Never Knew no Good from Bad

This is my first entry in what will, hopefully, not become another dead blog littering the information highway. I should say, "another dead blog of MINE." Yep, I'm one of those bandwidth-clogging hit-and-run bloggers. I'll try to do better this time.I'm blogging because my husband, Tommy, suggested it. So did my other Tommy--my friend who lives happily in California and writes a wicked blog of his own. Which is not to say that my husband Tommy doesn't write a wicked blog, too. Because he does.

Shut up, Kris.

For my first entry, I'd like to jot down a bit about my early relationship with Tommy. My husband Tommy, that is. We met a long, long time ago in this very town. In fact, I met Tommy before I met my first husband, my second husband, and even my three month stand, Jimmy Page. Sure, Jimmy Page. Why not? What, you think I'm going to give his REAL name?

When Tommy and I first began "dating" (which isn't quite what we did), it was 1993, and we didn't realize we'd met before. In fact, it was a few months of coupledom before I mentioned wild teenage nights on the boulevard with my friend and her bad-ass Camaro (a combination of words always requiring bold, italicized emphasis). When I mentioned that this bad-ass Camaro-driving friend had a relative who overdosed on Dramamine and totaled his bad-ass Firebird whilst in the throes of bad-ass hallucinations, Tommy's eyes widened. He said, "Gwen? RON CLAIRE Gwen? She of the evil tortoise?"

Why yes. I don't recall it being particularly evil, but yes. It used to sleep under the pantry floor. Except when being used as a tool to torment poor Tommy, apparently.

Tommy begin to tremble (not really), tears welling in his glassy, fear-filled eyes (not really). He whimpered, in a small, tremulous voice (not really), "She lived just a couple of houses up from me. She used to . . . babysit me!"

I mis-swallowed. I gagged. I goggled. I brought my hand forward in a "little-bitty-boy-this-tall?" gesture. And then my laughter started. Raucous, uproarious laughter. The kind of laughter that makes a three-pack-a-day-er bring up half a lung. Because you see, it wasn't just my bad-ass Camaro-driving friend who used to babysit Tommy. It was her loud-mouthed, beer-swilling best bud, too. More than once. I was the go-to girl when my evil-tortoise-owning friend had other plans.

Yes, that's the sick, twisted beginning to our lifelong relationship. I was the babysitter. The naughty nanny. Every mother's worst nightmare. Never mind that 15 years had elapsed with no contact. Never mind that nothing untoward happened WHILE Tommy was the babysat. Nothing can mitigate the horror his mother must have felt when she discovered he was doing it with the babysitter. Even thinking about it makes me . . . well, it makes me want to talk in a thick Romanian accent. About terrible things. If that makes sense to you, I’d like to read YOUR blog.