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.

Customer: *Sneezes*

Me: “Gesundheit.”

Customer: “No, it’s ‘God bless you’.”

Me: “Well, I’m not religious, so it wouldn’t be much of a blessing.”

Customer: “You don’t believe in God?”

Me: “No.”

Her body language changes to something defensive.

Customer: *In a mocking tone* “So, how does that feel?”

She looks at me like she has just asked the most profound question in history and I am going to drop to my knees and accept Jesus into what was clearly the massive, moralless hole in my life.

Me: “Do you believe in Buddha?”

Customer: “No…”

Me: “It feels like that.”

She didn’t look very happy with me and walked off.

A bickering couple comes up to me as I am working behind the counter.

Male Customer: “Excuse me, but are you a Mormon?”

Me: “Uh… yes?”

Male Customer: “Excellent! We finally found one! Can you please tell my wife you’re allowed to have as many wives as you want?”

Me: “That’s… not true. We only take one wife.”

Female Customer: “Hah! See?! I told you!”

Male Customer: “Huh… I always thought Mormons were allowed multiple wives.”

Me: “It’s a common misconception, sir.”

Male Customer: “Well then, what’s the point of all that missionary stuff you’ve all gotta do if not to find yourselves some decent wives?”

Me: “It’s purely to preach, sir.”

Male Customer: “What a waste of time!”

Female Customer: “Don’t mind him. He’s just bored every Sunday at church and is feeling around for other options…”

Related:
Not A Fan Of Poly-gab-at-me

During church service one day, after the tithes are collected, I notice that our pastor mutters something to one of the ushers and tries to continue as normal, though he seems somewhat annoyed through the entire sermon for reasons he doesn’t seem to want to talk about.

The next Sunday, though, he decides to be fairly blunt about what disrupted the sermon.

Pastor: “You all might wonder why I seemed so agitated last Sunday. I will be blunt: it’s because someone came in and put nearly $500 in those fake notes that are meant to trick waiters into thinking they’re being tipped well only to crush their spirits when they unfold them by having a Bible verse or a plea to attend Church in place of receiving money. This was not a singular large note, but multiple of them, gathered over a large amount of time.”

The audience murmurs a bit and looks about to see if anyone might be outing themselves with obvious guilt. A fair few of the members of the church, including me, are waitstaff and we would be completely beside ourselves if we ended up on the other end of this. Then, our pastor continues.

Pastor: “Now, I will only say a few things. We are now banned from [Restaurant we would often go to after service concluded] because someone either by accident or on purpose used one of these to pay their check, and not just to harass some poor person thinking they were seeing an example of human goodwill only to have it crushed. Doing that was the final straw for the owner to okay them dumping every single fake tip they’ve received on us. Whoever this is was arrogant enough to have our church’s name printed on it — and their name — which I will not say in public, though I am going to have a very stern talk with them afterward and urge them to go and pay the restaurant the owed money they failed to pay — I am being very charitable in assuming it was by accident — before the restaurant takes it into their own hands to call the police on them. The only reason they haven’t is because they’re giving the congregation as a whole the benefit of the doubt that we didn’t encourage this. Now then, on to the service.”

What followed was a very chastising lesson about Greed and how awful and cruel it can get, laced with especially harsh condemnations on how evil it was to disguise Greed under the veil of charity or kindness — like scamming workers out of the money they deserve and acting like it was being Godly because you were telling them to go to church.

Whoever it was either skipped that day or was very good at holding it together because nobody broke or stormed out. But, given that the following Sunday, the church “mean girls” (i.e., those hypocritical fifty-five-plus church women who say they’re good Christian women but gossip, look down on others, and generally treat the Golden Rule as more of a Golden Suggestion) were missing half of their number, it was kind of an open secret who the culprit(s) was/were. 

We did get unbanned from the restaurant eventually, but only after they moved to those smart devices that automatically add the tip to credit card payments and added a rule that if you’re paying cash, you include the intended tip with the meal payment, which I don’t blame them for.