

### They Could Make A Soap Opera Out Of This!

By: Wayne Hoss
They Could Make a Soap Opera Out Of This

By Wayne Hoss

Published by Wayne Hoss at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Wayne Hoss

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Dedication

This book is dedicated to the three people who were always there for me when it came to my writing, they always loved to read anything and everything that I have ever written. They were honest, sincere, and whenever I needed someone to proof read my material, including all of my poetry, they were always there for me, eager to read, and ready to judge my material with an open mind, honest (and most important of all) unbiased opinion..

Every writer needs someone that he or she can rely on to read their work and to give them an open, yet very honest opinion of the material that they write, because without those people, or that person (of course this is usually a person who loves your writing and believes in you) I could not be a writer at all

I dedicate this book to those three people whom are my sister in law Shannon Hoskison, my Step Sister Donna Sorg, and my precious niece Theresa Story.

I also dedicate this book to the one who always seems to come through for me whenever I am in a pinch and need help of any kind, my good friend Eddie Taylor.

### Table of Contents

Introduction: My Life the Soap Opera!
Chapter One: Unlucky From Day One

Chapter Two: Bad Luck Follows Me to my First Job

Chapter Three: Workshop Disasters Continue Tenfold

Chapter Four: A Cook and a Hooker

Chapter Five: Worse Than a Shotgun Wedding

Chapter Six: Call Us Crazy

Chapter Seven: Friend or acquaintance?

More Books by Wayne Hoss

### INTRODUCTION

My life the soap opera! Eat your heart out Jerry Springer! Yes, that is right; if Jerry Springer were to read this book, the story of my miserable life, even he would cry. Probably because I did not come to him first!

What can I say about my unbelievably, unlucky, and miserable life other than this, "Murphy's Law, Hah! I hear it told that when Murphy read this book he quit murmuring and complaining about his bad luck, at which time he immediately got on his knee's, put his hands together and started praising God and thanking him for his good life, and then he changed careers and went on to make millions of dollars as a comedian; using my screwed up life as his material!"

Let me start by giving you a little taste of what I am talking about. Once when I was standing at a bridge in an attempt to commit suicide, just as I arched my back and began to jump, a good Samaritan snatched me up. Just my luck, "Thanks a lot pal!"

You people would probably call him a "Hero", and please do not get me wrong, I would too, if it were not for the fact that I so hated life, and uh... Oh Yeah! Also, because I had just found out that the love of my life, which I had planned to marry, and I had bought an engagement ring for, as well as given a place to live, had just crushed my heart.

After living together for three months I found out that she had a career of her own that I was not aware of, and that she was letting me pay all of the bills, while she stashed money away like a squirrel stashes nuts. What was that career?

Well, let me start by telling you that I met her through my boss, who was one of my very best friends, that is until one day when I came home from work sick and found two men sitting on my love seat, four more men sitting on the couch, and my best friend whom had introduced her to me, my boss, standing right by them counting a huge wad of bills.

All right you quit laughing; that just isn't funny! Granted that I am a lover, not a fighter, and the fact that (believe this or not, it is true!) I have never in my entire life cheated in a relationship, not once, even to this day; so yes I am an old fashioned guy, and I used to believe in the house with a white picked fence that I would be coming home from work to every day to see my loving and faithful wife who was always there for me. Nobody ever told me that she would be there for everyone else too!

So, to make this introduction short (you can read the whole story later on in this book) Yes! She was a hooker. I bet your wondering what my so-called "best friend" had to say about that. Well, he said "I'm sorry man; I told you when I introduced you to her to just get a piece, and not to fall in love with her!" At which point he said that if I would just act like everything was all right when she came out of our bedroom with her "John", that he would give me the six hundred dollars in his hand.

He said "She really does love you man, and she wanted to ask you to be her pimp, but I told her that would not be a good idea, because I knew that you had just bought her that engagement ring" He went on to say, as he extended his hand with the cash in it out towards me, (his hand was just barely big enough to grip that big wad of cash) "Here man, there's six hundred dollars here, take it!"

I immediately pushed that wad of cash (six hundred dollars in bills) back at him and exclaimed, "Keep it; I don't want your filthy money!" Now you are probably just dieing to know what my next move was, right?

Well, even though I was a brown belt in martial arts at the time, and I probably thought that I could easily take all six of those guys out (yeah right!); the reason that I did not take a "Standing-T" position (as they call it in martial arts) and go into Bruce Lee mode was probably because not only did I not want to embarrass Bruce Lee, but more importantly; I did not want to trample all over the broken pieces of my heart scattered all over the carpet and finish crushing them!

Now when I look back at the screwed up life that I have had, and all of the women that I have lived with (believe me there are many) in which have almost, but not completely, convinced me that all women are alike (and yes women out there, I do know that's what you say about us) Anyway, getting back to the story; I look back now and sometimes think that not only should I have taken the money, but as I turned towards the door to go to the bar, I should have said, "Hey, don't give her any breaks, and I want her working until midnight!"

However, the truth be known, I would not change a thing; because I still value these old fashioned morals of mine. Why? Beats me, I can't begin to tell you how many good pieces of you know what these morals of mine have cost me, as you'll see all throughout this book.

However, the more I see a lack of morals in this world, the harder I seem to try to hold on to mine so that God does not break into tears and drown the entire world again. Yes, I am saving your miserable lives even as we speak, or in this case, as I type and you read!

In fact, one of my previous girlfriends used to say "Oh, you and your morals", and I have had friends that have told me that I am "Honest to a fault!" That's strange; I don't remember that being in the bible anywhere.

Anyways, getting back to the bridge and my suicide attempt which was interrupted by a good Samaritan, whom was so concerned about me upon hearing the whole story that he took me home and introduced me to his wife and then asked his wife if I could stay the night with them, because he was concerned that I would try and commit suicide again.

At that very moment, I felt better, just knowing that there was someone in the world who did not even know me before that night that truly cared. Oh, don't get me wrong, the pain was still there, like a thousand daggers dangling from the valves in my chest that used to be attached to a heart; which is where? That's right, shattered in pieces all over the carpet!

I bet your feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, thinking to yourself "Thank God for Hero's", and as I was saying earlier, ordinarily I would agree; if it were not for the fact that two weeks later; after getting this guy a job where I worked, he had quit his job and rushed out of town, with who? You guessed it, the same woman he and his wife convinced me to forgive and get back together with... my fiancé.

After going to his wife's house a few days later, I found out that he and my fiancée had somehow convinced his wife to let him be her pimp so that they would have money to pay their rent. The only thing that made me feel just a tiny bit better was the fact that I heard her say "Well, he will be back, because he did not pick up his pay check at the restaurant where you guys work at yet, and I told the bookkeeper to call me the second she sees him! They have probably been sleeping in the car these last couple of days; because they did not have any money when they left!"

Now call me stupid (never mind, that numbers been disconnected) but even I had that one figured out! Suddenly the double shifts that I had to pull three or four times after getting him a job where I worked, started to make sense. Oh yeah, did I mention that I was the kitchen manager that hired him? That's right; I hired a hero and got stuck with the bill.

If you thought that was bad, then wait until you read the rest of this book... believe me, that was nothing!

### CHAPTER ONE

Unlucky from Day One

I have to say this at the risk of sounding "cliché", but lets "start at the beginning" for a moment; not to bore you; but to prove to you that my unbelievably unlucky life is not just a writer exaggerating and calling a bad year, a bad life. I promise you, it will be anything but boring.

Yes it is all true, one hundred percent of it. Everything that I put in this book did (believe it not) really happen to me, and as much as it pains me to admit that fact, I must say that I, more than anyone, wish that it were not so. Oh, the joy it would bring me to say that this was all the figment of a writer's overactive imagination. Oh how I wish it were a work of fiction, but it all happened just as I have written.

If this book made millions, I would still trade it all just to go back and live a normal, and perhaps even a lucky life. As hard as it may be, I have to start at the very beginning so that you can see for yourself that I am unbelievably unlucky and that I have lived a miserable life. Therefore my friends, I want to assure you that it is quite all right to laugh your ass off as you read this book, even though I, the writer, was not laughing as I wrote it, I assure you.

It is all right to laugh and enjoy yourself, because whether we would like to admit it or not, we all at some point in our lives have laughed at someone else's misfortune. For instance, when I was working at a shop as a welder many years ago, one of the truck mechanics asked me to help him pull a truck tire off of the steel rim of the wheel.

Now I am not talking about a pick up truck, I am talking about the huge tires on a forty foot trailer hooked up to a "Big rig". The mechanic had already taken the wheel off of the truck axel, and let all of the air out of the tire; now all that was left to do was to pull the tire off of the steel rim.

Maybe it is not saying much when I say that the tire was almost as tall as me (seeing how I am only five foot-five inches tall) but it is no exaggeration to say that it stood as high as my chest. As I was saying, all that was left to do was to separate the tire from the steel rim. Sounds simple enough doesn't it?

The mechanic had a huge steel railroad looking spike in his hand and says "I need to get this tire off of the rim and put it on that new one" as he motions with his hand towards a brand new wheel leaning against the wall, pointing at it with his large finger.

He says "We have to be careful not to damage the tire as we take it off of the rim or the boss will be taking the two hundred and fifty dollars out of our checks" I nod with a reassuring gesture and reply "o.k. No problem". Then the mechanic hands me the big steel spike tells me to hold it firm against the steel rim at the base of the rubber tire where it is sealed, and he is going to swing a ten-pound sledge hammer and hit the chisel, there by separating the tire from the huge truck rim.

An instant look of concern came over my worried face as I said; "You want me to do what?" He laughs and replies, "Don't sweat it; I am good at this! I won't miss and hit your hand, but listen you little bastard; do not flinch, or pull your hand out of the way, because that will make me hit my leg and then I will be very, very, pissed off."

I was just a youngster, about eighteen years old, and he was an older man in his early forties. I don't mind telling you that I was scared half to death. Just the thought of what that ten-pound sledge hammer could do to my skinny little hands was enough to make my hand start shaking in fear; but I tried not to let him notice as I held on to that big chisel with both hands, and held it at the seam of the tire against the rim.

I personally thought that he was just going to hold the ten-pound sledgehammer a couple of feet up in the air above the chisel that I was holding, sort of like a carpenter does as he hammers a nail. However when he took that big sledge hammer and reared back as far as he could go without breaking his back, and then when it was not only over his head, but behind him as well, he swung it down like Thor. I thought to myself "What the..." and before I could finish that thought, the big sledgehammer was coming at my hands like a runaway train.

Well, needless to say I chickened out and pulled away. The force of the ten-pound sledgehammer continued forward, and then, seeing how it had nothing to hit, it just kept going at an unbelievable pace, as it swooshed by my hand, just barely missing it.

The force of the hammer pulled him downward, and then that big ten pound sledge hammer went right between his legs hitting him where? Yeah, you guessed it; right in the family jewels. I am so lucky that he could not speak at that point, because I am not so sure that I wanted to hear what he had to say.

All of the men in the shop, who happened to see what had just transpired, started laughing their assess off at him as they pointed their fingers in a taunting manner. Needless to say, I personally was not laughing one little bit, because the look in his blood shot eyes filled me with the fear of God.

My point being; "We all, at some time or another in our lifetime, have laughed at somebody else's misfortune. So by all means laugh it up as you read this book, perhaps I too will be able to laugh about it someday.

So let's go back to the earliest incident that I can remember when I was a child. I think that I was about three years old at the time, and I had been deathly ill for weeks. The doctors thought that I had spinal Meningitis, so my mom reluctantly let them do a spinal tap on me.

Turns out that I did not have that disease after all; but thanks to that spinal tap, I had problems with my back my entire life. Even as a child when playing with my brothers and sister, if we were climbing any kind of hill at all, or even the slightest incline, my lower back hurt so bad that it was barely tolerable.

At the age of about three and a half years old I had a bit of a belly, in fact my parents referred to it as a "butterball belly". Anyway, it was very cold that day, so my mother dressed me warm for the occasion. She put a T-Shirt on me, then a sweatshirt, and topped it off with my little, cute, brown jacket.

Thank God for loving mothers; because later that day when I was running through the house to tell my mom something, I tripped and fell flat on my face "so to speak" or actually, flat on my belly; and being the unlucky little lad that I was, I did not just fall on the floor, oh no, of course not! No sir, not this unlucky little fellow!

I fell directly on top of a floor furnace, which was turned up full blast, and it burned through the brown jacket that I was wearing as I began to scream and cry. Sure, I tried to put my hands down and push myself back up, but my hands were pushing down on the hot furnace as well, so I quickly pulled them backup.

My mom and her friends were a couple of rooms away from me when they heard all of the commotion. I could hear them hollering, "What's wrong?" as they raced down the hallway towards me. By the time that they made it to me, which was rather quickly, I assure you, the metal grill of the floor furnace had burned not only through my new jacket, but through my sweatshirt and T-Shirt as well, and was well on its way of burning through my flesh too.

I had third degree burns from that incident, which by the way shows the scars even to this day. On a good note though, when my brothers and sister got bored, for instance on a rainy day, they would get a pen or marker and play tic-tac-toe on my belly; using the scars that the metal grate from the floor furnace had left behind, which (believe it or not) formed a perfect waffle like, tic-tac-toe impression on my pudgy belly.

That was when we lived in South Gate Los Angeles, which in itself brings back bad memories. It brings back bad memories of my real dad leaving us all alone at night while he stayed over at his mistress's house. My poor mom was not just going crazy and pacing the floors like most women do, she was also taking care of all four of us children as well; which in itself was quite a task, as most of you mothers would attest.

Don't get me wrong; there was an advantage to him being gone all day and all night, because then we were safe (for the most part) and not being beat by him as usual. I am not speaking of the usual hand slap or a tap on the rear end that the average child is given when they have been bad

No, that would have been a picnic to us. Our real dad would back hand us and give us bloody lips, black eyes, and once he even threw my older brother across the room like a rag doll, which popped his eye completely out of the socket upon impacting the corner of the coffee table, and splitting his face wide open. My mom, being the love struck woman that she was, told a lie to the hospital staff and to my grandma as well, and she told them that my brother had fallen off of his bicycle.

There were times that I still remember to this day in which our dad would become enraged and throw me (or one of my brothers) so high into the air that our little bodies would impact the ceiling hard, and then he would stand back and watch as we fell to the floor in pain and agony. Take my word for it... he did not accidentally "forget to catch us on the way down" as he would sometimes claim.

So yes, it was heaven to us kids when he was gone, but pure hell and mental torture on my poor little mom of only four foot, eleven inches tall, who even though being beat by him as well, loved him so much that it drove her crazy knowing that he was with his mistress. I do not have to tell you how painful that can be, as I am sure that most of you yourselves have at one time or another paced the floors and agonized over a cheating mate or spouse, both male and female alike.

To make matters even worse, my mom (God bless her heart) was sort of blessed upstairs (if you know what I mean) and there are some evil and wicked men in this world that see breasts like that and decide immediately that they are going to embrace them at any cost. This was especially true when we lived in South Gate, Los Angeles; where we had many men attempt to break in to our house on some of those late nights when our dad was away cheating on not only my mom, but us as well.

There were nights that the men would be trying to bust the back door open, and my mom would be on the other side of the door (inside the house) screaming in tears and begging the intruder to leave us alone; and we children could hear him threatening to kill all of us if she did not open the door and let him in. Thank God for the good old stove, which my mom would use to quickly boil water and then throw in the intruder's face, which saved our lives on more than one occasion.

I can't help but smile about one of those encounters with a burglar, which to this very day gets a chuckle out of me when I think about it. This one time that a burglar decided to break in to our home, would have been so much scarier had my dad not happened to be home on that particular night.

I remember waking up from screams that were coming from my older brother in the bed across from me. I awakened just in time to see him looking at a burglar whom was trying to get in through our bedroom window.

Suddenly my brother stopped screaming for a split second and flipped a bird with his middle finger at the burglar, which angered the burglar even more, causing him to break the window, but just then my dad came running in to the bedroom to see why my brother had been screaming, and he immediately gave chase to the burglar, who narrowly escaped over a neighbors fence.

About a year later my mom and dad sent my older brother to the store for something that they wanted, I can't quite remember what it was, and when he was crossing the street a car hit him. The witnesses said that he flew up as high as the telephone poles, and then when he came back down, he landed on the hood of the car, and the hood ornament crushed through his little skull, creating a hole in the back of his head about the size of a silver dollar.

The rest of us kids were outside playing when we heard my mom screaming and crying upon receiving the news from the police officers at our front door. After the officers left our house, our parents began to spank us and slap us around saying "How many times have we told you kids not to cross the street by the railroad tracks."

Needless to say, rather than going to the hospital like most brothers and sisters and praying to God asking him to let our brother live; we were herded into the bedroom and slapped around a little more. After they finished slapping us around, they went to the hospital. We were so worried about our brother, wondering whether or not he was going to live, as we waited impatiently for the news. It was touch and go for a week or two, but he pulled out if it and survived the accident, all glory to God.

It wasn't too long after that, our mother had finally had enough of our dad cheating on her and not coming home at night, in fact, it was just a couple of days after Christmas. She packed up a few of our clothes and belongings and then woke us up late at night when he was in the bedroom sleeping, and she quietly took us out to the car. It was the only car they had, so she had no choice but to wait until he was home with the car, in order to leave.

I remember that night almost as if it were yesterday. All of us kids cried as she drove away; not only because we loved our dad as much as she did, but because we knew that we would never see any of our friends again that we had grown so close to over the years, and because there was barely enough room in the car for all four of us kids, plus all of our clothes and our mothers clothing as well, we had to leave all of our toys behind; our new bikes, Big Wheels, and so much more that we had just got for Christmas.

Now, I could bore you with my childhood, but lucky for you, I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D) You may be asking yourselves "What does that have to do with this book?" Well my friends and fellow readers, I will tell you; but keep in mind that this is only my perspective on it and for all I know I might be totally mistaken.

I personally believe that my Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D) is what keeps my books fast paced, and anything but boring. With Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D) you are always in a hurry, even when you have nowhere to go or nothing to do. You want everything fed to you fast, and the only way to feed it to me faster is to take out all of the boring details and get right to the heart of the matter. If I do not keep this book interesting and fast paced, I myself may very well stray from it, only to set it down and perhaps never return to it again.

So rather than filling this book with my boring childhood that you yourself would undoubtedly become bored with as well; I will get straight to the heart of the matter and only bring up the interesting or "juicy" things that will prove to you that my claims about having the worst luck in the world, as I have stated throughout this book many times, is true.

I am terribly unlucky; it seems sometimes that these things could only happen to me. In fact, one of my best friends whom I have known about fourteen years is so used to all of the bad luck that I have, that his favorite expression upon telling him that latest unbelievable thing that has happened to me, is to shake his head back and forth while laughing and saying, "Only you!"

We drove to Lindsey California and moved in with my grandparents. At first, it was kind of cool. My grandpa owned his own little restaurant in town and he showed us kids a houseboat that he had been working on for years, building just for us kids, and it was almost done.

How cool it was to know that our grandfather loved us kids so much, that he built a houseboat from scratch for us, putting in years of hard work, love, and plenty of sweat. I remember watching him cut the pieces of wood to a precise measurement and then watching him sand them down until they were smooth. He even let me help every now and then, and I have to tell you that I have never known such a gentle, kinder, or more patient man than he was, in my entire life.

My grandpa used to love to drink beer, and one of the things that I loved to see him do was to share that beer with the squirrels. Yes you did read me right, I did say squirrels. It was one of the most amazing things to see my grandpa pour some beer out of his bottle, into a beer cap, and then set the small cap of beer on a big rock.

The squirrels would look around as we stood back a little bit and watched, and they would cautiously approach the cap of beer and then start drinking it. When the cap was empty, the squirrels would pick it up with their cute little paws and raise it up in the air, to be sure that they got every last drop of it. Then my grandpa would let me carry his bottle of beer back over to the rock and refill the beer cap with more beer. Sure enough, as I walked away the squirrel came back, this time with a couple of friends. The funniest part of it all was seeing that same squirrel a few beer caps later, stumbling around drunk and sometimes he would even roll right off of the rock.

I would almost bet that you are getting a warm fuzzy feeling inside your heart right about now and thinking to yourself" Well that's good; life is finally starting to look up for the poor little guy!" and so I thought too; but we both know better, otherwise you would not be reading this book right now.

I noticed as time went on that whenever my grandma would start to get on to one of us kids for doing something wrong, my mom would immediately step up and get in her way exclaiming "These are my children, and when they do something wrong I will get on to them. I do not want you touching them!"

As a matter of fact, I remember them getting into many heated arguments over that subject matter, sometimes to the point of them physically assaulting one another. I remember wondering to myself why mom was so mean to grandma, although I must admit that I did not really want grandma to spank us either, yet perhaps in a way I thought she would not use switches or clothes hangers on us like mom did and perhaps even not spank us as hard.

It was not until later on in life when we children grew older, that mom told us a few stories about the way grandma had treated her when she was a child, stories that we found very hard to believe, and we thought that if nothing else, mom's stories were greatly over exaggerated.

Then a couple of years before my grandma died I was studying for a Real Estate examination so that I could get my Real Estate License and go to work as a loan officer for a company that wanted to hire me. Due to the fact that it was hard for me to study with people at home constantly coming and going, and the kids arguing and fighting, I took my moms advice and went to my grandma's house to study, where it was nice and quiet.

