CONTENT WARNING: Repeated Abuse By Sibling

My older sister was physically abusive toward me. At the slightest — accidental — provocation, she would attack me.

My parents generally laughed it off because I was a boy and she was a girl, and I should suck it up; she couldn’t hurt me that badly. 

One time, she nearly drowned me by holding my head underwater in the bathtub, but it didn’t leave any marks, so my parents didn’t care.

I guess I was the one with all of the empathy in the family; I never hit back since I was afraid I might actually hurt her.

One time, I turned the light on in our bedroom while she was asleep so that I could put my stuff away and go to bed. She leaped out of bed, grabbed something heavy, and smacked me with it. She broke my leg.

The nurses and doctors at the hospital actually listened to my story about how my sister abused me, and all the times she had abused me before.

The doctors got CPS involved. They had my parents move me out of the room with my sister into my own room, and they insisted that any disputes between me and my sister would have to be mediated by a third party, or else my parents would lose custody of both of us.

This helped a lot, and by high school, I had almost forgotten how abusive my sister had been, until the day before prom. She was in college by then, drinking and partying, and often spent the night in my parent’s house rather than the dorm because they cooked and did laundry for her.

That night, she was very drunk, our parents were already abed, and her eyes lighted upon me when she got home. “I always hated you, you little f***er,” she said. And then she attacked me.

I managed to get away and lock myself in my room, but I was covered with bruises, bite marks, and scratches. I was a mess. I thought about stealing Mom’s makeup to cover up the bruises like I had done in the past to dodge awkward questions in grade school, but then, I decided, “F*** it.”

I went to prom covered in open, obvious, injuries. I got my prom pictures taken looking like the victim of domestic assault — which I was. One of my friends encouraged me to let the police know what my sister had done, and I did.

She was arrested, and as she was old enough to be legally an adult, she was tried as one. She went to prison and lost her scholarship.

My parents blamed me for it, so after I left for college myself, I never came back. I don’t know how they’re doing now. And I don’t care.

“Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” has just come out in theaters, and our venue is PACKED. There are a lot of little kiddies dressed up as Spider-Man or other comic book heroes coming to the screenings, and they’re all adorable.

A mother comes up with two little boys dressed up as Spider-Man. They’re so excited they’re practically jumping up and down. I scan her tickets, and I get a little red beep. I scan again, and the same thing.

Me: “Hmm… Can I get a closer look at your tickets?”

Mom: “Is something wrong?”

Me: “I hope not! Let’s see.”

Straight away, I can tell this woman has made a mistake booking her tickets. She’s booked online at our location with a similar name but in an entirely different state. I explain this to her, and her face goes pale.

Mom: “Do… do you have any replacement tickets I could buy?”

She said, “Buy”. She wants to pay for her mistake, not make us do it.

Me: “I’m afraid we’re mostly sold out for the rest of the day. We don’t have any seats left until later this evening.”

Mom: “I need to get them back before then. We drove into the city to be here today, so…”

We both look at the two boys, both blissfully oblivious to our discussion.

Mom: “I can’t believe I did that! They’re going to be soooo upset.”

Me: “Let me see if there’s anything I can do.”

I radio my manager and tell him what’s happened. Our theater will sometimes keep some seats empty, even in a sold-out theater. Sometimes this is for seats that are easier to access for disabled moviegoers, such as seats near the front. Apparently, we do have plenty of those seats left! I explain this to the mom.

Me: “If you don’t mind being in the front row, we can put you there.”

Mom: “Are you kidding?! Anything is better than my boys having their favorite superhero snatched away from them by their stupid mom’s mistake.”

Me: “Please stop being so hard on yourself! It’s an easy mistake to make! Let me get you settled with your new tickets.”

I escorted them to a ticket machine and got the replacement tickets printed for them. I also swung some popcorn for the boys with Spider-Man-themed packaging that they gushed, “Wow!” and, “Cool!” over.

After the movie, the mom and her boys found me again, and the mom was almost in tears. She thanked me again and explained that the boys came into the city to visit their dad who was in a long-term hospital situation, and this excursion was badly needed for them.

I was happy to try to be a hero that day, even if it wasn’t Spider-Man!

