Why am I included in this?
Because you dragged Lib’s dead mom into the mix.
You ought to be ashamed.
Because **Liberal ** attacked you by mistake. At least that is how I read Aangelica’s post.
This has been an almost surreal day at the dope.
In the spirit of interjecting personal stories into this thread, I must talk of my late friend, the best man I’ve ever known. His mother was into the drug scene in the early 60s; consequently he suffered from some horrific birth defects, which bothered him until the end.
The worst was the purple coloring starting from his left jaw and up that side of his face. It covered his left eye, which couldn’t be opened and then up over his hairless scalp. Parts resembled third-degree burns while other gouges looked like he had lost a fight with a drunk Hell’s Angel.
His right hand was a claw, with no separation between the grossly distorted fingers. A malformed jaw brought the bottom teeth in too tight, preventing him from eating solid food and leaving him mouth permanently open in an “o.”
One of his feet was bent at a right angle. It’s funny, but I can’t remember which one. The other leg was a couple of inches shorter, and he had a hell of a weird gait.
His mother hated and resented him for ending her partying life and used to beat him for that as well as for being ugly. That was his nickname, ugly because that’s what he called himself in kindergarten. His sick mother had branded that word into his soul.
Children, being children, never gave him a chance. He was a sweet child, but became the brunt of a billion pranks over the years. How he was able to limp to the hell waiting daily for him shows a strength I could never imagine. The first relief he ever got was in junior high, when the healthy, normal kids would go off to gym and he could retreat to the safely of the library and his freeing world of fiction.
Some people never get breaks in life, and his misfortune continued when he was 8. The state was finally able to get him out of the abuse from his natural mother then, and found a home who so kindly took him in. Sadly, the parents were Seventh-day Adventists who refused to let doctors treat any of his problems.
I got to know him over the phone, which was good because I got to know his brilliant mind before experiencing the horror of his twisted, wrecked body. I was 16 and working part time in a basket shop at mall. Bored to death in the evening hours, I was still thankful of any chance to get away of my abusive family for a evening a week.
It was a mistake that brought us together. His mistake, which I never let him forget. He wanted to call the pizza delivery and got our shop instead. “Are you sure you aren’t the Pizza Oven” he quarried, as his dazzling mind struggled to comprehend that it was he that had failed, even in this tiniest of errors. “Unless I’m on LSD,” I joked and his comeback of “No, but I bet you are LDS” gave me a best friend, until his unfortunate demise.
With a towering intellect and a razor-sharp wit, he provided a ticket out of the oppression of a fundamentalist religion and closed-minded obedience to old men in white. A new world was given. Fiction was opened and forbidden music came alive. Although I must admit some embarrassment to the songs we loved, I will never forget the freedom they brought.
Two, three or even four times I week. I’d work that basket job, and would be glued to the phone for hours. We opened a world to each other. For me, he was a savior who broke free the chains of old religion and oppressive fathers. For him, I was the first same-aged soul who accepted his mind.
He wouldn’t meet for the longest time. First it was excuses when I’d invite him to something and he’d always have something going on. Then, the Ramones came to town, and I scored tickets. You would have to have been into punk in '77, living in a city with 80% Mormon to know what that meant. You wouldn’t miss that even for a joint funeral for both parents and you dog.
That’s when he broke. He came clean and through heart-wrenching sobs told me of years of loneliness. Of cruelty you and I will never know. Of never having a friend.
No problem I said and though I had steeled myself for the moment it was impossible to stifle the gasp at seeing the monster that opened the door. I had to close my eyes to hear the familiar voice to know my friend.
The most mind-blowing concert, to use old slang still yet in creation. We walked out into the night with the music still reverberating in our bones. That’s when the jocks caught us. The pretty boys of East High, of the football team with their cheerleader dates. They wouldn’t have known the Ramones from raspberries, but they knew that punk was trash.
I’ve always been small and never one to fight. I lived through my share of insults and god knows what my friend had to endure. We shrugged and tried to return to my car. The path was blocked and we were insulted again. Fags, we were called, and then they caught sight of my mutated pal. Suddenly words were not enough, and they started pushing him around. They knocked him down and spat in his face as he struggled.
Scared and alone, I started to bawl, “Leave him alone” I yelled to them all. They laughed and turned once again to kick the poor kid on the ground, when blind rage overcame fear. I grabbed a guy twice my size and we collapsed on the cement. I had hold of his hair and kept banging his face into the ground.
His friends left my friend and made me pay for my crime. It was only the hysterical screams of the dates bringing others to the scene which saved us from more. I’ve never hurt that bad before or since. I lost a tooth and two fingers were broken, but, it was the quarterback whose picture as the homecoming king shows a still-bandaged nose.
From there and then college, we were inseparable. His future was so bright and finally in a world where the mind matters, he was on top. It was only another bad fluke of bad luck which was the end.
He had gotten a part-time position at the same mall where I had kept my old job. His store was next door, a baby store. We’d talk out in the hall when the customers would start to drop off at night.
One night as he was straightening the shelves, they fell on him, pinning him down. His left arm was caught tight. A baby toy got lodged in his throat and he couldn’t get it out with his right clawed hand.
He suffocated there all alone. The paramedics came, but it was too late. For that baby toy had killed him. It was, indeed, a death rattle.
clap
Well played, sir. Well played.
You do realize that we can’t let you get away with that.
Dammit, I was going to do this. Had it half written, even. Fucker.
Oy. That story puts your average Komondor to shame.
Guys, even though Lib was kind of an ass to bring it up in this thread, if he did indeed witness his Mother’s death rattle it’s a little low to try to make it a running gag for the thread.
IMHO and speaking of death, what is fair game is how Liberal’s reports of his upcoming death were greatly exaggerated by him.
But come on, this thread is about Otto,his alcohol induced crime spree to get gambling money, and whether he had a crisis of conscience that forced him to slip the money back under the door. Or none of the above.
Wait, so TokyoPlayer’s story isn’t true?
Well, it *wasn’t *our business. *Until he posted about it on a fucking public message board and thus made it our business.
*
Good one, TokyoPlayer, certainly had me going there for a while.
Aaaaand this thread veritably epitomises the reason I keep coming back, and back again to the SDMB.
Gotta love all’ve you freaks. 
Well, I witnessed my father’s death rattle and while it wasn’t as dramatic as my fictional friend’s, it was indeed a strange experience. However, because anything can be associated with the demise of a loved one, you can’t go around forever letting it get you down.
Sorry Rand, but the joke wrote the story. I later thought of a slightly better ending, but the Net move too quick to hesitate. Obviously I was under time constraints to be the first one to publish or Cervaise would have beaten me with something probably better.
Tengu, sorry but I don’t understand the reference. What or who is Komondor?
A komondor is a rather shaggy breed of dog.
Hey, the other day I decided to play a prank on my wife by having a 19 year old hot babe lie naked in the bed with me, so my wife would start to wonder if there was another woman’s scent in the bed. Well, my wife came home early and saw us together . . . is there any way to salvage this joke?
Certainly. But it involves 3 gallons of Vaseline and a video camera, and your wife has to play along. 
In honour of that I think we have to rename you Shah Guido G.
TokyoPlayer, did you borrow some of that from another story or joke? I remember the disabled friend with a claw hand from another place.
If you don’t mind, could you return my medical records? Doc’s been looking for them.