I was to drive up there to her home, which was about a four hour drive, and stay with her a couple of weeks to study and at the same time keep her company, because she did not have very many people coming by to visit her, and she was very lonely since my grandpa had died a couple of years earlier. My grandma and I for the first time in our lives got to know each other really well after spending the evenings relaxing and sitting around drinking iced tea and talking

In fact, I suppose that we got a little bit closer to each other than perhaps we ever could have imagined. So close in fact that she revealed a couple of things to me that in a way, I wish she had kept to herself. You see, we some how got on the subject of what my mother was like when she was a child, and then my grandma looked at me and said these words:

"Your mom is always talking about how stubborn you kids are, but you kids are nothing compared to your mom. Your mom was so stubborn that when she did not like something that I cooked for dinner and put on her plate, she would not eat it.

I would stand over her and tell her to eat it or she was going to be there a long time. I would tell her that she could not leave the table until she ate everything on her plate. I mean to tell you that she was so stubborn, come midnight she would still be sitting there at the table, and would not have eaten one single bite." I smiled and let out a short chuckle as I listened to her story.

She continued her story saying "I am telling you the truth; I would slap her in the face, yank her out of the chair so hard that it's a wonder I never broke her arm, and I would beat her for hours; but she still would not eat that food. I even took a spoon and forced the food down her throat and if she threw up, I would make her eat that too!"

I looked at my grandma with a look of utter shock and disbelief as I shook my head and replied "You what?" She said, "Your mom was so stubborn that I was convinced she was possessed by the devil himself. I would make her go out in the front yard to one of my rose bushes and make her bring back the biggest branch she could find, and I made her leave the thorns on it. I mean to tell you that when I got done beating that little witch with a switch with the thorns on it, I swear to God that her legs were so bloody you could not even see as much as a speck of the pink flesh of her skin!"

I was utterly sickened to my stomach upon hearing that story, and a blanket of guilt the size of a house fell upon me, almost smothering me to death. I felt so bad, so overburdened with guilt for ever doubting my mom when she told us those stories.

I myself, as well as my other brothers and sister, used to talk about how our parents beat us all of the time, and about how they too would make us go get a switch off of a tree to bring back to them to spank us with; but they did not use a switch from a rose bush with the thorns on it, and they never drew blood, or made us eat food that we just threw up.

Don't get me wrong; we too were made to eat all of the food on our plates, and were made to sit at the table until we did finish it, However, even though they did force us to eat some things that we did not like, such as the vegetables on our palate at the time like broccoli, when I threw up the liver that they forced me to eat, they did not make me eat what I had just thrown up.

What I did not tell you in the beginning of this book is that by you and your family members reading this book, perhaps you can learn and grow from our mistakes, and be able to avoid those same pitfalls in your life. By your children reading what you have just read, they will come to realize just how good the children these days really do have it, and come to respect you for not being a parent such as that.

Anyway, getting back to my move to Lindsey, California and how my unbelievable bad luck followed me to that city as well. My mom gave us about a week to actually get settled in to the new environment, and then she took us down to sign us up for school.

Believe this or not, on my very first day at the elementary school, at about ten o'clock in the morning, I raised my hand and asked the teacher if I could be excused to go to the bathroom. After she excused me, I walked outside and finally found the restrooms after a few minutes of searching. You must keep in mind that I was only something like seven years old and new to town, so I still did not know where anything was at this point.

There was not anyone in the restroom, or anywhere outside for that matter, because they were all in the classrooms. I had to take a dump "so to speak" so I walked over to the two bathroom stalls, and upon seeing that they were both empty, I entered one, lowered my pants and underwear and then sat on the toilet, closing the stall door for privacy.

It only seemed like I was in that stall for a few seconds when all of a sudden the door to the bathroom stall that I was in flew open and there was a huge boy standing there in front of me and smiling. I said "Hey I'm in here!" as I tried to grab the door and push it shut again.

The boy leaned up against the door to the stall with all of his body weight so that I could not close it, and then he reached down with his hands, as he stood right there in front of me, staring into my eyes with a devilish smile, and unbuttoned his pants, then lowered his zipper and dropped his pants and underwear.

This was a huge boy, to me anyway, because I was just a little frail seven-year-old child, and he was about (in my opinion, and as far as I can remember) about fourteen years old or so, and he stood about five foot tall, and was very big in stature, or big boned "so to speak".

I still remember this boy, even to this day. I remember seeing a lot of hair (his pubic hair) which as a little boy you know absolutely nothing about, and the sight of that alone scared the be-jeepers out of me.

I screamed as loud as I could and he got nervous and bent down to start pulling his pants back up; so I took advantage of the situation and pushed him to the side, and as he fell down I ran right passed him, while he was still trying to pull his pants up and his hands were preoccupied.

We only lived about eight blocks from the school, so I ran, and ran, and ran, until I made it home to my grandma's house. I ran in to the house and told my mom and my grandma what had happened, and my grandma did not believe me.

She said, "Oh come on, this was your first day of school, in a strange town, and you got scared and missed your mom, that's why you came home. That did not really happen to you." I swore to her and my mom that it did happen, but my mom listened to my grandma and took her side.

To this very day, it bothers me that some sick, twisted, pervert is still out there; or was back then. They should have called the principal, perhaps even the police, and then got a description of the guy from me. I still remember what he looked like to this very day.

A couple of weeks later my mom went out to a bar and asked my grandma to watch us kids, so she watched us that evening, fed us dinner, and later on that night put us to bed. I remember waking up that night to a bunch of screaming and yelling. I remember the sounds of things being thrown around in the kitchen, and the sounds of breaking glass.

The four of us kids ran out to the kitchen to see what was going on and we seen my mom and grandma fighting. Grandpa broke them up and sent us kids back to bed. The next morning grandma had four huge scratches on her face left by my mom's fingernails. Needless to say, we moved again.

This time we moved to Porterville, California. It was a real small town, but still bigger than Lindsey. My mom got a job as a nurse at a convalescent hospital and she rented us a house, and got us a dog.

I will never forget that dog as long as I live. It was a cute little black poodle-terrier mix that our granny gave us named Sambo, and what was so unforgettable about him was the fact that every time we went somewhere in the car he would chase us for blocks, barking his cute little head off. We kids used to turn around and look behind us, watching him chase us relentlessly as we laughed and commented on how cute he was.

Mom was afraid that he was going to get hit by a car if he kept chasing us down the road like that, so the next time that we went somewhere she had us lock him up in the house, and then we all got in the car and took off. As we were pulling away from the house, to our amazement, we seen... guess who; yep, you guessed it; Sambo.

Somehow he had found a way out of the house and was chasing us down the street barking and panting, running as fast as he could, trying to keep up with the car. My older brother swore to my mom that he did lock the dog up in the house, but mom did not seem to believe him, because obviously, the dog was not in the house at all.

The next time that we were getting ready to go somewhere, my mom told my sister to lock him up in the house, and told her "Make sure he does not get passed you when you are closing the door; that must be how he got back out the last time, you guys just didn't see him slip past you; that's all!"

This time my mom watched my sister carry him into the house, and then close the door and lock it, and then she said, "Good, he didn't slip past you this time!" So we got into the car and drove away, only to see who chasing us down the road again? That's right, Sambo!

To make a long story short, every single time that we put him in the house, he some how got back out again and chased us down the road. He would even get out when my mom put him in the house herself.

No matter how hard we tried to keep him from chasing us, he would always prevail. We all, including my mom, searched high and low, looking for a hole in the wall, or in the floor, or for some other way that he could be getting out of the house, but to no avail. Even with all of the windows closed, the doors locked tight, and the house as secure as we could possibly get it, he would still magically reappear as we drove off and he would begin his relentless pursuit of our car.

In fact; we told people that he was our "magic dog", and told them the story about how no matter how good we locked up the house, he would always get back out and chase us. Some of our friends and family members even took a shot at locking him up, but to no avail. They would laugh with amazement as he somehow broke free and even when they themselves locked him up in the house, he was once again back out and chasing us down the road.

Mom would laugh too, even though she would be very upset with him. Even she could not help but laugh. He looked so cute running beside our car and as we pulled further away, he would slowly fall behind us and chase the car a few more blocks until he became exhausted and finally walked back home. However, he would be back at the house waiting for us every single time, he never ran off or got lost.

Unfortunately his luck ran out one day and he was hit by a car and died. We were tore up about it for weeks, it was so hard to deal with his death, because we loved him so much, and he was our very first dog. It was not too long after his passing away that we started getting prowlers at night, and just as we had to deal with them trying to break in to our house at night when we lived in Los Angeles, we also had to endure the frightening attacks here too.

At the elementary school that I went to in Porterville, when I was in the fourth grade, there was this bully of a kid that for no apparent reason at all, would dive bomb me when I was walking alone, or even when I was walking with a friend for that matter

He would run up from behind me, dive through the air and tackle me, by grabbing my head or my shoulders, like a football player tackling another player; only we were not playing football. He never really hurt me, but after a while, it got to be embarrassing, and a nuisance.

One day after the recess bell rang, I was walking out towards the baseball field all by myself, and as I walked through the grass I began to day dream (more or less) about how the players of a football game would see someone diving through the air to tackle them and they would duck; causing the person trying to tackle them to fly over their head and miss them completely.

Like I said, I was sort of day dreaming, and in my mind I could see a player that I had seen in a recent football game duck real quick, and real low, so as to elude his attacker; so as I day dreamed and imagined myself doing the same, I quickly ducked, in an effort to practice the move, as I walked all alone out there in that field.

Suddenly, as I ducked very low and put my right hand on the ground to steady myself, I was very astonished to see that same bully flying over my head, fast and hard. Believe this or not, I did not know that he was anywhere even remotely close to me, much less that he had just dove through the air, reaching for my head and shoulders, so as to once again tackle me.

He flew fast and high through the air, as he reached for my upper torso to tackle me as usual, but he missed me, since I happened to duck at that exact precise moment, and he did not have my body weight this time to slow him down, so his body took the full force of the impact when he landed, hitting his head on the ground, his shoulder digging a little trench in the grass as he landed and skid on the moist grass to a complete stop.

He was hurt, but not really that bad; just bad enough to make him wish that he had not been such a bully that day. He asked me how I knew that he was coming, saying, "Man, how did you know that I was coming? I was watching you close and I did not see you look back at all!"

Knowing that I had just totally astonished him, and unknowingly showed him up, even though it was just a stroke of good luck for the first time in my life, or perhaps even an act of God, or my guardian angel, so I used that knowledge to my advantage.

I knew that I was very unaware of his attack; in fact, I was not even aware that he was behind me at all, and likewise, I knew that my dodging his attack surprised the hell out of me as much as it did him; it even impressed him, which I could clearly see by his demeanor. He was even laughing a bit, painfully nonetheless, but impressed undoubtedly.

So when he asked me again how I knew that he was coming, I told him that I could hear his footsteps as he came closer and closer, and when I could hear that his footsteps were close, I ducked. You should have seen the look on his face, he got the funniest, dumbfounded look on his face that I have ever seen and then he said, "In the grass? You could hear me running in the grass?"

I replied "Yep!" I figured since he thought that I knew what I was doing when I dodged his attack, and since he was so impressed, and hurt none the less, that I might as well use that knowledge to my advantage and make him think that I was that sharp, and that if he tried to dive bomb me again, he would hurt himself again too.

Believe this or not, he never again tried to attack me, not even one single time. He went on to find someone else to mess with I imagine, and I rarely even noticed him after that. They say that God looks out for babies and fools, and hey... a baby I am not!

Speaking of bullies, I had more than my share of them when I was growing up. I was always the smallest kid in school, in fact; I was so small that they tried to talk my mom into holding me back a year or two, so that I would "fit in better with the other students" unquote. I was so glad that she did not take their advice.

So, as I was saying... speaking of bullies, later on that year I started getting pushed around by a kid almost twice my size, and in a higher grade than me as well. For no apparent reason at all, he would just attack me, push me down, or tackle me and beat me up. I did not even know the kid, or what he could possibly have against me.

It was embarrassing. He would beat me up almost every day, and this went on for a couple of weeks or so. It got to the point that I would make an excuse to stay after school and talk to a teacher about my grades, or something... whatever subject I could think of. However, that was of little help, since we both rode the school bus home.

Unless I wanted to walk several miles home, and get beat by my parents for missing the bus, I had little choice in the end, but to walk out to the bus stop as the busses came pulling up, and like a bull awaiting the bullfighter, glaring at him with spite and malice, snorting and rearing back as he digs his hooves in the ground in preparation for an attack, there also was that kid, eagerly waiting for me.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I asked myself "Why does this kid hate me so much? I don't even know him! What could I have possibly done to upset him so much; to deserve this kind of treatment from him?"

Well, as I said, this abuse went on for a couple of weeks or so. All of the other kids would watch him attack me, throw me to the ground, and beat me up and they would even laugh about it, as if it were funny or something. Here this kid was twice my size, in a higher grade than me, and beating up on a little guy like me.

I used to wonder why nobody took up for me, or told him to leave me alone. I used to hope and pray that if nothing else one of the teachers or the bus driver would say something, or make him leave me alone, but they acted as if they were deaf and blind.

I remember lying awake at night, watching the alarm clock, and dreading the arms of the clock getting closer and closer to that time when we had to get up and go to school.

I remember lying in bed, crying at times, silently, so as not to awaken my parents or my brothers and sister, as I tried to figure out how people could be so cruel, and what I had done to deserve such treatment.

One day after school, I seen this beautiful girl, and even though she was obviously quite a bit older than me, in fact; she was probably in junior high school or something like that, but at that age your hormones are raging, and you fall in love with your female teachers, much less someone much younger than them.

When you are a kid, there is almost no age barrier at all, in your mind anyway, so I started talking to her and flirting with her. As I was flirting with her she hollered at her brother saying, "Come on, mom is waiting for us!"

Just as luck would have it; or should I say, Just as my usual "bad luck" would have it, here comes her brother out of the crowd, and it is, believe it or not; you guessed it... the bully that had been beating me up almost every day after school.

He said to his sister "Hey, what are you doing talking to the wimp?" to which she replied, "I am not talking to him, he is talking to me; I was trying to ignore him!" Yeah, thanks a lot lady! As soon as she said that, he charged at me and tried to tackle me to the ground, as he had done many times in the last couple of weeks, but something in me had changed, I am not sure what, but I finally took charge and fought back, for the first time in my entire life.

I hit him in the face and he fell to the ground, then I jumped on him and started whaling on him like a mad man. After blacking his eye and giving him a bloody nose, he finally said "O.K., O.K., I give. Please quit hitting me!" Everybody on the school grounds yelled my name and cheered. Thanks a lot... where was all of that support when I was the one getting my ass kicked?

You are probably wondering if I ever found out why this kid beat me up almost every single day after school. The answer is yes, and it has the unbelievable twist of a horror story, or something right out of Hollywood. The next day after school, I walked up to the bus stop not paying much attention, because the bully was obviously afraid of me now, as he stood there with his black eye, all by himself, staring down at the ground so as to avoid eye contact with me.

I couldn't help but wonder where all of his so-called "friends" were, the ones that I always seen him standing with at the bus stop and talking to. As I walked up to the curb to wait for the bus, kids were patting me on the back, and saying the usual ignorant stuff like "Good job yesterday man!" or 'Way to go killer!"

Before I knew what was going on, one of the bigger boys walked up to me and offered me; get this... five cents to beat that boy up again, which was like fifty cents these days. I looked at him with a look of disgust and said, "Don't be stupid!" I then walked over to the bench at the bus stop and sat down, waiting patiently for the bus.

While I was waiting for the bus to come, I seen the mother of the kid that had just offered me a nickel to beat the other kid up again, drive up in a car and pick him up. Then I started thinking about his offer, I literally seen him in my mind, as I thought back and remembered that he always seemed to be the last one talking to the bully before he beat me up.

Just then it dawned on me why this bully had been beating me up all along, for a freaking nickel. That is all my health, both physical and mental, was worth to those kids... five cents. I decided that if he made the same offer to me the next day, I would take the nickel, and then I would twist around swiftly and knock him to the ground and then pound him even worse than I pounded the other kid. Lucky for him, he never did.

Moving to Porterville did have other pitfalls as well. My mom was dating a member of a motorcycle gang at one time. I remember liking him; in fact, all of us kids liked him, because he was good to us, and he was as nice as he could possibly be to my mom.

I remember him taking us to the park for a barbeque, as well as many other places, including a place called "Man Made Lake", where we would sit and eat sweet, juicy, watermelons after swimming for hours and having a blast.

She was even dating a man with one leg, and he was just as nice. He too was good to us kids, and he really did treat my mom like a queen. In the end however, she picked the worst man that she ever possibly could have picked to marry, and it wasn't either of the two men that I just mentioned.

All of us kids were upset at mom when she met this new guy at a bar and started bringing him home at night. Right off the bat he yelled at us kids and snapped at us for no apparent reason at all.

He was mean, rude, an alcoholic (to say the very least) and he had more than his share of mental problems. The first night he even came to the house I remember him beating one of my brothers with a belt. We did not even know who this man was, had never even seen him before, yet here he was at about midnight, waking us up and beating my older brother with a belt while my mom watched on.

He was always mean to us three boys, but nice to my sister. In fact, she could do anything short of committing a murder, and get away with it. In fact, I remember one incident that took me years to forgive my sister once.

I walked in to the kitchen to get a glass of water to drink, and my sister was reaching in the refrigerator and taking a piece of cake out of the cake pan. Ordinarily that would be no big deal, but my parents had a rule, "No eating in between meals!" which they strongly enforced. When I seen my sister getting a piece of cake I said, "You are going to get in trouble if mom catches you!"

Perhaps I should not have made it a point to warn her, because at those very words she jumped out of fright, and then dropped the heavy cake pan, which in turn dropped onto the new refrigerators glass shelf, shattering it into a million pieces.

I shook my head in shock and utter disbelief as my eyes opened wide, and then I said, "Oh my God, you are in so much trouble!" My sister immediately ran into the bedroom, woke my mom up from a peaceful, deep nap, and proceeded to tell my mom that I was getting a piece of cake out of the refrigerator, and when she caught me, I panicked and broke the shelf by dropping the cake pan on it.

My mom came storming in there and beat me within an inch of my life, and when I told her that my sister was lying, she called me a liar and beat me again for trying to lay it off on my poor little sister. When my dad got home I was beaten even more and sent to bed with no dinner

As I was saying though, he was mean, all of us kids wished she would have hooked up with one of the two nicer guys, and we told her that, but she didn't care what we thought. He would yell at us constantly and treat us like slaves; telling us to go get him a glass of tea, or he would make us scrape gaskets off of an oil pan belonging to whichever car he happened to be working on at the time.

He would check the dishes after we washed them, and if he found just one speck or blemish on a dish, he would take all of the dishes out of all of the cupboards and throw them in the dishwater, making us wash every single one of them.

One day my mother and he decided to get married, but he said the only way that he would marry her was if she would put all four of us kids up for adoption and get rid of us. Now let me tell you women out there something; you younger ones any way, I am sure that the older, mature women, already get this. If a man does not want your kids, but he does want you, then do one thing or the other; either get rid of him, or get rid of the kids.

By all means do not marry him after he tells you that the only way he will marry you is if you put the kids up for adoption; because you can bet dollars to doughnuts that since he obviously does not want your kids, and if you do talk him into marrying you anyway, he is going to treat your kids like crap; even more so behind your back.

Take it from me, I can tell you first hand from my own personal experience, that he will resent your children, perhaps even hate them, and be mean to them, abusing them every chance that he gets, because once again he what? That's right; he did not want them in the first place!

I could fill one hundred books up from that story alone, but for the purpose of keeping this book fast paced and interesting, I will just touch base on some of the best terrible things that he did to us, as well as some of the unbelievable things that he did to my mother; and... oh yeah, when I tell you why in the end she said she really married him, you are going crap your pants, like I just about did when she told me many years later.

Like I said, he constantly beat us, but that was just the physical suffering that we had to endure; however I sometimes think that the mental abuse was much worse. I went to a meeting once where the counselor said that some children lived dysfunctional lives as children, which carried over into their adult lives as well, and they are known as "dysfunctional adults".

For instance, we were not allowed to have any friends over to visit, he made sure that he constantly found chores for us to do. Even if they had already been done, he would just make us do it again, just to be mean.

I remember when I was in the fourth grade, and I brought a friend home from school that I had just recently met, my step dad seen us walking up the driveway and in his usual wicked, mean, and very rude tone of voice yelled to my new friend "What the hell are you doing here? These kids can't play! They have yard work to do! Turn around and go home!"

People say that I am a good writer, and honestly, I really do not know whether I am or not; that is for you to decide. However, I do not believe anyone who writes, no matter how good they are, can really judge his (or her) own work. The reason that I brought that up is this; no matter how good I am at writing, or how good I may become in the future, I will never be able to fully express to you the evil, wicked, and just right out mean tone of voice he used with us, our friends, and that poor boy that day; and how evil the look in his eyes were.

You may think that you understand, but I doubt that I could ever be a good enough writer to express the wicked way that this man had of talking, yelling, or even just the evil looks that came from him. However, I can give you this one next example.

One day when I came home bragging to my mom about how good I had done on a test that I took in my history class about Hitler and his evil reign of terror; my step dad walked up and slapped me hard upside the head and said "Don't you talk shit about Hitler! He was the only one in history that did have it right!"

Yes, just in case you are wondering, he is... you guessed it, a full-blooded German. Here I was telling my mom what I had learned in school that day about this evil, wicked man, that burned people alive in some huge furnaces, and did such horrible things to people, that it was way too sickening to even mention, and my step dad is slapping me upside the head for it, and saying that "Hitler had the right idea!"

Anyone, and I do mean anyone; that can justify the evil, sick, and wicked things that Hitler and his evil men did, is a sick and twisted person, and obviously (this goes without saying) evil themselves.

