SCRIBE'S SHITTY, SHITTY NIGHT

What is the genesis of a shitty night? From where does it originate? What are its primary causes, and why does it always seem to happen at the conclusion of those days that seemed rather benign?

Answer: EFB!!!

Surely we all have one in our lives. Perhaps you don’t even realize it yet, but trust me, ya do! In fact, I believe the EFB is a function of nature more than it is a quirk of fate. Depending on your karma (the Buddhist definition based on false perceptions and actions rather than the Hindu one of a universal motivating force that cannot be escaped) your EFB might only be a nuisance at work or the crabby lady who runs your day care. Make no mistake; EFB’s can just as easily be male. It doesn’t really mater what is between their legs. An Evil Fucking Bitch is an Evil Fucking Bastard regardless.

Much like Damien from the Omen films, the second one in particular, many EFB’s aren’t aware of their inherent evil qualities. Many of them see themselves as good people who were sent here to set us all straight and keep us in check. I’m sure most of you can probably even find online examples of this, let alone experiences from your personal lives.

It’s fascinating to me what an EFB will use as justification for their egregious behavior. Religion, intellectual superiority and even OCD are just a few of the ones to which I’ve born witness. My particular EFB uses the latter as her form of self-defense. I guess that makes it okay to antagonize people when they disappoint you and to ignore the fact that people around you are caused severe stress by your constant diatribes and tantrums.

Case in point: July 4th. EFB’s sister’s house. Cookout. Free food. Kid’s birthday party. Not exactly the place one would expect even the most twisted human being to find something to become enraged over, but an EFB can find any reason to be pissed off.

Surprisingly, it took much longer than it did in the old days. Perhaps that’s some demented form of progress. It wasn’t until her niece, the one who’s seventeen and bears a striking resemblance to her, came downstairs and joined the party that things took a turn for the worse. EFB’s family ranges in wealth from very rich to well to do, to well off. The wealthier the kid, the more screwed up he or she is. The wealthiest of them, her nephew, spent 6 months in a facility for people who have done very bad things to their bodies. He requested this as a way to get help. His older brother, it turns out, may have been his gateway and has a drunk driving conviction in his past...he isn’t even twenty-one yet. But nobody could have guessed little bro would wind up running with kids from the street and joining in on their uh, entrepreneurial ventures.

Her niece, who she considers to be above all the rest because she is “perfect, beautiful and blond”, has her share of issues as well. In fact, she has more issues than Life Magazine! In fairness to an under-age girl, I won’t go into “pacifics,” but I will provide a basic outline.

Like most rich kids, EFB’s niece enjoys thinking she is invincible. She also enjoys sneaking out of the house late at night, shimmying down her window from her third floor bedroom, and indulging herself in dance and drink. She is nowhere near as bad as her even richer nephew, who, let’s just say, just got back in town after months being placed on a new “life-path.”

One would think wealthy parents would have even more control over their children than the middle class but such is rarely the case. They excel at rationalization, however, which ensures the continued piss s poor behavior patterns and the public perception that rich kids can do whatever they want. Well, they can’t. At least not in the State of Michigan. In fact, the cops in those towns are targeting them like crazy, harassing them behind the wheel and rounding them up when they have parties with alcohol and/or drugs. His has created a huge resentment between cops and rich kids and has naturally led to even more piss poor behavior and lots of revenue for the courts.

My opinion of all of this should be obvious from the tone of what is above, but just in case it isn’t, allow me to elucidate. Her nephew wound up living a lifestyle highly imitative of what you see on the streets, complete with inner city connections. It started with him playing football at his high school, which put him in contact with gang members from the cities of Pontiac and Detroit. Having a rich white kid with connections who also happens to be pretty tough and kinda “crazy” is the dream of every no good, lowdown gangsta in the hood. They got that and more from EFB’s nephew, and so the nightmare for began. It ended recently, by all appearances, but while he was away getting better, EFB was the only one of his aunts and uncles to never write to him with words of encouragement.

I probably had something to do with that. In the beginning, EFB went on and on about what a brave kid he was for volunteering to go to a facility that cost his parents enough to make the median income for an upper middle class family. I disagreed. In my view, he was an ungrateful little shit that used his status as a rich kid to get out of the life he’d chosen once he’d made his point, akin to a Christian recanting on his death-bed. She wanted me to write to him because I would be an objective male voice and I refused. Not only do I barely know this kid, but in general I feel no connection to the children in her family. They are like aliens to me, even the likable ones.

At some point EFB must have decided I was right when I said kids with every
conceivable advantage have no excuse to go down that particular road. Drugs, drinking,
teen pregnancy, these are things that make sense. Even a rich kid’s life can suck. But
running with gangs in the heart of the inner city is something only those with nothing
and no one should ever even consider doing, and it isn’t right when they do it either.

EFB never wrote to him, enduring harsh criticism from some family member’s and
begrudging understanding from others. Say what you will about her, EFB doesn’t tow the
party line when it comes a disagreement with her family. Keeping the peace isn’t part of
her philosophy, which I have to admire considering the type of family that spawned her.

What usually shut her family up when I was around was that I could relate a similar
tale of my cousin to that of her nephew. He too had plenty of advantages, but he at
least had the “Virtue” of coming from a dysfunctional background and a broken home in
his early years. Being treated like a resource by your mom as she re-marries twice can’t
be the best morale builder for a kid. But none of that was an excuse for him to become a
gang member and do the things he did, either. What can they say to that? EFB’s family is
long on theory and short on practical application.


This brings us full circle to July 4th at her sister’s house. Her niece remained in her room
most of the day, grounded for having been part of a party involving drinking and
smarting off at a cop. Her “perfect, blond niece” wound up in a holding cell. As
shocking as EFB found this, and I stress she found it shocking, what really got to her
was what her niece said to her regarding her nephew.

“Yeah, I know you didn’t know where (he) was this whole time so that’s why you didn’t
write to him.”

When EFB asked where her niece got this mound of horse-flop from, she replied,
“Gramma.”

EFB made sure her niece knew exactly why she hadn’t written her nephew. She seemed
cool with it and it appeared as though the situation had been dealt with and was out of
sight, out of mind.

The following night, at around one in the morning, as I was dozing off from a
long day at the beach in preparation for work in the morning, EFB suddenly exclaimed,
“I’m sorry, Scribe, I need to make this phone call!”

The next 30 or so minutes were filled with her yelling at her mom about what she had
said to her niece and getting hung up on. It didn’t seem to matter that I was right there
trying to sleep. I even tried logic, to no avail. Nothing penetrates her madness when she
is on a crusade. All she wound up doing was causing me to fall asleep at work and her
mom to become so depressed she just wanted to sleep in all day and rarely answer the
phone.

I don’t disagree with the points she made to her mom but spending the entire night
ranting about it accomplished nothing but alienation. Somebody recently asked me what
I have against family? Nothing, but I am more and more glad that I don’t interact with
mine that much anymore. Family is like a wart in some ways. There because you were
born with it but not necessarily desirable or of any real use.

What a night.