An Untold Story Chapter 3 - The Bizarreness

For the first 3 years, the relationship with Becky was fucking awesome.

We seemed to be perfectly matched, both emotionally and physically. It was all good. We saw eye to eye on most every topic.

Don't get me wrong, no relationship is perfect. Sometimes I'd open my mouth and say stupid shit that pissed her off. But c'mon, I'm a fucking guy! Best any of us guys can do is minimalize the stupid and apologize immediately.

Overall, things were great! Although most of the time we were together, she wasn't even divorced yet. She was only separated from her husband.

Still, we had nibbled around the edge of the subject of possibly moving in together, at some point.

Her pending divorce was a major speed bump in that direction. It was like pulling teeth with needle nose pliers trying to get her estranged spouse to give her any financial assitance for the boys. If we had moved in together before the divorce, she was afraid his lawyer would use that against her and she'd never get another dime. She was probably right.

She eventually secured her divorce (it was brutal and ugly), her ex-husband bought her out of their house and she moved into a townhouse in southern Kansas City just minutes away from her job.

After her diagnosis and many times over the course of her treatment, I suggested that she should just move in with me so I could take care of her because I love her.

She didn't want to do that. She was afraid that if the reason we moved in together was because she was sick, that would always taint our cohabitation.

There were also many perfectly logical and rational reasons why it wasn't practical for her to move in with me.

She only lived a couple of miles from her job.

Gas was $4.00 a gallon.

I lived at least 30-45 minutes away. Maybe an hour when you take into effect the Grandview Triangle during rush hour.

With the cost of her meds and the hours she was working, it just didn't make sense to add a commute like that to her day.

But her lease was going to expire in May of 2008 and she needed to figure out what she was going to do.

Her middle son, Desmond, was living in their old house, was out of work and facing some legal charges. What she really wanted to do was temporarily move back to that house (the house now owned by her ex-husband) with Desmond and try to get him straightened out. She had long suspected that he was bi-polar. She thought if she could just get him properly diagnosed so he could get treatment, then he could get a job and keep it and he would be OK.

While I admired her motivation, I strongly advised her against putting herself in a position where her ex-husband controlled the roof over her head. It was an ugly divorce. He lied to her and cheated on her for 20 years while he was working on the railroad and he had never followed through on any agreement he had ever made with her. In short, he was a fucking bastard.

She assured me that NO WAY would she move back into that house unless she had a legally enforceable agreement in writing.

We talked about the fact that my lease expired in October. She'd be almost done with her treatments by then and hopefully the Hep C would be gone. She could move back in with Desmond for a few months, get him straightened out, finish up her treatments and then maybe we could think about getting someplace together.

Because I thought this might be in my future, I never really settled in to the townhouse in Independence. I didn't hang any pictures. I didn't hang any curtains. The place remained pretty bare because a) I didn't know how long I would be here, and b) I wasn't sure how long I would be here alone.

So she's negotiating terms with her ex while the clock is ticking on her lease.

Right about this time, she loses her cell phone. Can't find it anywhere.

This is not unusual for her. I suspect it's probably in her purse. Her purse is like the Bermuda Fucking Triangle. Once something goes in her purse, it vanishes from the known universe.

Instead of getting a replacement phone from her current carrier, she decides to cancel her service with Verizon and get a phone with another carrier because it would be cheaper.

She cancels her Verizon service first, THEN she applies at another carrier. Apparently her credit didn't pass muster with the new carrier and they don't give her a phone.

She was phoneless.

She didn't have a land line at home and it wouldn't be cool for me to call her at work, so the only way I have to communicate with her now is via email or driving from Independence to 103rd & Wornall (with gas at $4.00 a gallon) on the off chance that she will be at home and awake.

The weekend before her lease is due to expire, I email her.

"So, are you moving this weekend? Do you need help?"

She still hadn't decided. She was still negotiating terms with her ex on moving back into their old place. The current landlord had assured her that she could just pay month to month on the townhouse and didn't have to sign a new lease right away.

OK, cool.

Early the following week I email her to get an update.

She moved over the weekend!

Didn't tell me she was moving. Didn't ask for my help. Her boys got her moved. Said she knew I had a compressed disc in my back and she didn't want me doing any lifting.

Only...wait for it...she didn't move in with her son Desmond as planned!

She moved in with a female co-worker who lived even closer to work than she did. She would stay there temporarily while she continued negotiating with the ex.

:: blink :: Umm, Okay. That's odd. Just sayin'.

All of her belongings are scattered between where she was living now (somewhere around 103rd & Holmes) and her son's and her sister's various habitats.

And she managed to coordinate this last minute flurry of activity without a phone?

"My roommate let's me use her phone when I need to."

Hmmm. That's interesting. But okay.

