I LOVE Betty White

  I love Betty White. I really do. When that woman speaks, people sit up and listen. The reason they listen? She says things like no one else does.

Even when you don’t want to admit that you know what she means (The little pervert) it makes you laugh anyway. I hope I have the energy she does when I’m her age. I wonder if in the future people will say “She pulled a Betty White” ;p

So her latest quest? “Bucks for balls”. Are you listening? I bet you are.

 Does anyone know what Betty’s main cause is through “Bucks For Balls”? (I can’t say it without grinning:p)  Animals.  She’s asking people to donate a buck to her cause, helping people who can't afford it to spay and neuter their pets. Go look it up…you can donate a buck.:)

Are you laughing now? I was (Ok, and maybe shaking my head a little too). Only Betty can say it with that naughty little grin of hers and get away with it.

I wish she would have been talking about this program when I lived in Idaho.

 I’ll tell you why.

We lived in a little house by a big hill. On top of that big hill was a beautiful Grecian house and a lil old guy lived there. He kept up the place and it was beautiful.

Then he passed away and his daughter moved in temporarily, just until the place sold.

When it sold, I noticed a lot of screaming, angry children there. Not only were they mad most of the time, they swore like sailors. They would go running across the cement walkway that had a iron railway, hands pounding the iron, little pudgy legs pummeling the cement right up above our bedroom window screaming bloody murder. The way they screamed, You’d think there was one.:p

In the windows where there used to be beautiful curtains, sheets went up, and along with the sheets, came  about 10 or so skinny howling cats that looked like they hadn’t been fed in a millennium.

I took pity on the poor things, the way they would come screeching down the hill, most of the females being chased by the “good ol boys”, (Tomcats) who would corner each lil girl kitty, and before I knew it, the poor creatures would be having ANOTHER batch of kittens.

What a life.

One time I happened to ask “The Beverly Hillbillies” (That’s the name my husband gave them) daughter how they fed all those cats, and she said “we go like this”! “(Showing me a big bag” with her hands) and said they dumped a little food on the ground. I couldn’t believe people could do such a thing, starving the poor things like that.

So I went and bought food for the cats and from then on, the poor creatures were always at my house eating on my front porch like it was their last meal. 

There was one pretty little Siamese black and white cat in particular who was always at my house, hiding from the boys…but the minute she wasn’t pregnant with kittens, they would chase her and round and round and that vicious cycle would start all over again, poor thing.

There was one funny thing about that Siamese.

Her meow. Her meow sounded like what a woman would sound like who’d been drinking too much  and needed a cigarette after WAY too much, you know…man handlin. She even had that low cigeretty growl of a voice people get after smoking too long. “Reow”  was more like what she said, it was like she couldn’t pronounce the- m  anymore… Or maybe she was just saying ow. I would;p

I think there were at least 30 cats at that house after a while. It didn’t take long.

In the morning I would hear many, MANY times the kids crying saying “Not again, another one died”. I would see a ton of runny nosed kittens for a few weeks,, then they would disappear.

That beautiful hill next to our house started to smell, BAD. Man… the wind would kick up and all I could smell was cat. Male cat, dead cat, I don’t know what was cookin under there but the smell was something you just can’t describe.

Ew.

I had a vet that came right to my house and fixed my lil kitty, Jezabel, right on the washing machine. (That’s another story I’ll tell later)

“And that there’s how we do it in Idaho”, I could hear her say. Ya’ll hear?;p

 I thought I would sic her on em about fixing a bunch of them for dirt cheap. Man, how that vet of mine loved cats.

She came back from their house shaking her head. Might as well been talkin to a brick wall.

We had been living there for many  years, but  my huz finally got a transfer. I decided that a day or 2 before we moved, I was going to bring bunch of those poor cats to a no kill facility I knew of so they could have a good home. By then there more than 30 in that cramped space.

After all, who would feed those poor babies when I was gone? I thought I would leave them a few cats even though I had misgivings, and I called the animal control place and told them about my plans, and one person said they would come and help round up the cats.

What I didn’t know is that he would just stand there while I rounded up the cats.

