It’s like they always say:
You really put the “son” in “prison”…
Something was amiss. I could just feel it in my Freshman bones.
I had been studying in my dorm lobby on a brisk fall Sunday evening, when I had heard the ominous ringing of a distant phone. Somewhere in the depths of my head, I heard a little voice whisper, “Maybe you should answer that.”
“Ha!” I laughed out loud to myself, “Like I could even hear the landline in my room from here.”
Despite how obviously ridiculous it was, I scurried down the hall to Room 410–and much to my psychic surprise–there was my phone, just ringing away. Almost scared of what awaited me on the other end of the line, I finally gathered the courage to answer it only moments before the caller gave up on me.
“Uh. Hello?”
“Son! We’re down in your lobby! We want to take you out to dinner!”
“Wait. You’re here? You were supposed to be back home in Rolla by now…”
Sh*t. Now I knew something was definitely wrong.
Sure, Dad and my stepmom, Daisy,1Not her real name, but I use this English equivalent so you don’t think her name is pronounced “Magoo”. had been driving the 5-6 hour trip in my direction just about ever other weekend that Fall, but it was never to actually see me. Instead, they were always going to Topeka to bankruptcy court, literally trying to “save the farm.”
And I would consider myself immensely fortunate the few times they bothered going 30 minutes out of their way to visit me at Kansas State.2Kansas State University, that is.
So what was the problem? The problem was that they had already had lunch with me that preceding Friday. There was no way in hell they would ever see me twice in the same weekend…
“HO. LEE. SH*T.”
I stumbled backwards from the passenger side of Dad’s ride, trying to distance myself from the felony that was unfolding right before my eyes.
“No! Stay away from me! You guys just robbed a bank, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU?!?”
I was in shock. As Daisy was letting me into the rear of cab of the truck, she had slyly pulled out of her purse a gallon-sized Ziploc bag…bulging with Franklins, if you know what I mean.
That much cash in a see-through storage container? That was going against all of God’s natural laws. My mind simply couldn’t comprehend what it was looking at…and so of course, the only thing left for it to think it was looking at was two grown-ass adults that were about to go to prison, and their grown-ass son who was unwittingly going to be going with them.
“Uhn-uh! Nope. Y’all can’t do this to me! You know ----- good and well I’m too pretty for prison!”
“Relax, son…”
“No! You tell me what I’m looking at here, or I’m never getting in a vehicle with you again! You’re probably trying to set me up to take the fall as the getaway driver!”
They had about 10 seconds to come up with a good explanation. It wasn’t beyond me to turn my own poor-judgement parents into the Po-po, especially if they were trying to pin their illegal shenanigans on me.
“Dammit, just get in the truck, and we’ll explain everything on the way to dinner. Oh, and by the way…I’m buying…”
“So…$45k, after taxes, you say?”
Of course, I got in the truck with them. Sure, I know you’re disappointed in my lack of judgement, but c’mon: free food. I did mention that I was in college right? And–fun fact–even though almost all of my meals were provided by the esteemed Kramer Dining Hall, there was one glaring exception to this: all the cafeterias on campus would always shut down for Sunday dinner.
So, yeah, call me “food-motivated” all you want, but a steak dinner with the ‘rents would be well worth whatever potential jail time I might be facing. And that was if they convicted me.
All that drama aside, it turns out that they had not robbed a bank after all. Boy, was I relieved when they revealed that Dad had won $66,000 at the casino just north of Topeka when he had got a royal flush playing Caribbean Stud. And–this is a real hoot–when a lucky bastard wins such large sums of monies, apparently they just take the taxes out upfront and give said bastard the rest in cold, hard cash. In ----- Ziploc bags.
Oh! And another fun fact that I learned that night? Yeah, so they only had to go to bankruptcy court every other month. This whole time they had been blowing smoke up my ass as to why they never had time to see me, telling me they had these super-important all-weekend meetings with their lawyer. Which wasn’t a complete lie…if by “lawyer” you mean “Black-Jack dealer,” that is.
The point of the story is that you just might have a gambling problem if you find yourself knowingly let your child starve just so you can feed your insatiable addiction.
*checks notes*
Oh, wait. Sorry about that. There’s more.
That’s right, there’s more to this story than just my thinly-veiled attempt to earn your sympathy by playing the role of the emotionally and nutritionally neglected college student.
Turns out there was a proverbial fly in the ointment: this whole time, those two clowns had been legally forbidden from indulging in their favorite vice, as part of the Chapter Whatever agreement the bankruptcy court had drawn up for them, and into which they had subsequently knowingly entered therein.
No, no, no, this wasn’t going to come back and bet–er, I mean “bite”–them in the ass. No, not at all…
…
That was, uh…that was a “teaser,” folks. You know, a very effective technique to get you to tune in next week to see exactly whose ass gets bitten, and exactly how hard of an ass-biting it is…
Content created on: 27 November 2021 (Saturday)
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