The Man, The Myth, The Legend...The Polish Falcon

Anyone who had the pleasure of meeting my father face-to-face knew that he was a special individual. His legend is well known on the North Huntingdon circuit - a local hero... or villain depending on whom you speak to about him. One thing is for certain, once you've had the pleasure...or pain... of meeting my father, you will never be the same, nor will you ever forget it... and you may even need some level of counseling to cope with it.

Many of my friends and my siblings’ friends had the pleasure of a Butch Witowski encounter. Like a bad case of herpes, these encounters are something that stick with you for life and that you warn your children about when they are older to scare them into doing whatever it is you ask them to do because if not, you will do the things my father did to me, in public and in front of their friends. There have been many nights were my sisters and I just sit around and recall these instances, our friends' reactions to these encounters and we laugh until our stomachs hurt.

Over the years, there have been too many to recall, but here are two of my favorites that go down in classic Dad history:

My dad was a mysterious man. He was a great poker player, because you never knew what the hell was going through his head based off of his expressionless face. Couple the expressionless face with a cup of coffee (typically spiked with Cavalier Whiskey - only the finest) or an MGD, a Marlboro Red dangling from his lip, dark Levi jeans hanging just low enough to catch a glimpse of his Hanes tighty whities and ass crack, a white Hanes undershirt, topped with a Hanes colored, one pocket tee, a gold rope chain with his cross (or if you were lucky, the Polish Falcon charm), a buck knife clipped to his belt, and one of his rotating mesh trucker hats and that was my dad.

At least he isn't flipping off the camera, which was typically his M.O.

To me, it was just dad. To everyone else, apparently he was intimidating as hell. Typically, he was a man of few words and didn't speak much to any of our friends. I suppose that was for the best, considering that he was like a loose cannon. I can't speak for my sisters, but I know that the majority of the time I was glad that he didn't speak much to any of my friends. Mostly because every time he opened his mouth it was at my expense or extreme embarrassment. To this day, I don't know if he ever knew a single one of my boyfriends’ names. From the first time he would meet them, he would coin them with a name and that name stuck until they stopped showing up. There was "That There", "Rat Boy", "Nasty Nate", "That Damn Diego", "The Pizza Boy", "Gay Jay", and “Son"... He would actually call these poor guys these names to their faces. He did the same thing with my friends. My childhood friend, who spent as much time at my house as she did her own home was coined "Corky", her name was Brooke. In hindsight, maybe they should take the nicknames as a genuine act of kindness coming from my father. He did the same thing with our pets and he treated them better than most human beings.

One day a mutual friend of both my older sister and I had parked his car at our house and was walking to school. This friend happened to be one of the only six African Americans at our lily-white high school of over 400 plus students. He also was over six feet tall and all of 120 pounds soaking wet. At the time, my openly racist dad drove an original Chevy Malibu that was a lovely shade of diarrhea green that had been my grandmothers before she passed away. It was one of the biggest clunkers ever and reminded me of the car from the movie Uncle Buck every time I rode in it - smoke, backfire and all. My dad use to smoke in his prized Malibu, with the windows rolled up. I'm not talking just one cigarette. He would chain smoke, while listening to 94.5 3WS and ash in some type of cup in the middle console. This particular day happened to be smack dab in the middle of winter and it was colder than a witch's tit. Our mutual friend was walking down our rode and my dad, for whatever reason, was feeling gracious, maybe even empathetic, this particular morning. He slowly crept behind our friend for a few minutes before our friend became uncomfortable and stopped to let what he thought was just another car pass him. When our friend stopped walking, my dad pulled up right next to him and cranked down his window a few notches. Smoke billowed out into our friend's face as he strained to see the familiar outline of my father's expressionless face. Neither one of them spoke. My father looked at my friend; my friend looked at my father. My father inhaled and broke the locked stare and silence with, "You want a ride? [Taking a long drag of his of his Marlboro Red]" As he continued to uncomfortably and expressionlessly stare at our friend, "Or you gonna walk?" [Emphasizing the walk and exhaling and blowing all of the smoke up into our friend's face]

Our friend stood there frozen like a deer in the headlights, as if he had just seen Jesus or at least Sasquatch, and choking on the billows of smoke. He never answered my father and my father eventually just drove off with smoke and the best oldies of yesterday billowing out of his cracked window. However, our friend must have told us about this story at least ten times before the end of first period and to at least 20 of our other friends. He emphasized how scared he was that my dad actually spoke to him and that there was no way he was getting into that Malibu - not that I blame him. I mean this was the guy who single handedly had our house blacklisted from the door knocking evangelist Jehovah's Witnesses - and was proud of it. Classic dad.

Another favorite time for all of our friends was dinner time at the Witowski house. My dad was typically in rare form at the dinner table. As kids, we were called to dinner by a large cast iron bell out on the front porch. When you heard the bell ring, you ran home. If you didn't get home within what he thought was a reasonable amount of time and he came outside and whistled, you better kick it up a notch and get your ass home. While we didn't have many "set in stone rules" as kids, sitting as a family at the dinner table was definitely one of them. If you were in Pennsylvania, you better be at that dinner table by the time the last side hit the table. If you were not and you didn't have a damn good excuse, it was never pretty.

While this isn't at our dining room, this is what it typically looked like at our dinner table.