So now, I can only email her at work and she discourages me from doing that because people in her office don't get personal emails at work and she's worried about losing her job, which would mean losing her insurance which would mean not being able to afford her medical treatments that are keeping her alive.

How can I not respect that?

I try to hold the emails down to one or two a week. She generally sends me a short reply with a quick update, but it might take her a day or two.

Let's recap.

I no longer have a phone number for her, I no longer know where she lives. I can only communicate with her on the Internet, but sending her an email is like querying a Magic fucking 8 Ball.

At this point she has become my "mythological girlfriend".

I've seen her. I know she exists. I believe in her. But I would be hard pressed to prove her existence to anyone else.

She's like the chupacabra of significant others. There have been unconfirmed sightings, but no concrete evidence exists.

Then in mid July, I stop getting any replies to the emails I'm sending her at work. After a couple of weeks I get a short email from her personal email address telling me she hadn't been to work for a couple of weeks and to please not send any more emails to work.

So I start sending emails to her personal address and don't get any replies at all.

Not a single one.

After about 3 weeks I'm out of my mind with worry. To the point of texting her oldest to ask if we could touch base. I thought maybe he had been in contact with her.

In an apparently AMAZING coincidence, she contacts him, out of the blue, the VERY NEXT DAY.

First time he had heard from her in a long time, as it turns out! What are the odds?

He told her I was worried about her so she sends me an email.

Next, An Untold Story Chapter 4 - The End

Do You Tip Car Hops At Sonic?

There was a huge debate on Twitter today (twitterbate? twitterbation?) regarding the appropriateness of tipping Car Hops at Sonic.

I won't taint your position by recounting the debate and participants.

I'll just ask you to vote on my poll here.

Flying Saucer Abducts 6 Year Old Colorado Boy! LIVE!

The saga began with a tweet to my cell phone from the twitter account of BNO News.

A 6 year old boy was trapped in a runaway, homemade, experimental, flying saucer shaped helium balloon he had been helping his father build in their garage in Colorado.

OH MY FUCKING GOD! Let's go to the video!



This drama went on for hours as helicopters were leapfrogged like Pony Express riders to follow the balloon so ground crews and EMS vehicles could race after it in case it hit a cell tower or power lines or rammed into the ground dragging the poor little six year old passenger like Hector behind Achielles chariot.

Remember yesterday when the stock market soared back up over 10,000? Well this afternoon it plummeted to about 3 as evryone used their office computer and corporate bandwidth to watch this silver ufo float over Colorado.

It eventually drifted, gently, to a graceful and elegant stop in a soft, recently plowed field surrounded by firetrucks, ambulances, and news crews.

PRAISE JEEBUS! The 6 year old boy was SAFE!

Yeah, he was safe. Safe hiding in a box in the attic of his house because he was afraid his dad would be pissed off at him for casting off the rope and letting his Dad's big silver toy ballonn go flying off into space!

The kid, whose name was Falcon Heene, pulled an Anne Frank!

Best twitter tweet of the day? "@mattfraction: he was in the attic in a box? what, was he the *maltese* falcon?"

Try to grasp this. As the entire country...Nay!...the ENTIRE WORLD followed this floating fucking balloon like it was Apollo 13, no one thought "Ya know, I'm just gonna look around the house for a minute."

How much did all of the news crews, helicopters, ambulances, fire trucks, internet servers, lost productivity and sheer emotional energy cost the planet Earth because a 6 year old boy lost a balloon and then played hide and seek for a few hours?

But ya know, it's not surprising that his dad would just assume his son was on board and alert the authorities.

His dad is not exactly close personal friends with...reality.

He filed an iReport on CNN because he thinks the European Space Agency is covering up evidence of civilization on Mars. Not just cultural artifacts like buildings. But full blown forests and evidence of heavy earth (sorry, Mars) moving equipment. I'll let him explain it.



He also chases storms, has some wacky theory about storms, magnetic fields and gravity.

And apparently his family was on some reality TV show.

Any chance this was all some huge publicity stunt to hijack some media attention?

NAH!

Clay Chastain...

...is a self-serving douchebag.

This ignorant fucktard keeps trying to force his absurd train ideas down the gagging throat of a city that doesn't want them or him.

It's like some bizarre "urban rape" fetish. "I won't stop until my train is running through your city!"

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a public transit system. In a metro area as spread out as KC, we need one.

I'm rather fond of the Personal Rapid Transit approach.

Here is another example of PRT.

The PRT addresses all of the public access ability, environmental and affordability issues while taking into account the inate, American personal mobility issue.

What we DON'T need, are fucking Ferris Wheels and Gondolas proposed by some guy who doesn't even live here!

Go home Clay.

Build carnival rides in Virginia, or wherever the fuck it is you live.

We don't want you here.

We don't like you.

We are glad you moved away.

Stop coming back.

Sorry Rush. No NFL Rams For You!

Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy St. Louis Rams gets a resounding no from Colts owner

JIMMY GOLEN
AP Sports Writer

October 14, 2009 | 12:46 a.m.

BOSTON (AP) — Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy the St. Louis Rams ran into opposition within the NFL on Tuesday, when Colts owner Jim Irsay vowed to vote against him and commissioner Roger Goodell said the conservative commentator's "divisive" comments would not be tolerated from any NFL insider.

"I, myself, couldn't even consider voting for him," Irsay said at an owners meetings. "When there are comments that have been made that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive ... our words do damage, and it's something that we don't need."

What words, you ask? I dunno. Maybe words like these.



Welcome to Capitalism, Rush!

You make millions of dollars a year pandering to the lowest common denominator of America by feeding their fears, reinforcing their bigotry, and making divisive, incendiary statements.

Don't be so surprised when free market, capitalist investors, who don't give a shit about your ratings and just want to make some money decide that your toxic reputation and long, documented history of inflammatory comments are queering the deal and jeopardizing their investment!

Don't be so surprised when they dump your pompous ass in favor of their own profits.

Live by the dollar, die by the dollar. What about this do you not understand?

This isn't discrimination, this isn't censorship, this isn't an attempt to muzzle Limbaugh, this isn't Liberal politics, this isn't Mainstream Media bias, this isn't hypocrisy, this isn't a double standard.

This is a group of investors trying to make money. Limbaugh is a liability to their ROI. So buh bye Limbaugh. GFY.

He shouldn't be whining and crying and throwing fits. He should be lauding this for what it is. Unfettered capitalism and free market principles at work.

Isn't this exactly what Rush and his ilk keep reminding us is responsible for making this The Greatest Country on Earth?

Take your fucking lumps and like it Rush. Ain't America great?

An Untold Story Chapter 2 - The Diagnosis

I just realized. It was two years ago today when I got the news. I was preparing to downsize my life for the second time.

The first downsizing came after my second wife and I got divorced. We had this ridiculously huge house out in Richmond, MO.


There was a smaller, 2 bedroom guest house behind it and a large storage shed behind that.

What's that you say? "That's too much house for one man living alone!" Gee...ya fuckin' think so?

I stayed in the house as long as I could because it was the only home my daughter knew. She was only 7 years old. That's a tough fucking age to see your parents getting divorced. Old enough to know what is going on, but not old enough to understand why. The least I could do was keep the house and her bedroom intact.

But in late 2004 my employer of the previous 20 years went through yet another round of layoffs. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to say they triggered their Force Management Plan. My bad. After two decades of dodging and weaving, I finally took a bullet.

That was followed by a bankruptcy in early 2005. Our divorce agreement saddled me with every penny of debt from the marriage. I was servicing (heh heh) a 1st Mortgage, a 2nd Mortgage, horrendous utility bills (take another look at that picture. Houses weren't all that energy efficient 125 years ago), and a massive collection of credit card balances that was quite a bit closer to 6 figures than it was to 5.

Actually, I guess it's more accurate to say the debt was "servicing" me. No dinner, no kiss, no lube.

I was able to limp along for a while on my severance package, unemployment, and ill-advised withdrawals from my 401k, but I just couldn't keep it up. It was too much money, too much work to maintain and the commute to my new job in downtown KC was just too far.

You know that TV show, "24" where every minute of the show is a real minute in the storyline? If that show was about me, the first 45 minutes of every episode would be me chain smoking and sipping coffee on my way to work.

I moved into a much smaller rental in Liberty, MO while the house was on the market.



For six months, I was paying $1750 a month on the two mortgages and $950 in rent. It kinda sucked to be me.

We finally unloaded the house in Richmond without making a dime on it. Just enough to pay off the mortgages and not a penny more.

The Liberty house was much smaller than the one I'd lived in for the previous 8 years. It felt positively cozy compared to that rambling old castle in Richmond.

But after a couple years, I realized that even this was too much house. I had a full basement I never used. I had a lawn I hated mowing. I had a two car garage. I only own 1 fucking car. So it was time to downsize once again.

I was headed for this townhouse in a cul-de-sac of four-plexes. This was my Goldilocks place. It was just right.


It was Friday, October 12, 2007. I had taken the week off work to get the Liberty house packed up. The movers would be showing up the next morning to take me to Independence.

There was a knock on the door. It was Becky. I knew immediately something was wrong. It was Friday afternoon and she should have been at work. I could also tell just by looking at her that she was distressed.

"What's wrong baby?" I asked?

"I need to talk to you" she said.

We went into the kitchen and sat down. I took her hand. "What's wrong honey? Tell me what's going on? Are you OK?".

She started to sob.

I knew she had been to see the doctor recently and they did some tests. Mostly routine stuff. Nothing to be concerned about.

