Crazy Enough by Storm Large Page B

dresser drawer. She insisted we go immediately to the gynecologist. I thought the jig was up.
    I was fourteen and, at this point, hated everyone, especially my mom. Whenever she came home from the hospital, she would try to mom the shit out of me, I guess to make up for lost time, but she would give absurd advice about boys, my weight, or try to ground me for talking back. It was too little, too late. Every blessed thing she did reeked of an obvious need to draw attention to herself. Every overly mom shtick she pulled on me had to be in front of an audience.
    In a clothing store, I’d try to run away from her and look for boys, “I’m going to the restroom.” Then she’d wait until I was within shouting range,
    â€œStormy! Tell them you just got your period!!” Then, every human in the store, boys included, would suddenly burn holes in my crimson cheeks with their embarrassed-for-me stares, then, one by one, picture me bleeding and struggling with a tampon.
    Friendly’s is a fast food chain that has family-friendly, greasy- spoon food and ice cream. They call milkshakes “Fribbles.” It was also my mom’s favorite theater of hideous and public discussion of my fertility and other cringe-worthy topics.
    We would get all the way there in silence, me just staring through my running black eyeliner and cigarette smoke, stinking boots on the dash, she singing gaily along to the radio and not talking to me about anything until we got inside. The ambush would spring as soon as we were surrounded by strangers in line, waiting to be seated, or in front of the waitresses.
    â€œWelcome to Friendly’s! Can I get you girls something to drink to get started?”
    â€œOh, boy! Can I please have a big ginger ale with a cherry in it? Stormy, when you DO get your period, did you know you can bleed up to a tablespoon’s worth a day?” She would say this out of nowhere.
    â€œUm, thanks, Mom. Yeah, I’ll have a chocolate Fribble and a hand grenade. No pin, thanks. Awesome.”
    I would eventually run away or make her cry, so she would hide in her room. But every time she would come home, she’d try to mother me or ground me, and find absolutely any opportunity to talk loudly and publicly about my menstrual cycle.
    She also had a strange habit of grabbing her boobs in public.Like an actress in an old black-and-white film who would clutch at her chest to emphasize her passionate sincerity, Mom would go for that effect. Only she would straight up grab one tit and hold it. Arching her back and sighing, dramatically, “Oh, my stars above!”
    She loved doing the boob clutch thing in front of any boy in her presence. I had a guy come over while she was home exactly once. She pulled him into a room, closed the door, and held him hostage for about twenty minutes. I could imagine her grabbing her tits and telling him how completely insecure I was about my weight and how this whole punky thing was such a cry for help. She went on about how I had a big, wounded heart, which she understood because, “You know, I was raped when I was ten and now I hear voices I have named ‘the Judges.’ They tell me to hurt myself, but oh, my stars (grab-squeeze-hold), I am doing so much better since they found out that I am the only person in the world who has this rare illness. It is SO new and unresearched it doesn’t even have a name yet! Right now they are calling it ‘mental epilepsy.’ They say I’m going to be written about in a medical journal, and I said ‘A medical journal? Oh, my goodness gracious!’ (grab-clutch-hold).”
    Then she hugged him for an awkwardly long time, thanked him, and let him leave.
    Never saw him again.
    Suffice it to say, I would just run away to get laid. However, I did keep condoms in my dresser drawer with my pot. Unluckily for me, Mom got a ride home from the loony bin while no one was home and went through my stuff. Lucky