After the ordeal  was over I was pretty scratched up, but glad they were going somewhere that they would be taken care of. The place they went to got them their shots, spayed and neutered them, and found them homes.

 I found out when I called to check on them that the poor snotty  nosed critters were so sick that for the rest of their lives, they would have to be given medicine every day to survive.  

That’s what the inhumanity of man can do to an animal.

I have to wonder if God judges our character by how we treat the creatures that are under our care. 

I hope I pass.  

30 cats neutered. Not bad:p

Betty would be proud:p

Lauren the Ross Dresser ,The Seriously Screwed Up Idaho Trip and getting drugged by family…(Might as well visit the Bobbit’s;p)

I left my old home state years ago and moved to another more diverse place. (Thank God, REALLY.). I have to admit, I was glad to live so many states away from my family. There was always some drama going on in my family that someone just HAD to inform me about to get my blood boiling, and I had told myself I had moved beyond that. To say that I was relieved to be living so far away is an understatement.  

But years later my sister who is the "fixer" in the family invited all of the sisters to her home. I lived a LONG ways away. But, I bought a plane ticket, feeling VERY apprehensive (I should have followed my gut that was SCREAMING "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? YOU REALLY WANT TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS AGAIN???")  but...I went.

I met Ava at the airport and went to her house. I was talking to her but felt my old self bubbling to the surface. That scared me to death. To my old self, talking to my family felt like sticking a finger into a light socket hoping not to get electrocuted.

Here I go...AGAIN!  Jumping into the shark tank!

A day or 2 into the trip I asked Lauren if we could go to Ross

I had wanted to go to Ross, and since I was stuck without a car (Another GLARING mistake on my part) she brought me. Talking a mile a minute and walking even faster she actually came into the dressing room to DRESS me. I was Laurens personal little DOLL. She would put my clothes on over my head, then actually take them off, like I couldn't do it myself, or wasn’t capable of doing it fast enough for HER. SO bossy.

I decided then and there she was never taking me shopping again.

(On a funny side note...she’s taken my daughter and bought her all kinds of stuff, including a beautiful dress. When I asked my daughter if she tried to dress her she said no, so I guess she’s graduated to outside the door:P) lol

The more I talked to to my sisters, the more apprehensive I became. I would tentatively stick my foot in the water, (How cold was THAT water?)  Saying something very quietly, starting a sentence but never being able to finish it because they both would start talking. They would run me over like a train whenever I started. They talked and talked in the front seat, and as usual, I was the invisible man. (ER…woman)

Their kids were a whole different story. I had a really good time with them. They were the only thing that made the trip feel like it wasn’t a total loss. I had a feeling I came out as the cool aunt, (One of them actually said that to me) but I kept getting strange looks from my sisters whos only acknowledgement of me was one of disgust.

The first night as I got ready for bed my sisters were dancing around to some song or something, at least I remember some such thing. I was in my pajamas and with typical Heidi zeal decided to throw myself into the malay with total abandon, ripping my pants:p .

With any of my good friends, we would have been hysterical by then…after all, I was the life of their (party:p

I bent over and did a little curtsy, showing off the new hole, and all I got was blank stares.

I was completely out of my element. Shot down.  Butt naked. lol…Ok, not really BUT I may as well have been with the looks I got.

And it brought me back to a memory. All of us in the back yard, my sisters in a dog pile , one right on top of the other.  I stood off a ways, trying to get the guts up to join in, but the minute I jumped on, they all walked away in disgust.

WHY oh WHY did I ever go?

That old familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach was back. The one where it felt like there was a giant, LONELY hole there any time I was around my old family. I had a NEW family and I wanted to go home to my husband where I didn’t HAVE to prove anything, where he could give me a hug and tell me everything was ok. The place where I KNEW that I REALLY had a family.

But for at least a few days, I was STUCK there.

I just wanted to just curl up in a ball and disappear.

The next day, we were talking (All of us were together) and one of my sisters sons asked me “Why did you break Aunt Laurens finger?”  I was shocked when he said that, in front of everyone.