I remember one time when I was about eleven years old, he and my mother held my hand over a lit burner on the stove. Now let me tell you all something, "That just isn't funny... I do not care who you are!" Also, if we were going on a trip to visit my grandparents, or anyone else for that matter, he would line us kids up, pull off his belt and spank us, saying "That's for the trouble that I know you kids are going to get into!" So my brother would say "I already got spanked for it, so I might as well do something wrong!" I strongly warned him against it, telling him that the spanking he would get the next time for actually doing something wrong would be much worse.

Well, true to his word, he did something wrong while we were there visiting my grandparents, and our step dad had this rule of his, that when one of us four kids did something wrong, all of us got spanked... whether we had anything to do with it or not. So when we were sent to the bedroom to wait for him to come in and spank us, I told my brother that I was going to put an extra pair of pants on so that it would not hurt as much.

Before I even made it to the closet, my brother says, "Look" as he grabbed two thick schoolbooks and started shoving them in his pants to pad his butt. I replied, "Man don't do that, the books are too thick and he will be able to tell". Well, my brother was stubborn and he did not listen to me, and... needless to say, our step dad did notice the books, so he made my brother drop his pants and then he beat my brothers bear ass almost raw.

My parents were both alcoholics, and I am talking hard-core alcoholics, so hard-core in fact, that I remember one night in particular in which they had all four of us children in the car at about five o'clock in the evening, and they stopped at their favorite bar. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, if it were not for the fact that they left us four kids sitting in the hot car until about midnight.

We were so hot, tired, and hungry that night, it was unreal. When they finally came back out to the car that night; drunk off of there assess, they said "We are going to your aunts house to visit for a few minutes, and you kids better not let them know that we left you out here in the car, or I will beat your assess so bad you will not be able to walk for a week.

My little sister cried and said "I'm hungry!" and he said, "That's another thing, I don't give a damn how hungry you kids are, you better not say a word to your aunt or my mom and dad about not eating yet. If I even think that you are getting ready to ask for something to eat, I will take you outside to the tree, make you get a switch, and then beat you half to death with it!"

However, the thing that weighed on me the heaviest to this very day is the beatings that they gave each other, as well as us. It started even before they got married, years earlier, when I was probably only about nine years old or so. My parents would come home drunk and get in a literal "knock down, drag out fight", as they used to call it.

I am not talking anything even remotely close to the average spousal abuse. I am talking about blood squirting all over the house, even on us, as we stood in the corner screaming and crying; as children that young tend to do when their parents fight.

I hate to even use the term fight, because that term does not even begin to express the seriousness of the fights that they had. Put it this way, one day my step dad was dragging my mom by the hair on her head, into the kitchen, saying that he was going to get a knife out of the kitchen drawer and kill her. Well, as he dragged her through the living room, there was broken glass everywhere, and she was able to grab a broken piece of the glass that was on the floor and stab him in the arm with it.

Let me tell you, seeing an arm slit wide open and the muscle and tissue hanging out of it, is disturbing in so many ways. The impact of them fighting like that, and the cops being called out to our house at least twice a week, does something to you that you can't possibly imagine.

We were subjected to this as little children, and we spent many, many, nights in a corner of the house shaking and shivering from fear, crying and screaming, begging them to stop hurting each other, as we had no choice but to watch on. We watched them beat each other, drag each other by the hair on their head, and seen blood splatter all over the place as they cut, beat, and stabbed each other. The toll was so great on me, that to this day, if I am around any type of fight or violence that breaks out, I shake uncontrollably.

I remember when I spent a few days in jail for drinking and driving while intoxicated, and there were two guys in our barracks that got into a fight. Even though the fight had absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever, and they were beating on each other, not me, I stood there shaking uncontrollably.

No matter how hard I try not to, I can't seem to control it. What even makes matters worse is that I have had people say that I shake like that because I am a chicken; but I am not afraid of anything. I know that it is wrong to say this, but sometimes I wish that the people that say it to me could spend just one hour in my shoes as a little nine year old child watching his parents beat each other and carve each other up, and then have to hear the screaming and cursing, and even be beat themselves, as we were often... then they would not be such smart assess!

To them that would say that I was shaking like that because I was a chicken, I would tell them this true story from the past. You see; one night I went out with this girl I liked a lot, and one of my friends (I realize now that he never was a friend at all) and he took us in his Volkswagen to visit another friend of mine.

When we went into my other friend's house, he was gone, but his girl friend that lived with him was there, so we sat and talked to her fort a little while, as we waited for him to return home. This idiot that I brought with me kept hitting on my other friends girlfriend, I told him to quit, but he just ignored me, at least until she slapped him in the face.

He is one of these guys that are never rejected by women, so he took it real bad. He wanted to leave right then, and since my car was broke down, and we were in his piece of junk, we had little choice but to go with him. Well, on the way home he started putting his hand on my girlfriend's leg. She kept telling him to quit and then he replied, "Your with me now, piss on him!" Only the words he used were much more vulgar, and I can't put his actual words in this book, just in case some youngsters read it.

I told him to pull over and let us out, so he did, but he did not give up there. After we got out of his crappy van, he kept driving beside us and cursing, and calling her names that I once again can't put in this book. I hollered back at him and told him after I walked her home; I was coming to his house to beat his ass. So, true to my word, I walked her all of the way home and apologized for everything, and then I walked back to his house.

As I walked up his driveway, he jumped out from behind a refrigerator that was out there, and started cursing at me again. I used to be in martial arts, and this guy has seen me break bricks with my bare hands, yet he still persisted in being a jerk. We had both been drinking, and that probably didn't help the situation any.

None the less; he took a swing at me and I dodged it, at which point I immediately grabbed him by the throat, thinking to myself "I don't want to hurt him, his mom and I are good friends, but if I grab him by the throat, later on I could tell him "You have seen me break bricks before, and my first thought was to karate chop you in the throat, but I did not want to hurt you, so I grabbed you by the throat instead!"

Well, let me tell you something, once I had someone by the throat, they would immediately give up, and nobody has ever got out of one of my choke holds... until now. This squirrelly guy did all kinds of weird twisting, turning, and jumping around, like a snake or something, until I finally lost my grip. At that point he came at me "full bore" so to speak.

In the end, he was laying on the ground when I walked away. One of his next-door neighbors was a friend of mine, and when I went to visit him and another friend of mine, he said to me, "Man, why are you letting him go around and tell everyone that he won the fight? I seen the whole thing; you threw him around like a rag doll! In fact; he did not even get one hit in one you... you were too quick for him!"

Granted, I did know that he was going around telling everybody that he won the fight, but I did not care, since I knew the truth. So I replied to him "I really don't care what he tells his friends, I know the truth, and he knows the truth, that's all that matters to me. Who cares what his friends think; if they hang around with him, then they are losers anyway."

The reason that I told you that true story was to impress upon you the fact that I am not a chicken, as some people have said when I start shaking like that, but I really do shake uncontrollably whenever I am around any violence, of any kind. That's what being around parents that beat, stab, and curse each other, does to you as a little child.

You grow up to hate violence, not because you are afraid, but because you always believed that when you grew up and got away from your crazy parents, that you would not have to deal with that kind of stuff ever again.

Anyway, that fight and all of the other hell that I was put through when I moved into a trailer park, is another book in itself. In fact; I will tell you the whole story in my next book titled "Trailer Trash: Fact or Fiction?"

Anyway, I am just giving you an idea of the terrible things that we had to endure as children, because that my friend, is what shapes us as an adult. What do I mean by that? Well, put it this way... as I grew up and got away from my parents at about the age of sixteen, I started to meet a lot of people, whom I called "friends", little did I know that they were far from it.

You see; one of the problems with being a dysfunctional child is that it carries over into your adult life as well. That coupled with the fact that you were not allowed having friends over, so you have no real communication skills whatsoever.

Unfortunately, other people see you as weak, and they try to take advantage of you. They try to steal from you, or do even worse things, as you will see when you read my next book that I just mentioned above.

You are not used to being around people, because you were secluded as a child growing up. You have never had the opportunity to engage with other people, to get to know them whatsoever, so you more or less believe that people are just like you, kind and honest.

I did finally meet one kid when I was in junior high school that my parents tried to chase off, but he would just keep coming back again, and he eventually grew on them, so they allowed him to visit once in a while.

Anyway, this is not a book about my childhood, I just wanted you to be up to speed on a few of these things, so that as you read this book you can get a feel of why I made such idiotic mistakes, like getting back with my x-wife time and time again, after the terrible things that she did to me, as you will see real soon.

### CHAPTER TWO

Bad Luck Follows Me to my First Job

Unlike most kids that wait until after they graduate from high school to get a job, I started working at the early age of fourteen years old. Don't get me wrong, I too believe that school should come first, and that holding down any kind of job does interfere with your grades, no matter what anybody says.

However, if your parents are strapped for cash and food needs to be put on the table, then that comes first, before anything else; because if you don't eat, then school really won't matter... will it?

Anyway, if you thought that all of my bad luck would surely cease, or slow down and give me a break as I got older then you were, as much as it pains me to say it, very mistaken.

My first job was at a local swap meet here in town. My job was fairly simple, or so it would seem. I was put in a small dirt lot and set up with nothing more than a money pouch tied around my waist with a small amount of change, and an old table to stand at and sell cokes from. No shade from the hot sun in well over one hundred degree weather, not even so much as a chair to sit down at once in a while.

I had nobody to come and relieve me to take a break, or even to go to the restroom. This was way back in the late seventies, and back then you did not have the laws like people have today to protect their rights as employees; you were pretty much on your own.

Well, I did just as I was instructed to do when I started my shift, and poured five small cokes, five mediums, and five large sized cokes as well. Then as my luck would have it, after selling only two, these three large grown men, and no I am not exaggerating, they were well in there late twenties, walked up and each of them took a large coke, and when I said "That will be four dollars and fifty cents please!" they just kept on walking away, sipping the sodas that they had just stolen from me, and laughing at me.

I was not given as much as a walkie-talkie; so I had absolutely no way to call the security guards, or even the front office for that matter, and I had people walking up and handing me money for sodas, so there wasn't much that I could do about it.

Even those customers that were paying for their sodas were appalled at the low life trick that those men had pulled on me. What really sucked was that I could do nothing more than yell at them in hopes that a good Samaritan would step in and do something, but people just ignored me as if I were not there at all.

Sure, I did think about chasing them down and taking the cokes back, thinking "Surely they would not dare hit a fourteen year old kid such as myself" but as I said, I had people that were handing me money for their sodas, and so I had no choice but to let the incident go.

I continued working in the hot sun, finishing out my six hour shift, and at the end of the day not only was I fired for those three soda's that the evil men took, but the money for those three sodas was deducted from my pay, and since I was only getting paid two dollars an hour, that meant that the first two hours that I worked was for nothing.

A few months later I turned fifteen years old, and since my parents were friends with the woman who managed a local restaurant, she hired me as a dishwasher. However, before I amuse you with my downs and outs in the employment industry over the years, let me tell you a little secret about being a good, fast, and productive employee, which I learned the hard way throughout my life.

As I mentioned earlier in this book of tears, I was born with A.D.H.D. (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and for the most part, I liked being hyperactive to a certain point, because there were many times in my life that all of the energy came in real handy. It was cool being so energetic, and I figured that it was a blessing in many ways, or so I thought at first; but it also carried many curses with it as well.

How bad is my Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D)? You might ask, well to give you just one example of my visit to a doctor that was trying hard to cure me of this Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D), read on. As you continue to read this next little part about my doctor visit, just feel free to laugh your ass off, everyone I tell this story to does anyway. Again, I tell you the truth... this is a true story.

My wife and I had separated after I caught her cheating on me, and even though I was hurt beyond belief, I let her keep the house for the kids sake, and I moved in with my brother and his wife. Knowing that I have always been so hyperactive, and had way too much energy, so bad that I can barely wind down at night and fall asleep, my sister in law took me to see a doctor, which we will call "Doc" for the sake of this book and to protect the guilty and who else? That's right, me!

Keep in mind as you read this next little part about my doctor visit, that I had been going to see this doctor for a few months, and since my sister in law insisted that I give him a try at solving my extreme case of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D) where other doctors have failed, I always made her go with me to see him.

On my previous visits, this doctor had prescribed me several different prescriptions, one by one, in an attempt to cure me. In fact, on my previous visit just a couple of days before this part that I am getting ready to tell you about, the doctor had tripled my dose of one of my medications, and was upset that it still, like everything else he tried, had absolutely no effect on me at all.

As he writes me a new prescription he asks me, "Are you sure that you have been taking this medication three times a day, just like I prescribed?" To which I replied, "Yes, I have, three times a day, every day!" Being reluctant to believe me he asks again, "Are you certain?" Again I reply with a simple "Yes".

He hands me this new prescription, and as I stand up to leave the examination room he stops me and says "I want you to go back to the waiting room, this will only take ten minutes, and when they call your name follow the nurse. I am going to have them draw some blood just to be sure that you are really taking all of your medicine, and we will see how much of it shows up in your blood"

So I do as he asked and return to the waiting room, and true to his word, they called me back in about ten minutes. They called me back in to a room and drew the blood, and then tell me to come back in one week to see the doctor about my test results.

Exactly one week later, my sister in law and I return to see "Doc" and after the nurse takes me back to a little exam room to wait, I hop up on the exam table, and like a little hyperactive child that has too much energy, I am sitting with my legs dangling, and swinging them back and forth impatiently.

The doctor opens the door, and while he walks in to the room, he is not even looking up at me; his eyes are still fixed on the results of my blood test results, which are attached to my chart that he is holding. I say, "What's up doc, am I going to live?" jokingly, in my usual energetic, happy tone of voice.

He looks up at me, and I can see immediately that he is almost in a state of shock, as he says, "My God you are really like this!" I just laughed and said, "I know, that's why I come to see you!" to which he replied in a serious, yet somewhat shocked tone of voice, "No, you don't understand. I lied to you when I said that we were going to check your blood to see how much of your medication really shows up. I had them test you for drugs."

I did a double take as I looked at him to see if he was serious or just joking with me and I say, "Huh?" He looks at my test results again and then looks up at me and says, "My God, you are really like this all of the time, you're not on drugs!" To which I reply "Hello, that's why I come to see you!"

I just chuckled and blew it off like it was no big deal, since all of my previous doctors were unsuccessful as well, and I associated the shocked look on his face tone of those "Man I failed him as a doctor, I don't know what to do!" sort of looks. It did not dawn on me until a few hours later that it was not an "I failed you, I don't know what else to do" look, it was a look you see on the screen at a theater when the victim sees the monster for the first time.

So please keep in mind as I continue explaining this next particular situation to you, that this is a rare situation, or so I would think. Therefore, unless you too have a severe case of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D) such as me, do not take this situation literally. Just because the following happened to me does not mean that it will happen to you. Nonetheless don't ever let your bosses take advantage of you on any job, under any circumstances.

You will see as you read the next few pages, that I was constantly taken advantage of as a good, hard working employee; but these things also could have happened to me because I was perhaps too nice, or an easy target "so to speak".

So I am not telling you not to give a job one hundred percent all of the time, because indeed you should; but in my particular case I found the following to be true.

Since I had Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D), I always had a lot of energy, which greatly contributed to me being a hard working, very fast, and productive employee. In fact, I did such a good job washing dishes and bussing tables at that restaurant that I mentioned where I was hired as a dishwasher, that in the first week I that I worked there, the manager let the bus boy go, and then the next week she let one of the other dishwashers go as well, bragging to the waitresses, the boss, and even my parents about how good of an employee that I had turned out to be.

She bragged about the fact that I was so fast, and efficient, she was able to let two employees go, and that I was easily doing the work that that did as well. I was now forced to take on the work of three employees all by myself, but did not get a raise, not as much as one cent; yet I was doing the work all by myself that it used to take three people to do. This was my reward for being such a good, hard working, and efficient employee.

It not only caused two workers to be laid off and lose their jobs, but it also burdened me with doing the work of all three employee's, and I was always so exhausted at the end of my shift that I could just barely stand.

After washing dishes at that restaurant for a little over a year, I became good friends with one of the cooks that worked there, and one day out of curiosity I asked him how much money he made as a cook, and when he told me how much that he was paid per hour, I came to realize that he made like five dollars and hour more than me, not to mention the cooks also got their meals were free.

Needless to say, I immediately made up my mind that I was going to watch all of the cooks closely, that is... every chance that I got in between doing the dishes and bussing tables for the waitresses. I was determined to become a cook and make good money like the other cooks made.

I even came in on my days off and watched the cooks at work, as well as pitching in and helping them cook whenever the opportunity arose. After about three months of studying the menu and memorizing what ingredients each meal contained and how they were prepared, I finally talked my friend, whom was a cook, into standing back and letting me have a go at it all by myself, just to see if I were indeed as capable of running the grill by myself as I had come to believe.

I not only blew him away, but I also even shocked myself after throwing the last ticket down, and stepping back to take note of how much food that I had actually whipped out all by myself in that one and a half hour rush.

The cook said that I did such a good job that night, there was very little doubt in his mind that I could, within another week or two, handle the kitchen and cook an entire shift alone. I was so excited, just knowing that I would finally have a job title worth mentioning without embarrassment in the future, like when I asked a woman out on a date, because take it from me, no woman that I have ever met was excited about going on a date with a dishwasher or a busboy.

The next couple of days that I had off, I asked the man who owned the restaurant for permission to stand in on my own time off, and help the cooks during their shift so that I could get even better, and he said" Sure, no problem".

Well, the waitresses were bragging on the more than satisfactory job that I had been doing, saying that I cooked such good meals, and made the plates look so appetizing that they got much more in tips than usual.

At the end of their shifts, just about all of the waitresses came up to me and demanded that I let them tip me some money for the good job that I had done. Keeping in mind that a waitress rarely gets a good tip for a meal that the cook served if it was unsatisfactory, I accepted the money and thanked them.

However, as kind of a gesture as that was, giving me a percentage of the tips that they made, that was not what was important to me; not as important as what really mattered to me and made me feel good inside, and that was the fact that by them tipping me and bragging on the great meals that I had cooked, I knew at that point that I was ready to move up to a cooking position and finally make about five dollars an hour more than I was currently making.

Now finally, for the first time in my life things were starting to look up for me. One of the waitresses told me that the owner of the restaurant came in and ordered a meal when I was cooking the night before, and she said that he was amazed when she told him that I was the one who cooked his meal. According to her, he said that it was way better than the meals the cook who was training me had been putting out. She said that he was all for me moving up to a cooks position.

I can't even begin to tell you how good that made me feel. That is until my usual bad luck dropped a situation on me like a devastating cluster bomb. You see, when I bragged to the woman who hired me as a dish washer, she was the manager of the restaurant that my parents knew, it appears that she was the one person who somehow flew under my radar all of those months that I spent so much time and energy training to be a cook.

Even the man who owned the restaurant was impressed with the great job that I was doing as a new cook, and as I said earlier, unbeknownst to me he had eaten one of the steak and lobster dinners that I prepared and he was impressed, so I was certain that the job was mine.

I must admit however that I was thankful that nobody had told me that the meal was for the owner of the restaurant, because had I known that, truth being told, I probably would have been so nervous that I would have choked under pressure and messed something up. I talked to the owner of the restraint myself and he gave me permission to move up to a cook's position, just like the waitress had told me.

As I was saying though, I overlooked one small detail; at least in my mind it seemed to be just a minor detail to overlook. That minor detail was that the whole time I had been cooking and training to move up in the restaurant to a better paying cooking position, my efforts had somehow went on unbeknownst to her, or so she claimed.

Of course, being the squirrelly little dude that I was, I more or less assumed that she knew about me wanting to learn how to cook so that I could move up in the world; especially since she was good friends with my parents, not to mention the fact that I was certain she must have heard all of the waitresses that were constantly bragging about how good of a cook I had become, and that even their tips had increased since I started cooking.

Well, I am pretty sure that without me telling you this next part of the story, after you reading as much of this book as you have thus far, and you now knowing pretty much the direction my luck always seems to take, you have undoubtedly already concluded that somewhere down the line, this happy go-lucky new endeavor of mine is going to crap on me like a pigeon flying overhead in time square. To you I say, "Bravo!" because that just reinforces what this book is all about, and makes me feel just a little less ridiculous

True to the path my life always seems to take when all is going well and looking so promising; that manager kicked my round of good luck smack dab, square in the nuts, thereby detouring my lucks intended path, and crapping all over my hopes and dreams which up until speaking with her I was certain had become a happy reality.

She said that she was very proud of me, but in that same breath assured me that I would not now, nor anytime in the near future, be promoted to a cook position. Why would she say such a thing you might ask?

She said that she could never in another lifetime, find another dishwasher that was as fast and efficient as me, one that could do the job of two dishwashers, bus tables, and keep the kitchen and restrooms clean.

I told her that I was older now, and that I needed to make more money so I could buy a car, and stuff like that. She refused to let me continue training as a cook on my days off, and demanded that I continue working my usual shifts as a dishwasher. When I mentioned to her that the owner of the restaurant told me that I could start working as a cook, she still refused to let me move up to a cook's position.

Here is the kicker; are you ready for it? She demanded that I stay on washing dishes, and bussing tables, as I had done previously, but not once did she even offer to give me a raise to do so. Keep in mind that she laid off one dishwasher and one busboy when I first started there, because I was so fast and efficient.

You would think that since I was carrying the load of three people and busting my rear end, she would have offered me a raise when she let the other two employees go, much less now that I want to quit that position and move up as a cook. After all, I was saving them a hell of a lot of money, but never once was I offered or given a raise.

You would think that she would have offered me some kind of raise in an effort to keep me there, and if she had offered me a decent raise, I probably would have stayed on as a dish washer for a little longer, because I really did like her a lot! But she did not offer me one cent more to stay and wash dishes. Perhaps she thought that being good friends with my parents gave her an edge on me, and that I had no choice; "Wrong!"