Several recent stories reminded me of a tough point in my life. I’m lucky enough to have never been so broke as to be unable to eat. After Mom passed away, though, the family scattered, my then-fiancé lost his job around the same time, and the majority of my inheritance went toward helping pay off some bad debt — “class action lawsuit” levels of “bad” — but that was years later. We were definitely broke enough that the cabinets and fridge only had store-brand bare essentials like instant ramen, peanut butter, bread, etc. It wasn’t the healthiest way to eat, but between [Fiancé] being out of work and me earning JUST enough to not qualify for benefits, it was better than literally nothing; it also helped me kick my soda addiction.

One day, I saw that [Supermarket] was having a big pre-Thanksgiving sale. I knew there was no way we could do a proper dinner, but many of the things on sale were shelf-stable, and a few things like premade stuffing mix and fresh veggies that would normally be out of budget for the quality, so a lot of our meager saving was going into a big bulk purchase. We went, we stocked up as best we could, and we checked out.

Cashier: “Do you have a [Store] card?”

Me: “No.”

This was around when store cards were starting to be tied directly to sales rather than just reward programs, so I was used to not having my own. But then…

Fiancé: “Oh, actually, you have all of your Mom’s store cards now.”

Numbly taking out the big key ring I had actually forgotten was in my pocket, I flipped through until I found the right one. It eventually got scanned in — it was old and falling apart — I swiped my card, and our massive receipt started printing. At the bottom of it, the cashier circled something in pink highlighter. Still in my fog, I didn’t notice it, but [Fiancé] did.

Once we headed out to the car (the only part of my inheritance that wasn’t cash), I started loading everything into the trunk while [Fiancé] looked over the receipt to make sure all the sales were taken off correctly. He got to the bottom, and all I heard was, “OH, MY GOD!” before he broke down sobbing. Thinking we had gotten double-charged or something, I snatched the receipt from him, and he pointed to the big pink circle.

There was over $150 in rewards to be claimed. It turns out the store had a cash-back program, and my mom had just never bothered to go to the customer service desk to redeem the rewards.

It probably looked weird to some folks seeing two guys in the front seats of a sedan, hugging each other and crying their eyes out — being the early 2000s and certain forms of acceptance building slowly in our area — but after all the grief, stress, and general anxiety of the prior months, even the smallest bit of relief made us both explode like burst dams. It took almost ten minutes to calm down to where we could drive home safely and put our big pile of food away.

Then, the next day, when we cashed out the rewards and got three $50 store gift cards, the waterworks started all over again. It was the first year we could properly afford a little Thanksgiving meal of our own, though thankfully our finances improved over the next year.

We just found it funny that, in our toughest time, my mother’s thoughtlessness actually ended up saving us!

My mother is doing some early prep work for Thanksgiving. One of her tasks is chopping up fresh herbs for the turkey and stuffing. One of these herbs is parsley. However, it has started to go limp, so she sends my father to the store for a new bundle.

Dad: “I’m home! And I have your parsley!”

Mom: “Great! Was the store busy?”

Dad: “Yeah, it was insane. People absolutely everywhere. But I got through them! And I got the parsley!”

Mom: *Looking in the bag* “Honey, this is dill.”

My dad groans, and my mother and I burst into laughter.

Dad: “But I grabbed it from the parsley bin!”

She made do with the limp parsley instead of sending him back out, but we made fun of him for getting the wrong herbs for the rest of the afternoon.

A couple of years ago, I was in a really, really rough spot. I had two very young babies, my husband had had a complete meltdown and taken off, I had been in school and didn’t have a job, and I was freaking out wondering how I was going to manage to find work, feed my kids, and in general, manage on my own.

I’m in a grocery store, I have no money yet, and the only food I am getting is what I can get with my WIC money (Women, Infants, and Children federal assistance program). My kids are with me, and the younger one is crying in the grocery cart.

At the time, WIC money is only in checks, so it takes a few minutes, and I am trying to redeem three of them. By the time I get over to bag my groceries, I am shaking from anxiety, and then, I drop my eggs. They shatter, and I just break down weeping. I desperately need the eggs, and it is just the last thing in a long line of a very rough time that now, I have no eggs.

As I stand there weeping, I look up and see an employee looking at me, and I manage to wail out through my tears:

Me: “I can’t do this!”

She just reaches over, wraps me in a hug, and stands there holding me.

Employee: “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here to tell you that your children are beautiful, and you absolutely can do this!”

By the time she let go of me, another employee had brought me another dozen eggs and bagged my groceries for me.

I’ve often wished I knew her name so I could go back and thank her and let her know I’m okay now.