Look, I’m not gonna get all mushy. Mother’s back and turns
out she’s cooler than Steve McQueen in a
Mustang convertible. The USS Invincible’s
just as crazy. We’re just as broke. So what’s next? The Mamas and Papas ride
off into the sunset for a lurid lesbian affair?
For the record, mother’s summation of the last thirty-plus
missing years is that upon discovering my father’s high heel and hemline
hijinks, she tried to top herself, then when that failed fled in shame. Father
continued to be stuck in his sexual revolving doors for a few years – hence,
ta-da! Muffy – but ultimately settled on what mother’s calling “genital verification
surgery”. And, hey, how was this particular 2nd Grader to know that the woman
she saw leaving the house most weekends was in fact daddy slipping in and out
of frocks. Or indeed that my real mother hadn’t “flown up to join the angels”, but instead was sucked into this weird
mind-controlling cult, was shut away without contact to the outside world, and
bound by a moral code that, frankly beggars belief. I mean, poverty, chastity and obedience? So, yep, mother in absentia turned Mother Superior. I
mean, could this story get any stranger?
Yet this does mean nobody was killed by anyone, which,
though comforting, does also kinda feel like I’m being somehow short-changed in
the drama department. But after mother’s personal life history 101, it still
leaves one big burning question: Just how crazy is my stepmother? Father. Whatever.
OK, so to put the final nail in the Bunnie/Warren wedding coffin, let’s finish with a few bon mots from
the airport limo:
Big Frank: “Oh, wasn’t Bunnie’s wedding like a religious
experience?”
Muffy: “I’m bulimic because you left us!”
Dinkelïcker: “Interesting…”
Jerinda: “Right, after the I-dos, it’s back to the to-dos!”
Mona: “I hate America. It gets on me nerves.”
Me: “Om Mani Padme Om… Om Mani Padme Om…”
Back at Akron International while Mona, Jerinda, stepmother
– sorry – father – sorry – second mother, his – sorry – her psychiatrist and
his –yeah, his – wife all went left,
we went right and boarded a plane with weird squiggles graffitied all over it.
“Guff Air?” I said, looking at my ticket. “That doesn’t
sound like it’s going to England.”
“It isn’t,” Big Frank replied. “It’s going to Palestine.”
Diary, I wasn’t sure if it was time for his medication or
mine.
Turns out that, since our finances were lower than a well
digger’s ass, Big Frank Googled ‘cheapest server space on the planet’, top of
the list was this Palestinian refugee camp just outside the capital Ramallah.
Apparently, it’s got all kinds of perks – weak gaming laws, automatic shielding
from legal liability, being twinned with Chernobyl – but no mention of the fact
that me and yashmaks aren’t exactly best buddies.
Apparently, Hubby #3 thought I’d be pleased as, with all
that sand and burning buildings, at least it’ll be a damn sight warmer than the
Isle of Man in the winter. Of course, he could have picked any number of other sunny gaming jurisdictions; Antigua,
Malta, Vanuatu, Curaçao… in fact, anywhere else in the fricking world. Boy, and
he wonders why whenever he boards a plane, I get the weirdest urge to run down
the aisle screaming: “Pigs can fly!”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he explained, showing me a printed
letter of introduction. “It’s just a quick scouting trip…”
“I await you with my pleasure,” the email finished. Great.
We finally met up with our guide – Mahmoud – at the
terminal, which wasn’t easy as everyone looked as if they were off to an
audition as Osama Bin Laden’s body double. Personally, standing around in
wide-brimmed hat and Versace halter dress, I was petrified of being stoned to
death as a barbarous infidel for showing my shoulders. I shouldn’t have
worried. Because that’s when our beaming Muslim Tonto handed me my burka…
