drugaddicts I had already had words with the lady before I even darkened my father’s door this past Thanksgiving. Dad’s stupid dog, Quando, had bit some woman’s face the week before, and I had heard about it, and I was mad at him. Both hims, actually—the dog for being a freaking menace, and Dad for being codependent and claiming the dog was “sorry.” Also, Dad asked about Quando first, before any of his many children, that time he came out of his coma.

Now the dog was barking like a lunatic at us, and I told him to shut up. “Shut up, Quando!” I snarled.

“Don’t tell the dog to shut up!” this lady told me.

“I’ll tell that dog to shut up!” I explained.

“Don’t tell the dog to shut up!” she cleverly volleyed.

And like that, a couple more times, until she asked me who I thought I was, telling the dog to shut up, and I explained I was my Dad’s daughter, and I was there for Thanksgiving, and then she got all up in my space and started rubbing my arm, sohappytomeetme!, and UGH.

 I do not like drug addicts.

I was not a perfect little ray of sunshine at this gathering—I had a pretty good puss on (that’s a sour face, young readers, and a phrase you should use!) and was generally annoyed and did not particularly want to be at my Dad’s for Thanksgiving. I was buried in school, and really would rather have gone to a restaurant. As it was, it would be a dry Thanksgiving at Dad’s House of Sobriety. It certainly was no Great Thanksgiving Drink-All-Day of 2005, when I brought to my mama’s tiny airplane bottles of premium gins. Man, that was a good one!

Anyway, eventually that lady asked for a hug, and I was startled and made a startled face, and she said “Why are you being so mean to me?” and I answered that she’d told me what to do before I’d even walked in the door, and she said I was right and she was sorry, and I gave her a hug. Bygones!

But then my son told me she’d been dancing around after he got out of the shower (he’d spent the week off school with Dad) and when he went to the room to get dressed, she asked, “Did I give you a boner?” (Since I haven’t made it clear up to now, this lady is a very attractive lady of 51. Seriously, she looks really good; I would have put her at 42 tops. I think pills must keep you freshened. And for those of you at home not keeping track of my son’s tender years, he is a gentle lad of 16.)

Also, she asked him, “How are you … down there?” and made a grab for his scrot before somehow corralling enough brain cells to stop herself and stroke his stomach instead.

Also, when we left, she kissed my son on the neck.

So that’s why I don’t like drug addicts this week.

Here is the title of my next country song: “Good-Lookin’ Lady, Git Yer Claws Off My Son!”

 BUT WHILE ALL THAT IS GROSS and awful and terrible and gross, and we almost vomited many times when my boy told us about it in the car, that grossness and awfulness and terribleness and grossness is not in itself endangersome. (It also provided a Teachable Moment in how to stand up to molesters.) And yet, endangersome? Drug addicts are that, too! Here should be the title of someone’s next rap: “Don’t Go on No Three-Day Mission With No Baby in the Crib.” You may use it, if you are a rapper. Really, please, it’s yours!

My Dad is always saddened by my sour face around the addicts he counsels. I am not being very Jesusy, he reminds me, because Jesus loved the hookers, outcasts, and thieves. I have contemplated writing to Miss Manners about it, even, but Miss Manners would just tell me if I can’t be gracious, stay home.

Listen, if you are a drug addict, but you are sober when I meet you (and “just pills” doesn’t count, Slurry), then I will be happy for you and wish you well! I like it very much when people get clean! Good for you, You! Let’s throw you a parade!

But if you are whining for your “meds,” or passing out in the Easter duck, or trying to get your hands down my son’s pants, I’m not going to be patient about it. I will make fun of you behind your back, and I will mimic you mercilessly with your carrying-on, and I will judge you, I don’t care how lest-I’ll-be-judged.

And why? Because you’re disgusting.

IT’S FUNNY, ISN’T IT, that I feel like I have to defend my anti-drug-addict position? I must really have internalized my Dad’s Jesus talk.

If I were a school board member, I could call for Red Ribbon parades and DARE programs all the livelong day. But I like drugs. (Some drugs.) I just don’t like addicts. When my Dad first got sober, when I was a little girl, he always preferred Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to Narcotics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous. The alcoholics, he said, were always grateful to be sober. At NA and CA it was just whine, whine, whine about how sad they were they couldn’t shoot dope. Poor them, etc., and waaaaaaah.

I love my father. He’s a really fine man. And as he goes about, doing God’s work as he sees it, I’m grateful somebody is. Clean ’em all up, Dad! Right on with your bad self! And please keep Ol’ Sexy there off of my son.

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