R-A-N-T Rant

Mom starts out telling me about the trial separation Joe and Mary-ellen are going through and tells me a few factoids I already know.

And then she really starts.

She needs me to get in touch with Joe. (Really? I think “needs” might be over-doing it, Ma.)

“He is really going through such a hard time with Mary-ellen. He’s not abandoning anyone, she just makes it so hard for him to be there – picking fights and cursing and all that nonsense. She really is such a pig, you know.” (Are we just now realizing this?) “And she just makes it impossible for him to stay.” (Did I just hear an excuse?)

“And Joe said that he’d come back to the house on the nights that she works, and stay with the kids until they get off to school in the morning or she gets home, and last night she called well after midnight and he was asleep and she woke him up and started a big hullabaloo and then did the same thing when she got home in the morning and she’s really just so awful.”

“But Joe really needs some advice. He just doesn’t know what to do about this whole mess. And he’s staying with Steve. You probably remember Steve. He’s a really nice guy.”

NO. SHE. DIDN’T.

My burning recollections of Steve include weirdness along the lines of comedian Steve Wright without the funniness, and morbid depression. And working in a hardware store. But the most distinctive recollection of Steve is not that he is nice at all, but that he is a first class pig.

And why do I think that? I will tell you. A long, long time ago, when I was unfortunately dating Lars, I had the additional misfortune of bumping into Joe and Steve at a Pub. Lars and I were not anxious to spend any great amount of time with either of them and quickly scrammed to another pub with higher quality clientele.

A short time after that dubious encounter, Joe approaches me to tell me that Steve, whom I’d never met, thought I was pretty cute.

And if that weren’t enough to make my skin crawl, he added that Steve had commented that he’d like to do The Nasty with me. (I don’t recall the precise terminology but it was something equally distasteful and just as poor a choice of phrases to use when commenting on or to one’s sister.) I think there were some facial expressions and odd throat noises made immediately following.

I’ll pause while you let that one percolate for a moment.

And I asked in reply, once I’d recovered the ability to speak, what Joe had said to indicate that Steve had better A) shop in his own pay grade, and B) keep the filthy comments to himself if he planned to keep his rotten little yellowing teeth for much longer.

And he’d said nothing. And I’d been horrified. And when the argument got loud and Dad came running in from the sidelines and had said very little but had made a face that said “How on Earth did I raise my son to be this big a moron?” and Joe had called Mom, Mom had said I was overreacting.

And that friends, is just one more telling little glimpse into My Life with Joe, that might serve to explain why he never makes the guest list.

And oh, good, Mom’s message isn’t even half over.