WHY would he do that? We hadn’t been talking about it or anything else like that. I had talked to him a lot, had a good time with him (Even teased him the way Aunts do) and his cousins and the only thing that I could deduce about that is that, we had a good time together, if I was such a cool Aunt it made no sense that I would do something like that so he brought it up. I started to tell him what happened (Lauren had her hands around my throat at the time and I had to PRY her hands from around my throat. If her finger really was broken it wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t have her hands around my throat!)  I tried to respond to that question and Ava (His mother) shut me down and wouldn’t let me answer his question.

After that it only got worse.

I was staying in her home and had no way of going anywhere else.  I went for a walk  around her neighborhood hoping I wouldn’t get lost but trying to think of ways I could find a way to get to the plane that would bring me home and just STAY in the airport until it was time, but there was no way to get there.

Late that night, ( I waited till everyone was asleep. I hoped he was still awake, and he was) I went into her son’s room and told him the truth. I thought he deserved at least that much.  I didn’t know how much they had poisoned him against me over the years, I hadn’t been visiting. And after this, I promised myself I would NEVER go there again.

 The next day I was to go home. I can’t even say how excited I was to get out of that place. I went about my business that day and later Ava offered me something to drink in a tea cup.

Suddenly I was very, VERY tired. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open I was so tired. I went to lay down, and almost MISSED MY PLANE!  Ava had to wake me up and drag me, sleepy eyed and drowsy, to the airport I barely made the plane but thankfully, gratefully, I was on my way home.

The more I thought about it, the more furious I was. I was not a wallflower. I was not to be stepped on.  I would NEVER be swept under the rug again and I was going to speak up! Burning bridges? Damn the consequences… I was going to bomb one.

I wrote a LONG scathing letter. (My husband had some things to say too- And he helped to temper the message) I laid it out point blank. I let her know I would not contact her and that any contact we had was OVER. As far as I was concerned, a new chapter had begun in my life and they (The entire family) were not a part of it.

Then the emails began. Over the YEARS, many, MANY  emails from Ava.  So many times I wanted to just block her, but I didn’t. The emails came, many sounding phony and not from the heart to me, many times I just rolled my eyes, deleted them and went on with my life. Then an email or two started to sound more sincere and I didn’t delete them. Many emails later I emailed her.

Then she came to visit, and ended up calling my home her sactuary. Well, that was good.

When things were hard sometimes she would call me, and we would talk for a long, long time. But there were times that I would be interrupted and started to feel that old bubble from hell  come up from the pitt of my stomach again. That “What you’re saying isn’t important enough for me to hear you “ feeling. I shrugged it off again and again until I finally told her about it. I think she tries hard now to listen a little more.

One day she called me just literally sobbing. What in the  hell?? What was wrong now?

I’m trying to remember the way she put this, I was so shocked when she told me.

“I drugged you”.

“You What”?

“I drugged you”.

I started laughing. I didn’t know what else to do. It was so absurd.

My own sister, doing that.

(There was a story I was told a while back about my mother doing something like that to her, interesting parallel, I thought.)

Then she hastened to tell me that when she had given me that herb tea that it had actually been something that was meant to calm a person down because she thought I needed it. My thought was, “What gives YOU the right, a person who really doesn’t know me, to give me something like that, especially when I think I’m just fine the way I am and don’t need any kind of drug” ( I avoid drugs like the plague. ) She said it was herbal, but I have read up on herbs and they can be just as lethal and just as dangerous as any drug.) All I remember is I was absolutely out like a light, stone cold out. And it was lucky that she could wake me up so I didn’t miss the plane.

After she told me, my thought was , when people dehumanize someone over the years, you stop looking at them as a person, you start looking at them as a thing you can do anything to, even without their consent. (And I think of Hitler, and the Jews,or the people at Abu grey where we tortured people on a strange parallel)

One of my sister’s friends said to not tell me, but I am glad she did. In my OLD family it was more important to look good than be honest.

She could have left the lie, but to her credit, she didn’t. I haven’t seen that kind of honesty and true remorse from ANYONE in my family.
I love her for that.

I’ll tell you one thing though. I am NEVER going back to Idaho. :p

The Great Maxi Caper

When you live in a small town where there’s nothing to do, you get pretty creative trying to FIND things to do.

I am ashamed to say that one time just for fun,  I stole maxi pads from the college. (Jennie just stood there looking surprised, after all she had been in the bathroom doing her thing and I was after all, bored.)

