My Parents' Little Secrets!

Originally from a private blog on March 30, 2008, posted publicly on November 26, 2015.

 Lets Start With Me...

My Name Is:: I loathe my real name.  It's so common that I regularly get my prescriptions, dry cleaning, doctor scheduling, and even my voter registration mixed up with at least 5 other "me's" in the area, and I could never publish under my real name because there are already 3 other people doing that.  On top of that, I spent my childhood having the same name as my cousin, who was a couple of years older than me.  Now, who in their right mind gives their child the same name as their sibling's child???  Good grief.  So, I have made up my own name for myself.  And guess what, it's so unique that

You can try this out at How Many of Me.  And no, I'm not going to tell you what that name is because I don't want there to be two of me.  Guess I'm a little paranoid about that now.   

(Yes, we all know now there is only one Janika Banks because I have this posted in widgets on several blogs. Here on Pinky blog it's in the footer.)

Were You Planned or an Accident?: I was told, after I had my own child, that I was a surprise that cannon balled into existence right after my mom miscarried another child.  That really gave me the willies, thinking that another child had died so I could live.

How old are you now?: Too old to run through a sprinkler shrieking with joy.  That makes me sorta sad.

Were your parents married when you were conceived/born?: They have always been the most married people I have ever known.  I can't even begin to explain how loaded that sentence is.  Imagine a rebel Mennonite pseudo-science weirdo farmer and a scattered psycho-nut joining in holy matrimony.  Nothing against my parents *ahem*, but that was one strange childhood.

Where do you live?: Next door to a really nice chicken.

Do you hate your parents right now?:   I am appalled that you would even ask.  Just kidding.  No, it's kinda hard to hate old geezer people who honestly believe they are absolutely right about everything, no matter how ludicrous they sound in the face of modern science and the information age.  It's funny how me getting older changes all that.  I just hope I don't ever look like that to my own kids.   

Do u get along with your parents right now?: I let Dad talk to me by the hour about the tribulation starting in the next 3 years.  I kinda hope he gets to 'go' before then because he will be so extremely disappointed if it doesn't happen.  He's been looking forward to the end of the world all his life.  He's 78.

Are you expected to get good grades in school?: Dad was upset when I went to college, said I would be brainwashed.  He could have cared less about my grades.  My mom rarely even brought it up.  I have no idea if she ever had any idea what I even studied.

What happens if you do/dont?: The higher the grades, the more I was being brainwashed. 

Do you go to public places with your parents?: Not any more.  I still don't know if I'd be able to hang out with Dad very long in Walmart without being embarrassed half to death to find us having a deep discussion about something politically incorrect that he might completely misconstrue and know terribly little about but of course he'd be absolutely right, and passers by would shoot looks at me.  Last time I was with Mom in Walmart (after she started having the smaller strokes, before the big ones put her in the nursing home), she threw this weird little fit in the aisle with Nair removal stuff and scared a guy walking through, he practically scuttled away.  It's kinda funny to think back on it now, but at the time it was a little unnerving.  Kinda iced the ol' psycho mom through my childhood cake, only it turned into psycho gramma in Walmart.  All the same, I always enjoyed going out to eat with them.  Dad once picked his teeth with one of those long skewers from a sticker pot at a really nice Chinese restaurant.  That was probably the closest those waiters had ever come to a genuine cowboy.  I could tell we were being watched.

Have they ever embarassed you?: You mean before that when they were sorta saner and younger?  Con-stant-ly.  I did my best to embarrass my mom right back with subtle but odd mannerisms in public places. 

Have you ever lied to your parents? If so.. About what?: It's an interesting bit of trivia that even though aspies are born feeling compelled to be truthful, I learned to lie to my own parents to survive, especially my mom.  I'm a pretty good liar.  It doesn't come naturally, and I don't like it, but I'm serious about the psycho-nut thing.  As for Dad, sometimes you just have to get the guy to stop talking or change the subject.  You can't imagine how exhausting it is to talk to someone who really truly believes that the overweight epidemic in this country is because people use too much lotion.

How often do you talk to your parents?: I cringe when Dad calls up and says "Here, talk to Mom" and then hands the phone to her.  I challenge anyone on this earth to keep up a running dialogue for ten minutes straight with a parent who never before let you actually do the talking, when you know they are on the other end staring at a wall and don't remember who you are.  Between that and Dad's latest obsession with public television channels being a complete and unchallenged source of world information that is severely lacking in UFO research nowadays, maybe about once a week.

Are your parents cool, or do they suck?: I've got everyone else's weirdo parents beat hands down.  Give me some sunglasses and call me cool. 

Do you ever start a fight between your parents?: If my parents were somewhat more normal, maybe we'd have had fights.  Mostly it was just this mental thumb wrestling with aliens from other planets.

