Why Do I Live In Crackville?

This is a small town. I mean really small. No mall, no Target, not many restaurants. We have an Applebee's and that's our "fine dining" restaurant. It's not super-country Boondocks though. There is a strip mall, Target and a large selection of expensive sit-down restaurants about thirty minutes away. It is a notorious military town yet I hardly ever see enlisted. In this type of town I would not expect to have run-ins with crazy/drug-addict people on a regular basis. I thought that was restricted to inner-cities. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

Story #1: My three year old son and I were sitting in our gated backyard, minding our own business when this twitchy, strange woman wonders into the backyard from the front and says, "I'm going to go now," like I knew who she was and why she was there. I said, "Okaaaay," and she walked back up front. Sadly, I'm pretty familiar with the symptoms of Meth use. The craggy face, bad teeth, low weight and just a general twitchyness. Plus, she just seemed out of it. I think it's really sad that so many people jump willingly into this evil drug's cruel embrace. There's all this information about it out there about its effects and the awful ingredients used to make it. Why are we humans so dumb?

The devastating effects of meth. This is what happens in just two and a half years of using.

Story #2: I went to Wal-Mart about three weeks ago and the cashier had a perfectly lovely, young girl face but when I looked down at her arms, they were covered in scars and scabs and she had even been playing in the blood of one open sore. She had made it into a star burst pattern. Needless to say, this grossed me the fuck out because she was handling my groceries with her bloody fingers! Ugh!

Story #3: Tonight I was sitting on my front porch with my three year old son when this guy wonders up. At first I seriously thought he was mentally retarded because of the way he was moving his hands (please, don't be offended by this, I mean no disrespect to the mentally handicapped. It was just my impression of his body language). Turns out he was just completely drunk. He was missing his top four front teeth but he couldn't have even been out of his 20's yet. He sat down in my porch chair and started talking to me and my outgoing little boy. The whole time I'm thinking, "How the hell am I going to grab my son and run inside without this guy either possibly chasing us or doing some other crazy random thing." I just didn't want to piss him off. So, we sit with him for a few minutes while he rambles on about needing some wood because he's going camping soon. He wanted to know if my neighbor across the way was "okay." My husband recently chopped a tree down for him so he has a whole bunch of wood sitting in his front yard. I told him to go ask him. He kept saying that he was an alright guy, an okay guy that didn't want any trouble.

He asked me if I had a man inside. Alarms were going off in my head. Like OH MY GOD, he's going to try to rape me! My son kept talking to him so I finally just said, "Okay, bath time!" and picked his screaming self up and took him inside. He had a huge fit because he wanted to talk to the new guy. My poor baby is way too trusting of strangers. We have to work on that.

So, we're inside and I tell my hubby all about it. He thought the guy would leave. Turns out, he went and harassed my neighbor. He told her he would go inside with her if her son wasn't awake. Like she suggested they go fuck or something. She finally told him she had to get her son in bed and he said, "Oh he can stay up a little longer. The other little kid was crying to play with me." So, she went inside and said the guy sat there for another ten minutes and then finally left. He told her he was going to wait for her to come back!

And then, we find out he was chasing our 13 year old neighbor down the street and harassing her and her friend. Total fucking creep!

As I was hearing this, I was thinking I should have ran inside and called the cops but you know what, by the time those fuckers got here he would have been gone. Plus, it's just shocking. I never would have expected that to happen. I don't know if it's because we live down the road from a liquor store or this town is just full of freaks but I've just about had it!

Faces Of Meth

"You Need To Watch Your Kids!"

I have two small boys, 3 and 5 years old. As a mother, I feel very judged by society. I feel like I can't take them anywhere without someone having a snarky comment for me.

Case in point: We went to the library the other day, because reading to them is good for them right? So, I was picking out story books to read to them. We are signed up for the reading program and we had to catch up on our goal for the summer so I had to get a few extra from what I normally get. It hadn't been two minutes and they had taken off on me. I thought they were right there but there were a lot of kids there that day. They had also closed the play room because some genius thought business hours would be a good time to mop.

Anyways, I was looking for them and thought they hadn't gone far when this Librarian comes over with them. She said, "You need to watch your kids. They were running up and down the isles in the non-fiction section." I said, "They took off on me." She replied, "Well, they were over there for quite a while! You need to watch your kids!" and she said it so rude and condescending like why God allowed me to have children, she'll never know. This was after the story time lady yelled at them because they tried to go in the play room. There was no sign up, the door was open and they had put a table in front of the door like little kids are supposed to know what that means. The story time lady had yelled at them saying, "There's a table there for a reason!"

I don't understand one, why a story time Librarian that's supposed to be good with kids is going to be such a bitch to them and two, why another Librarian is going to yell at me like that.

I do make my children mind to the best of my ability. I can't spank them in public without getting the dirty stink eye or threats of someone calling child services on me. Time out doesn't work, talking to them doesn't work, swatting their behinds doesn't work. What am I doing wrong? And do bitches like this really think they are helping by giving me shit and making me feel like I should hide my children away in the house never to see the light of day again because they won't behave? Is that the right thing to do? I don't fucking think so.

I just don't understand what the fuck society wants from me. I am so tired, so fucking fed up with the stares, the rude comments and I feel like there's nothing I can do about it because I don't want to go off on these people in front of my kids. I'm sick of judgment. Trying walking in my shoes you fucking high and mighty pricks! You have no idea what it's like to have to say, "No. Don't do that. This and that is wrong." fifteen fucking thousand times a day to no avail. They don't listen to me.

I guess what it really boils down to is I need a damned break. I don't get those. My husband works all the time and when he is home, he's tired. We don't have a baby sitter and for some reason my kids instantly wake up when I do. I tried getting up at six this morning to have an hour to myself. It didn't work. I don't get to go anywhere by myself and they are hell on wheels in stores or anywhere that isn't home.

I can't even take them to the park without someone hurting them. I took them to the park about a month ago and a little boy that was about five pushed my five year old off the slide. From the top. He landed on his face. I thought he had fallen and didn't find out the truth until we were home.

I feel like a prisoner. I wish I could just whisk us away to some remote, unknown tropical paradise island (with internet, lol) and raise them away from all this crap.

Walking In My Shoes - Depeche Mode