After I did it I suddenly felt VERY guilty and tried to put the first one I got back in the vending machine, but failed miserably, because when I tried to put it back in the vending machine, another popped out.  So seeing I had it in my hot little hand, I changed my mind, and got another, and another till I had like10 or 15 of them.

 So where to put them??

 I walked all over campus with my concealed weapons until I hit the racquetball courts. My "undeveloped teenage brain" spouted a plan.

I would put them all over the walls of the racquetball court.

After all, who didn’t need a little padding? I had seen the crazed looks on the player’s faces as they crashed against the wall, faces smashing up against the glass…  Seemed fitting somehow, and glaringly funny:p

That a religious college had maxi pads stuck all over the racquetball courts made me laugh even harder as we sped off campus.  

THAT is MESSED up.:p

Learning to Walk

Been a little while since I’ve written a full blog to you.

That’s just me, ambling along, taking my time.

I was like that as a child too.

My mom must have gotten SO frustrated when as a very young child, I didn’t walk very early. Imagine her surprise when suddenly, I took off walking across a room that didn’t have any chairs around it. I must have known for months how to do it, I just didn’t FEEL like it and wasn’t going to until I was good n ready. That’s just how my personality works. I have to be in the right mood to do certain things in MY time table, not anyone else’s.

That also how I am when it comes to life, when it comes to singing, and when it comes to writing.

The abuse I went through was so painful then, it’s painful now (I keep looking over at my mother’s "Journal thinking I'll write more on it, but I am going to be gentle and be patient with myself as I'm doing it.) "(If your lost, here’s more on her so called "Journal" that she gave to my counselor to try to make me look bad- My counselor saw right through that as her trying to stab me in the back and gave it to me ) 

http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-mom-deceiver-part-1.html

I will take my time. 

I’ve been writing a little bit every day, just enjoying the process, and sometimes bemoaning it. It HURTS. (Sometimes realizing things about myself that as a child, I was never allowed to stop long enough and think about.)

I was just looking outside and seeing the flower bulbs I've planted. It seems every spring that they take forever to bloom. What they go through in the dark to get to the point that they end up in the light is a miracle to me.

That I was in such a dark and lonely place, no one to confide in, being ignored and mercilessly tormented by my sisters, egged on by my father, being beaten down almost weekly,   I just realized not long ago reading something. They were feeling lonely too. Even though my sisters had each other and I didn't have anyone to confide in that family, my parents made sure that we wouldn't confide in each other.  If we did, their cover would have been blown and the truth which was SO conveniently put away would have come out.

It’s nothing to have a voice if you can't use it.

So now, I write.

And now, I think of those flowers. Ignored, neglected, beat on by the wind and rain. and still, They bloom.

Jennie

Jennie

Life has a way of sending you someone just when you need them.

To be honest I’m not really sure that its life, it’s just Karma, or in my mind, God.

I think God knew I couldn’t make it any longer without someone to be my confidant. I was growing smaller and smaller and he knew without someone to finally have my back, I would just disappear.

I had taken a leap of faith and left my old “friends”.

The  “friends” that called me ugly, that mercilessly harassed each other, the rejects of sorts (and their queen..haha)  with our frizzy hair, downcast eyes and defeated look which said “kick me, I’m down anyway” kind of look.

Betcha every one of us was abused in some way.

The minute the “Queen bee” of the group (  The rhpsm as she came to be known-  red haired pear shaped monstrosity) decided to annihilate you…you  were toast . I was sick of being scared all the time.  The fact that this girl tortured all of us and nobody did ANYTHING about it was taking what little self-esteem I had left, which wasn’t much. (If your lost, check around for my old blog on it below) http://songsofaletheia.blogspot.com/2011/04/better-to-be-alone-then-in-bad.html )

The truth is, in life, or in school, sooner or later the tortured either give up, or finally (thank God) stand up for themselves.  It’s a dog eat dog world out there.  (Anybody see Carrie?, Or Cujo?lol)

In high school If you’re not one of the “chosen” In that unforgiving world of Jocks and princesses it’s that proverbial "LAST STRAW" that FINALLY makes you stand up and say "HEY! You can't make me EVER back down again!" I AM somebody. YOU can't tell me who I am.