How many brothers/sisters do you have?: I was the oldest and totally displaced by each successive progeny (which other aspies also seem to take personally), so I refuse to count.    It's ok, I'm over it now.  *walking off without numbering them...*

Do they get more stuff than you?: The more I was displaced, the more attention and goodies the others got.  But nowadays it's completely reversed, because I should be showing more support as the oldest child, but I live the furthest away and feel too yucky to get over there.  So the others GIVE more of themselves than me.  That feels strange.

Let’s get to know MOM & DAD a little better...

How old is MOM?: 67, far too young to be completely disabled and vegetablized in a nursing home.

How old is DAD?: He'll be 80 in a year and a half.  No medications, doesn't believe in doctors.  Has some pretty weird ideas.  He thinks the reason he's NOT diabetic is because he lived with Mom so long and became immune.  Yes, he believes diabetes is contagious, that's why so many people have it.  He's the last of a dying breed...

Do your parents work? What do they do for a living?: Dad drives in to 'work' every day to eat lunch with Mom at the nursing home.  All the employees there greet him like one of them.  He has a shining reputation for being the only man who has come in every day to see his wife for the last 3 years, practically unheard of.  The staff treat him like royalty.

Do they fight about money or anything else?: OH, man, they used to fight.  The arguments over every jot and tittle of the bible were ~end~less~, even though they both agreed on 95% of it.

Does MOM hang out with friends?: Dad cruises her around in her geri chair and they 'do lunch'.

Does DAD hang out with friends?: After Mom goes back to bed, Dad chases down the visiting preacher to argue the finer points of Revelations.

Do either of your parents go to church?: I grew up with major debates over what the definition of church was, and whether 'going' to one was actually wrong since God's people are the church.  Mom went, Dad didn't.  That made Dad bad, and Mom made sure that got hammered into our heads.  I think she was evil in a tormented soul kind of way, innocent in her mental illness, although I was the first to break the ice and suggest such once I hit my 30's.  In the end, I decided that if the 'good' Christian tortured the 'bad' Christian with anger and accusations for not performing a faith correctly, the 'good' Christian was worse than the 'bad' one.  Aspie logic.  Whether either one sits on a pew with any regularity is rather irrelevant in that light.

Have either of your parents ever been to jail?: Been TO, or been IN?  There is a big difference.  They were never arrested for anything as far as I know. 

Have you ever drank alcohol with your parents?: I used to drink narcotic cough syrup behind their backs.  That's about as wild as it got with my parents.

Would you like to follow in either of your parents footsteps?: Let's see, psycho nut or rebel psuedo-science Mennonite.  Tough one. 

Have your parents ever taken drugs?: Mom lived on darvocet for awhile and nearly destroyed her nose with dristan.  Dad accidentally drank gasoline once.  Do those count? 

Do they have other children?: Yes, I believe I confessed the problem I had with other siblings showing up in my life.  Or this could quite possibly be referring to kids from other marriages...?  I couldn't have been so lucky.

Have they ever lost you in the store? Or misplaced you?: This is TRUE.  They deliberately walked away from me in grocery stores to see what I'd do, at several different ages.  I can't tell you how devastating this is to a child with autism spectrum disorder.  Dad wanted to 'experiment'.  He wanted to train me to think.  I eventually got the point, and I've been very careful to teach it directly to not only my own children, but others as well-- if you are lost, STAY PUT.  The more you walk around, the harder it is for someone to find you.  Now, how hard was it to just SAY it???

Have either of your parents been divorced or married before?: Nope, there was complete and utter lack of experience on both sides. 

Do they complain and nag at you alot?: Not any more.  Not sure if Dad's 'advice' should be listed here, though. 

Do they support things that you are interested in?: Dad thinks making a chicken blog is crazy.  Why in the world would I want to do ~that~?? 

Do they encourage you to follow your dreams?: See above... 

Do you sometimes wish that they would divorce?: I used to *pray* for them to get divorced.  Don't get the wrong idea, it never got violent or abusive between them, unless you count Mom throwing something once in awhile.  I was just sick to death of the constant seesaw of Dad's really skewed 'logic' vs. Mom's emotional roller coaster. 

Anything else you think your friends should know about your parents?: "They were humans once."  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!  I got that from the last survey taker, but you don't know the story.  Anyway, I guess after all that I should insert that I had a lot of fun around holidays growing up because Mom kept us busy stringing popcorn or decorating cookies or eggs.  I wish it could have been like that all the time, although it was still just busy work, not really interaction on a personal level.  And I think you should know that I am so surprised that Dad actually buys and eats pizza now, after all those years he spent growing his own fruits, veggies, and animals, and worked us half to death processing it all to eat on all year.  That just cracks me up.  It's so weird to even think about, a 78 year old Mennonite farmer eating pizza.

Mom’s weakness?: She really sucked at being a drama queen. 

Dad’s weakness?: It never dawned on him that Mom was trying to be a drama queen.

Hmm, nice place to end...  No strengths?  Oh, well.