I was devastated to say the least. In a real world scenario (rather than in my world, "Dewayne's World" as I sometimes jokingly call it) an employee is ordinarily denied such a promotion, due to their inadequacies or shortcomings.

Once again, I must exclaim ever so loudly "Only I could be denied a promotion for doing an excellent job and proving to be the best employee! It could only happen to me!" While most people are held back and denied a promotion for doing a poor job, I was "as my luck would have it" being denied a promotion for doing quite the opposite, and wholeheartedly doing, according to her, an "Awesome Job that normally would take two to three employees to do!"

I bet your just laughing so hard right now your probably about to piss your pants, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, go on and laugh. I mean, after all, that is why I decided to write this book. I figured since all of my friends and relatives seemed to get a big chuckle out of these true stories as I told them, and knowing that the world could really use a good laugh right about now, I figured why not share these true stories with the whole world and let them have a good laugh as well, thereby turning something negative in to something positive.

I have told some of these true stories about events like this that actually occurred in my life, and brought some of the toughest men you ever seen in your entire life to their knees, buckling over in laughter.

Now perhaps you see why I made that comment about being a good, hard working, and productive employee being a bad idea, in my particular situation anyway. Well in this next chapter you will not believe what you are about to read. Unfortunately it is true as well.

Oh, and as I said on the first page, and even this far along in this book, it still holds true "You haven't seen anything yet!"

I wish I could say that the job I had as a dishwasher was the only time I had this particular problem of being too good of an employee throughout all of my years of employment, but that simply would not be true. As much as it pains me to admit it, now that I reminisce and look back in the past at all of the different jobs that I have had, this scenario played out against me time and time again. I even remember just a few years ago getting hired as a welder here in town at a welding shop.

I was told to show up early Monday morning fresh and eager to work, and told that my starting wages would be sixteen dollars an hour, which really was not very good pay for a welder, seeing how at my previous welding job I was getting paid twenty five dollars an hour.

Bet you would like to know how I lost that previous job at twenty five dollars an hour, right? I might as well tell you how I lost that job real quick, because I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the question entered your mind the second you read this.

The job that I was welding at which paid me twenty five dollars and hour, was at a power plant that chipped wood from pallets, tree trunks, and such, into little tiny chips of wood to be burned in huge furnaces, thereby making energy for the power plant which helped to light up that wonderful little city that I was working in, and many more just like it.

Well, one of the most important rules that we had to live by, was that when a welders helper had to relieve themselves (or go to the bathroom) they were to holler up at us welders and let us know so that we could stop welding; because where I was welding was high up in the air above all of the huge piles of wood chips, which could ignite with the smallest of sparks from a grinder, much less red hot chunks of metal from a welding rod.

All right you quit laughing... as I said before... "That just isn't funny!" For those of you that did not catch it, the reason that I made such a remark, was because I would imagine that most of you already figured out why I was fired, and yes, you are right! I caught the wood chips on fire while my welder's helper was away taking a piss, and not standing below with a water hose spraying down the wood chips below me with water.

The red hot slag from my welds dripped down on top of the wood chips below, instantly igniting them into a blazing inferno. Had my welder's helper been there with the water hose like he was supposed to be, I never would have been fired.

To make matters even worse... get this; I started that job a month and a half earlier, and when I started work there I noticed that there were already about sixteen other welders working there as well, during a shut down, and after the shut down I was the only welder they kept out of all of us.

There were many welders upset at the fact that they started the shut down a month or two before I did; yet I was the only welder that the company chose to keep. To those welders that were upset about me being the only welder chosen to stay and work full time, I simply say this, "I hope you checked your phone messages a week later, if you did, then one of you lucky suckers got my job!" On the bright side though, the place did not burn down. The overhead sprinklers and the on-site firemen put the flames out without much incident, only causing a minimal amount of damage.

They said that even though I did not hear the welder's helper holler up to me saying that he was going to the restroom, it was still my responsibility to look down before striking an arc to weld, to make sure that the welder's helper was down there with a water hose.

Now you are starting to see that I am right about my miserable, unlucky life, aren't you? Well keep on reading; it only gets better from here... or worse!

Now I will get back to that previous story that I was telling you about being such a good hard worker at that welding job. As I was saying earlier, I was to start working as a new employee at that welding job for the wage of sixteen dollars an hour.

I was so fast at fabrication and welding; that on my third day there the foreman laid one of the other welders off, because I was unknowingly doing the jobs of two people with ease. A week later he let another worker go, one of my welder's helpers, and he bragged while we were all sitting at the break table, about how good of an employee I had turned out to be, and how he saved the owner a lot of money when he hired me.

Now here is the kicker; not only was I now, once again, doing the work of three people, but upon receiving my first paycheck I noticed that I had not been paid the sixteen dollars an hour that I was promised, I was only being paid eleven dollars an hour!

Imagine that, rather than giving me a raise for doing the work of three people, which was saving them thousands of dollars a month, he had cheated me and only paid me eleven dollars an hour instead of the sixteen dollars an hour that he originally promised to pay me.

Perhaps I am looking at this situation from the wrong end of the binoculars, because the way I see it, he should have given me a raise from the sixteen dollars an hour that he had originally promised to pay me, to at least eighteen dollars an hour, since once again I was doing the jobs that the other two he laid off used to do before I got there. However, rather than offering me a raise for saving them all of that money, he decided to cheat me instead.

I must admit that there was one other advantage that I did have over all of those other employees besides my Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D), and that was the fact that I did not smoke cigarettes, so the fifteen minutes here and there that were given to the other workers for a smoking break, I continued to work, which in all totaled over an hour or more every day that I had to turn out more work than the other employees.

None the less, it has been my experience that proving to be the best, fastest, and most productive employee was a curse, and it may be just as much my fault as theirs, because I am too kind and easy going. Put it this way; I had a friend tell me once that if I had been born as a woman, he would be getting laid all of the time, because I am so easy. What do you know; I guess being born a boy was my first stroke of good luck, perhaps even my last.

### CHAPTER THREE

Workshop Disasters Continue Tenfold

Speaking of that shop foreman that promised me sixteen dollars an hour, but cheated me when payday came around and only paid me eleven dollars an hour instead; that was just the beginning of my run of bad luck during the course of my employment there. In the course of my employment there, I had experienced more bad luck there, than anywhere else that I had ever worked, in my entire life.

For instance, one day I was told to get on the forklift and pickup a pallet full of fabricated parts for a job that we were doing, and to drive the parts outside to be loaded on a flatbed trailer in the back of the shop. I started the forklift, warmed it up, and then drove up to the pallet, scooping it up like a pro.

I was backing out of a very steep slope in the driveway, which was very steep downhill, and as I put the forklift in reverse and started backing up with the pallet full of heavy metal saddles and posts, along with other very heavy metal objects, the brakes went out on the forklift, and I only had a few seconds to react, because I was quickly rolling in reverse towards five thousand dollars worth of corrugated roofing material.

I pumped the brakes as hard as I could, faster and harder, as I yelled words that I best not repeat here in this book. In fact, I yelled so loud that as I was rolling towards that expensive roofing material, my boss (the owner) whom was indoors in his office, had heard me and ran outside just in time to see me crash into those metal sheets of corrugated roofing material.

Now get this; I was a welder in the shop and my primary task was just that; welding! I welded in the shop continuously and helped to fabricate items that were to be installed by other workers out at the job sites. I hardly ever drove the forklift, but I did hear some of the other employees complain off and on about the brakes on the forklift needing to be replaced for the last two or three weeks prior to this incident. I even heard them tell the shop foreman about this problem several times, and even warn him that if he did not get the brakes fixed it could cause an accident or even hurt someone.

Even though everyone in the shop knew that the brakes were going out for weeks and they needed to be replaced, including the shop foreman, the blame was all put on me because I did not think to turn the key to the ignition off.

I am not certain that shutting the engine off would have even worked, but rather than the foreman admitting that he should have fixed those brakes weeks ago, he yelled and screamed at me as if the whole thing were caused by me and my recklessness, and the owner; not knowing that the brakes had gone out on the forklift, went back in the office cursing me and throwing things around in his office.

Now keep in mind that I did not have an airport sized runway, in fact; I only had about ten feet distance between that roofing material and I, six feet of which was a very steep, downhill slope (the driveway leading up hill into the shop). It was such a tight squeeze that it took some major fancy driving to get to the pallet in the first place, due to other pallets on either side of me being crammed side by side as well.

Perhaps my mother said it best when she said "You are your own worst enemy!" Maybe I am the creator of all these bad things that continually happen to me. When I told this same story to a couple of my friends, they said that the foreman was right; I should have thought to shut the ignition off. Even though I strongly suggested to them that it was the foreman's fault for not fixing the brakes on the forklift that he had known for over a month were going out, but they still sided with him and said all the blame was on me.

Oh, I am not finished yet... another incident of bad luck that happened to me on that same job site was much, much worse. One day the shop foremen came to work in a bad mood, he was yelling and cursing at everyone in the shop, for anything and everything, basically for no reason at all. I was not supposed to start work for another half hour and I went to my work area to put my new welding hood on my welding machine.

I headed back towards the break room to have my usual morning cup off coffee, before clocking in for work, and the foreman yelled at me "Where are you going? Get your lazy ass over here and move that big piece of angle iron that some idiot left in the driveway, so they can get the forklift up in here.

Even though I was not clocked in yet, I tried to ignore his bad attitude and kindly do as he had asked me to do. Now keep in mind that I have already given you some idea of how fast I was at working, due to my Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (A.D.H.D), and take my word for it; since he was obviously in a bad mood, I walked as fast towards that fifty pound thick piece of angled iron as I possibly could.

Even though I was clear across the shop when he told me to get over there and move the metal, he started yelling at me again as I walked towards the driveway that it was sitting in. He walked towards me and started yelling even again, screaming "Hurry up! We don't have all damn day!"

As if yelling like a lunatic at an employee that isn't even on the clock yet were not bad enough, he continued yelling at me to the point that by the time I had reached that big, heavy strip of angled iron, I was so mad that I did not care at that point. I was furious that he was screaming at me like some kind of madman so early in the morning when I was not even clocked in or supposed to start work for another half hour.

So being infuriated like I was, I bent down and grabbed a hold of the end of that big, quarter inch thick, twenty foot piece of angled iron, and I gave it all I had, every ounce of energy that I could muster up, not only because I was mad, but also because I knew it weighed around fifty pounds and a small man like me would have a hard time moving it in the first place.

So, as I was saying, I grabbed a hold of that heavy piece of angled iron and threw it to the side of the driveway towards the dirt and grass mound on the right side of the shop. Well, apparently I was a little stronger than I realized, because that big heavy son of a gun shot across the yard like a rocket, and even though it did completely slide off of the driveway like he wanted, it unfortunately kept on going another ten feet or so until it hit and came to rest upon; as my luck would have it... a water main, which shattered into several pieces and was immediately followed by the biggest gush of water that I think I have ever seen, even to this day.

If you thought he was in a bad mood before, you should have heard all the nice names he called me after that little episode. I thought about taking my hands and cupping them over my ears in preparation for what I imagined would be a hundred times more yelling and screaming than before the accident happened, however I could not use my hands to cover my ears because they were too busy trying to block the three foot wide gushing stream of water as it shot a good twenty feet high into the air.

I mean to tell you that this was almost as much water as a fire hydrant would shoot out if it were to be opened full blast. To make matters worse, nobody in the entire shop, including the owner, knew where the water main was, and there were several other offices attached to our building which belonged to other companies unrelated to us; at least until now. Unfortunately they were now deeply related to us in the flooding taking place.

Nobody could find the water main, and as we all searched frantically to no avail, the entire block began to resemble that of a man made lake. Water was flooding into not only our shop, but also the other people's shops and businesses as well. Lucky for me, I happened to be the one who found the water main first, which gave me a sort of hero status, which slightly eased some of the tension from the fact that I had caused the flood in the first place. I have to admit though, he never yelled at me like that again. Ever!

I bet you are finding all of this hard to believe, aren't you? Well I wish it were not true myself, I would probably be a millionaire, kicking back and enjoying the good life, if a little good luck had found its way to me; but I guess somebody has to bare the sins of mankind and be tortured, so that others will see just how pissed off God is! See; I told you that this book would not be boring.

Well, there were a couple more incidents that took place at that same workplace, as if the brakes on the forklift going out on me, or the great flood of "yours truly" weren't enough! One cold winter morning I arrived at work a few minutes till six, and clocked in to start work.

Right off the bat, the shop foreman hollered to me "Get in that big rig and fire it up! Make sure that you scrape all off that ice off of the windshield and all of the other windows so you can see where you are going when you drive it; and then I want you to back up to that trailer where the other employee will be standing, and when you back into the trailer he will lock the kingpin and attach the glad-hands so you will have brakes. After he hooks you up, I want you to pull the trailer around to the back of the shop so we can load a few more things up before it goes out to the job site."

He then looks at the other employee (names have been left out to protect the guilty, oh and also to protect me) and he hollers to him and says "Get over there and guide him back to the trailer, and when he backs into the trailer I want you to lock the kingpin in, and hook the glad-hands up for him so that he will have breaks!"

Well, needless to say, I get my freezing cold butt into an even colder cab, I start that baby up, and as it sits idling to warm up, I do just as I was instructed to do by the foreman and scrape the frosty ice off of the windshield and side windows. Next I attempt a quick scraping and wiping down of the rear window, so that I would be able to see as I backed up to attach the trailer.

The foreman hollers "Come on! Let's get a move on!" So at that, I tell the other employee to guide me back, especially since I did not have a chance to finish scraping the rest of the ice off of the back window. Next I put her in reverse and just as I was instructed to do; I backed up and connected to the trailer, the kingpin making its usual loud clanking noise as it locks into the trailer.

I look in my rearview mirror and see the other employee hooking up the glad-hands one at a time, and then my pigtail so that the trailer would have lights, of course. The foreman once again hollers in his usual impatient, and rather rude tone of voice "Come on, lets get going, pull that truck up here, I don't have all day!"

The trailer is really heavy, I mean heavy like you can't even imagine. We were building some huge gizmos for a rocket company that tests rocket engines like those in the space shuttle, rocket ships, and even the rockets satellites use when they are launched into outer space.

These things had a bottom steel plate that was two inches thick, solid steel, about four feet in circumference, and they were attached (welded) to eye beams, with saddles and quarter inch steel plates welded on each of them. There were ten of these huge things loaded on the flatbed trailer that I had just hooked up to, each weighing way over a thousand pounds.

I looked back at the other employee that the foreman told to guide me back; and lets not forget that while I warmed the truck up and scrapped the frost off of the windows, he was told to get ready to lock my trailer in as soon as I was connected to it, and I was looking to see if he was finished

Well, the other employee motions to me and hollers "O.K. Go!" So at that, I put that bad boy in to first gear and carefully began to drive that heavy load around to the back of the shop where we were going to load up a couple more items.

As luck would have it... my luck anyway (bad luck) as I slowed to a stop and applied the airbrakes, all of a sudden the truck jumps up like its popping popcorn, making a very, very loud banging and popping of a noise. Next thing I know, I look into my rearview mirror and see the front of the flatbed trailer jump out of the kingpin and up into the air, throwing some of the heavy beams and other parts here and there.

The very next thing that I hear is the shop foreman yelling and screaming at me! Now mind you, I was supposed to back the truck up to the trailer, at which point the other employee was supposed to lock the kingpin in and hook up the airbrakes (Glad-hands)

I was dumbfounded to say the least! I had obviously done exactly as I was instructed to do, it was the other employee who was told to lock the kingpin in position after I backed up to the trailer and connected them together, yet it was me that the foreman was cussing and yelling at once again.

He was cussing like a sailor that was refused his off shore leave, saying things like "You stupid S.O.B. I should kick your little ass! Look at all of the guys that were standing by this trailer, you could have killed one of them!" Then he says, "Walk away from me before I kick your stupid ass... I just might fire your stupid ass this time!"

For the life of me I cannot figure out why I am the one being yelled at, when it was the other employee who was put in charge of locking the kingpin assembly in after I backed up to the trailer and connected it to the truck. There is a latch that must be pushed into the locked position, which keeps the two from separating, or coming unhooked, and the other employee was told to lock it in when I backed up to the trailer and connected to it.

Those same two friends that I mentioned earlier, the ones that said I was the one at fault for the forklift accident, also said that I was the one wrong here as well, because as a truck driver, it was my duty to double check the other employee.

Let's keep in mind, first of all, that "I am not a truck driver!" I am a welder given the task of a truck driver. Second of all, if I had to get out of the truck and walk back to make sure the other employee locked the kingpin into position, then that would have been counter productive, seeing how the whole reason the foreman told the other employee to do all of that in the first place, was to save time and keep me from having to stop the truck, apply the airbrakes, get out of the truck, walk back to the trailer, hook things up, lock the kingpin in, and then walk back to the truck, release the air brakes, and so forth.

I guess the only way that I will ever know who is right (my friends and my boss, or me) is if you, my sympathetic readers, e-mail me with your opinions. I can tell you this much; my mom died of Multiple Sclerosis, and I have bad nerves just like she did, in fact her doctor thinks that I may have the disease as well.

There is one thing that I am pretty sure nobody can deny; the fact that it is wrong for a foreman, or any other boss for that matter, to yell and scream at an employee like that foreman yelled and screamed at me.

It would be different if it was only once in a while, but as you can see from just these few examples that I have given you, it was all of the time. And having bad nerves like I do, whether I have Multiple Sclerosis or not, the last thing that a foreman should do is yell and carry on like that all of the time, it just makes matters worse, because once my nerves start in, I get all shaky and have a hard time concentrating.

Now here is the kicker, and you are not going to believe this, but it is true! Ask anyone who knows me, people whom have known me for over twenty years, and they will tell you that I am the most honest person they have ever known. In fact they say that I am honest to a fault! Now there's one I don't recall reading about in the bible "Thou shall not be too honest, for if a man is too honest, he is honest to a fault and it is a sin!" Give me a break!

One day the shop foreman tells me to go out back and get a sheet of quarter inch thick steel diamond plate, and to cut it to such and such dimensions. As he gives me the dimensions I write them down exactly as he said, in my pocket notebook.

He says "This is the last sheet of metal that we have, so damn it make sure you cut it right. This job is a rush job and we can't get any more sheets of metal until Monday!" to which I reply with a voice of confidence, "Don't worry, I won't get it wrong!"

I go out back and drag the heavy sheet of metal to my work area, and then I turn on the oxygen and acetylene tanks that are connected to the cutting torch. Next I measured out the dimensions that he gave me and marked the metal to be cut with a piece of soapstone. These were dimensions that by the way, I wrote down on a sheet of paper in my pocket notebook right in from of him as he gave me the dimensions, as I said earlier.

I then double and even triple checked my measurements. I did actually triple check them myself, maybe even checked a forth time, knowing that it was the last sheet of steel and we couldn't get another sheet until next week.

I cut the big piece of metal that he wanted out of the sheet, which was just barely big enough to accomplish the task. Then I got my grinder and cleaned the edges up (rounded them up, thereby taking the sharp edges off of it) and then I took it over to him.

He immediately started yelling and screaming at me saying, "Damn it! I told you to cut it at such and such dimensions" I replied, "I did! I cut it at the exact dimensions that you gave me, look I even wrote them down as you gave them to me" as I showed him the piece of paper that I wrote the dimensions down on.

He grabbed the piece of paper from me, looked at the dimensions that I wrote down and said, "Damn it! That's not the dimensions that I gave you! Are you freaking stupid or what?"

He yelled at me and cursed me like a madman, saying, "Thanks a lot you freaking idiot! Now what am I supposed to tell the boss? Get the hell away from me before I kick your ass!" By the way he did not actually use the word "freaking", that is just a better word that I chose to use in place of his actual words, in case children happen to read this book, but you know what the word was I am sure.

As I walked away from him, I just lost it. I finally had all that I could take. I cut that piece of metal at the precise measurements that he gave me, and I knew it! There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. I mean, God as my witness, I wrote the measurements down exactly as he gave them to me.

As I walked away from him, I started yelling and cursing like I usually do when I am upset, and I started throwing my stuff around; like my measuring tape, and notepad. I walked out of the shop yelling and screaming, and carrying on.

The other shop foreman (there were two of them) came walking up to me saying "Calm down! It wasn't your fault, so calm down" to which I replied "Damn right it wasn't my fault! I wrote the measurements that he gave me down as he gave them to me, I know it was right!"

He says, "I know, he did that to you on purpose. He said that he thinks it's funny when you get mad at him and start throwing stuff around the shop and stomping around all pissed off. He said that he gave you the wrong dimensions on purpose!" I was shocked beyond belief; I literally could not believe what I was hearing.

The very thought of a shop foreman using his position of management to intentionally belittle an employee, accusing him of doing something wrong that he really did not do. Something that the shop foreman purposely caused him to do wrong, just for, as he would put it, "Shits and giggles" just makes me sick.

Keep in mind my medical condition and the fact that I have real bad nerves from either a bad childhood, or Multiple Sclerosis, whichever the case may be, and I am sure that you will agree with me that "There is nothing funny about that at all!" I found myself wondering that if he did this to me intentionally this time, how many times in the past was I set up by him as well?

How many accidents did I have as a result of him yelling and screaming at me for no reason at, for something that he knew I did not do, just for his amusement? Such as when he yelled and screamed at me that morning that I told you about when I was not even clocked in to start work, and as a result of his yelling and screaming at me, the water pipe got broke?

Screaming at an employee makes them nervous, and worries them, scares them to the point that they can't fully concentrate on the task at hand, and they begin to shake; or I did anyway, having such bad nerves as I did.

