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Dedication
This story is for everyone suffering through difficult relationships of all kinds. This book is for you!
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Preface
I hate my job.
This thought entered Tatiana’s mind at least once a day. She couldn’t help it from happening no matter how much she tried to remain positive. Tatiana despised her workplace—not the job itself but the slimy politics that went with it. She was completely disgusted with the wicked feuding at her place of work that served to make adults into spoiled cartoonish children. Absolutely was disgruntled with the over inflated septic gas egos she had to navigate on a daily basis. But the economy wasn’t at its best, and she couldn't afford the luxury of quitting. Welcome to reality! So she grinned and bared it with as much patience and calm as she could muster. She had learned mental survival skills to keep herself afloat in an often cruel and mischievous world. She tolerated her job as much as she could like she put up with robotic computer generated directions when she called anywhere for service and also long lines at stores with many pay stations but only one cashier.
Is this the way it'll always be with human beings? she wondered. Always trying to outdo each other's smelly farts?
You would think that the way she grew up, she'd already be accustomed to silly feuds and complicated relationships. You would think that navigating landmines and explosives would be old hat to her. Living in a household with warring parents had actually made her wearier of tense and murky environments.
Tatiana’s formative years:
Tatiana's mother would tell her that being a woman was a blessing and a burden at the same time. Her mother's mouth would be speaking to the ten year old Tatiana, but her eyes would be on Tatiana's father. He'd be casually laying on his blue La-Z-Boy recliner, drinking light beer and watching football.
“They don't worry like we do, Tati,” Candida would say, pointing her long glaring finger at him. “They sit in their own worlds, kings on their toilet bowl thrones, scratching their rubber balls and deciding whether to pick their noses or throw a fart.”
The ‘they’ she referred to was men, all lumped together in her eyes, all made from the same spoiled cookie dough, all baked in the same malfunctioning under heated oven. It didn't matter what culture they were either. She'd say she could pick a spot on the globe and it would probably be run by arrogant males comparing the size of each other's members.
“They watch sports religiously, and you know why?” Candida would ask Tatiana who would promptly shake her head. “Because they need to be physically pummeling something, destroying it if possible. Men are animals. Pigs!”
“Pigs?”
“Yes, Tati, pigs but not cute like Porky Pig.”
“But dad doesn't look like a pig.”
“Roland may be dressed to the nines all the time but inside, my little Tati, he is a pig just like the rest of them. The package changes but inside it's always mierda. It's always, always shit.”
Tatiana was so used to her mother asserting that her father was excrement that it never fazed her, even when she emphasized it. Tatiana's father spent half his waking hours in front of a mirror, not aware that he was actually staring at a turd. What he was ogling was his superficial movie star looks. He was a Kevin Costner look alike, and he kept a strict diet so that nothing came between him and the illusion.
“I'm telling you, Tati, Eve should've poisoned the apple. We're smart. We would've found a way to reproduce. Instead, you know what happened?” Candida asked.
“What?”
“Eve fed Adam and since then men have assumed we're their unpaid servants. They assume we should cater to them, fluff up their egos, and keep quiet as they lord over us.”
By the way, Roland also disparaged women aplenty. He believed women were a necessary evil, existing only as an afterthought of God. He said women were whinny, back stabbing, weak, overemotional, bitchy, and all around inferior. He lumped all females together in one huge overheated pot to be cooked only when necessary.
“Women!” he'd exclaim frequently.
“What about us?” snapped Candida.
“You cry instead of reason. You can't make up your minds about what you want. You tease us, manipulate us, and can't move aside to let someone with brains handle situations.”
“You handle situations so well,” she said sarcastically. “War is a real solution!”
“We can't let you women handle world affairs. It would take a certain time of the month to detonate the earth!”
It was many years later that Candida finally threw Roland out of the house. He went off to California to ‘find himself’ and actually found himself with a twenty-year-old blonde named Tammy. Candida divorced him even though he kept begging to come back.
When holding the divorce decree for the first time, she said with consternation, “We're broken watermelons, Tati.”
“Broken watermelons?” Tatiana asked, puzzled.
“Women are like broken watermelons with the corazon red and exposed.”
“What?”
“You see, the heart of the watermelon is the sweetest, the part everyone wants, but it breaks easily.”
And it was with that clear thought that Tatiana reached adulthood, a prime target for complicated and explosive relationships of all kinds.