The Lunatic Goes to Hell

It occurred to me the other night that chances are really good that I’m going straight to hell. I had been sitting at a meeting, contemplating the dark side of the Special Olympics, when the words pan-faced bobble head popped into my head to describe the person sitting in the meeting across from me. Granted, if the bobblehead possessed more human decency and less baseless arrogance, the term likely wouldn’t have popped into my head. Still, I regret to admit that when I got home and very cattily and with great relish relayed to the Husband the utterly foolish comments made by said bobblehead at the meeting, I couldn’t resist adding, ‘and you know, her husband’s got that gross giant beer belly.’

I can just hear the devil doing the introductions. “That’s Pat the rapist. Over there is Tina. She poisoned her family.” At this point the devil will look over at me knowingly, as he can tell that I’ve entertained such thoughts on occasion. Despite the heat, I will blush at having been found out. The devil will go through the remainder of the crowd, describing the atrocities they committed as if he were describing the weather. Then he’ll get to me. “Amongst other common evils, our newest member of Hell entertains dark thoughts about the Special Olympics,” he’ll say, slowly, almost deliciously, drawing out the words to savor them. Then, he’ll laugh in glee at the horrified expressions on the melting faces of those around us. While I contemplate if I should cringe at the devil’s pride or simply claim my power as a dark leader, good ol’ Lucifer, as he will tell me to call him, will whack me on the back and say, “Welcome to hell! It’s not often I get someone so deserving. Even this lot,” and he’ll gesture with a foul smelling, smoking arm, to the small crowd that has pushed against us in wonder to get a look at me, “is incapable of feeling anything but all warm and fuzzy inside when they think of the Special Olympics. But you,” and he’ll look over at me and I swear I’ll see tears of joy in his eyes, “have actually cursed the one above instead of celebrating the glorious victories of the special athlete.”

And I won’t be able to deny it. Every year, Sibling #6 wins gold in her now signature Special Olympics events, the 400 meter race walk and the softball throw. And every year, Mother chooses me to be the recipient of the annual Special Olympics phone call. In this phone call, Mother describes in painstaking detail the horrible officiating done by the volunteers, or the ‘long-legged one’ that was running and not walking and should have been disqualified, or any other number of injustices committed seemingly on purpose to thwart Sibling #6’s herculean efforts. Then, she inevitably chokes up as she describes how Sibling #6 “put on a burst of speed at the end to pass the long-legged one” or threw the ball “a mile past where that big one threw it”. I roll my eyes, sigh deeply, curse the siblings, and mentally begin uttering phrases that would greatly please the likes of Lucifer.

When Sibling #6 was born, Mother was told she would likely never walk due to the extra chromosome she received. Mother paid them no heed and Sibling #6 was walking a lot earlier than most kids with the standard 46 chromosomes. So you might think it a normal thing for a mother to get all choked up when the child that wasn’t supposed to walk goes on to win gold. If only that were the case. Mother, you see, suffers from an extremely virulent form of competitivitis. The choked up tone has nothing to do with Sibling #6 overcoming herculean genetic odds, and everything to do with Sibling #6 being crowned the best. All the better if the competition was utterly humiliated in the process.

I am very pleased that I must only be a carrier of this particularly vile disease. At best, I am only slightly competitive in a team atmosphere and generally could care less when participating in a sporting event as an individual. I have very few medals or trophies to put on display, were I to actually display them. I used to have my finishing certificate for the one and only marathon that I ran on a mantle in my front room. I displayed it not to advertise the fact that I had run a marathon in the extremely slow time of five hours and one minute, but to irritate Mother. Sure enough, one day when she was over she happened to see it. She studied it for a long moment and I could see that she was trying to bite her tongue. Alas, because of the disease, she couldn’t help but to spit out in a bitter tone, “If I had run that slowly, I’d be embarrassed to put it on display!” It warms my heart to think of it.

I suppose I should just be glad she had given up running marathons by the time I ran my marathon. As a youth, the siblings and I spent most of our Sunday mornings at the finish line of the marathons the parents were running in. I vividly remember a family friend approaching Father at the end of one such marathon and saying about Mother, with complete seriousness, “If she were my wife, I’d kill her.” The friend had been having a good run and then, he hit the figurative runner’s wall. When Mother came upon him half sitting/half lying on a curb somewhere around mile twenty, instead of stopping to help him out as Father later did, she gleefully recalls how she “couldn’t help but to laugh and put on a burst of speed” as she ran past him. Mother has always been fond of bursts of speed.

As far as I can recall, there was only one runner in Mother's age group that she couldn’t break with one of her famed bursts of speed. The “ol’ horse”, as Mother derisively called her, was Mother’s racing nemesis. Mother and her floozy group of running friends would hold serious conversations about whether or not the ol’ horse, who was in her sixties, was into steroids. Mother once came home from a race and announced in a conspiratorial whispered voice, “You know, Leo thinks the ol’ horse is really a man.” Leo was one of Mother’s running buddies. He had a Doberman running companion that liked to bite women in the ass.

I am sorry to report that at least one of the dark-haired siblings, Sibling #2, is homozygous for the competitivitis trait. Like Mother, she, too, is afflicted with a serious form of the disease. This sibling, unlike me, has a giant box of trophies at the parents’ house. These trophies, along with Mother’s numerous running awards and a skimpy scattering of awards won by the rest of us, sat on the piano in the front window for the whole world to admire for as long as I can remember. Whenever a passerby would ask about them, Mother would choke up as she described the athletic prowess of the original golden child, Sibling #2. (Sibling #6 has now taken over the role of golden child, but this has in no way tarnished the parents’ view of Sibling #2.) One day, in a fit of jealous rage at the shrine built to Sibling #2, Sibling #4 gleefully swept all of the trophies off the piano and boxed them up. She chortled when she called to tell the other siblings what she had done. This is yet just one more issue to be worked through in therapy.

I know it is silly to blame the Special Olympics. That is like blaming the makers of alcohol for the drunken antics of an alcoholic. It can’t be helped, though. Mother’s serious competitivitis has ruined it for me. Although, after her recent heart surgery, I have to say I almost took her to watch the state competition down in Normal, Illinois this year. That’s right. The state competition for the Special Olympics is held in Normal. But then, I thought about the potential animal like behavior of the daughter and son on the long car ride to Normal. I envisioned an over-heated and over-tired daughter flinging her furious self down onto the track repeatedly or simply running off into the throngs of people, causing serious harm to my heart and possibly undoing all the good the open heart surgery did for Mother. And I remembered a past state competition that I had driven Mother down to watch. In particular, I remembered how I had to drag Mother away from a volunteer official after she threw poor Sibling #6’s fifth place finishing ribbon back at said official in protest. The official did not disqualify the overjoyed competitor that won the event by illegally running, creating a domino effect of walkers that began to illegally run to catch up. Sibling #6 knew better and remained walking. Hence the fifth place finish. Aside from the tossed ribbon incident, storms had been forecast for the day of the competition. Both the son and daughter quake in fear at the mere possibility of a storm.

So I came to my senses and did not drive Mother down to watch the competition. While the guilt for not doing so was strong, it was less strong than my innate sense of self-preservation. I’m not sure the eternal gate keepers will fully appreciate this line of reasoning, though. At least, I suppose, the majority of siblings will likely be there in hell with me. Not surprisingly, this thought doesn’t comfort as much as one might expect.