At that point an employee not only loses their concentration, but now you have embarrassed them, making them feel intimidated, and sometimes they even begin to believe that the person yelling at them is right, and that perhaps they are incompetent.

This causes an employee to begin to doubt themselves, they begin losing faith in themselves, and an employee that does not have faith in themselves can't help but do a poor job!

And that my friend is all thanks to the boss yelling and screaming at them, and belittling them in front of all of the other employees, much less doing it intentionally to an employee just because you think that it's funny when they get mad.

You should not even yell and curse at an employee who refuses to do a job that you tell them to do. If you ask someone to do something for you; a certain task or job, and he or she refuses; then perhaps you should take a step back and ask yourself; "Am I asking this person to do something that I myself would not do?"

This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons for retaliation from an employee that I have ever seen. When I became an assistant manager trainee at a local fast food restaurant many years ago; I would work with my employee's side by side, and help them get the job done.

I would jump in right beside them and help them get the job done no matter how hard, or how dirty the work was; rather than tell them to do a job that I did not want to do myself, and walk off leaving the job for them to do alone. Let's face it! All jobs have that one particular chore that we just hate to do; but somebody has to do it, why should it be someone else? Why not you?

In fact; if I caught myself taking the easy jobs, and giving someone else the jobs that I knew deep in my heart that I really did not want to do, and I knew that I was just pawning that job off on them that I hated to do, I would quickly put myself in check and go help that person do the job (if not do it by myself) and then the next time that it needed to be done, I would make myself do it as a form of self-discipline.

Why? Because I am an adult now and I no longer have parents to correct me. Should I do whatever I please (and/or don't please or want to do) since I am an adult now and can do whatever I want to do without worrying about the consequences? Of course not!

Being an adult comes with a lot of responsibility, and that is something that so many adults seem to forget (or overlook) these days; and it shows in the way that they carry themselves. I was once told to live every second, of every minute, of every day, as if the Lord God Almighty were standing right there beside me.

Think about this now, honestly! If God were standing right there beside me and he knew that I was pawning this particular chore off on someone else because I was being lazy and did not want to do that particular chore myself, what do you think that he would say to me or do? What do you think his punishment would be for me?

Exactly! He would probably make me do it myself, rather than let me be lazy and order somebody else to do it! One of the beautiful things about reading the bible is that as you read it more and more, you learn how God thinks and how he reacts to certain things.

So the answer is "Yes!" I do discipline myself as often as possible, so that by so doing, some day God can say to me "Well done!" Not only for God though, but for myself as well. Lord forbids that I become a lazy sluggard ordering others to do that which I myself had no desire to do. I have had bosses like that, and I have no desire to be such as them.

Anyway, to continue, I had one of the best crews ever! They were fast, efficient, and dedicated wholeheartedly. Why? Because I did not expect them to do anything that I would not do myself, and because I treated them with respect, therefore they respected me in return.

I remember a customer pulling up to the drive thru speaker that I was helping to run at the busiest time of the day, the lunch rush, and she said "Is your manager there?" To which I replied, "Yes ma'am, I am the manager on duty, what can I help you with?"

She replied, "Well you had better get out here quick because you have two employees out here yelling and screaming at each other and fighting over a clogged up toilet, and they are about to go at it!" I handed my headset to one of the other employees next to me and told them to take over for me a few minutes while I go out side to see what the heck was going on.

As I approached the men's restroom at the back of the building, which was right next to the drive thru, I seen all of our customers in the drive thru lane, watching all of the commotion going on. I heard two of my employees screaming and hollering at each other, not very nice words either, I might add.

I calmly said, "Hey boys, what's going on out here?" to which one of the newer employees replied, "The toilet in the men's rest room is clogged up, and we ran out of rubber gloves. This jerk is telling me to stick my hand in that nasty toilet and pull out that big wad of paper towels that some kids shoved down the neck of the toilet intentionally to clog it up!"

Before I could get a word in edgewise the other employee says to this employee, "That's right sucker, I have been here longer than you, so I have seniority over you and you have to do what ever I tell you too do!"

I shook my head in disappointment and glanced over at one of the customers in the drive through looking on and nodding his head in disbelief and I said, "Is that all that's wrong, somebody stuffed paper towels in the neck of the toilet?"

At that point, I looked down at the toilet which was over flowing, and I noticed the water was clean, as clear as it could possibly be, so I reached my hand down in the toilet, grabbed a hold of the huge wad of paper towels, and pulled the paper out, thus unclogging the toilet, and stopping it from overflowing and flooding the rest of the parking lot.

I could have told one of the employees to do this as I stood back and watched, but I did not want to pass the buck "so to speak" and tell them to do something that I did not want to do myself; and I never had two better employees after that

Why? Because by doing something that they did not want to do, and by not complaining or giving them a write up for refusing to do it, I humbled myself and did the dirty task without complaining, and they respected me from that day on, and even became problem solvers themselves.

You would be surprised at how many bosses would have made one of them reach in the toilet and pull that huge wad of paper towels out, saying something like, "Handle it!" or perhaps he would have wrote them up for refusing to do the task and fighting, or perhaps even fired them.

By the way, like I said, the water was clean. It turns out that some kids had intentionally taken paper towels and stuffed them in the neck of the toilet to plug it up as a joke or whatever purpose they may have had in mind, but I did wash my hands in sanitizer three or four times afterwards before going back in to the restaurant.

What do you think would have happened if I made that new employee do the task? If I had forced him to do this task himself, he would have resented me, and there would have been a wall of resentment between us from that point on, which would have interfered with his production on the job. What would you have done? Honestly!

Would you have sent that employee back in there telling him to figure it out and then went on about your business? Many would have to answer "Yes" to that question, and there is no telling how many precious minutes would have been wasted as he procrastinated doing the job, and possibly became upset at your lack of responsibility.

Or perhaps you would have sent another employee in to do the job, knowing that you yourself did not want to do it. Many people would have to answer "Yes" to this as well; they would have sent another employee out there to take care of it.

Sure, I could have rounded up another employee to do that job in which I knew deep down inside that I really did not want to do, but I knew that by me working side by side with this new employee, I was bringing myself down to his level, as an employee, just like him, no better, no worse! I showed him that even I, the boss, was not too good to do the dirty jobs myself.

Sometimes I had to be wise and use a little psychology on them too. For instance, late one night I wanted to clean the restaurant and go home and relax, and I overheard the employees talking about going out to a bar when they got off work and having a few drinks. Yet they were working slow, taking their time, and putting off the chores that they hated to do and telling others to do them, like mop the floors, and clean the restrooms.

I could hear some of the newer employees arguing with an employee who had been there longer than them, because those employees that had been there longer thought that the one or two months that they had been there longer than the new employee, gave them absolute seniority over the newer employees; when in fact it did not. When I sent my employees back there to do a job, it was as a team, that way nobody is the boss, they are equals, and should work together as such.

I, being wise, knew that they were young and wanted to go out that night and party after work, yet it was almost 10:30 P.M and they were not even half way done with their chores. So after I counted the registers, put the money in the safe, and did my chores, I called them together and said to them "Listen up people, I know that you all want to get out of here as soon as possible tonight, after all, its Friday night! So I am going to pitch in and help you! Let's see if we can get out of here by 11:00 P.M"

I pitched in and worked side by side with them, and we were out of there at 11:10 that night. The next morning the manager told me that she and the district manager were amazed at how spotless the place was and asked how my crew got out of there so early. She was totally amazed, and she said that on all previous nights, before I got there, the earliest they got out of the building was at 1:30 - 2:00 A.M in the morning.

My point being this, a true leader continually puts them self in check and works with his or her employees, thus bringing respect, unity, and a sense of loyalty to the work place. It is true! A happy employee is a good and productive employee.

Have you ever had an employee or perhaps even a friend ask you to let them do a certain job that nobody else wanted to do, and ask with an overabundance of enthusiasm? If so, then I think you will agree that this particular person did a much better job than anyone else could have done. Why? Because they wanted to do it, they wanted to impress you, and they wanted you to see their enthusiasm, and recognize their commitment.

All of your employees can be just as enthusiastic if you treat them with the respect and dignity that they deserve. Not just as an employee, but as a human being. A person trying that hard to be recognized is worth their weight in gold, because they will give it all they have.

I also made it a point to continually thank and praise my workers, so that they knew that they were important as a team member. I once knew a man that often prayed to God for help, but when God came through for him and answered his prayers, this person never prayed to thank God for the great miracles that he had worked in this man's life, and I told him that he should always thank anyone who helped him, especially God".

Have you ever had a friend ask you for your help, only to begin helping them and then all of a sudden they walk off leaving the entire task to you? And then to make matters worse, they never even said a simple thank you? What about those friends or family members who only seem to come around when they want something from you? How does this make you feel?

Then this, my good friend, is exactly how Jesus must have felt when he healed ten lepers only to have one come back and thank him. So when an employee or a friend, or even a family member for that matter, does a good job pitching in and helping you, let them know that you appreciate their hard work and effort.

Suppose that an employee or a friend asks you to let them do a task for you, or asks to help you with a particular task such as painting a house, fixing a car, or plumbing, and their whole heart is in it, but they make some kind of a mistake, or they break something on accident. What would you say to them? What would you do? Think of a similar incident in the past, what did you do? How did you react?

Some people become enraged and downright mean when you accidentally break something of theirs, or make a mistake. This can be devastating to a person, because you, the person that they so wholeheartedly tried to help, turned around and cursed at them or yelled at them for simply trying to help, and making a mistake.

How discouraging it can be to put your whole heart into something as an act of kindness, only to have it backfire on you like that. This can literally tear a person up inside, rip them apart mentally, and that is why when something like that happens to someone helping me, I simply say "That's o.k. You were only trying to help!" regardless of how mad I may feel myself becoming. I simply refuse to give in to my anger and give Satan the upper hand.

Be glad for a friend that is continually trying to help you from the bottom of their heart, for there is nothing better than a friend like that. Do not be a fool and let Satan turn such a good deed, into a disaster and ruin a good friendship.

I have been in that exact situation many times. I would offer to help a friend work on his car, do some yard work, or help them paint their house, things like that, and not only did they not act like they even appreciated it, but when I accidentally dropped a spot of paint somewhere they would blow up and curse me.

There is nothing like feeling unappreciated or abused. I remember one day when I was at my sister's house, drinking with my brother in law (this was in the days long ago when I was an alcoholic; not any more thank God) my brother in law was showing me all of the rifles in his rifle cabinet. He picked one of the rifles up and showed me how to do that old rifleman trick like it was done on T.V, and I asked if I could try it too.

My brother in law said, "Sure, go ahead and grab one of the rifles in the cabinet, they are not loaded" So I reached in and grabbed a rifle and when I flipped it down and back up, I was surprised by a loud "Boom!" The shotgun I was holding had went off and shot his brand new, one thousand dollar, solid oak television.

My brother in law did not even get mad. I was shocked! Even I would have been upset a little bit, as nice as I am, but not him. He just said, "Don't worry about it! It's only money...at least nobody got hurt!" and to this day I still respect guns, but I respect him even more.

Would I respect guns any more than I do now if he would have blown up at me and cursed at me and called me stupid? Of course not! I pray to be as wise and calm as he was that day, every time such a situation arises. If that would have been my oldest brother he would have hit me, yelled and cursed at me and probably never trusted me around his guns again. Not my brother in law, we still go out and shoot guns together.

I offered to buy him and my sister a new television of the same value, but he flat refused to let me. He knew that I did not make much money back then, so he bought the parts and fixed the television himself. That, my friend, is a great leadership quality. Not only did he show kindness, mercy and compassion, but he also put himself in my shoes, figuratively speaking, and he knew how bad I felt, and most important of all, he knew that as frightened as I was, I had learned my lesson, to be careful with guns.

When an employee, or even a friend or family member, makes an honest mistake, do not torture them over it, do not curse at them, or call them stupid and other kinds of belittling names, because other employee's or friends will follow your lead and begin treating them bad as well.

A lot of people would have gone ballistic and said "You owe me a new television; I want the money right now!" But he was kind, and wise, very, very wise. How would you have reacted? Would your reaction have made matters worse?

In Matthew 5:22 Jesus said "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Anyone who says 'you fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell" Do you call anyone stupid or a fool? If so, then beware! You are in danger of spending eternity in hell.

Have you ever been burned real badly? Imagine that pain, how much it hurt; now imagine it ten thousand times worse and never going away! No pain pills in Hell my friends! Scary isn't it?

So think twice before cursing an employee or a friend, especially over a silly, unintentional mistake. In Numbers 15:22-29 the Lord God Almighty himself said that anyone who commits an unintentional sin should be forgiven. It reads in the bible, "It shall be forgiven him or her, for it was done in ignorance!"

Now if the Lord God Almighty can forgive someone for making a mistake, or committing an unintentional sin, then so can we. It takes a bigger man to hold back his anger, and respond in kindness and wisdom, like my brother in law did.

In my case however, the foreman had absolutely no excuse to yell and scream at me, because I did not refuse to do the chore that he had given me to do, in fact; I had followed his instructions to the "T" so to speak.

It was the other employee that failed to do his task when the trailer became unattached in that one incident. He was the one told to lock the kingpin down after I backed into the trailer with the truck and hooked them together.

Had the foreman been patient and waited just two or three more minutes for both of us to finish the tasks that he had assigned us to do, rather than scream and yell, rushing us and making us nervous, then I assure you that the accident would more than likely have never occurred.

Had he not yelled and screamed at me for absolutely no reason at all that morning when he came to work in a bad mood, and made me angry, then I obviously would not have thrown that heavy piece of metal into a water main and broke it; that accident never would have happened either.

I apologize if I got a little off course here, but I just had to impress upon you readers, especially those of you with a position of leadership, authority, or even you parents, the importance of being kind and compassionate, as well as patient, when dealing with your employee's, or even a family member, and by doing so, in the end you will see not only a job well done, but a happier and more productive employee as well.

By the way, I realized a few minutes after walking away from that accident that I was telling you about with the truck and trailer, that the other employee was related to the other shop foreman, and in fact was his son. Now it makes sense why all of the blame was put on me. As for me, I walked off the job that day and never looked back!

That's right! I walked away from that job just a few seconds after the foreman yelling and screaming at me, never to return; and they, by taking the blame off of the other foreman's son and putting it on me, and falsely accusing me of being the one at fault, lost an employee doing the job of three employees, which cost them plenty of money when they undoubtedly had to hire three more workers to replace me

Well, enough of the preaching. I apologize if I strayed a little bit here, I must have got caught up in one of my preaching moments. You see, I have a couple of religious books that I wrote that were published, so I guess I was sort of breaking out into a preaching mode when it came to explaining my views on leadership, and the right and wrong way to treat employees.

By the way, the name of one of the religious books that I had published is "A Sermon to Remember" by Wayne Hoss, and it contains the chapter about leadership that you were just reading about titled "Leadership & Parenting". It can be downloaded at most book retailers online, I think you would enjoy that book as well.

### CHAPTER FOUR

A Cook and a Hooker

If I remember correctly, I promised to tell you the whole story about my love, which turned out to be a hooker. I bet that you can almost guess who introduced me to her, but just in case you can't, let's go back to the manager of the restaurant that refused to let me be a cook.

I figured there wasn't any sense in me staying there and letting her hold me back from accomplishing my goals, and I certainly had no intensions of staying on at her restaurant as a dishwasher, that would be counterproductive. If I wanted to become a cook, it was obvious that I was going to have to find a job at another restaurant to do so.

Needless to say, on my next day off I went to a few restaurants and put in an application for a cook position. There was this big truck stop in east Bakersfield that called me in for an interview, and as much as I hate to admit it, because I am a very honest person, I fibbed a little bit and told the woman managing the restaurant at the truck stop that I had been cooking for a couple of years.

Well, I was hired and told to show up at two o'clock in the afternoon the next day and be prepared to work. Finally! It was the break that I had been waiting for. I was so happy, but I was equally worried and concerned about my little lie. True, I had been cooking and training for the last five or six months at the other restaurant and I had cooked a couple full shifts as the other cooks watched on. That's all fine and dandy, but this restaurant was five times busier than that restaurant was, so I was concerned as to whether or not I would be able to handle such a busy place.

I showed up for work about twenty minutes early and the manager introduced me to the waitresses, the dishwashers, and the man who I was to be cooking with, the Kitchen Manager. At that point I was even more concerned, worried half to death, because not only did I have to prove that I could handle such a busy restaurant, but now I was going to be working with, and watched by, the head cook, who was at that time the Kitchen Manager.

Now I feared that he would be able to tell that I lied about my cooking experience, and that I might lose this job on my very first day of work.

As we walked around the kitchen, he showed me where all of the food was kept, things like hamburger patties, steaks, fish, and the location of all the other food, dishes, and cooking utensils that I would need throughout my shift as a cook. After about an hour of showing me around the kitchen and putting out a plate or two of food, we kicked back in the kitchen and started to chat.

This guy seemed really nice, so at that point I was starting to feel a little more comfortable, and was worrying a little less; thinking to myself that if I did not do a great job, or even if I did mess up when the dinner rush comes, he would probably be cool about it and give me a break.

The next thing that I know this man, the kitchen manager, pauses and asks me a question, he said "You smoke weed?" and even though I did not, and in fact had never even seen a real joint in my entire life, I wanted to fit in, and make this guy my friend, so I lied and said "Oh yeah!"

I was acting all cool, and said 'Yeah, my girlfriend and I smoke it all of the time!" He replied "Cool!" and then, before I knew what was going on, he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a joint, smiling as he showed it to me. Then he lit the joint up with a cigarette lighter and took a hit, after which he handed it to me. I was astonished that he would light up a joint right there in the kitchen, out of the view of the customers and waitresses of course.

However, I was even more perplexed by the situation that I had just got myself into with my big mouth. I had never in my entire life done any kind of drugs, I had never even taken a drink of alcohol, and now... here I was holding a joint and trying to figure out a way to get out of smoking it. I said "Oh no, I probably shouldn't, this is my first day here and even though I took a menu home and studied it all night, I wouldn't want to get high and blow it!"

He laughed and said "Relax man, I got you covered! I was only supposed to show you around the kitchen and watch you for a couple of hours, and if you were doing good, I was supposed to go home and leave you at the wheel to cook by yourself, but I am going to stay here and help you through the dinner rush!"

I replied, "O.K Cool, I appreciate it!" Then he pushes the joint, which is still in my hand, back towards me and says, "Go ahead bro!" I felt obligated to take a hit now, due to my big mouth and trying to fit in, so I took a hit, and then passed it back to him as I listened to him talk about the cook who I temporarily replaced.

He said the cook's dad had died, and the guy was really torn up about it, and that he needed to take two or three weeks off work to make preparations for the funeral and take care of business. He took another hit, and then handed the joint back to me, as he blew out a big puff of smoke and started talking again.

I took another hit, and then as I went to hand the joint back to him he caught me red handed and said, "Hey, wait a minute! Your not inhaling it... you are just sucking it into your cheeks and holding it in your mouth like a chipmunk!"

I had been caught trying to suck the smoke into my mouth and blow it back out, in an effort to avoid actually inhaling it, but he was more concerned about me wasting his weed than anything else. He said, "You have never really smoked weed before have you?" I smiled with a look of embarrassment on my face and said, "No, I have never smoked it before, I was just trying to fit in!"

He laughed and said, "Have you ever smoked cigarettes before?" and I replied "No, never!" He said "You are doing it all wrong! Here take the joint, and when you suck in on it, don't hold the smoke in your mouth, breath it into your lungs, sort of like when you walk outside and take a deep breath of fresh air and suck it deep into your lungs"

Just my luck! I thought that he knew I was intentionally faking taking hits, and so I figured that at least now I was busted and would not have to partake. However, he did not realize that I was faking it on purpose... he simply thought that I was inexperienced at smoking and did not know how to inhale the smoke.

I must admit, he was partially right. Now that he was so cool to me upon finding out that I had lied to him about smoking weed just to fit in, I was not about to let him down again; so I listened to his instructions, and then I followed through, this time inhaling the weed and holding the smoke in my lungs for a few seconds.

After we smoked about half of the joint, he put it out and put what was left of it in his shirt pocket. I must have looked ridiculous, because he started laughing at me and said "You should see the big smile on your face right now. You look like the joker in a batman movie!"

He continued to laugh, and then we were interrupted by a strange man walking into the kitchen, or... he was a stranger to me anyway, but he knew the kitchen manager real well. They shook hands, followed by a manly hug, and then the kitchen manager introduced him to me.

The kitchen manager looked at me and said, "This is the cook that I was telling you about! He is the cook that took a couple of weeks off of work, that's why you are here, to take his place until he comes back to work". The man shook hands with me and introduced himself. He then began to explain to me why he needed to take two or three weeks off of work, and told me that his dad had passed away.

I said, "Really man, I am sorry to hear that, I know that it must be really hard on you as well as the rest of the family" What really sucked was that the whole time I was talking to him, I could feel this huge, ear to ear grin on my face, and as hard as I tried to wipe that huge smile off of my face, I just couldn't seem to do it. How embarrassing! Here I am telling a man that I am sorry his dad passed away, and as I am saying it I have a big ear to ear grin on my face.

The dude stops talking and says, "You're stoned, aren't you?" The kitchen manager that smoked the joint with me laughed and said, "Yeah man, I got him stoned, and he's never smoked a joint before!" They both laughed for a second or two and then the other cook said, "Hey I want a hit!"

I let them partake alone this time, as I walked around the kitchen wiping down the grill and cleaning up a little bit. I noticed that we were a little low on pickles and a few other things in the kitchen, so in anticipation of a busy dinner rush, I began restocking, and filling the containers back up as full as I could get them, so that I would not run out of these things in the middle of a dinner rush.

