Wednesday, Nov 10, 1993
Ever have “one of those days” that could be considered your most terrible day you’ve ever had an in your entire life? Yeah. For me, that was Wednesday, November 10, in 1993. I was 14, living with my mom and evil step-dad in Entiat, WA which is a town of about 900 people in the mountains. The nearest city was Wenatchee, which was a 45 minute drive away.
I woke up that morning, late for school. Normally my alarm went off an hour before I had to be at the bus stop, but this time, it magically didn’t go off. I woke up scrambling around trying to get ready, only to find I’d missed the bus. Shit. Thank god my mom had a day off and could take me to school. But the car wouldn’t start. Are you kidding me?! She had to try Evil Step-dad’s Scout. It wouldn’t start. So she tried the old yellow pickup. It wouldn’t start. She’d been having issues with her car’s alternator, so she resorted to charging the battery for an hour before we could go to my school. So, I was late.
I walked in and immediately sat down in my seat, next to my best friend Meagan. Since I was late, I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to disrupt the class. I found out after class that because I didn’t greet her, she was upset with me. She wouldn’t talk to me.
I learned that I was failing in Washington State History class, and my mom had to have a parent teacher meeting about it after school. The rest of my school day was uneventful. Then my mom drove up to have the parent teacher meeting - in a brand new car. I asked who’s car it was, and she said it was ours. It was a fancy dark emerald green Nissan. Her car was a rose colored Nissan Maxima. I asked where her old car was and she said, “gone.”
I hung around in the gym with my friend Robert after school while I waited for my mom. After the meeting, she came by to get me, seeming jovial. She told me she was also taking Robert and I was going to get a shampoo in Wenatchee, and she’d get him a haircut. Here is where shit goes sideways. We hop in the green car where my mom is silent for a little while. I’m sitting in the back seat, Robert it up front. My mom says, out of nowhere, “Your grandma died today, she had a heart attack. Jer (my Evil Step-dad) also died of a heart attack.” I was shocked, and flabberghasted. Why did she seem ok? In fact, why did she seem giddy?
The rest of the car ride was awkward and strange. Next, she said, “We’re starting new so I burned all our things.” WHAT?! I started asking questions. I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not. She didn’t say anything, just kept driving. “We need to make a stop first before your shampooo.” I didn’t even need a shampoo.
We pulled up to a Nissan car dealership in Wenatchee. She rolls down the window, and tells the salesman who comes up, that she’d like to buy the car. He says, “great! Let’s go inside and sign the paperwork!” and she says, “No, I’d like to just stay in here please.” He gives her a strange look and says, “No, sorry, we need to go inside.” She argues with him for a minute, then she takes off her gold watch and gives it to him, as a bribe. He still refuses, of course, and looks at us kids. We shrug and he urges her to get out of the car. Finally she gets out and goes inside. Robert turns to me and says, “Is your mom alright?” and I said, “I don’t know.”
While my mom is inside assumingly filling out paperwork, the salesman comes to the window of the car we’re sitting in, and hands me her gold watch and asks if she’s ok. “I don’t know — apparently her mother and husband both died of heart attacks today” I said. He gave me a sympathy look and told me he was sorry to hear that, and seemed like he understood now why she was acting strange.
Then he left, and my mom came back. She said we were taking our old car, and so we got out of the green one and back into her old car. We then drove to JC Penney, a clothing store in the mall where she was a manager. She forced me to get a goddamn shampoo, and Robert got a haircut. While I was getting shampoo’d, the stylist asked if my mom was ok. I told her, just as I’d told the car salesman, that family had died so she was probably acting strange because of that.
When my mom came to get us, she was in all brand new clothes. I asked why she was in New clothes, and she told me her old clothes she burned. I was very weirded out at this point.
She said we were now going to meet a group of her friends at a restaurant in Leavenworth, a 20 minute drive from Wenatchee. So we drive to Leavenworth, to find that the restaurant she was meeting them at was closed. She said, “that's fine, we'll just go to this other one (called the Katzenjammer Kids... It was a German Alps tourist town).” I said, “mom. If we were supposed to meet your friends at the other place, how will they know we'll be at this one?” and she said to me, “my friends are all psychic like me, they'll know where to find us.”
We get inside this dimly lit steakhouse restaurant, where my mom asks for a table for 12. They said that's a big request so it will take some time. After a few minutes, my mom went in the bar to wait. Finally the table was ready, and Robert and I went to sit down. We ordered salads because we were hungry.
After a while a waitress came up and kneeled down so no one could hear her. She said my mom was very drunk and could one of us drive? Robert said he would. He was 16, and had his license.
My mom came back from the bar and said we had to leave (I don’t know if they kicked her out or not), but that she had to use the bathroom first. When she came out of the bathroom, she left her purse in the stall. I asked where her purse was, and she said, “It’s ok, I’ll get a new one.” And I said, “but mom your wallet and keys and stuff, are inside it.” So I went and got her purse. Robert and I waited in the car for her. It was cold, and she told us we could sit and get warm but not to take the car around the block like we’d asked. We did it anyway, but the car stalled a block away and we had to get a jump from a nice man who saw us in trouble.
When we finally pulled back up to the restauraunt, my mom was ready. I don’t know if or how she settled the bill, but she seemed in good spirits.
She sat in the backseat, and I was up front with Robert driving. Because he was a teenage boy, we went very fast, especially alont Route 97-Alt which was right up against the Columbia river, with just a meager guard rail.
I looked in the back seat and saw my mom passed out. As Robert went around curves, she lurchaed forward and backward like her body was limp. I was very concerned, scared, curious, and confused.
When we got to my house, Robert slept on the couch. It was a holiday the next day, so there was no school (Veteran’s Day). I put mom to bed. In her new clothes, new jewelry and all. I gave her back her gold watch. She seemed angry with me, and said it was for the car salesman. I told her he gave it back, and she seemed to accept it.
While Robert slept on the couch, I was in the other room calling my Step-dad’s workplace. They said he was fine, and he was working right now (night stocker at a grocery store). I called my Aunt then, who lived with my Grandmother. She said Grandma was fine, and that I needed to call my Dad. I thought that was strange, my aunt didnt like my dad. But I called him, and that’s when he told my mom had Bipolar Disorder, and was apparently having a manic episode with psychosis.
I was shocked. Why hadn’t anyone told me?
After that day shit got out of control and we ended up leaving that town. That in itself is another story. About how my mother pissed off the mafia, was raped, and then we got kicked out of the house by the Evil Step-dad. Like I said, a whole ‘nother story.
I will always hate whenever November 10 falls on a Wednesday.