If you are one of the tortured, I DARE you to FIGHT. Stand up for yourself. Later on you’ll be surprised how strong you really were. It’s a beautiful thing, the human spirit. How resiliant it is.

There is nothing deadlier to a teenage girl’s self-esteem than bad friends. You hear online about it all the time. The kids that act like a girls “friend” and then plot against her online, offline and terrorize her until there’s nothing left but an empty shell.  Sometimes those girls are the ones that just quietly disappear into the shadows, sometimes they commit suicide, sometimes, thank God, they move on and their lives change.

I was about to move on.

I remember the day I actually finally got the guts up to tell them I wouldn’t be hanging around them anymore. I took a deep breath, just told them quickly, and as they laughed at me, determined I set off on my own.

I walked around the school by myself for months, dejected because I couldn’t find a place where I felt I really fit in.

Life for me was pretty hard.

 Having a bad family on top of it made me feel all the more timid around people who were made of the same cloth. 

High school is so much scarier when you’re completely and utterly by yourself.

Everything you do takes on new meaning. You’re scared that everyone is watching your every move. In reality, I think that everyone IS scared and the person they really watch is themselves. Teenagers are SO afraid of looking stupid. They may make fun of each other and bully each other, but deep down they’re all afraid. I know I was.

So there I was, all alone walking the halls of the high school.

I did have moments of stupidity, (I did have a way of tripping over my own feet) but through no fault of my own. (Sorta:p)

Sooner rather than later I found  solace in the fact that I was good at being  a “floater” of sorts, going from table to table but never really going  anywhere I felt that I really belonged, though the people I hung around at lunchtime were gracious enough.

Then Jennie moved in kiddy corner from my house.

 I saw this girl twirling a flag team flag on her front lawn. I thought “how odd”. But I was curious and went over to say hi and the rest is a blur.

She went to my high school and hung around one of the girls that I kind of thought was one of the rowdier girls, so I didn’t know what to make of her at first.

I had prayed for a good friend for years...and here’s this girl twirling a flag that’s just moved in kitty corner from my house. I felt a tiny seed of hope start growing where there was none before.

I can’t remember how we ended up at a school dance, but suddenly I found myself there, feeling decidedly out of place.

I just remember at first I was bored out of my skull till Jennie  did some kind of hypnotism/fall backward/truuuuuuuuuuuuuuust me kinda thing. There we were, Jenn and me and a guy I knew, the one who was mercilessly teased because they  thought he was gay. And though I lived in a school that was the most closed minded on the planet.  I didn’t care. I thought he was just fine the way he was.

Most everyone else was out on the floor, dancing around like they were attached at the hip. (Most of the adult chaperones would have had to use a cattle prod to get them apart, though a flashlight and a word or two would have to do)

Jennie was like a get out of jail free card. That’s what Jennie was. It’s like my whole life had been monopoly and Jennie was the jackpot where after landing on all the bad spots, I finally caught a break.

 I didn’t care that we weren’t dancing with the world’s snobbiest crowd. We were having a good time.

And that’s how it all started. In our little world, being different didn’t matter. Being yourself was just fine, despite that everything I saw going on around me said exactly the opposite.

It’s when you stop caring (Frankly my  school, I don’t give a damn;p) about what the world thinks and stop looking behind you and being terrified to see who’s watching that you really begin to live.

Being a round peg stuffed into a square hole just didn’t cut it anymore. (There’s no way I’m gonna call myself a square.:p)  I was going to be whoever I felt like being, and they couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

Ceramics Class, The Pervert And The Red Leather Pants

Any of you know God’s gift to women?

 I have known several.

 Every high school has at least one. Mine had PLENTY. One I remember was the student body president who would swagger down the halls waving hello to his loyal subjects, cheerleader on his arm.

The other was a jock.  A football player with flaming red hair.

When he walked down the hall EVERYONE cowered. (Ok, well maybe that was just me.)

The sad thing is, seemed he almost sensed it in people, at least that’s what it felt like.