Well, it wasn't even a half hour later when suddenly, people started pouring in the restaurant and giving the waitresses their orders. Now the moment had arrived that I was dreading, and was so worried about.

The kitchen manager said, "O.K. Buddy... lets see what you can do!" We had three tickets hanging on the wheel, the first order couldn't have been easier, and it was just a couple of hamburgers and fries. I immediately threw two hamburger patties down on the hot grill, followed by two sets of hamburger buns after I buttered them, and then I grabbed two plates and began setting them up with the condiments.

Off to a good start right? Not so much, because I was so stoned that I could not remember a simple setup plate for the hamburgers, which includes condiments such as lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, mayonnaise and onions.

The kitchen manager took over and kept handing the plates back to me saying "Hey... you forgot the onion" or pickle, or whichever condiment it was that I was forgetting. If the fact that I had never really cooked in a kitchen for two years wasn't apparent when I first got there, it was now. Of course the fact that he got me stoned didn't help any either.

Luckily the kitchen manager moved me aside and took over the dinner rush, which did not even slow down for almost two hours. Then finally, the orders slowed down to almost nothing, and I could tell that the buzz I got from smoking the weed had almost worn off, thank God.

Suddenly I see something that almost paralyzes me. It is the manager of the restaurant that hired me walking into the kitchen, and it was the first time that I had seen her since I arrived for my shift and now I wondered if she was there the whole time and seen me mess up.

She walks up to the kitchen manager and says, "Well, how did our new cook do tonight?" I was crushed to say the least, because not only had I let myself down, but I had let her down as well. Good thing I had not quit my other job yet.

All of a sudden I hear the best words that I have ever heard in my entire life, which I still think about to this very day. The kitchen manager replied to her and said, "Oh man! This dude kicked ass! He handled the entire rush all by himself while I sat back and watched!"

What an awesome thing he did for me. I have never forgotten those great words, and I never shall. What an awesome, unselfish thing he had just done. He could have said, "Well, not to good I am afraid", or even "He did okay!" but he really put me out there and secured my position as a cook.

Needless to say I never smoked weed at work ever again, and he knew not to offer me any after that. I later became the top cook in a matter of months, and when the kitchen manager was offered an excellent position at a local country club as a chef, they picked me to take his place as the kitchen manager.

Well, now that I am on the subject of the kitchen manager that got me stoned, you might as well know that he is the one I mentioned in the beginning of this book that introduced me to that woman that I did not know was a hooker.

During the course of working with him for the first couple of months, the kitchen manager and I became pretty good friends, and I hung out with him, his wife, and their son sometimes after work, or on our days off to play football, or basketball.

One day his wife's sister came over to visit them and I was infatuated with her beautiful smile and her accent as well. I asked him if he would introduce me to her and he says, "Yeah man, she'll go out with you. She told my wife that she seen you one day at the restaurant and she thinks that you are handsome...but just take her out and knock off a piece, don't get serious with her!"

I impatiently walked up to her and introduced myself, rather than waiting for him to introduce us, and then after talking for a little while I suggested that we all go out for something to eat, so we all went downtown to grab some good, hot, pizza.

As time went on we spent more and more time together, and before I knew it we were in love. I rented an apartment for the two of us, and she moved in. Things went really well for a while. It seemed like every time that I was behind the wheel of my brand new Z-28 Camaro, there she was in the passenger seat next to me, and we were always hand-in-hand.

Her family really liked me a lot too, especially her mom and dad, not to mention her brother and I became good friends as well. After we had been living together for about three months, I went down and bought her an engagement ring, and things were really looking up for me for the first time in my life.

Not only did I get the cook job that I wanted so bad, but within a few months of working there I became one of the top cooks, so when my friend (the kitchen manager) was offered a high paying job as a chef at a local country club, I was promoted to the position of Kitchen Manager.

It was much better pay, and I could see why. If one of the cooks called in sick at the last minute, or did not show up for work, since I was the kitchen manager, it was me that had to stay and pull a double shift, that is... if I could not find a cook to come in and take that persons place

There were many times that I had to do just that; and in fact, I remember one time that I even had to pull a triple shift, working twenty four hours straight. Man, I mean to tell you that was no picnic. Then one day I was feeling ill, coming down with the flu or something, so I had to find a cook to take over my shift and go home to get some rest.

I remember that day well; in fact, I remember that day a little better than I care to. You see, when I came home from work sick, as I opened the front door to our apartment and walked in to the living room, I was shocked to find my buddy, and best friend whom had introduced the love of my life to me, standing next to the couch counting a huge wad of bills.

I then looked over at the couch and noticed four strange men whom I had never seen before, sitting there impatiently, and there were two more strange men sitting on our love seat. I was informed by my buddy, that the love of my life, which I planned to marry and had just bought an engagement ring for, had a career of her own that I was not aware of, and that she was letting me pay all of the bills while she stashed money away like a squirrel stashes nuts.

What was that career? Well I already blew that surprise for you didn't I, in the beginning of this book, nonetheless I don't mind telling you that I was crushed; my heart literally fell to pieces. All right you quit laughing; that just isn't funny!

Granted that I am a lover, not a fighter, and the fact that (believe this or not, it is true!) I have never in my entire life cheated in a relationship, not once, even to this day; so yes I am an old fashioned guy, and I used to believe in the house with a white picked fence, that I would be coming home from work to every day to see my loving and faithful wife who was always there for me. Nobody ever told me that she would be there for everyone else too!

So, to make this painful story short, yes, she was a hooker. I bet you are wondering what my so-called "best friend" had to say about that. Well, he said "I'm sorry man; I told you when I introduced you to her to just get a piece, and not to fall in love with her!" At which point he said that if I would just act like everything was all right when she came out of our bedroom with her "John", that he would give me the six-hundred dollars in his hand.

He said "She really does love you man, and she wanted to ask you to be her pimp, but I told her that would not be a good idea, because I knew that you had just bought her that engagement ring" He went on to say, as he extended his hand with the cash in it out towards me, "Here man; there's six hundred dollars here, take it!"

I immediately pushed that wad of cash (six hundred dollars in bills) back at him and exclaimed, "Keep it; I don't want your filthy money!" Now you are probably just dieing to know what my next move was, right?

Well, even though I was a brown belt in martial arts at the time, and I probably thought that I could easily take all six of those guys out (yeah right!), the reason that I did not take a "Standing-T" position (as they call it in martial arts) and go into Bruce Lee mode was probably because not only did I not want to embarrass Bruce Lee, but more importantly; I did not want to trample all over the broken pieces of my heart scattered all over the carpet and finish crushing them!

As I have said continually throughout this book... "You haven't seen anything yet!" So lets move on to a few other incidents that occurred in my life. The next story is about my brother in law and how he went to a modern showdown with a gun in my defense

When I was about nineteen years old, I had met some new friends, or should I say acquaintances, through some other friends of mine. I hardly even remember them, I only seen them a couple of times at my friends house, and had not seen them for a couple of months since meeting them.

One day I came home from work at about two o'clock in the after noon from that same cook job at the truck stop that I mentioned earlier. Upon walking up to my apartment I was stopped by a couple of neighbors and one of them said, "Dude, you are so lucky that you were at work today, because some guy came over pissed off at you with a gun and he was going to shoot you!"

I said, "What?" with a smirk of disbelief, and then the girl with my neighbor said, "Man, you are so lucky that your brother in law loves you. Some guy that we do not even know came walking up and said that another guy was right behind him, and the guy went home to get his gun, and then he was coming over here to shoot you!"

I replied, "No they didn't, you are full of it!" thinking that they were just messing with me. She went on talking and said, "No I'm not kidding its true!" Then her boyfriend (my neighbor) chimed in and said, "No dude, she's not kidding, this really did happen today!"

She looks at me as she nods here head with him in agreement and says, "Your brother in law was here visiting your sister, and he went to his truck to get his gun, then told the guy as he showed him the gun, "You are not going to shoot anybody, especially my brother in law! What is this all about?"

The guy replies, "You're stupid, you better not get involved, my friend will shoot you, he isn't kidding!" To which your brother in law replied, "Well bring it on! I'm right here!" She went on to say that the guy just gave my brother in law a dirty look, and as he turned around to go back and get his friend, he looked back saying "All right, I'm going back to catch up with my friend, we will be right back, and he is going to blow your ass away!"

She laughs and says, "Your brother in law was not even intimidated one little bit, he just laughed at the guy and said, "Yeah, whatever asshole! Tell him to meet me behind the apartments here, at the aqua duct" and your brother in law just laughed at him!"

Her boyfriend smiles and says, "Dude your brother in law was not scared at all, he walked back here to the aqua duct, and waited for them to return!" Now that I realize they are not putting me on, or joking around, I say, "Did they come back?"

He replies, "Yes, they came back with four or five people. It was just like in a western movie when two guys face off with guns! Anyway, they started walking towards each other with the guns drawn on each other, and we stayed back out of the way after we seen his friends back off so that they wouldn't get hit with a stray bullet"

I said, "What happened? What was this all about?" to which he replied, "We don't know what it was all about, the two of them started talking when your brother in law asked him what it was all about, and we could not hear what the other dude said because he was about fifty feet away, but what ever it was, your brother in law told him, "Bullshit. My brother in law is the most honest person that I have ever met in my life; I guarantee he didn't do it!" as he raised the gun"

She chimes back in and says, "Yeah, and after they talked for a little while they shook hands and parted ways. Your brother in law said he was going to the bar to drink some beer, and never did tell us what it was all about!"

I said, "Where does this guy live?" When she told me who he was and where he lived I said, "I am going to sort this out right now! That is bull crap, him pulling a gun on brother in law for something that I did not even do, I don't even know the guy, but I am going to his house right now and getting to the bottom of this!"

Her boyfriend warns me, "I wouldn't if I were you dude, a friend of mine lives down the street from him, and he told me just about a half hour ago, that the guy was home and there were about four or five of his buddies over at his house with him, and they were all drinking and talking about coming down here to get you! I wouldn't go alone dude!"

I said, "Well I am going, I don't care, I am going to get to the bottom of this right now! Want to come with me?" He replied "Hell no! If you are going over there you are crazy, you don't even have a gun!" and I said as I turned and started walking away, "I will be back in a little while"

She said, "Really man, this is crazy, you shouldn't go over there right now, just kick back and relax, it will blow over!" I just kept on walking and ignored her warning, and then I heard her say to her boyfriend, "You'd better go with him honey, he is going to get himself killed!"

Needless to say that he did not go with me and that is all right, I probably would not have let him go with me anyway, because I do not like dragging other people in on my problems. As I walked up to the house everything seemed to be pretty quiet, but I remembered what they told me about four or five of that guys friends being at his house just a half hour earlier.

You can bet that I was nervous and slightly afraid as well, but I have always been the type of person to confront my fears head on. I believe that too many people gossip, and too few every really try to find out the truth. I knocked on the door and I heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

A man that I did not know answered the door, he was a pretty big man, but I stood firm and told him who I was. Luckily, he responded with these words, "Oh hi, it's nice to meet you!" as he reached out to shake my hand.

I shook hands with him, and then he proceeded to explain to me how sorry he was and he said that one of his neighbors came to his house a couple of hours before I got there and told him the truth. Apparently, someone had siphoned a full tank of gas out of his truck, and when he went around trying to find out who did it, some guy had told him that he seen me do it. It turned out to be the guy that I mentioned earlier that I barely knew, and had only met a couple of times at another friend's house.

He said, "Man I am so sorry about all of this drama, and tell your brother in law that I apologize to him as well. When I find that punk I am going to beat him half to death for lying to me, and then the other half for stealing the gas out of my truck." I never heard anything else about it after that, but I would imagine he caught up with that liar and taught him a lesson on the importance of telling the truth.

I think that I will get to the really juicy stuff now, even though it pains me to have to rethink the past, but you are my reader, and you deserve my best. Now I will tell you about this young woman that I met through another friend, and fell in love with. That did not turn out very well for me either, but at least she was not a hooker.

### CHAPTER FIVE

Worse Than a Shot Gun Wedding!

One day I was out drinking with a friend and he told me that his girlfriends sister had heard a lot of good things about me and that she wanted to meet me, so that night we drove to where she lived and picked her up, then went out to the river to drink and kick back.

She and I got along really well. So well in fact, that I dated her on several occasions. As time went on we got along great, so I started seeing her on a full time basis. One day we got into an argument over her flirting with one of my friends, which she was known to do quite often, and she was mad because I confronted her about it on the way home.

As I drove up to her house to drop her off, I stopped and said "O.k. Lets not fight" then my girlfriend opened the door and made some smart remark like "I'll flirt with and sleep with who ever I want to!" she then hops out of the car and slams my passenger car door so hard that it literally shatters the window into hundreds of little pieces.

Seeing what she did, she took off running into the house and hollering for her dad. I shut the car off, took my keys out of the ignition, and then took chase after her to tell her that she was going to replace my window, but as I got to the front porch, her dad came out wielding a hatchet at me and said "Stop right there, or I will split your head wide open!"

I just kept on going and said, "Do what you have to, but she shattered the window in my car and I want to talk to her!" I just walked right past him and. he obviously did not split my head wide open, or you would not be reading this book right now.

We talked in the bedroom for a little while and patched things up, and then I went on home that night after kissing her goodbye. After all, I am a fair man, and the car doors on a Trans-Am are rather long and quite heavy, therefore if you just shut them a little hard, the windows have been known to break. Much less slam them as hard as she did.

As time went on, we got real close. I would take her and her daughter out to the park a couple of times a week; take them out to dinner, or what ever it was that we decided to do. I even took her to Las Vegas with my family, and a few places like that.

Since we were getting to be so close to each other and getting along so well, she asked me to move in with her, so after giving it some thought, I moved out of my place and moved in with her. In fact; not only were my girlfriend and I growing close to each other, but her daughter and I had become so close that she started calling me "Daddy"

We dated for a long time without any further incidents. I remember her favorite things like Black Hills Gold jewelry, as well as her two most favorite things after that which was unicorns and Pegasus, so I constantly bought her Black Hills Gold rings and other jewelry every single payday. I loved treating her to nice things like that, as well as expensive glass figurines from the mall shaped like unicorns, and of course the Pegasus Horse.

Perhaps I was, at that age, a little too old fashioned and too honest as well, like some people had said that I was. Her sister asked me to sleep with her several times, and after a while she didn't let up, so rather than giving in like most men, I finally told my girlfriend.

When my girlfriend told her sister to stop hitting on me, I thought from that point on she would hate my guts for telling on her, and quit asking me to sleep with her. However, that plan pretty much backfired on me when she walked up to me while I was outside washing my car and said, "You think that I am going to give up on you? I am not mad at you at all, because I have never seen such an honest man in my entire life and that just made me want you more!"

Let me tell you folks something, if I could turn back the clock and go back in time, I definitely would have played that whole scenario out differently. Oh, don't get me wrong, I would still be honest and not cheat on my girlfriend, but knowing what I know now, and how it turned out between her and I, I definitely think that I should have left my girlfriend for her sister now.

As good as we were getting along, I could tell that for a couple of days there was something weighing heavy on her mind, so I asked her if she needed to talk, and she started crying. She said that her first husband had started calling her every day for the past week and that he was begging her to come back to him.

I loved her with all of my heart, she was an excellent cook; the best I was ever with, even to this day. When I came home from work there was always a meal waiting on the table fresh and hot. I mean a real meal, like my mom and grandma used to make; like meatloaf and mashed potatoes, green beans, etc. Not only that, but she was great at hemming my pants, and kept an immaculate house. To this day, I have not found a woman that even comes close to being as magnificent as she was.

However, even though I did love her, I knew that he was the father of her daughter, and after giving it a couple of minutes thought, I said "Well, you wouldn't be crying if he did not mean anything to you, and as hard as this is for me to say... go back to him, and if things work out between you, then so be it, and if not I will still be here for you!"

I guess I was thinking of an old saying that I always admired, which is "If you love something, set it free! If it comes back to you, then it is yours... and if it does not, then it never was!" She replied "But I love you! Besides that, all of my friends want you, and if things don't work out with him, when I come back here you will be taken by one of my friends or sisters!"

I said, "No I won't, I promise. I will give you two months to make up your mind, but after that, I will start dating again" Then I went on to say, "This is one of the hardest decisions that I have ever had to make in my entire life, but if you don't go, then he will always be on your mind, and you will always wonder if you made the right choice"

She replied, "I know" Then I asked her the big question, I said, "Do you still love him? I'm sure that you must or you would not be crying!" She said, "Yes, of course I do, he was my very first love, and he is my daughters father as well, so I feel like for our daughters sake, I should give him one more chance. But I love you too; I don't know what to do!"

I said, "I do! I am going down to the bus station tomorrow during my lunch break and buy you and your daughter two round trip tickets, in case you do decide to come back, and you will go tomorrow night. That is the only way to do this. I want you to be sure about us, and as long as he is in the picture, you never will be!" She cried and said "O.K. But you better not date any of my friends, because all of them want you!" I laughed and replied, "I won't"

True to my word, the next afternoon I bought the two round trip tickets and sent her on her way. I must admit; I was brave and trying to keep a level head and do what I felt was the right thing to do, but on the inside it was tearing me up, as if a tornado were inside of me and thrashing my heart with tree limbs and other debris. In fact, about thirty minutes after they left, I went to my sister's house and told her and my brother in law what happened, and I broke down in tears for a few minutes.

My sister said that I handled it the right way and that she was proud of me, but my brother in law said, "You're stupid! You'll never see her again!" Well, I do not mind telling you that in a big way, I felt he was right, yet so was my sister, I think that I did handle it the right way.

As I sat on my sister's couch talking to my brother in law and drinking a beer, the phone rang, and my sister said, "It's for you!" I took the call and it was her, wanting to turn around and come back home.

As good as that made me feel inside, I knew what I had to do; so I said "Honey, if you turn back now, you will always wonder if you made the right decision, and it will be like a wedge between us. You have to go, that way you can truly be sure which of us you really do want!"

After talking to her for a few minutes, she agreed that I was right, so she continued on her journey. Well, life went on for about a week and a half without a word from her, and then one day she called me at work crying and told me that she wants to come home. She said that her husband was making her sleep with his friends, and that he beat her up and gave her a black eye. I told her to get right back here.

Honestly, no matter how things turned out for us in the end, it was not a mistake getting her back here and away from a man that beats her. My mom was beat by my real dad and my step dad, not to mention the fact that they beat us as well, so I do not believe in hitting a woman. Therefore, it was the right thing to do, to get her back here at home in the same town as her family.

You are probably wondering just how things did turn out between us after that, so I will tell you. About a day of being back with me she told me that she should have known how it was going to turn out, because he beat her in the past as well. I was upset with her, I said, "If you would have told me that, I never would have let you go!" She replied, "I know, that's why I never told you!"

A few months after she came back, she told me that when she left him the first time, a year or two before she met me, she started divorce papers, and that now the divorce was final. So she immediately asked me to marry her, to which I replied, "We'll have to wait and see how things go" Because by that point I had already found out about her cheating on me a couple of times, not to mention a few other terrible things that she had done to me since coming back.

Well, to make matters worse, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I had not been circumcised as a child, and about two months after she came back, I got such a bad infection that the doctor said I had to get circumcised. Since I lived with her again, I figured this was probably the best time to do it... at least I will have her at home to take care of me.

So I went to the hospital and got snipped. Now let me tell all of you out there something; you can tell me all you want to that when a baby gets circumcised they do not feel the pain, but I do not believe it for one second. When they shook me and woke me up in the recovery room, I immediately felt pain down there unlike any kind of pain that I have ever felt before. I have had broken bones, hernias, burns, cuts, just about every kind of pain there is, but this was worse than anything I have ever felt in my life, up to that point anyway.

As I was saying, when they woke me up in the recovery room, the pain was so bad that I grabbed my crotch and started screaming "Oh my penis, it freaking hurts!" and that's the way I had to word it to be able to put it in this book; I could not risk putting the words that I actually used in this book, but I would imagine that you get the idea! I kept screaming it over and over again, "Oh my penis, it freaking hurts!"... "Oh my penis, it freaking hurts!"

The nurse exclaimed, "Sir, calm down! This is a recovery room, and you need to quit screaming!" To which I replied, "I don't care, I can't help it, my penis freaking hurts!" She said "I know it hurts, but there are other people in here recovering, and if you do not quiet down, you will have to leave the hospital!" To which I replied "Oh my penis, it freaking hurts!"... "Oh my penis, it freaking hurts!"

Well they rolled me out of the recovery room, and left me in the hallway. It was not too long after wheeling me out to the hallway, that they realized they had better give me something for the pain. After they gave me something for the pain they got me out of there as quick as they possibly could.

When we got home she let me go in to the bedroom and lay down for a couple of hours, and then she told me "Honey, I just talked to a minister on the phone and he said if we drive to his apartment he will marry us right now!"

I did a double take, almost like you see them do in the cartoons as I shook my head back and forth quickly and said "Say what?" She said, "Yeah, he said he will marry us right now real cheap!" I replied "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

Again, those are not the exact words that I used, but I can't put the real words in this book or I'll get in trouble. Then I said, "I just had surgery, you must be out of your freaking mind!" She said "Please! Please honey! I love you! I want to get married right now!"

Well, I must have fought and argued with her a good hour or two, but I was in so much pain and suffering, I finally gave in, because I needed rest after having surgery, and it was real obvious that I was not going to get any rest until I agreed.

I was in so much pain, I did not care what it took, I just had to take some pain pills and get some rest. Oh yeah, guess who was holding the prescription for my pain pills in her hand the whole time? You guessed it. She was!

