
"Are you scared to kill a deer?"
In this moment, I'm laughing and crying deep down. I didn't know before what I was truly dealing with. From this point on, I saw a dire challenge in living with Dave.
Dave always talks about how HE does things, and how things were in his life. My mother will nod with a small grin as her mind begins to get twisted to Dave's will. I'm going to say right now that I firmly believe Dave is manipulating my mother into ALWAYS agreeing with him, no matter what. This creates a problem for me. My mother, whom I could sometimes find a bit of compliance in before, is becoming a tight-assed bitch. Hour by hour I lose freedoms and sigh a tad as I witness my life slowly decaying into a pile of sludge.
Before I go on, let me say that Dave is a bit of a racist, too. He doesn't think twice about saying "nigger" or "chink" in public. The most creative term yet is "slant-eyed cunt." This was in a Japanese restaurant.
Back to the story. I was saying how Dave would always talk about he HE was treated as a child, and how my life is going to change drastically once I start living with him.
"No more constantly being on the computer."
"Either go to school or get involved in public activites."
Those two lines in particular bothered the hell out of me. First off: Dave and I are CLEARLY different human beings. He finds pleasure in killing animals, screaming at a TV, and making comments about fags. I enjoy reading, gaming, and being at peace. Another problem. I could emphasize the point of me being nothing like him and me NEVER being anything like him, but that won't help.
He doesn't seem to realize I don't give a flying fuck how he was raised or brought up. I was raised and brought up the way I was, and the same goes for him. He will not have the power to change who I am because he sees a "flaw" in the way I am. It is not possible. He could beat the shit out of me. Nothing will change me.
People, I'm subhuman to this character because of my particularly anti-social lifestyle.
He then began to go on about how he was going to introduce me to his stepson and all of his friends (who are at least four years older than me) and he clearly expects these people to replace my current friends. Nope. Sorry. Hey, here's how that will go:
"So..you like heroin?"
"No."
"How about saying the word 'fag'?"
"No."
"What the fuck DO you enjoy, fag?"
"Reading."
"Jump 'em!"
It only gets worse.
The worst situation arose Sunday night. He told me to make a Totino's "party pizza" (it barely feeds one person) because I was hungry. I ask, "Do you have a sort of baking sheet?"
"You're in a man's home. Use some aluminum."
So I do. Of course, I don't know where the Pam is, and I also don't want to be called a pussy for wanting to use it, so I just put it in the oven. When the pizza is done, I take it out and cut it. I sit at the table with Dave and my mom. I begin to realize the pizza is stuck to the aluminum foil. I curse to myself as I struggle with it, and my mom knocks me out of the way and takes care of it. I take a look at the slices and see the bottom of each slice is covered in fragments of aluminum foil. I sigh and begin to pick each shred off. Mother says:
"What's wrong with that? It won't hurt you."
I say: "It bothers me. I don't want to eat aluminum foil."
I keep my eyes on my business, and Dave reinforces her statement about it not being bad.
Now I say: "Okay. I just don't want to eat aluminum."
They talk about how I'm worried about eating aluminum because I'm young. This causes me to say, "I think you have it reversed. You could pay kids my age to eat dog shit, but any forty-six-year-old in their right mind would probably be bothered by this much aluminum going into their body."
Dave then gets that fucking look on his face. That tone in his voice. It's time.
"If you fuckin' don't wanna eat it, then don't. Make somethin' else."
This causes me to retort with: "Am I weird for not wanting to eat aluminum? It bothers me, alright? I'm not comfortable with this idea. I simply don't want to. Seriously, am I different from everyone else? Or am I just the only sane person in this house? Are you two literally insane?"
Dave's seething. "Alright, I don't fuckin' appreciate being called insane in my own house. It ain't gonna fly, got it?"
I get up and take the plate into the kitchen. Mother says, "Don't be a pussy, Ryan." I sigh and set the plate down, staring out the window. I say, "I just don't want to eat it."
Dave pipes up with, "Dude, you could be a fuckin' man about this and eat the fuckin' pizza, but you're makin' such a huge deal about this."
I'm shivering at this point. Mother's backing him up with some non-sensical agreements. I say, "I just want someone to relate to. There is no one on my side here. Regardless of the situation, you two are always against me." Mind you, I'm extremely lonely at this point, having spoken to none of my friends for a week. I wanted to speak with Elizabeth or Emily. I needed some sort of solace.
Dave says, "What do you want me to do, come over there and kiss your little fuckin' ass? Be a man."
I'm throwing away the pizza box, and still shivering. I say, "We have different ideas of what a man is, clearly."
He slams his feet down and charges over to me. He slams the door in my face and practically knocks me over. I can't quite remember exactly what he said, but he was talking about "respect" and this being his house. Quite frankly, I don't care whose home it is. I'm being forced to live there, so I have a right to express myself without some sort of oppression. He was also making threatening statements towards me, and all I can do is starely coldly; lifelessly into his eyes. And I do.
When he's done, he speaks to my mother about how he would've gotten beaten if he had said that, and my mother says the same for herself. What's going through my head is: "Those days are over, and I would never do such a thing to my children. This is where we differ."
