I remember the night I lost all faith in my mother as a care taker. She had done a lot of things in the past to make me question her ability to parent (like allowing my
delinquent brother to handle
alcohol when he wasn't even a teenager), but nothing quite compared to one particular Friday night.
I was watching Seinfeld, enjoying the hell out of it, when all of the sudden I hear this car screech down the road, followed by several loud bangs as it sped off into the distance. It was odd enough to distract me from playing Frogger with a bald man, and apparently everyone else in the neighbourhood, as well.
My dad had just stepped outside, about to go off somewhere for the night, so he had seen the whole thing. He yells at me to get him the phone, and I do, and together we both go out to join a congregation of neighbours who are meeting in the middle of the street. We piece the story together like this:
A car, passenger door open, goes flying down the road, doing about 70mph, turns the corner without slowing down, hits 2 cars parked on the street, and speeds off.
While we're talking, a red car pulls up to us, and someone starts yelling "that's the car! That's the car!" Someone else starts taking down the license plate number, and my dad turns to look at the driver, and says (very loudly), "Oh my God! It's my fucking ex-wife!"
My mother, very inebriated, stumbled out of the car screaming about how pissed off she is about my brother, Eric.
My dad and I turn in shame and begin walking back to our house. I can hear my mother yelling (slurred) the pet name she has for me. I look at my dad, and ask:
"I'm adopted, right?"
And unfortunatley, I do share this incoherent, screaming woman's blood.
The police eventually show up, while my mother drunkenly raves on about my brother. No one knows where the hell he is, but we're all left to assume that the passenger side door was open because he either jumped out, or was pushed out. And since my mother was driving about 70mph, that's a nasty fall.
The police restrain my mother, and decided to take her downtown for driving under the influence, a serious offence. My mother, obviously thinking clearly, decides she doesn't want to go to jail, and actually bites one of the cops. She's thrown into the back of the police car, and they haul her away, and all the while she's kicking the window, screaming.
And ever since, I've had one of the pickiest guys I know when it comes to dating. I don't want to end up with someone like my mother, after all. Then again, I'm sure my father didn't, either.