When we got to the ministers apartment, he took the money she handed him, and somewhere in the part when he asks "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" I could not lie, I grabbed my crotch and replied "Hell no I don't, but I just had surgery on my little guy, I am in so much pain its unimaginable, and she won't let me rest, or get my prescription for pain filled until I do this!"

At that point, I figured it was all over. I just knew he was going to say something like "I can't go ahead with this marriage. It would be wrong to marry you two in the name of God, knowing that he really does not want to marry you right now!" and I figured when he said that, she would not be able to find another minister to do it for at least a couple of days, and by then I knew that I would be feeling good enough to put up a good fight! But to my amazement, he married us!

Well, I finally got home, she went to the pharmacy and got my pain pills, and after taking about four of them (yes... I know that you are only supposed to take two) I finally was able to lie down and get some sleep. I slept all through the night, most of the morning too!

Later on that day, she had me on the couch watching television with her and she said, "Let me see it! Does it still hurt?" I said, "No, not nearly as bad as it did yesterday. In fact it does not hurt much at all!"

Boy was that a mistake! She started fondling my... well you get the picture. Sorry to cut that part short, but what can I say, there may be a kid or two reading this book for all I know, so I figure I had better keep it as clean, yet truthful, as possible.

She kept it up for a few minutes, and all of a sudden my penis was miraculously cured and standing tall, like a soldier ready for battle! She said "Come on honey, lets do it!" to which I replied, "Are you freaking nuts? The doctor said no sex for a week or two at the very least! If you were to rip my stitches out I would have to go through all of that pain and suffering all over again!"

Needless to say, her and that little soldier got their way! Yes, that's right! She once again got her way... somewhere between her saying "Come on honey, we are married now, we have to have sex" and my penis saying, "Hell, I'm game!" O.K maybe my penis did not really say that, but he might as well have!

On the up side, things turned out better than I expected, she only ripped two of the stitches out; but that worried me for a few days. It looked a little funny where the two stitches ripped, so I gave my penis a new name; my penis's new name was "Franken-Penis!"

Earlier I said that if I knew how things were going to turn out, I would have traded her in for her sister, do you see why now? Oh wait, it gets better! Why do I say that? Well, here are just a few of the things that she put me through within the next couple of months.

My wife was by her own admission was a nymphomaniac, and perhaps that should have been my first clue that things would never work out between us, but I have to admit the sex was undoubtedly the best that I have ever had, even to this day.

There was one exception to that statement that I just made about the sex being great, on one particular night anyway. Well actually... the sex was great that night too! However, I made the very big mistake of letting her talk me into wearing a pair of handcuffs and then letting her handcuff me to the wrought iron steel headboard.

As I was saying, the sex was great, but when we finished having intercourse she refused to un-cuff me from the headboard, and said that she would take the handcuffs off of me after she went to the bathroom real quick. A couple of minutes later I heard my recently purchased Trans-Am start up and drive off, squelching the tires as the music played loud, but not so loud that I couldn't hear the sound of my engine quickly fading away.

It took me about an hour and a half to get free from that headboard, but after I did, I called everyone that I could think of searching for her. I was too embarrassed to call her parents and tell them what she had done, so I called a friend and had him call them asking if they had seen her.

Here is the kicker; when she came back a little after midnight, she was furious with me for tearing apart her grandmother's wrought iron headboard. I said wait a minute, don't even try to turn this around on me, you know darn well that I am very claustrophobic, so you never should have cuffed me to her headboard and left me like that in the first place.

I bet you would like to know where she went, right? Well you my friend are not alone, because so would I! She claimed that she picked her sister up and then took my car to cruise the downtown strip. Yeah I bet it wasn't the only strip that night.

She was gone a very long time, and when a good looking woman like my wife hits Chester Avenue cruising in a nice car like that, she is scooped up quicker than a trout on a fly rig. That being said, I could almost guarantee that she did more than just cruise the streets, because I know my x-wife and you can bet dollars to doughnuts that cruising downtown was the least of her sins.

Well, knowing how mad that I was about being handcuffed to the bed and left in that embarrassing predicament while she took of in my car having a good time, she cooled it for a few days. We talked here and there, and I eventually moved back in with her. Talk about a glutton for punishment.

There are some mountains in Bakersfield California where we used to go to hang out and drink a few beers, and one night when my wife and I were drinking, she kept insisting that we go out there to kick it for a while, like we had done so many times in the past.

I really did not feel much like going anywhere or doing much of anything because I had put in twelve hours at the shop that day welding; not to mention the fact that I knew I had to get up real early in morning and return to work for another twelve hour shift.

Even though I really did not feel like going out there to the mountains, I finally gave in to her persistence, and gathered up some drinks and snacks and then we drove out there. We were only there for about fifteen minutes, when suddenly, and for absolutely no apparent reason at all, she unexpectedly started moaning and groaning about anything and everything that she could think of.

It became obvious that she was intentionally trying to start a fight between the two of us, though for the life of me I could not understand why. I finally just sat behind the steering wheel of my car, slid the key into the ignition, and started the car, so that I could run the heater because it was freezing cold out there, and this was in the wintertime.

She took a small blanket out of the back seat, which I had not even noticed until that very second, and then she walked about fifty yards out to the top of the hill and spread it out nice and neat. After that, as if nothing happened at all, almost like a different personality popped out of her, the sweet woman that I knew inside of her started being nice and calling me to come join her on the blanket.

I turned the car off, leaving the keys in the ignition so that we could listen to the car stereo, which was full blast and playing one of my favorite songs. I walked over there and she started kissing me and being the sweet, loving wife that I remembered marrying.

She says, "You didn't bring all of the wine!" I showed her two of the three bottles that I carried over there, but she said that she wanted the other kind, the other bottle. I told her that it was the exact same bottle of wine as one of the two that I had carried up with me, but she would not listen to me.

She stood up and said "That's o.k. Honey, I will go and get it out of the car... go ahead and pour yourself a glass of wine" after which she turned and started walking towards the car. I poured my glass of wine, and knowing that she wanted a different kind of wine from the bottle that she went to get out of the car, I put the cap back on the bottle, set it down and took a couple of sips from my glass.

All of a sudden I heard her start my car, so I figured that she was trying to warm up by turning on the heater as I hollered "Babe, bring both of our jackets would you... I am getting pretty cold myself" I looked up at the sky admiring the stars and I realized there were a bunch of dark clouds moving in at a fairly good pace.

Just then, I heard my car door close, so I figured she was getting ready to join me again, until all of a sudden she drives away as fast as she can, leaving me in the freezing cold mountains, without a jacket, phone, or anything but the two bottles of wine and my glass.

At first I thought she was just messing with me and joking around, because we did joke around a lot; but as I watched on, she just kept going and going. I realized that she really did, as hard as I found it to believe, leave me alone in the freezing cold mountains, miles away from a house or farm, much less a phone.

I sat there in the silence of the night, listening to crickets and shivering from the freezing cold, waiting for her to return, thinking to my self "Surely she will be back, she can't be that cold hearted" Almost three hours had passed as midnight approached and I knew that she was not coming back for me after all, and knowing that I had to be at work in six hours I started walking towards home.

There was an overcast of dark clouds up in the sky that pretty much blocked out most of the moonlight trying to squeeze through, making it so dark that as I walked, I could not really see more than a couple of feet ahead of me. Before I took off walking I thought about wrapping myself up in that blanket that she sat out for us, but it was too small and wet from the moisture on the grass.

The ground that I was walking on was rough, full of big and little rocks, as well as plenty of twigs and other things to stumble over. As if those obstacles weren't enough to hinder a man in the dark, the good lord threw in a few gopher, snake, and rabbit holes to trip over as well.

Despite all of those obstacles, and the freezing cold fog that decided to join the party, I walked and walked; freezing my rear end off, and then it started raining. What's that? Did I hear you think, "Oh my God, the poor guy really does have the worst luck that I have ever seen"?

I cursed up a storm. Perhaps I wanted my storm, to combat this storm... heck I don't know why I cursed up a storm; there wasn't anybody there to hear it! However, given the situation that I was cold heartedly thrown in to, cursing seemed to help make me feel a little bit better. Maybe that's because it seemed to scare the coyotes enough to keep them at bay.

I continued walking towards home, which was about twenty miles away, and then to make matters even worse, I slipped on a real slippery, muddy slope, and slid on my ass right into a huge puddle of muddy water.

Now I am soaking wet, walking in the freezing cold, rain pouring down on me, and the only sound to be heard for miles, besides that of the coyotes howling and the crickets, was the squish squashy noise that my feet were making as I walked in my soaking wet shoes and socks.

I stopped and said a prayer, asking God to put guilt and condemnation in my wife's heart, and make her come back with my car and get me. It was so cold by now, around one-thirty in the morning, that some of the thinner puddles of water had turned into frozen ponds, like miniature ice skating rinks, but no skaters out here.

I walked and walked, and walked, making it a point to keep my now purple and blue hands in my wet pockets, as if that was going to warm them up or something. I finally made it to a farm house, and walked up to knock on the door, but I just could not bring myself to wake these poor people up that early in the morning.

I turned back down the driveway and continued on my journey, and then as my bad luck would have it, it stopped raining, but instead started pouring buckets of water on me, or as my parents would put it, "It was raining cats and dogs!" That would have been better; at least the cats and dogs would have kept me warm. As I continued walking I started thinking to myself "Surely now that it is raining even harder than it was before, she will come back and get me!" but she did not.

I was sick, half-frozen to death, and late for work as I finally made it back into town and walked to my brother in laws house. After making a few calls to her sisters, I found out that she had again stolen my Trans-Am to go party with some other guy that she had recently met through a friend, using my car to show off and say was hers.

You would think that I would have learned my lesson after that, and I did leave her by the way, but it was not long before she sweet-talked me into coming back and giving her another chance. I was a glutton for punishment I guess... or a fool in love.

Well that all finally came to an end after she pulled this next rotten trick on me; read on and be thankful that your life does not suck such as mine. Like I said, "Somebody has to bare the sins of mankind and be tortured, so that others will see how pissed off God is, so it might as well be me; better me than my family or my readers!"

My family and friends kept asking me what it was going to take for me to wise up and get away from her before she did something worse to me, or killed me. I know that this question alone kept my poor mother awake for many nights. Well, it finally reached its peak and came to an end. You see, my wife and I went to visit her other sister who lived in California by a naval base, and as a matter of fact; her sister's boyfriend was in the navy.

My wife and I visited her for a couple of hours, and then as I sat and watched a show on the television set, my wife walked up to me and asked for my car keys, saying that she was going to give her sister a ride down to the naval base to see her boyfriend.

At first I was reluctant, but since her sister was going to be with her, and I had a lot of faith in her sister. I could really see a lot of good in her, which often made me wonder if she really was related to that wicked witch that I was dumb enough to marry.

So, having a lot of faith in her sister, I politely handed my wife the keys, then she said thank you and kissed me goodbye; saying that they would be back in a couple of hours.

After three hours had passed by, I began to worry, mostly due to the fact that my wife had done a lot of cheating on me in the past, not to mention the other cold hearted and evil things. However, since she was with her sister, I kept reassuring myself that I had nothing to worry about.

Finally about an hour later, my wife and her sister came walking in and her sister said "Sorry that it took so long, but we have not seen each other for a long time because he was out on a submarine for a few months." I replied "Oh, that's o.k. I wasn't sweating you!" My wife went directly in to the bathroom without saying a word to me, so of course I assumed that she had to go to the restroom really bad.

As I watched television, my wife came out of the bathroom, walked into her sister's bedroom, and disappeared. I sat watching television for about another half hour and couldn't help but wonder what they were talking about, because at times it sounded as if they were arguing, and their voices got a little loud occasionally.

Next thing that I know there was a knock at the door and my wife hollered out to me "Would you get that honey; my sisters busy!" To which I replied "Sure!" I walked over to the door and opened it only to be surprised by two police officers standing there peering at me and one of them said to me "Are you Wayne?"

I was stunned and confused at this question, since I lived hundreds of miles away and did not know anyone in the town, other than my wife's sister, I replied, "Yes I am!" The officer that asked me the question grabbed a hold of me, spinning me around, and threw me hard into the door jam as he put my arms behind my back and starts putting handcuffs on me.

He says, "You are under arrest for spousal abuse!" Shocked and even more confused, I called out to my wife as the officers began walking me downstairs to the squad car, which is parked in the street close to the bottom of the steps, but there was no reply. I hollered her name again; even louder this time but there was no reply. Then I holler out her sister's name and the officer tells me to shut the hell up.

He was being as rough to me as he possibly could be. Intentionally pushing me in to the concrete wall and smearing my face in it as we walked. It scratched my face up real bad, as well as my arms. He was tossing me back and forth, pulling hard on my arms and saying things like "So, a tough guy huh? Like to hit women do you?"

I was compliant but still confused, as I continually told the officers that I did not know what they were talking about, and told them repeatedly that I had not done anything wrong. He said "Don't lie to us, your wife called us from the bedroom, we know everything!" and then after he opened the back door of the squad car, he purposely rammed my head into the top of the door jam of the car.

Then as he was getting ready to close the door and saying, "Aren't so tuff now are you?" before he had a chance to close the door, my wife's sister came running down the steps yelling, "Stop, he isn't lying, he did not do anything to her!"

When she made it to the bottom of the steps, she explained to them that my wife had lied to them. She said, "They were not really arguing, and have not really been in a fight for that matter" She went on to say, "The truth is that my sister, Wayne's wife, and him have not even talked to each other since her and I got back from the naval base".

She went on to tell them that my wife went with her to the naval base and after flirting with one of her boyfriends fellow shipmates, my wife told the guys that they would be back in a couple of hours. She told the officers "My sister said that the guy she just met did not have a car to come pick us up in, so my sister decided to call you guys and claim that Wayne had hit her and beat her up, so that he would get arrested, and she could keep the car to go pick the guys up in"

The cop apologized as he took me out of the car and unhand cuffed me. I hugged her sister, who was crying by now and I said, "Thank you, I will never forget this!" She said, "I am sorry, I had nothing to do with this!" as she handed me my car keys and said, "I snuck them out of her purse!"

I again said "Thank you!" took my keys, walked over to my Trans-Am, and began unlocking my car door, when I once again heard one of the officers in the background apologize to me. I got into my car without saying a word and drove home.

If I had it to do again, I would have pressed charges against her for making a false statement, false arrest, and anything else that the law would allow. One thing that I most certainly will never forget as long as I live is her sister's honesty, and loyalty.

I realize that she would most certainly catch all kinds of hell from her sister (my wife) for telling the truth and foiling her plan, and even more importantly, I do realize that it must have been even harder to betray her own sister and do the right thing, and for that brave and righteous act I ask that God greatly bless her. I have but one regret, and that is the fact that I never got a chance to say "Thank you!" to her under less stressful circumstances and to tell her exactly how much it meant to me, and how very proud of her I was.

Well, lets move on to some less gloomy incidents. In fact, I imagine that you will love the next few pages and laugh a bit, undoubtedly. Because even I still laughed as I reminisced deep into my past just to pull out a few more juicy tidbits for you, my loyal readers.

So, let's continue our journey... shall we?

### CHAPTER SIX

Call Us Crazy

You have seen all of the crazy movies about two guys who are pals and doing funny, yet unimaginable and crazy things, but they were just that, "Movies!" Well these next few pages that you read are indeed about two guys that are pals, and yes, they do some funny, yet crazy and unbelievable things, but this story, unlike a movie, is true!

One day I was at my brother in laws house, we had been out in the front yard drinking and kicking back, when we started talking about some of the television shows that we remembered watching when we were kids.

He asked me if I remembered the show "The Rifleman" and I said, "Yeah, I remember! That is the show where the man would take his rifle and thrust in a downward motion and then back up again to cock it, and when it came back up he would shoot whoever it was he was in a gun fight with!"

My brother in law claimed that he knew how to do that same trick with a rifle, and told me to follow him in to the house, and over to his rifle cabinet. He had several rifles in there, about nine in all.

Anyway, he grabbed one of the rifles and said "Watch!" as he put his hand in the handle of the cocking lever attached to the rifle. Next he held it horizontally about waist high, then he flung it downward in a great thrusting motion, at which time I heard the rifle cock itself, and then he pulled it back up with a snap.

I said "Cool, can I try?" He replied, "Yeah, just grab one of the rifles out of the gun cabinet here, they are not loaded!" So upon hearing that, I reached into the gun cabinet, grabbed a rifle and then I faced the front door and flung it with a downward thrust, and then backup with a snap, when all of a sudden "Boom!"

I could not believe my eyes; the rifle did indeed have a round in it and when I flung it back up like my brother in law did, my finger must have bumped the trigger, and it caused the rifle to go off. I barely missed my sister, whom had just walked by a couple of seconds earlier. No joke, she had just walked in front of me a couple of seconds before the rifle went off! I did hit the brand new Curtis Mathis solid oak television set, blowing a portion of the right corner off of it, and tearing the speaker to shreds.

As if that was not enough, my brother in law had parked his truck right in front of the door, and I hit it as well. My brother in law did not even get mad. I was shocked! I totally expected him to blow up at me, yell at me, and curse me like so many of my friends or family had done so often in the past. Even I would have been upset a little bit, as nice as I am; but not him, he just said "Don't worry about it; it's only money! At least nobody got hurt!" and to this day I still respect guns, but I respect him even more.

Would I respect guns any more than I do now if he would have blown up at me, cursed at me, and called me stupid? Of course not! I pray to be as wise and calm as he was that day every time such a situation arises. If that would have been my oldest brother he would have hit me, yelled and cursed at me, and probably never trusted me around his guns again. Not my brother in law, we still go out and shoot guns together.

I offered to buy him and my sister a new television of the same value, but he flat refused to let me. He knew that I did not make much money back then, so he bought the parts for the television and fixed it himself. That, my friend, is a great leadership quality. Not only did he show kindness, mercy, and compassion, but he also put himself in my shoes and knew how bad that I felt, and most important of all, he knew that as frightened as I was when the rifle went off, I had learned my lesson; to be careful with guns.

Many people would have gone ballistic and said "You owe me a new television; I want the money right now!" However, he was kind, and wise, very, very, wise. How would you have reacted? Would your reaction have made matters worse? Now, thanks to his good example that day, any time that I begin to get angry with somebody for an accident, I remember how kind he was to me that day and how frightened and embarrassed that I was.

Even more importantly, I always keep in mind how his kindness and compassion eased my overwhelming abundance of worry, fear, guilt, dread, and all of the other things that overwhelm you in a situation like that, so that by keeping it in mind, I remember to show others the same kindness and compassion.

By me remembering his kindness and compassion towards me at a time such as that; if I catch myself getting angry, or raising my voice in any accidental incident, I immediately stop, take a deep breath, and calm down, and try to show the same compassion and forgiveness that he showed me.

I hope that if nothing else in this book, you always remember that little bit of wisdom, passed on from my brother in law, to me, and now from me to you, my kind and compassionate fellow reader.

Oh, but this was just the beginning of our journey (that of my brother in law and I) because we hung out together for many years, and he was not just my brother in law, he was much, much, more than that... he was my best friend, the best friend that I have ever had, even to this day!

Here is one that you are absolutely going to love. I used to hang out with my brother in law for years, until his first child was born and then he got smart and decided to spend his quality time with his family, smart man. Anyway, one day I came across a cattle prod. If you don't happen to know what that is, it is a very large type of stun gun for cattle.

I took it to my brother in laws house one night and showed it to him, and later on that night after drinking a few beers he said, "Hey man, lets cut cards for cattle prod shocks" I do not need to tell you how much this concerned me, I am pretty sure that you would have said the same thing to him that I did, which was "Are you crazy man?"

He replied "Oh come on man, don't be a wimp. I thought you never backed down from a dare!" I replied "That's because I never have, but this one is a little extreme don't you think?" He laughed and said "Come on man, don't wuss out"

Therefore, being as drunk as I was, and too proud to turn down a dare, I replied "O.K. but you know its going to hurt like hell if you loose!" Needless to say that my attempt at reverse psychology did not work on him, so we proceeded to get a deck of cards, shuffle them, and then we began.

Wouldn't you know that I drew the lower card right off the bat, and my brother in law laughed his ass off saying, "Ha! Ha! Ha! You lost man! Oh man this is going to hurt!" he laughs again so hard that I thought he was going to pass out.

I tried to talk my way out of it, but in the end, I had to man-up and take a shock from the cattle prod. My brother in law laughed his ass off as the blue electricity between the prongs jumped to my skin like a mad starving leech.

We went on and played the next hand and I lost again! Once again I had to take a shock from the cattle prod. I could tell that he enjoyed being the one to administer the shocks to me, as he giggled in his usual funny, playful manner.

Wouldn't you know it; I lost again, a third time in a row, so I had to take a third shock. Finally, I drew the highest card, and it was my turn to shock him. He too tried to back down, but he manned up and took his shock as well.

We played this new shocking game many times on nights that we were partying, as our friends and family watched us and commented on how crazy we were. Finally, on one of our biggest drunken stupors ever, he wanted to shock me in the balls, and that is when I destroyed the cattle prod for good.

Speaking of cattle prods and shocks, a few years earlier I had run across a friend whom had just bought a stun gun for protection, and when my girl friend and I went to visit him at his house, he said to me, "Hey man, look at my new toy!" at which point he held up a small black device with two stainless steel prongs sticking out of the top of it, and when he pulled the trigger electricity flowed back and forth between the two posts making a loud static, popping sound, and then he said, "I have been trying to talk someone in to letting me stun them with it so I can see how good it works, but nobody will let me use it on them. Let me stun you and I will give you one hundred dollars!"

