It is no secret that I absolutely despise my stepfather. My utter contempt for him is visible to anyone who is not legally blind and really, even those who are visually impaired could probably feel the waves of hatred I emit whenever I am in close proximity to him. One of the most contentious aspects of my dislike of the moron is that it upsets my mom.

She even says she sees his faults. But for some unknown reason, she stays with him. My blessed mother loves to give the gift of a ticket on the one-way guilt express. She adopts the martyr pose and says, “I know you hate him. But could you just be civil to him, for me? All this stress makes my chest hurt.” Man, she is good. She knows how I worry about her health after her open-heart surgery, but even that cannot induce me to stop saying things like, “If the man were on FIRE, Mother, I would not deign to PISS on him.”

She knows I’m not kidding about that. Especially after the WWF style Smack Down he and I engaged in a little over a year ago. My mom was weeping over the fact that she couldn’t break up with him, mostly due to money concerns, even after he admitted he had blatantly cheated on her. I was furious at him for treating her so shabbily by betraying her and even more livid for running up massive bills that prohibited her from leaving. He and I had a knock down drag out, wherein I called him things like, “philandering, limp dicked pussy!” and cast aspersions on his offspring in the vein of, “your thieving son and mattress-backed daughter.” Truly, my abuse of the English language when I’m irate is something to behold. I tend to think it was that particular fight when my mom realized just how deeply I hate the man.

At any rate, last night, my mom, the step monster, his halfway decent, other daughter, my nephew and I attended a family funeral. When the idiot got lost driving in Covington because he refused to listen to my mom’s directions, we wound up right in the middle of Crack Alley Central, not far from the location of my last apartment. My mom laughingly said, “Does any of this look familiar, Shel?” I nodded and told her, “Yeah, this neighborhood gave me the impetus to buy a house. It was quite possibly the worst year of my life, living here.”

Being purely evil, I also added, “The only people who live around here now are drug addicts, drug dealers and thieves.” God bless my mother, who responded, “Yes. Oh honey, isn’t this where your son lives now?” Apparently we share a telekinetic link for cattiness.

My nephew and I nearly pissed ourselves laughing as my step monster turned bright red and mumbled, “Yes.” My mom looked over at me and grinned. Hee. I love that she appreciates my evil streak at times.