I had to travel back home to meet up with the fam. Everyone’s ashes had finally been interred: my mom, my late cousin, my grandparents, all in the same cemetary. It was closure for them, I had put it all behind me long ago. It provided a chance to catch up with out of state relatives. One relative is at odds with another over her son, my now oldest cousin, the older brother of which was one of the deceased.

The deceased cousin was a ne’erdowell from the age of 11. By 13 he had already had sex, been shoplifting, discovered booze and drugs, and had his first arrest. It bled onto his younger brother. By 18 he was dead, having drunk driven himself into the back of a parked semi at 40 mph. Thankfully he died on impact.

The younger brother, my oldest cousin, was never the same. Leaving the propriety of his parents out of it, he did not take this well at all. His outlet became tattooing himself, alcohol, and drugs. The only difference between him and his brother, objectively, was a criminal record. Thank God for that.

He graduated high school and went to a local college, but pretty much partied away his first year. I won’t come down on him for that because I did pretty much the same thing. Except he got a hell of a lot more sex than I did. So he came home to the local community college. Sick. He had developed some sort of digestive disorder that had him vomiting multiple times on an almost daily basis. His mother, a nurse, also a drug user, had him put in the hospital for diagnosis. Whatever cyclical vomiting syndrome was, he had it.

The mother parented by being a huge enabler. One of her tasks was buying the cousin a new car. Instead of having him work to save up some money and helping get a solid beater, she shells out for this:

Which he proceeds to do this to, over and over and over and over again. (dumbkopf deleted from view)

The damage to date has been largely cosmetic. I drive a mitsubishi lancer and its a good car. His has all the bells and whistles, and is a pleasure to drive, and isn’t a manual (after replacing the clutch once ive sworn off stick permanently). I offered him 10K cash for the damn thing and he said no.

Now, he tells me he has sworn off drinking, though the cigs and weed are still there. He’s training for MMA and knows he shouldnt do those things but oh well what the hell. So what does he do Christmas night?

Plow it right into the back of a parked truck.

Can you imagine the call to his mother. The same type of accident, except the boy wasn’t drunk. His car utterly wrecked. How he managed to come out of the accident unhurt is amazing. So his mother should see this as yet another wake up call? The kid is irresponsible and has utterly destroyed a beautiful 20 thousand dollar car by wrecking it 5 times in 2 years.

Nope. She’s out car shopping with him now. Last I heard he’s angling for a GTI.