My parents both worked a 9-5 at different government offices in Lansing, Michigan, which is the capital of that fine example of peninsularity (Michigan is composed of exactly two — well, four if you count the Thumb and the Keweenaw — peninsulas, and, as a result, has, I think, more coastline than any other state.) [Edit: this was immediately pointed out to me as being false, as Michigan is outcoastlined by several other states. I immediately became intensely ashamed and cried. Just kidding. I didn’t really.] But, for whatever reason, my folks needed to be to work at like seven in the morning, and didn’t get off until five, so I spent most of my life until I was nine living in various different forms of daycare facilities.
Most of these were totally legit. Nice people, nice neighborhoods, good times. I think there were about three different places I stayed at from the time I was born until I was about three years old. Then, for the next six years until my mom decided to start working from home and doing daycare herself for the neighborhood families, I stayed at Carol’s house.
Carol’s house was super weird. Carol herself was something of a moral conundrum. At the time, I was too young to understand that there could be something seriously wrong with an authority figure in my life, so I sort of processed everything that happened all…wrong. Let’s see, where to begin. How do I start to describe this situation…
Carol was a religious psycho, and she ran a really tight ship. The pros and cons were slippery to define because the cons were really only visible behind closed doors, where nobody’s parents could see, and the pros were…well, I mean, she did a really good job of providing three hots and a cot in a safe part of town, with a nice house and a big yard for us all to play in…to all outward appearances, everything was awesome.
Attention span end reached.
I will continue this later. Promise.