I'm leaning against the counter, staring out the window once again. All that remains is silence. My mother bitches at me for not talking, and tells me to leave the room if I won't. I leave. Whilst in the bathroom, I hear my mother kissing Dave, as if approving his actions. I also overheard him saying something about taking physical action. He has said before he quite literally assaulted a friend who was annoying him. To Dave, respect is earned through pummeling and such.
In this moment, I begin to cry. Not only out of loneliness, or the fact that I've lost the life I enjoyed eternally; also for the fact I'm being physically threatened in my new home. Dave is a musclebound guy, and I'm a small little bugger who wouldn't last two seconds against him. He keeps a bat in his room and owns a rifle. So, I'm scared for my life. If I express myself incorrectly, what could happen to me? Could he possibly lose control?
Wow. Now that I've let that out, I can say I fear I'm going to be forced into a lifestyle I will never fully adapt to, and it could damage me. Now that I live with Dave, I am no longer my own person: I am DAVE's person. This is who I am. No free thinking. No free anything. I am a part of Dave now.
A few more things about Dave: He was talking about the Asian tsunamis being a benefit.
"Well, chances are it's fuckin' wiping out those slant-eyed terrorist bitches, so that's good for us. Natural selection comes into play, too."
I'm staring at him with a cold stare. This was when I first began to dislike Dave. That comment of his took place about two weeks before he slammed the door in my face.
He also seems annoyed when I don't constantly laugh along with him and my mother to these prank calls he downloads. They're all about five years old and I've heard them all. I sit there and do nothing.
Oh man.
Let me close this by saying I'm a bit scared of what may happen to me. He seems to be a person who never abandons tradition, so I could see myself being beaten like he was if I don't comply with him regarding something.
I don't want to leave Iowa.
Things are not going well. I recently returned from a week's stay in Kansas with a few mental scars, and many a story to tell. None of them are happy or uplifting, so if you're having a bad day yourself and can't spare a shred of pity, stop reading. Now.
Are you gone? Okay, good.
Well, let me start by saying the whole reason we're moving to Kansas is because my mother fell for a guy who lives there. Ouch. What a rash decision, eh? Yeah. They haven't been acquianted for the greatest amount of time, but you know.. I should trust 'ol mommy dearest, right? Indeed. I thought that to be the truth at the time, but I've come to find out perhaps I was mistaken.
Enter Dave. He appears to be a very nice and funny guy when you first lay eyes on him. He's supportive. He's a quick-thinker. Perfect guy right in front of you, you might think. But then he invites you to his humble abode down in Shawnee, Kansas. Alright. Shall we? Okay, we shall. Things are going well. But then I begin to realize a few things.
Dave is a down-right crazy conservative who will scoff at any liberal appearance before him. Well, that bothers me. Right from the start, I seem to be the inferior person in this relationship. I tried to cope with it. Having lived with liberal parents my whole life, I wasn't used to dealing with such a nutjob. I can recall a few conversations Dave and I have had, and quite a bit of them seem to end in conflict or strife. Namely, him looking down his nose at me when I said I'd never fired a gun in my life. Oh lord. He then makes a comment about me never hunting.
"Are you scared to kill a deer?"
In this moment, I'm laughing and crying deep down. I didn't know before what I was truly dealing with. From this point on, I saw a dire challenge in living with Dave.
Dave always talks about how HE does things, and how things were in his life. My mother will nod with a small grin as her mind begins to get twisted to Dave's will. I'm going to say right now that I firmly believe Dave is manipulating my mother into ALWAYS agreeing with him, no matter what. This creates a problem for me. My mother, whom I could sometimes find a bit of compliance in before, is becoming a tight-assed bitch. Hour by hour I lose freedoms and sigh a tad as I witness my life slowly decaying into a pile of sludge.
Before I go on, let me say that Dave is a bit of a racist, too. He doesn't think twice about saying "nigger" or "chink" in public. The most creative term yet is "slant-eyed cunt." This was in a Japanese restaurant.
Back to the story. I was saying how Dave would always talk about he HE was treated as a child, and how my life is going to change drastically once I start living with him.
"No more constantly being on the computer."
"Either go to school or get involved in public activites."
Those two lines in particular bothered the hell out of me. First off: Dave and I are CLEARLY different human beings. He finds pleasure in killing animals, screaming at a TV, and making comments about fags. I enjoy reading, gaming, and being at peace. Another problem. I could emphasize the point of me being nothing like him and me NEVER being anything like him, but that won't help.
He doesn't seem to realize I don't give a flying fuck how he was raised or brought up. I was raised and brought up the way I was, and the same goes for him. He will not have the power to change who I am because he sees a "flaw" in the way I am. It is not possible. He could beat the shit out of me. Nothing will change me.
People, I'm subhuman to this character because of my particularly anti-social lifestyle.
He then began to go on about how he was going to introduce me to his stepson and all of his friends (who are at least four years older than me) and he clearly expects these people to replace my current friends. Nope. Sorry. Hey, here's how that will go:
"So..you like heroin?"
