Okeedokee, folks. Here it is. The worst thing I have ever heard in my whole life. To those who say it isn't the worst, and that of course worse things happen all the time, I will say that this is the worst thing I have ever heard from someone in my family, done by a "real person"-- not some criminal on TV, not some far away political figure or foreign despot, not some crazed serial killer on the news. Worst thing ever from someone with whom I am associated with.
Okay.
So I was talking to my mom one day about me, my brother, and our sister. Mom was a little tipsy and talking about how proud she was that all of us had finished high school, and how two of us were college graduates and professionals in our fields. My brother is an accountant for the church Where he, my mom, and I used to work, and I am a teacher. My sister is a dog groomer at Pet Smart, and she loves her job because she gets to hang out with dogs all day, and next year after her probationary training is done, she'll be able to make commission.
Mom: None of my siblings graduated high school.
Me: Not even Uncle Paul?
Mom: Nope. GED. None of them have gone past a GED, either. Your cousins Tonnie and Katie and I think Lindsey all are going to college, but their dad never did. Wendy did a little bit of college, but didn't actually graduate.
Me: Did Auntie Leslie get a GED?
Mom: No, she dropped out when she was 14 because she was pregnant.
Me: Oh. Okay, that's reasona--WHAAAAT?
Mom: Yeah, she was pregnant at 14. On drugs, too.
Me: Why don't I have more cousins, then? Did she abort the baby?
Mom: Babies. They were twins. No, she didn't abort them. What happened was, when she was sitting down and smoking, she used to have an astray on her belly. Whenever the babies kicked, they'd knock over her ashtray, so she'd punch them to make them stop.
At this point in the story, I started screaming, "OH MY GOD!"
I do not mean that in a hyperbolic sense. I mean I literally began screaming "Oh My God" over and over again. Mom laughed, and my sister came in to see what was going on.
Me: AUNTIE LESLIE WAS PREGNANT AND PUNCHED HER BABIES.
Arreter: . . . what?
Mom: Well, she was pregnant and used to smoke, and she'd have the ashtray on her belly, and when the babies kicked, she punched them to make them stop--
Arreter: OH MY GOD!
Me: OH MY GOD!
Arreter: OH MY GOD!
Me: OH MY GOD!
Mom laughed at our reactions. We stood there screaming for a good couple of minutes, and when my brother came in to see what was wrong, we told him. He didn't start screaming like us, but he did quietly say, "What the fuck."
So that is it. The absolute worst thing I have ever heard a "real" person do in my life.
I think what boggles me the most is that she didn't just get an abortion. She carried the twins to term and gave birth to stillborns. It would've probably been easier and more merciful to just to nip it in the bud when they were still fetuses instead of actually fucking up infant humans.
So when my mom says things like how Auntie Leslie had potential if only she hadn't gotten into drugs and sex in middle and high school, that's the sort of stuff she's talking about.