Feeding Potato Chips To The Bears

A few years ago my friend, Anda, inherited close to a million dollars. Since then she’s been feeding potato chips to bears.

I’m outraged but I’ll try to talk about this objectively.

I meet Miranda (Aunt Anda, our kids called her when they were little and the name stuck) about 25 years ago when we both worked for a local magazine. She was the editor; I was a clerk. She read an article I wrote about my family and became interested; I invited her home for dinner and we’ve remained friends ever since.

Sometimes she comes to our house to hide.

Several times over the years Anda has suffered broken arms or legs. She was alone with one of her two grown children, Nancy or Marty (both now in their 40s), each time.

I once called the Elder Abuse Hotline voicing my suspicions but they would do nothing unless Anda herself would press charges.

She would not.

She always says her injuries were an accident.

Anda was forced to take early retirement from the magazine because at times each of her kids came to the office creating a disturbance. Management called security guards to put them out of the building and ban them from ever returning – so they began calling her at work demanding money dozens of times a day.

I think I can say objectively that Nancy is a drunken slut noted for picking up abusive guys in bars at a whim; Marty is a crack addict who has traded several new cars which Anda bought him for drugs. Each of them has had children of their own which were taken away by the state at various times.

A few years ago when Anda’s brother, a timber company executive, died, he left her an estate of close to a million dollars.

First thing, she paid the downpayment on a home for Nancy.

Nancy and a male friend got drunk, tore the central heat & air-conditioning unit out of the wall and sold it for more drinking money They defaulted on payments and abandoned the trashed house.

Once Nancy and a male friend made the tv news.

They went to the beach bar hopping and got so drunk they forgot where the car was parked. They waded into the surf and came out with dripping clothes to at a lifeguard station where they said that they were survivors from a boat that sank off shore – and that other people were still out in the ocean.

The Coast Guard mounted an air-sea rescue mission to search for more survivors.

When the truth came out, officials threatened to jail Nancy if the expenses for that mission were not re-paid…. Guess who paid that bill.

And Marty… well, Marty would make a Jerry Springer Show all by himself.

Anda let him live in her freshly refurbished home temporarily between jobs. He nested there about six years, brought in drug buddies, and ripped the plumbing out of the walls. As I recall, once a SWAT team was called by neighbors for a drug bust.

Heartsick over the behavior of her children, Anda decided to sell her (formerly) lovely home, to move, and not tell her children her new condo’s address.

They found her.

Anda is a Christian lady who feels that the blood of Christ was shed for all us sinners and that no person is beyond God’s love and redemption; she prays daily for her children, who curse her to her face and call her a stupid old bitch. I also am a Christian but I’m skeptic enough, and judgmental enough, and pissed enough, to feel that Hell exists for a reason.

Anda’s heart of hope keeps her trying to help her children.

Against my strong advice.

The pestering of these grown children influenced her to sell the condo and move to a very nice old folks’ home and not tell them where she’d moved.

I again helped her move to a lovely garden apartment overlooking the river.

Again those kids found her and resumed pestering and demanding money under various pretexts of needing serious help.

Anda kept feeding the bears potato chips.

Ginny & I saw her at church Sunday and we all went out for lunch.

She’s broke.

Next month, to stretch her resources, she is moving from her beautiful garden apartment overlooking the river to an efficiency overlooking a kitchen dumpster.

She needs four prescription drugs daily for a heart condition but now she can’t afford them all, so she’s stretching her medicines by only taking two every other day.

She’s given up internet access and cable tv to save money.

During lunch one or the other of her kids called six times.

My friend has been feeding the bears potato chips…

What happens when the chip bag is empty?

Ginny paid for lunch.

Posted on Wednesday 25 of May, 2005 [08:25:26]