She got the results of the tests that morning. She was diagnosed with Hepatitis C with a very high viral count. It was attacking her liver. Without treatment, she would eventually need a liver transplant. Without a new liver, she would die. Doctor wanted her to begin treatment immediately.

If I felt like I'd just been hit by a truck, she had just been hit by a train. She described what she was facing.

The treatment for Hep C is absolutely fucking barbaric and there are no guarantees.

The main component is a weekly injection of Interferon designed to kill the virus. It is a lot like chemo for cancer. The approach is "let's pump your body full of poison and hope that it kills the virus and not you." This weekly regimen goes on for 48 fucking weeks. That's if your lucky and the first round works. Sometimes, patients need a second round.

The side effects are debilitating. Loss of hair, loss of weight, constant nausea, extreme fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles for women, a weakened immune system and possible damage to the thyroid and liver...the very thing you are trying to prevent by taking the medicine.

With a weakened immune system, you are more susceptible to other diseases. But if you DO get sick you can't take any drugs for it because they all pass through the liver.

There are also a couple of other medicines to help counter-act the side effects of the Interferon, and they put you on Prozac so that you don't become so depressed that you stop taking the injections. It's fucking horrible.

My first reaction was, "OK, we'll get through this together, honey! I love you and I'm here for you. I'll help you. It will be OK."

Wrong fucking choice of words, apparently.

She said "Together? How the fuck does that work, exactly? Are you going to take my shots for me? Are you going to get sick for me? Are you going to go into work for me when I don't have the strength to get out of bed? What is this 'we' shit?"

I offered to go to the doctor with her and learn how to properly administer the shots. I said, "I can come over every Friday, give you your shot, do your laundry, clean your house, walk your dog, cook your meals and get you ready to face the next week."

Apparently her sisters had offered a similar level of support because this also annoyed her.

She had already suffered a loss of control over her life just from the diagnosis and having to undergo this treatment. She felt like everyone was trying to take over her life and it was pissing her the fuck off.

Becky could be very, very stubborn. Once she got her back up, there wasn't any point in pushing her. In fact it just made things worse. There is an old saying; "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it annoys the pig". Truer words were never spoken.

Becky was also very independent. As I mentioned in the first chapter, her ex-husband was a railroader which meant he wasn't around much during their 20 year marriage. She was forced to raise her boys and take care of the house alone. If the house needed a new roof, you'd find her up there putting on a new roof.

When her useless piece-of-shit of a husband was home, he didn't want to lift a finger to help out. After all, he was off work. This was his down time. Fucker.

Consequently, she didn't have much experience with people offering to help and didn't know how to accept it graciously. When something needed done, she would much prefer it if everybody would just get the fuck out of her way so she can get it done, thank you very much!

So I backed away and decided to let her tell me how and when she needed help. Give her back some of the control that her diagnosis had ripped away.

Many people are unable to work at all during treatment. They are just too sick and fatigued. They have to go on disability with reduced pay. She couldn't do that. Her ex wasn't paying his child support or helping with the boys. Even with her insurance, her medicine was about $300 a month out of pocket.

Not only did Becky keep working, but she was also putting in a lot of overtime, everyday and even on the weekends. She's one of the toughest, most determined women I've ever known.

We still communicated, we still spent time together when we could, but nothing like we used to. She was always working to keep her job performance up so she could keep her medical insurance to pay for the expensive drugs or she was sleeping off the exhaustion.

While all of this was going on, her 3 grown sons were all having their own problems.

The oldest, Jerry, the most stable of the 3, got a divorce, moved back to Kansas City from Virginia where he had been a contractor for the Pentagon (and a former Army Ranger), leaving behind a vindictive ex-wife and a 4 year old son. Although he was facing a royal reaming by his wife's lawyer, he immediately started spending a lot of money that he didn't have. He bought a house. He bought a brand new truck. He bought brand new motorcycle, which he wrecked and broke his ankle. He wasn't making good decisions.

Her middle son, Desmond, had a penchant for losing jobs, getting in fights and getting DUIs.

Her youngest son, Sam, broke up with his girlfriend and wrecked his car.

So in addition to the Hep C, the side-effects from the treatments and putting in the overtime at work, she was also trying to straighten out her sons various problems and get them all on their feet again.

That left very little time and energy for us.

And I was OK with that. I figured that maybe the best way I could demonstrate my love and support was to be the one thing in her life that was stable. The one thing that she didn't have to worry about or expend any energy on. I would just be here, offering my love and support whenever and where ever she needed it.

Everything seemed to be as good as one could expect, under the circumstances.

Until around April or May of 2008. That's when things started to, well, change.

Next: Chapter 3 - The Bizarreness

Art! I Haz It!

Thanks to May, I now have some awesome original art to display!



I think it goes great in my bedroom.

All y'all heathens need to get over to May's place and buy some of her stuff! Or better yet, let her create something unique just for you!

Because she will totally do it!