"No."
"How about saying the word 'fag'?"
"No."
"What the fuck DO you enjoy, fag?"
"Reading."
"Jump 'em!"
It only gets worse.
The worst situation arose Sunday night. He told me to make a Totino's "party pizza" (it barely feeds one person) because I was hungry. I ask, "Do you have a sort of baking sheet?"
"You're in a man's home. Use some aluminum."
So I do. Of course, I don't know where the Pam is, and I also don't want to be called a pussy for wanting to use it, so I just put it in the oven. When the pizza is done, I take it out and cut it. I sit at the table with Dave and my mom. I begin to realize the pizza is stuck to the aluminum foil. I curse to myself as I struggle with it, and my mom knocks me out of the way and takes care of it. I take a look at the slices and see the bottom of each slice is covered in fragments of aluminum foil. I sigh and begin to pick each shred off. Mother says:
"What's wrong with that? It won't hurt you."
I say: "It bothers me. I don't want to eat aluminum foil."
I keep my eyes on my business, and Dave reinforces her statement about it not being bad.
Now I say: "Okay. I just don't want to eat aluminum."
They talk about how I'm worried about eating aluminum because I'm young. This causes me to say, "I think you have it reversed. You could pay kids my age to eat dog shit, but any forty-six-year-old in their right mind would probably be bothered by this much aluminum going into their body."
Dave then gets that fucking look on his face. That tone in his voice. It's time.
"If you fuckin' don't wanna eat it, then don't. Make somethin' else."
This causes me to retort with: "Am I weird for not wanting to eat aluminum? It bothers me, alright? I'm not comfortable with this idea. I simply don't want to. Seriously, am I different from everyone else? Or am I just the only sane person in this house? Are you two literally insane?"
Dave's seething. "Alright, I don't fuckin' appreciate being called insane in my own house. It ain't gonna fly, got it?"
I get up and take the plate into the kitchen. Mother says, "Don't be a pussy, Ryan." I sigh and set the plate down, staring out the window. I say, "I just don't want to eat it."
Dave pipes up with, "Dude, you could be a fuckin' man about this and eat the fuckin' pizza, but you're makin' such a huge deal about this."
I'm shivering at this point. Mother's backing him up with some non-sensical agreements. I say, "I just want someone to relate to. There is no one on my side here. Regardless of the situation, you two are always against me." Mind you, I'm extremely lonely at this point, having spoken to none of my friends for a week. I wanted to speak with Elizabeth or Emily. I needed some sort of solace.
Dave says, "What do you want me to do, come over there and kiss your little fuckin' ass? Be a man."
I'm throwing away the pizza box, and still shivering. I say, "We have different ideas of what a man is, clearly."
He slams his feet down and charges over to me. He slams the door in my face and practically knocks me over. I can't quite remember exactly what he said, but he was talking about "respect" and this being his house. Quite frankly, I don't care whose home it is. I'm being forced to live there, so I have a right to express myself without some sort of oppression. He was also making threatening statements towards me, and all I can do is starely coldly; lifelessly into his eyes. And I do.
When he's done, he speaks to my mother about how he would've gotten beaten if he had said that, and my mother says the same for herself. What's going through my head is: "Those days are over, and I would never do such a thing to my children. This is where we differ."
I'm leaning against the counter, staring out the window once again. All that remains is silence. My mother bitches at me for not talking, and tells me to leave the room if I won't. I leave. Whilst in the bathroom, I hear my mother kissing Dave, as if approving his actions. I also overheard him saying something about taking physical action. He has said before he quite literally assaulted a friend who was annoying him. To Dave, respect is earned through pummeling and such.
In this moment, I begin to cry. Not only out of loneliness, or the fact that I've lost the life I enjoyed eternally; also for the fact I'm being physically threatened in my new home. Dave is a musclebound guy, and I'm a small little bugger who wouldn't last two seconds against him. He keeps a bat in his room and owns a rifle. So, I'm scared for my life. If I express myself incorrectly, what could happen to me? Could he possibly lose control?
Wow. Now that I've let that out, I can say I fear I'm going to be forced into a lifestyle I will never fully adapt to, and it could damage me. Now that I live with Dave, I am no longer my own person: I am DAVE's person. This is who I am. No free thinking. No free anything. I am a part of Dave now.
A few more things about Dave: He was talking about the Asian tsunamis being a benefit.
"Well, chances are it's fuckin' wiping out those slant-eyed terrorist bitches, so that's good for us. Natural selection comes into play, too."
I'm staring at him with a cold stare. This was when I first began to dislike Dave. That comment of his took place about two weeks before he slammed the door in my face.
He also seems annoyed when I don't constantly laugh along with him and my mother to these prank calls he downloads. They're all about five years old and I've heard them all. I sit there and do nothing.
Oh man.
Let me close this by saying I'm a bit scared of what may happen to me. He seems to be a person who never abandons tradition, so I could see myself being beaten like he was if I don't comply with him regarding something.
I don't want to leave Iowa.