In going through my writing history here, I noticed I forgot a "dedications" I wanted to do before. So here goes nothing.

I have several levels of "family". After my immediate family, there are a lot of individuals who aren't actually related to me at all who I'd still consider part of my family for one reason or another. One of them would be my sister's ex-husband, who was around from the time I was born until well after the time they divorced. I also had a sub-family related to him, his siblings and mom... and, for a few years, his wife after my sister.

I think the first time I met this lady, I was visiting my niece. My niece and I hadn't seen each other in about two years, so we had a lot of catching up to do. I was thinking I was glad my niece was still funny and "a little" crazy. I wasn't paying attention to my ex-brother-in-law's dumb girlfriend.

I did notice that she'd clearly never been around kids before because she didn't really relate to any of us as people and didn't seem to know anything about mother-like behavior, either. I suppose it wasn't her fault, but she just didn't seem to be able to approach any of them on some kind of eye-to-eye. I picked up a lot of whining and whiny behavior, which seems off now because she signed up for the four crazy kids when she decided to date my ex-BIL.

A year and a half passed. I hadn't been around much and decided I wanted to spend some time around my niece. We were 13 and 15. My "at home" best friend had already had sex and then some and had countless boyfriends, which was not the level I was at so we didn't have much in common on the topic. My niece and I were closer level, so there was a lot of "boy"-related talk.

The moleman situation occurred shortly after we re-reconnected again. At the end of it, I didn't want to talk to her anymore. I didn't know it at the time, either, but she'd said shitty things about me to her (now) step-mom, who then passed on the false information onto my mom. Apparently I'd whored up the neighborhood. Yeeeah. k. Nice going on the welcoming party, there, lady.

A whole year passed. Through some nonsensical process, my niece and I were both invited to spend a couple of weeks in the summer on a trip to California. These trips normally just reminded me never to take trips with family, but the combination of personalities on this one worked out well. My niece and I were "friends" again (albeit cautiously on my part). When we got back, we had a couple of months apart due to school (and overexposure), and then my niece decided to invite me over for the weekend. I went.

It had been obvious before that her step-mom had an unnecessary amount of whine-power over what happened, when. With boys and a crazy bitch and pets, she still insisted on having white furniture and a glass table. Lots of my niece and nephews' conversations resorted to "[step-mom]'s going to get mad". It was apparent my niece did things to piss her off, and none of the kids were happy. It wasn't really my business, but all the same... What the fuck? Why join a family if you're going to be like that? I was hoping she wouldn't decide she was going to make rules for my visiting, too.

One of these days I slept over, I made friends with one of my niece's guy friends. He was sort of on my level, kind of quiet and hanging out with crazy, loud assholes. I'd only recently started having guy friends, so I thought this was pretty cool/interesting. He seemed alright, so we talked on the phone some.

While we were talking on the phone, my niece's step-mom, who'd been in the next room doing laundry, walked into the doorway of the room we were sitting in. She quickly, angrily yelled that we all needed to get off the phone. Something else was involved that had to do with my niece or nephew. I, alone, was on the phone and they were just sitting with me. Her angry order for them didn't affect me, but I figured I'd get off the phone anyway lest she freak out.

As she turned around and seemed to leave, I said to the guy on the phone "[Step-mom] just had a cow. I need to get off the phone".

She apparently overheard, because the guy barely got a chance to say "okay" before she was back in the room. I wasn't being rude - it was the truth. She stormed in angrily and barked an order without any kind of warning or relation to what was going on. But I suppose when you're nonsensically pissed off for no reason and/or you're a woman who hates kids, "having a cow" is not part of your perceived reality of yourself.

She screamed at me. I don't remember a thing she said now, other than that the gist of the speech was that I was incredibly disrespectful. Yeah, well, when the lady doesn't say more than two words to me in years, assumes I'm a slut without proof, yells at me while I'm on the phone, and the first thing she says to me is ABOUT me in front of my face, referring to me as "them" in some angry bitch tone that probably has shit-all to actually do with me, she'd know all about being disrespectful. I was getting off the phone, wasn't I? And besides that one comment, what had I even done? Way to make people treat you with "respect", lady.

I think that occurred on a day I was to go home, so I didn't have to do any more confronting with the beast again. And aside from one weekend months after that, I didn't have to see her again. Thankfully...