Dunno where else to say it...

[Fatman X. Jones]

So, I dunno where else to say it, so I'm just gonna take a moment and vent about something here that I just found out happened today. Honestly? Very rarely have I ever been sicker to my stomach about how people can be so damn foolish or idiotic than I am this moment.

As I was watching the house today like I always do, taking care of things that need be taken care of, my dad arrives home. He looks tense, a bit upset, like the wind got kicked out of him. I say 'hi', go through the typical 'welcome home' stuff that always gets said, and he looks at me in his room and tells me this.

Now, I have a sister-in-law who lives in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, married to my brother James, and they have two beautiful kids of their own: my nephew Josh and my niece Lexie. Sister-in-law owns a horse, and they just recently moved out of base housing and bought a house and stable to live in so she can watch the horse. Well, I find out from my father that somehow, the sister-in-law wasn't watching Lexie too well, and Lexie managed to get in the stable with the full-grown horse. Horse ends up kicking her, then stepping on her face.

As it stands, my niece Lexie is in a hospital in Nashville, healing up. She's got some scars from this, but the prognosis is good, and she'll heal up just fine. We're lucky it wasn't too serious.

Now, it should be obvious that I am furious about this, because this is one of those rare personal 'everybody's family' moments where ol' Fatman X. Jones speaks up quite a bit, and boy, am I speaking up.

My sister-in-law has proven with this that she is irresponsible and cares more about that damn horse than her own child. It compounds quite a bit with how I feel about her already, knowing she's had this--I don't want to call it a grudge, it's feeling more and more like a pathological hatred--of our side of the family (our side being me, my sisters Ashlee and Kourtney, my mother, and my father) because we're from lesser status and class-level than her family is. How am I to know that she didn't just let this happen deliberately? Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. I don't know, because I can't ask her or my brother to know. (And rightfully 'n honestly, I really don't fucking want to.)

So, yeah. I need some love from my friends here, guys. I need to feel that everything's going to be alright, because I sure don't feel that way right now.

[Dashe]

Here's as good a place to say it as any, considering the self-explanatory nature of the phrase "General Discussion" and all.

That said, I'm sorry your niece got kicked in the face by a horse. I wish I had a quick solution that could make irresponsible parents just stop existing, but unfortunately I haven't got much sway over who decides to procreate and who doesn't. Unfortunately we live in a world where people are still generally expected to want and have kids, no matter how irresponsible or ill-suited for parenthood they may be, and very few people actually put effort into evaluating whether or not they'd make good parents in the first place. Sometimes you wind up with stupid people wanting kids because they've been told they're supposed to want kids, when in reality they should be left nowhere near a kid at all, and that's not fair to anyone.

Speedy recovery, Lexie!

[Fatman X. Jones]

I couldn't agree more with you, Dashe. What makes me more upset about it is that my sister-in-law's mother was there, and could have stopped it. My brother has ultimately decided that the horse is too much trouble, adding on that the horse has almost attacked their dog before, and he's considering it already gone.

I heard some news this morning from my aunt, who's been staying with us. My mother got a text message from my brother saying that Lexie's got a few fractures in her facial structure, but they'll heal, and she'll also need a few stitches above her eyes. They were also keeping her awake, just in case she has a concussion.

I'm kind of scared that it wasn't just scars, but knowing that Lexie is still young and growing (I believe she's going to be three years old in November) makes me have some confidence in her healing aptitude. Overall, though, she'll be just fine.

I continue to ask everyone to keep Lexie in their thoughts, though.

[Bowen Aero]

Cripes, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that in-law of yours is pretty damn selfish. Just one of many reasons why I loathe the upper class. In any case, something needs to be done about this incident.