Before I could answer him, my girlfriend said "He will do it; he never turns down a dare!" and I said "No way man, but if you give me fifty dollars I will stun myself with it!" he said, "No way dude, I have been dieing to use it on someone; I want to do the shocking!"

After contemplating for a few seconds, he finally agreed to pay me fifty dollars if I stunned myself with it. So I held it in my right hand and stunned my upper thigh with it. My entire body started convulsing, and although my mind was telling me to let go of the trigger and pull the stun gun away from my thigh, I could do neither. My leg was jumping around like a bridge pillar in an earthquake, waving to and fro.

Finally my girlfriend hit my arm thereby knocking it away from my body and at last I was able to let go of the trigger. Let me tell you something; that was probably the hardest fifty bucks that I have ever earned. Makes you wonder how drunk I must have been to agree to the cattle prod shocks, doesn't it?

I remember one time in the past when I was almost famous. Well o.k. Maybe not famous like a movie star, but like famous amongst the local people here in town. You see, there was a restaurant here in town, and they have a huge drink called (if I remember correctly) a loptuloptis or something to that effect, it is supposed to be made with, I think it is, fifteen different kinds of alcohol or more

Anyway, the drink stood about sixteen inches high, and was huge. Now this was way back in the past, like in the late eighties, early nineties, but it used to be that if you could drink two of those and make it out of the front door, everyone sitting at your table got their meals for free. I took a date there one night with my older brother and his date, a friend and his wife, as well as my brother in law (Yes, the other monster) and my sister.

You probably have noticed from what you have read so far in this book, that he and I liked to dare one another, or challenge each other to do certain things, like the cattle prod shocks. There was even one time that we ran out of beer at about three A.M. in the morning, and since we could not find any more alcohol in the house, my brother in law dared me to drink half a bottle of nighttime cold medicine.

He said "Hey man, there is alcohol in this" as he shows me a big bottle of the nighttime cold medicine, laughing fiendishly. I replied, "Are you crazy man? No way, all that stuff will do is make you sleep!"

He smiled at me with his usual "it's a challenge" type of look on his face and said "No man, I am not kidding, look there is a lot of alcohol in it" pointing to the contents part of the label. I took the bottle and looked at it.

After reading the label which clearly stated the amount of alcohol that it contained, I had to admit, he was right about the alcohol content, but before I could say anything he remarked "Come on man, don't be a wuss!" then he smiles and laughs with his usual hilarious laugh, and a snicker.

I said, "O.K. but you drink your half first!" He replied, "No way, bite me! Look at me, I am twice your size, if I pass out first there is no way in hell you will be able to carry me to bed even with your sisters help. Besides I know you, if I passed out, you would just walk off and leave me on the cold ass floor to sleep!"

I laughed and replied "Yeah, your right!" in a defeated tone of voice. I then opened the bottle, drank about half of it, and then handed him the bottle and said, "O.K it's your turn!" He laughed and then drank the other half of the bottle down. Then we looked at each other and laughed at ourselves in disbelief, and headed towards the living room.

It just figures, I was the one who passed out first and my brother in law claims that he tried to drag me to the living room and throw me on the beanbag, but he said, "Your ass was too fat! So I just left you on the cold floor like you would have done to me". Now that you have a good idea of how we always pushed each other to the max, let's continue.

We were sitting at our table in the restaurant after just being seated by the waitress and my sister began telling my date and I about the good drinks that they serve at this place.

When my sister mentioned one particular drink to us, I saw my brother in laws face light up like a Christmas tree. I always knew that I was headed for trouble when he got that hilarious grin on his face and started snickering with his usual cool laugh.

He smiled real big with an ear to ear grin and said, "Hey dude; if you drink two of those we will get all of our meals for free. Our food, drinks, everything on all of our tickets will totally be paid for by the house"

Being the hard-core "I can do anything" type of guy that I was, I asked the waitress if my brother in law was telling me the truth about the drinks, and asked her if we would really get our meals for free, if indeed I could drink all of it, and when she said it was true, I ordered one of those drinks.

By the time our meals came, I had polished about two thirds of that drink down, and slowly finished it as I talked and ate my meal. Everyone at the table kept telling me that I was wasting my time, because they had never seen anybody ever be able to do it. In fact, they said very few people could even finish one of those drinks.

My brother in law kept saying, "Wayne can do it, he's an animal!" To which I replied, "No problem, I'm almost done with the first drink now!" After I finished eating, I ordered my second one; the waitress looked at me and smiled as she replied, "Are you sure?" I gave her a huge smile of confidence and replied, "Just get ready to take these tickets back with nothing more than your tips!"

We all sat and chatted for about half an hour, when my brother in law looked over and seen that I was almost finished drinking the last couple of sips of that drink. I only had about one tenth of the drink remaining, and if I could drink that, we would get our meals and drinks for free.

Now mind you, we all had plenty of money that night. I was a welder making good money, and my brother in law owned his own business and always had plenty of money. However, it was not about the money, it was a challenge that very few people have ever accomplished, and I always did take my challenges very seriously.

Upon noticing that I was almost to the end of the drink, my brother in law said out loud, "Look, the little bastards going to do it... he is almost finished with the second drink!" Now he had the attention of just about everyone in the place, and as I finished the last few sips, people in the restaurant, as well as my friends and family, was cheering me on.

I finished the last sip of the drink, burped, and smiled at the waitress as I slammed the big empty glass down on the table and said, "Who's your daddy!" People in the restaurant were clapping and saying, "Look; he did it! He finished both drinks!" My brother in law gave me a high five, and my girlfriend kissed me.

The waitress was proud of me too, and she said that only a few people have ever accomplished that task out of the entire chain of restaurants nation wide, and that I was the first one to accomplish the task here in Bakersfield.

She went around collecting our tickets, being the good loser that she was, I mean after all, the house was paying for our meals, not her. Just then my brother in law said "Wait, he still has to make it out the door!"

I woke up the next morning with the worst headache that I ever had in my entire life, times ten. Then my brother in law and my sister informed me that as I reached for the door, I passed out and fell flat on my face. "He said, "You passed out before you made it completely out the door, so I had to pay for all of our tickets!"

Ah, so close yet so far. Told you that I was almost famous! Almost!

### CHAPTER SEVEN

Friend or Acquaintances

Maybe you have made this kind of mistake before, if not then keep it in your mind for a future reference and beware. Be very careful when you choose people to do a favor for. You see, one day a friend of mine, actually he was a new acquaintance that I had met from another friend.

Anyway, he was in the process of moving, so being the kind, considerate, and good friend that I always try to be, I offered to help him pack his things, and then to help him move. He said that he already had most of his things boxed up and ready to go, but he could not find anyone with a truck to help him move.

I told him that my family owned mini storage here in town; in fact they own several of them. He said that he had the money to rent a truck from them, and showed me some money, so we proceeded to drive to my family's mini storage facility.

When we got there, I introduced him to my sister in law, who owned the mini storage facility with her husband. They are both really, super cool people, always kind and considerate. In fact, I had already introduced this friend of mine to her brother, my brother in law, just a couple of weeks earlier when we went out to his ranch, did some shooting, and visited.

My brother in law told me when we were leaving that day, after meeting this friend of mine, that I finally found a good friend to hang around with, instead of "all of those losers you hang with now!" he said.

When she started the paper work for him to rent a truck she asked him for a picture I.D and he said that he has a driver's license but lost his wallet a couple of weeks ago and had not made it down to the local D.M.V (Department of Motor Vehicles) to get a replacement drivers license. He then looked at me and said, "You have a drivers license, why don't you rent it with your picture I.D, you'll be with me the whole time helping me move anyway.

Since he seemed to be an all right kind of guy, and my brother in law seemed to think so much of him, I reluctantly agreed and used my driver's license to rent the big truck for moving. We drove to his apartment and started loading it up with his stuff, and let me tell you, he had a lot of stuff.

It got to be late that night and he and his wife wanted to quit, but I suggested that we continue because we were so close to being finished, but they insisted on quitting until the next day. He said that we had the truck until about noon the next day anyway, so I reluctantly agreed, even though there was so little left to move, I really seen no reason to quit.

I went home and got some sleep that night, man I was exhausted. The next morning I woke up and called him to see if they were awake, and he said they were already done, and that he was getting ready to take the truck back in about an hour, so I expressed my gratitude about how efficient he was at getting the truck prepared to return, and reminded him that he has to fill the tank back up with gas, as per the rental agreement.

I knew that they did not yet have a phone turned on at their new home, so I thought nothing about it when I did not hear from him. I went out with my girlfriend that day and did some shopping with her and her kids.

It was about three days later that I received a phone call from my mother and she told me that my sister in law was getting ready to report the truck as stolen unless we had it back that day. I was totally shocked and confused as well. I said "You mean he has not turned the truck back in yet? He told me that he was getting ready to return it back to them the last time that I talked to him, and that was two days ago!"

My mom replied "No, and they are totally pissed off about it, he is your friend, and the family loves you, but she has no choice but to turn it in stolen, for the insurance and legal ramification, she has no choice."

I told my mom that I would find him and get the truck back by the end of that day. I drove to their old apartment where I helped them pack, and it was empty, just as he said it would be. The neighbors told me that they have not seen him and his wife since the night that I helped them move.

I said, "The night that I helped them move? They told me that they wanted to quit because they were tired and finish moving in the morning!" She replied, "No, they finished loading the truck about a half hour after you left, and then they both got in the truck and left. We haven't seen them since!"

I thanked them for telling me this, and then I went to my friend's house that introduced us a couple of months earlier, which was his best friend, and he said that he has not heard from him for several days. I asked him if he knew where the new house was supposed to be, because even though I had helped them pack up the big truck, we never once made any trips to their new house.

He said that his friend had not even told him where they found a place to live at. So I spent all that after noon driving around and asking anyone, and everyone that knew him, if they knew where he was, but nobody knew.

After exhausting the entire day and evening looking for him, I finally had no more options left, so I drove to my families mini storage facility to tell them how incredibly sorry that I was for putting them through this ordeal.

I loved my sister in law and her husband to death, and always felt incredibly lucky to be related to such warm and kind people, but like she said... it was a nice thing that I did for him, but she said they have to, by law, report the truck stolen, and because the truck was rented with my drivers license, under my name, she said that I would be the one that the police came looking for.

I asked her if she had seen him at all, and she said "Not since you were here with him the last time when he rented the truck and a storage locker" I asked if she had seen him pull in any time at all since we rented it to put stuff in the storage locker that he had rented from her and she replied that she had not.

I asked her what the number of his storage shed was and told her before she called the police, that I wanted to go down and see if he had been to his storage shed or not. I drove down a couple of aisles to the location of his storage shed, and seen a little trash on the ground by it, (Thanks a lot pal) so I knew that he had indeed been there.

I was exhausted, and had looked every place that I could possibly think of. I had even called the jails and impound yards, but to no avail. I can't begin to tell you how terribly embarrassed I was, and even though my family owned the place, I was in deep trouble.

Since I myself have been in management before, being in management for many years in fact, managing a restaurant, as well as a thrift store, and a store in the local mall, so I knew that they had no choice but to report the truck stolen in my name.

So here I stand looking at his shed, and the filth, and trash that he had left behind, which in itself showed how very little he really appreciated the kind thing I had done for him. If he had any morals, and was the good friend that I originally perceived him to be, he never would have left the trash and filth behind, because that makes it look bad on me as well.

I turned around and almost broke into tears as I grabbed a bag out of my car and started throwing his trash in it. Then I noticed a big truck parked in front of the next storage shed up. When I turned and walked up to the truck, I was relieved to see some of his stuff in the front seat and a shirt of mine that I had left in it as well, but there was nobody in the cab, it was obvious that he had already left.

When I tried to open the truck door I heard a dog start barking, and the bark was coming from inside the back of the truck. I opened the back up and found him sleeping in the back of the truck. There was dog manure everywhere in the truck and urine as well, it smelled terrible, between the dog feces' and his sweat, and his stinky socks.

I was furious as I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing sleeping in there, and why he had not turned the truck back in with the keys and paid the remaining balance on the rental fee's. He said that he and his wife had got into a fight and that he had been living in the truck because he did not know where else to go.

I helped him put the rest of his stuff in the storage shed that he rented, and then he walked off after locking the shed and left me to turn the truck in, saying that he had no more money. After I cleaned up his trash scattered all over the place, and cleaned the back of the truck as good as I possibly could, I got in the truck to drive it up front to my sister in law, and I noticed the gas tank was on empty.

When I took the truck back up front to my sister in law, she told me that she was going to wave some of the fee's for the extra three days that he had the truck, but I still had to pay about seventy dollars of what he owed her to fill the huge gas tank back up, for the next customer.

She would have had the money from his deposit ordinarily, but because he was a friend of mine, she did not ask him for a deposit, knowing that I was honest and would get the truck back to her. I had to drive that truck down to the nearest gas station and fill it completely up with gas, and bring her the receipt for the gas, which like I said cost me a little over seventy dollars.

Let my hard learned lesson be a reminder to you, my devoted readers, to be very, very, careful about whom you try to be kind to, because as you can see from my experiences all throughout this book, it will, nine times out of ten, come back to bite you in your what? That's right, you guessed it!

If you still do not really believe that I have nothing but bad luck, perhaps you even think that I bring all of the bad luck on myself; to you I would say read this next story about another true mishap that I encountered one day. You see, this book that you are reading right now, is not my first book by far, it is the fifth book that I have had published.

My first book was one that I would always remember, one that I will never soon forget, because what happened to me while I was working on the book was so strange and bizarre. I am talking about the last two days that I had to finish the book for my publisher. I only had two days left to finish the book, and have it turned in by midnight or I would be in breech of contract.

Before telling you what happened to me that was so bizarre that night, let me give you a little detail as to the books origin, how it came to be, and then you will see much more clearly perhaps why such a bizarre incident could have taken place to begin with.

You see, I used to be a hard-core Pentecostal church participant, and I was so serious about it that I even gave up my television at one point in my life, and did nothing but come home from work and read the bible for hours at a time. I literally lived and breathed the bible "So to speak" for years.

In the course of my life I have on many occasions been talking to people, perhaps at a family gathering like thanksgiving, or at a family outing, or sitting and talking to some of my friends in the usual type of conversations that we all have at one time or another with our friends and our loved ones.

During some of these conversations questions about life and religion would come up. Back through all of those years, I had never previously read the bible at all, so when the conversations about religion came up, I had no more answers than the person asking the questions.

I always wanted to read the bible when I was younger, but like most people I kept putting it off for some other day. Believe me when I say that it is even easier for someone like me that has A.D.H.D to put something like reading a book off, because we hyperactive people, myself anyway, cannot seem to sit still long enough to read a book.

As I was saying, over the years I had during the course of these conversations accumulated a lot of unanswered questions about the bible, and about life as well. So as I finally started to read the bible, due to my bad memory, I would take notes on anything that I did not know, or anything that answered those questions that we had wondered about over the years when such questions would come up.

You may ask yourself what kind of questions, and the answer is simple, it's the same kind of questions that you and your friends or family members have wondered about during a conversation, such as "Why was I put here on earth?" Or "What is my purpose for being here on earth?"

I must say that if you have never read the bible, whether you believe in God or not, then you are really missing out. There is so much wisdom in the bible, more than all of the books ever written combined. For instance, here is one of the paragraphs from my book "A Sermon to Remember" By Wayne Hoss:

The bible is the most accurate book ever written. Did you know that one of the main health problems we endure today is the lack of natural minerals, and vitamins that our bodies need to maintain good health? Scientists said over fifty years ago that the soil in our ground is seriously depleted. You see, food that grows out of the ground feeds on the soil, which brings forth the minerals, vitamins, and such, that the plant needs. The plant draws the vitamins and minerals from the rich soil into its own body.

If the Scientists said our soil was seriously depleted over fifty years ago, then how bad is it now? You might be thinking, "What does this have to do with the bible?" Well, in Exodus 23:10-11 God said "Six years thou shall sow thy land, and shall gather in the fruits thereof; but the seventh year thou shall let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shall deal with thy vineyard, and with thy olive yard."

What could have been God's motive? I mean besides feeding the poor, the animals, the birds and the beasts. He did have another reason for saying that, you can call it punishment for the farmers being too greedy to let a years worth of harvest go to the poor; you can even call it karma if you like, but the fact of the matter is that God, in his perfect wisdom, knew that the ground needed to be replenished, and fertilized; so what fell to the ground and was not eaten would have fertilized and replenished the soil, that is; had mankind done as God commanded and let it rest and lie still every seven years, then we would not have these health problems now.

Now are you beginning to see how wise the bible is? Doctors and Scientists now admit that problems such as allergies, arthritis, cancer, glaucoma, and common back pains are attributed to the lack of minerals and vitamins in our food, which of course is due to the lack of rich soil.

Maybe now the farmers will rethink that commandment. Wow! Isn't it interesting that the bible contains so much wisdom?

Over the short span of about seven months, after nearly completing the reading of the entire bible, and reading the new testament from front to back cover about seven times, I had accumulated a big stack of those notes, and one day my mom walked in and seen me going through the notes and turned to my step dad and said "Oh look honey, Wayne is writing another book!"

Well, I seen how proud it made her to be able to say that, and how warm it made her feel to see me doing something good with my life, and I did not have the heart to tell her that I was actually just reading my notes.

So to make a long story short, I undertook the task of studying the bible even more than I already had, and compiling all of those notes into a book. The book was so good that a friend of mine said to me one day after reading it, "I should kick your butt!" and I said "Why?" to which she replied "I have known you for six years and I never knew that you were that smart and had that much wisdom."

I explained to her that all of the wisdom she was referring to actually came from the bible itself, I was merely an interpreter that took what people found too hard to understand as they read the bible, and broke it all down into a much easier to understand book. Anyway, now that you know what the book is about, perhaps you will be able to explain what could have caused this next incident that I am going to tell you about right now.

It seemed as if things would constantly go wrong when I was working on this religious book. For instance, as I was saying earlier about my book deadline; I only had two days until midnight on the eve of the second day, to have the manuscript not only finished and ready to go, but it had to be checked for spelling and grammatical errors as well, or I would be in violation of my contract with the publisher.

Not to mention the fact that this being my very first book to ever have published, I did not want to start off on the wrong foot by letting the publisher down and turning the book in to them past the deadline. So after working on the book (manuscript) all day and all night long, I shut the computer down, turned the monitor off, and hopped on the couch to watch some television late one night.

I remember that night well, and very well I should, because what was about to happen still perplexes me to this very day. It was raining hard that night, and perhaps there was even a lightening strike here and there, I would assume.

I had all of the lights off in the house, and I was watching T.V as I sat on the couch, when all of a sudden there was a loud crackling noise and the entire room lit up a bright crystal blue color, it was brighter than anything I have ever seen before, and it made a really loud humming and crackling sound.

I looked to see where this strange occurrence was happening at, and as I looked at the computer monitor, which was off by the way, I seen it shooting the biggest blue bolt of electricity that I have ever seen in my life, from the bottom of the monitor into the wooden desk.

This was not a quick burst of energy like a lightening strike; this went on for several seconds. I was amazed and confused all at the same time. Even more perplexing was the fact that the two inch thick, bright blue, pulsating bolt of electricity, was shooting out of the plastic on the bottom of the monitor, or perhaps a piece of metal behind it, and into a dry wooden desk!

I was worried about the entire book that I had written being on the computer which was attached to the monitor that was lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. I had spent months fine-tuning and spell checking that book; proof reading it over and over again, as any good author does, because every time you proofread a book that you have written you find something that you missed.

As I was saying, the book was due in two more days, and here it was on computer that was attached to the monitor from hell. I jumped up, ran to the computer and stood there for about three seconds watching the strong solid blue surge of electricity flowing unbelievably from the bottom of the computer monitor to the wooden desk top below it.

I did not know what to do. All of the lights went of in my house, what few were on, like in the bathroom, as well as my outside lights, but the television was still on and working fine. The bright blue fluctuating surge of electricity lit up the whole house it was so intense, not to mention the very loud sound that it was making.

Knowing that my book was on the computer attached to this monitor that was frying, and the fact that I had loaned out my four hundred gigabyte external hard drive that contained all of my important backups and never got it back, coupled with the fact that I only had two days to have my book finished and turned in to meet the deadline, I bravely (or perhaps "stupidly") grabbed the top of the monitor with one hand and the electric cord going from the surge protector (so much for surge protection) to the monitor, then I quickly yanked the power cord out from the back of the monitor where it was plugged in.

The first thought that came to my mind was that perhaps Satan was the culprit, if indeed he did not want that book (God's word) to be published. The monitor never worked again and I was broke. It was not until the last day of my books deadline that I found someone to loan me a monitor so that I could finish the book; and I barely made the deadline two minutes before midnight.

The weird thing is that I never could figure out what happened. After I yanked the electric cord out of the back of the monitor, I put it on the ground and checked to see if the roof had been leaking above it and perhaps dripped water into the monitor, but there was absolutely no sign of water any where near the monitor.

The wood on the top of the desk was bone dry, and like I said, I could not find any leaks at all anywhere near the monitor, and to this day the roof has never leaked anywhere even close to where the monitor was, so you tell me... is that weird or what? I always thought for electricity to flow to a piece of wood that the wood had to be wet, but perhaps I am mistaken. Anyway, that was just one of several instances that occurred when I was working on that book.

Still not convinced that I have some of the worst luck ever? Well my friend then you will want to read the sequel to this book, coming soon to a store near you... or not near you. If you really liked this book, check out some more of my books below!

### More Books by Wayne Hoss

A Sermon to Remember By: Wayne Hoss

Poems from the Heart of Wayne Hoss

Patent Ease by Wayne Hoss

Leadership and Parenting by Wayne Hoss