But then again, I’ve never had much luck with football players. Thank God (really!:P)

Maybe it’s all the testosterone. HAHA.

When THIS guy would walk the halls it was like watching a tank. Muscles rippling, grunting  hello’s to his teammates by bashing them up against the wall, smacking people left and right with his gigantic claw of a hand. The man could have been wearing an animal skin and it would have fit. He looked and talked just like…a caveman.

But what did he wear?

Bright red leather pants.

Now on a rock star that might have been cool. You know the type.  Long lanky legs, Steven Tyler scream. (hence the pants:P)

The way the pants hung on THIS guy, it looked like stuffing a hamster, albeit a well-built hamster, into some serious leather. (Ok now the image in my head is making me laugh)

And still he was proud of his “package”.

I’ll tell you how I know…later.:P (Ok, Ok, I’ll tell you in a few paragraphs:P)

I never did understand this world of men where smacking someone meant hello and football players and baseball players alike swat each other’s butts to congratulate each other.

You ever see women do that?:P Me either.

 In the small little world that circled around my high school it was the cowboys and jocks that were out to prove that men are men and scrawny little freshman boys (Sometimes they weren’t freshmen :p) were to be shoved into lockers, after all…they HAD to show them their place. 

I was stuck with this red haired monstrosity of a guy in my ceramics class. The same class where Chuck gave me the firefighter with the um…ehem… “hose”. (In another blog)  He might have even given me that fireman on the day, not to be outdone by the jock.

I was completely naïve on the day that the pervert…hey wait…Chuck and C.J… C.J(That’s what I’ll call him)  were both perverts, so not only was I in class with 1 pervert, I was in class with 2.:P

But only one pervert wore red leather pants.

C.J came over when the teacher was gone, plopped his big bad self-down  on the chair  next to me, (I was surprised he didn’t rip his leather pants) and told me he was “hot”. I didn’t have a clue what was going on so I said. “So… Get a glass of water or something.” Then he told me to look at his pants.

By then all the guys in the class were laughing.

Since his first comment got the guys laughing, being such a stud, he thought he’d throw in another one. “Can’t you tell? My pants are bulging!”   Bulging what? I thought. All I knew was that the only way this guy must have gotten that abomination to the leather world on is (In my husband’s words) a trampoline and Vaseline…haha.(These days I would have thought he looked JUST like Johnny Bravo, (Cmon MAMA!!) with Red hair. :p look him up if you don’t know who he is. Isn’t the internet wonderful?:p)  All I saw was a guy in tacky red leather pants so I said “SO” again.

 I was completely clueless.:p

That’s what happens when you have 4 sisters, no brothers, a throw em to the wolves mom which leads to…I don’t know anything about men.:p

Well, mercifully the beast left because couldn’t get a reaction out of me. That or one of the girls in class told him to leave me alone. Yeah, he was talking to the most naïve person on the planet.  Me.

All I knew was as he left I heard roaring behind me. All the girls but 1 (The one who told him to stop) were slouching in their chairs and all the guys were laughing again.

And I was still trying to figure out what THAT was about.

Years later I actually confronted him in a store I worked at how much he had embarrassed me in class with his red leather pants.

He actually remembered and apologized saying “I’m not like that anymore” Yeah sure…(if any of you follow me on facebook, you would know that lately I’ve been posting about how  “Scientific studies actually show that the teenage brain isn’t developed yet” :P  Ok, heres proof:p lol...HA! )

Now after all that I don’t know if I made that big of an impression on C.J, but those pants sure did NOT!

This was also was also where Randy, a friend of the family taught me how to swear.

 It was just that kind of class.:P

Frakin laptop shootin dad

I am posting this all over  the place because I think the father went WAY over the top.(Link down below)

http://www.scoopsandiego.com/news/national/dad-shoots-laptop-to-teach-daughter-a-lesson/article_85ff5db0-540d-11e1-b1cb-0019bb30f31a.html
The video is of a red faced swearing dad reading what his daughter posted on facebook about him, and being the ultimate tough guy, he shoots her computer. Well YAY for HE MAN!

