As a warning, this will probably anger many readers. I also apologize for not having tissues to hand out.

I was the unwanted grandchild and the youngest of my paternal grandmother’s grandkids. My grandmother made it very apparent that I was an unwanted extra in the family. She gave me literal garbage as presents for birthdays and holidays — and only because she was obligated to wrap something. 

As an example, one year as a teen, I got a gift that had been made with multiple pairs of old, stained pantyhose that had been cut up and then stitched back together to vaguely resemble a shirt. Yes, fully see-through pantyhose. The foot parts of the pantyhose, complete with stains, had been cut and Frankensteined into “ruffles” on the sleeves of this bizarre monstrosity.

Grandmother hadn’t even made it herself, so she couldn’t even be allowed “effort was made and just went horribly wrong”. She had found it in a garbage bin behind a thrift store — as a “donated craft” thing that even the thrift store had rejected putting out on their floor. After she fished it out of the trash, it was shoved into a brown paper grocery bag and just dropped next to the pile of beautifully wrapped gifts from family members who cared. No, she didn’t wash it. Yes, it still reeked.

My dad was angered by how Grandmother treated me, and he would openly defend me and confront her face to face whenever she pulled this. She would get angry in turn, argue, and turn it around to try to make him feel guilty for not appreciating that I got anything at all. (She was very manipulative and, unfortunately, Dad had some work cut out for him to break her control over him entirely.) He did, however, allow me a huge amount of leeway for how I felt and spoke about her. I referred to her as ‘the old bat” and shocked my then-boyfriend when I called her a b**** in front of both of my parents. 

At the time, my boyfriend couldn’t believe that, one, I had sworn, as he hadn’t heard my potty mouth before, and two, who I had called that, especially in front of her son. He glanced at both of my parents and was even more shocked to see both of them nodding their heads in agreement. This was his introduction — and warning — about what one member of the extended family was like.

My crime, and the reason for Grandmother’s lifelong hatred of me? I was the only girl among the all-male grandkids. I wasn’t a grandson to help carry on the family name (please ignore the five other male grandkids), so I was a “wasted birth”. Since men don’t “buy” daughters to marry in this country, I couldn’t even net the family any value that way, either. (Her own marriage had been worthwhile because at least she had been able to bring the family something when her then-husband paid six cows for her. No, I’m not even kidding; that was considered a huge dowry in her village. Moving to the USA did very little to affect her worldviews.)

I then compounded my crimes later by having a (worthless) female child, who was also born “out of wedlock”. My daughter was conceived when we weren’t married, but my then-boyfriend broke down into tears when I told him, called himself an ultimate dork for not having a ring on hand, and asked me to marry him as soon as he heard that I had a bun in the oven. He promised there would be a ring soon, even though he couldn’t slip one on my finger at that exact moment. We got a marriage certificate soon after, but I carried my baby to term and waited a bit longer to recover my health before we bothered with the wedding ceremony. One of my most beautiful pictures is one in which my husband and I are cradling my infant daughter between us, still wearing our wedding regalia.

However, yet another sin was added because we aren’t religious, so we didn’t have a priest or person of God performing the ceremony. This meant that the child would be cursed before God and her soul would go to Hell. There was no point in asking for God’s forgiveness or getting her baptized after the fact because we had committed the sin and God’s wrath was already upon her and steeped into her very flesh. (Apparently, Jesus didn’t die for everyone, just the select people Grandmother says he died for.)

My grandmother’s opinion of a cursed child was confirmed when my daughter proved to be “broken” after being diagnosed with hearing loss in her infancy. Grandmother made it no secret that my child being deaf was a “stone around my neck” and God’s punishment upon me, as well as upon the innocent baby. She claimed that my daughter would have been born perfect if only I had been married “properly” before conceiving. People with disabilities like hearing loss or blindness are viewed as incapable of living independent lives, in her eyes. They will always be a drain on someone, whether it be their families or the government.

My dad came absolutely unglued at her attitude about his grandchild, and that broke the last chains of her control in his mind. He disowned his mother on the spot, which resulted in screaming phone calls until she was blocked on everything. 

For a short time, she would come to our house and pound on the door, screaming to be allowed in. When that failed, we had curses scribbled on linen and taped to our windows — stuff like “May God bring the curse of Job upon the inhabitants” and other lovely things. She was eventually forced to leave when the law became involved. Unlike back in her home village, law enforcement here viewed bribery very negatively. I still have her shocked reaction on security recordings from when one officer quoted the Bible as clearly stating that the law of the land holds God’s authority.

As for my daughter? I could barely get her away from my dad. I never had to change a diaper at their house because Dad was insistent on getting his one-on-one time with her, even if it was a five-wipe diaper and then she peed on him. He doted on her, but not to the entitled princess stage; she just knew that she was loved.

She will never know her great-grandmother, which is for the best.

