Post fire life, grandma’s house, hotels, school bullies and the bad haircut – Well, 5th grade clearly sucked on sooooooooooooo many levels. The step dad was up hunting when all this shit happened too so for some dumb ass reason my mom thought that the forests rangers couldn’t possibly do their jobs to tell him to come back home from his trip so she drove us across the state in the snow to tell him in person with to grade school aged children. Yup, she is full of common sense this one. We ended up staying at my step dad’s mom’s house for the first two weeks after the fire. But my mom hated it there. Grandma expected her to watch us kids and interact with us. Mom saw this as nagging so we were off to a hotel for about a month while insurance dealt with quotes and repairs were made for us to return home.  I remember one night while we were staying at the hotel, my sister decided to freak me out with a story she learned on her field trip to the state prison.  In our home town when you are in 6th grade you go to the prison museum and the current prison and do the "scared straight" thing with inmates who tell you how horrible a life of crime and being in prison is. She told me a story about a guy who broke into a hotel room while two sisters were in there by themselves.  At the time of her story telling, my mom and step dad had gone down the street to pick up take out food for our dinner.  So, great timing for this story right?  She told me about the escaped inmate and how he ate one of the sisters face off as the other sister hid under the bed. She told me if he got out again she would hid under the bed while he ate me. I would learn the next year when I got to go on this same field trip that it was a story from the 50’s that she had heard at the prison museum.  That guy had been long gone by then having been executed. I spent that whole night freaked out because she convinced me that he was coming to eat me everytime my mom and step dad left the room.  When I called her out on it the following year, she just laughed it off and told me I was a sucker for letting it get to me. Nothing like some family bounding moments there huh? 

When the insurance sent over the check for damages mom went on another shopping spree much like when dad died. She bought so much stuff we didn’t even have before the fire. Who the fuck knows why? By the time we were back in the house again school was wrapping up for the year. The last part of that school year was super fun. I had told my mom I wanted hair like Whitney Houston in the Bodyguard. Instead I ended up looking like a poodle and my step brother nicknamed me afro baby. I was a bit of a tom boy at this time too, so I was sometimes mistake for a boy from behind by strangers. The already super low self-esteem was taken down a few notches. Add on the awkwardness of being the first girl in my class to get boobs and for me to gain a bunch of weight and the trifecta of nerdy, afro, cubby girl was the cherry on top of an already super fucked up school year. Summer was approaching but not without more drama to add to the mix.

Next Chapter: Entry Eleven