Yeah, the kids acting entitled...but where did she learn to swear? It’s pretty obvious. Like father like daughter...Does he really expect that if he swears like a sailor that she won’t? With everything that happened (That I know of)  if it were me I would take the laptop away and keep it for a while to use for my own as a reminder to her of what she lost till... she stopped acting childish.

I actually did something like that with my daughter (Who is 19 now and off at college) where I took her iPod away for something snotty she did and I used it for a while till she stopped the attitude. Think I had it for a few weeks to a month or more.  It worked a lot better than wasting my money because my pride had been injured...by shooting it, or something ridiculous like that.

 I keep seeing this video everywhere, I don't like it at ALL, he has a few good points but I n my mind he acted just as childish as she did. And if this dad is abusive, as I suspect he may be, this is DAMN scary.

If he points a gun at a computer, being the "tough guy" that he is, has he ever pointed it at something else, if you know what I mean?

I NEVER spanked my daughter, or hit her, it doesn't make them respect you, it makes them TERRIFIED of you. That is WRONG on ALL LEVELS. That's where the deception starts.

 MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT!

I am SOOOOO fraking (Oh…my Battlestar Galactica roots are showing…lol…the dictionary is trying to correct me by changing fraking to franking…its making me giggle:p) sick of seeing this stupid video EVERYWHERE!

He is an immature parent and this this video was NOT funny, or cool. If he's doing what he did in public, what is he doing in private? I don't care if his daughter did, he is an ADULT and should act like one...Listen, my daughter did things JUST as bad as his daughter did, OVER and OVER again. It was incredibly frustrating and we had to think of different punishments. But he was just shooting himself in the foot in the long run.

 You HAVE to give yourself leeway with a teenager, and doing something childish like shooting a laptop that he bought is just plain immature. It takes the leeway away with the teenager. What's he going to do when she crashes the car? (Most teens crash at least once, it’s almost a rite of passage, sadly:p) Shoot it too?

Her phone? Bang it up while he's at it is when she acts up? (Yeah, I saw the post later where she suggests it...if you ask me, now she’s just pandering...there will be even more things now where she tries to be sneaky, mark my words.)What he did was a childish act, and on top of it, he’s talking about all the money he wasted? Well, HE'S the one who shot up the laptop, and if it were me, c’mon!  I'm not going to waste money and do that. I would just use the laptop for a while and she’ll be sorry sooner she did what she did EVERY time she sees me use it. I am the parent, and not a child, I just took the different things away over and over. It worked EVERY time, even though my daughter was VERY mouthy, she came around. They can't come around if they have nothing to come back to.

I can spot an abusive parent a mile away, (I almost DIED in the house I grew up in) and guaranteed, if this guy does things like this on video, on a public forum, he does more than that off. If he points a gun at a computer, who's to say he doesn’t point a gun on HER? If Health and Welfare saw that video, they would be at his door.

As an afterthought…I just realized why in the aftermath of this why I've been so bothered. After this whole thing came out and the girl was joking about the whole thing, it hit me as off (again, I could be wrong.) It hit me right now why.

On the day that I almost died, (that’s in another blog and I will elaborate later) when the neighbors called the cops on my dad and I went to the police station for them to file a report on abuse, I made a BIG joke out of it. I was TERRIFIED of the unknown.

What would happen to me? Would I end up in foster care? Would I go from one abusive home, to another?

Another thought...When that whole situation happened, I found out from my sister MANY years later that after my dad had beaten me, he would lay out on the floor after beating me and act like I had been the one WHALING ON HIM, like I was the problem, when in reality, it was completely the opposite.

When... the cops came, he did the same thing, making it look like I was the problem, not him.

Years later I saw the police report on that day I almost died. The report actually said that I had the same temperament as my father!! I couldn't believe it! My parents were the ultimate deceptive parents to the entire town. They would make light of what actually happened, make my begging for help look like a lie when the reality was, THEY would outright lie about it. And the police BELIEVED them. Maybe the cops just didn't want to deal with it.

When talking about this video someone posted on a forum and said “Sounds like the daughter is of the same temperament as the dad and is a spoiled brat.”

I can't help but see a parallel with this kid.

Again, I could be wrong but something just doesn't seem right.

On top of this HE is speaking FOR her. My parents did that all the time. So WHERE is she?