I got woken up between 7:00 and 8:00 am every Saturday by the same bunch asking if I’d found Jesus. At the time, I worked 10:00 pm to 6:00 am six nights a week, and all I wanted of a Saturday morning was sleep! I tried patiently explaining that, and the next weekend was a different couple, same spiel.

I got snarky and told them I didn’t know I was supposed to look for him, too; did he run off with Waldo? The next weekend, I said they should keep better track of him. I continued trying new lines every Saturday morning for weeks before I finally got them to stop…

Strangers: “Sir, have you found Jesus?”

Me: “Yeah, I have, and if you f***ers want him back this time, it’s gonna cost ya, big time!”

They never knocked on my door again.

A few years ago, I was building a new fence for a friend of mine. First, I had to remove the old sections that were falling apart, of course, and when I got to the intersection of his back fence, his side fence, and the next-door neighbor’s back fence, I carefully separated the neighbor’s fence from his and proceeded to carry on removing the side sections that went between their two properties.

My friend had told me that the side section was 100% on his property and that the previous owner (over thirty years ago) had deliberately given the next-door neighbor’s property an extra foot or so to ensure that he was building on his own property (without calling for and paying for a survey).

The neighbor came running outside screaming at me.

Neighbor: “You can’t remove that fence! That’s our property! Just what do you think you’re doing?!”

Me: *Very calmly* “[Friend] told you well in advance that he was going to replace this fence and that he was just going to build it in the same place as the old one. He asked you if you were willing to split the costs, and you declined.”

No biggie.

[Neighbor] started screaming at me again.

Neighbor: “You have no right to do that! [Friend] didn’t give us proper notice! I didn’t realize that there wouldn’t be anything between our two properties to contain my dog!”

By then, I was about ready to lose my s***, so I knocked on [Friend]’s back door to let him know what was going on.

Me: “You need to talk to [Neighbor]. I’m leaving because I don’t want to do or say anything I’ll regret, and I don’t want to cause you problems with the neighbors.”

The entire project got put on hold, pending a property survey that was going to cost $650, and that they demanded my friend pay half of, despite him telling them that the fence was definitely on his property, and nothing was going to change with the new fence, and that he was fine with them continuing to have a foot or so of his property, so that he didn’t have to rock the boat.

Fast forward to the following Monday when the surveyor came out. It turned out that the old side fence was not “a little” on [Friend]’s property, but ALMOST TEN FEET onto his property. The neighbors had built up raised flower beds and done a nice brick retaining wall right up along the fence line, which they had spent a lot of money just in materials for, never mind the time they put in constructing it.

Needless to say, [Friend] came away with the biggest s***-eating grin. For the mere price of $325, he was entitled to expand his yard of more than thirty years by about 800 square feet. And [Neighbor] and her husband (who happened to be the polar opposite of his wife in personality and was super nice) spent the next week moving their garden, retaining wall, and all of the dirt that was on [Friend]’s property so that I could build the fence on his side of the ACTUAL property line.

The neighbors then hired the cheapest contractors they could find to slap up a fence on their side of the property line. They spent almost as much as my friend did on their new fence. (I gave my friend the friends and family discount.)

Three years later, the last twenty feet or so of their fence is on the ground already because it was such a s***ty job that it fell over in a moderate wind storm this past spring. [Friend]’s fence is still standing, rock solid, and his dogs are definitely making good use of the extra 800 square feet.

When my son was about four years old, I introduced him to an old joke:

You say to someone, “what were you eating under there” while being nonspecific about the location, and they respond, “under where?”, and then you hit them with the zinger, “you were eating underwear?!”

All day he was excited for his mum to come home to do the joke for her. But he wanted the laugh line, so he had me be the straight man and tee him up…

Me: “What were you eating under there?”

Son: “Underpants!”

I just read a story about Christmas presents that made me want to share one.

When I was a child, the youngest of four, I thought it was hilarious and quirky when my dad would give empty gifts as a joke. Sometimes there would be boxes within boxes, each layer wrapped in pretty paper. With each layer, you’d get more hopeful for an actual gift and would be incrementally more disappointed.

He would also give empty candy at all times of the year. Imagine a carefully re-folded chocolate wrapper that looks full until you hold it. I generally had a fun time guessing and calling him on his prank.

However, I gained some perspective from the fact that my siblings hated it when I did this to them. Pretty much no one liked it unless I gave them real candy afterward. I’m not too candy-motivated, so if I had put a Starburst wrapper back together to trick someone, I probably had more Starbursts left to give.

I recently found out my sister was really hurt by my dad’s behavior. She lived with him growing up, whereas I only saw him a couple of times a month, which I suspect had something to do with it.

She painted a scene of herself and our older sister standing excited that Dad had gotten them each a big chocolate bar since he almost never got them treats… and the disappointment when they were empty. Dad just laughed at them. He had eaten the chocolate himself.

I guess it’s a good reminder that just because someone isn’t upsetting to you, it doesn’t mean the same behavior isn’t traumatizing to someone else.