 One of the most memorable "family dinners" came later in life. I was in college, as was my older sister and my eldest sister had just finished. I had just returned from spring break at Niagara Falls, Canada with my best friend and roommate, Turk. Neither of us took our significant others and so, my boyfriend met us at my mom and dad's for dinner. My older sister was at my mom and dad's as was my eldest sister, who was in the process of planning her wedding. My eldest sister also had brought both her future husband and one of his groomsman with her to share in a Witowski dinner. My dad had a full audience. This was a dangerous combination. He was like Jekyll and Hyde - you never knew what you were going to get. Boy, did he have a show in store for all that day.

For whatever reason, I was my dad's chopping block. I've grown to realize that was how he showed he "cared". Right before spring break, I had the brilliant idea of piercing my nose - not like the definitive bull dike bull ring piercing that loops through the middle of both nostrils, but the tiny diamond in the face dirt catching crevice of one of your nostrils. Why I wanted to attract even more attention to my already unattractive and most prevalent facial feature is beyond me, but nonetheless, I did. I already had my ears pierced three times on each ear lobe and twice in the left cartilage, my tongue pierced and my belly button pierced - all of which my father hated. As the delicious aromas of my mother's home cooking wafted into the living room, my father declared that dinner was almost ready. I gathered my guests and my eldest sister gathered her guests and the rest of the family made their way to the dining room table. Growing up, we had assigned seating at the dinner table. My dad sat at the North head of the table, my mother sat to the East of him, my eldest sister and older sister to his West and myself at the South head - directly opposite of my dad. When we had dinner guests, the only two spots that were guaranteed to remain the way they were assigned years ago were my mother and father's spots. Everyone else just found a spot and sat there. I ended up sitting in between my mother and boyfriend, my older sister sat at the corner of table between my mother and father, while my future brother-in-law sat directly across from me, his groomsman took the hot seat - directly facing my father at the South head, my best friend sat to the left of my future brother-in-law and my eldest sister sat to her fiancé’s right. There were so many dinner guests that my mother had to pull out both leaflets for the expanding dining room table - a luxury that was typically reserved for holidays.

Once everyone was settled in their newly claimed spots and their plates were filled with down home hunky cooking - one meat, one vegetable, one starch - the dinner show commenced. As per usual, I was the target of my father's affection. "Daughter, what's that in your nose? A diamond booger?" My typical response to him at this point in my life was to roll my eyes and carry on with whatever it was I was doing prior to his ignorant interruption. However, he had a crowd and just wouldn't drop it. "Pizza Boy, what do you think the purpose of that is? You think it catches the boogers so they don't come right out?" To which my boyfriend just chuckles - he learned quickly to not take my dad's bait.

I cut in and began discussing how it could be worse than just a miniscule diamond in my nose by telling tales of the goons that use to grace me with their presence at McArdle's - the pub I bartended at to pay my bills. Some of North Huntingdon, White Oak, Elizabeth and McKeesport's finest would come to this hole in the wall on a regular basis. I recalled the infamous story of the time a guy that had never been in my bar before walks in, orders a shot of Bacardi 151 and proceeds to drop trouser and put his Prince Albert pierced wiener on my bar. "I claim this bar for, Sparta!" Of course, this tale sparked my father's interest and resulting in a slew of questions: "Wait, he had a barbell through the tip of his dick? How does he piss? Wonder what that does to your stream? You have to be one crazy son of a bitch to stick an earring through your wiener!"

My mother and my older sister were not at all entertained by this dinner conversation topic. This of course disappointed my father, so he made a hard right turn and took all the new dinner guests by surprise. "You know what, Daughter? I think I'm going to get a piercing with a purpose." My future brother-in-law and his groomsman looked up from their dinner plates... just waiting for what was about to happen. "Oh yeah, Dad?"

"Yep. I'm going to get a piercing with a purpose. I'm going to pierce my scrotum so that when I'm old I can find it." My brother-in-law's groomsman dropped his fork. My dad's signature ear-to-ear, none teeth showing, Joker-esque smile spread across his face. "And in the meantime, I'm going to get you a chain so that you can loop it through all those different holes in your body and when I tug on it you'll be like a puppet."

My mother chimed in with, "If both of you don't drop it, I'm going to pierce both of your mouths shut! How's that for a piercing with a purpose?"

He was so proud of himself. My future brother-in-law and his groomsman didn't know if he was serious or not so there was hesitation in their response to his ridiculousness coupled with feeling bad for my mother's embarrassment. They both had huge grins on their faces that matched my dad's shit eating grin, but they weren't too sure if they should heartily gut laugh or not. Too soon? Perhaps. After my father announced he'd be getting his scrotum pierced, there were a few normal dinner conversations. Wedding plans, how Turk and I did at the casino in Canada, if we drank (underage), and what everyone else's plans for the day were. As we were discussing the casino in Canada, I proudly told my parents about how I had hit for a decent amount of money on the slots and went on a moderate shopping spree with my winnings. I ran down to my car to grab some of my purchases to show to my sisters and mom, but my dad and my eldest sister's guests were still at the table when I returned. Nonetheless, I decided to show anyone who cared my great finds - one of which happened to be a pair of buckskin suede low rise pants that laced up the crotch (think Coyote Ugly, which in my defense was a popular movie at the time and I WAS a bartender). Well, when my father saw this gem, he damn near lost his mind.

"Hey Daughter?! Don't your pubic hair dangle out the top of those things?!?"

It was at this point that my future brother-in-law's groomsman could no longer hold back. He lost it. He started laughing so hard that tears began to well up in his eyes. My dad was bursting with pride. Pride that I would immediately crush, "What pubic hair, DAD?"

My boyfriend, my eldest sister's fiancé, his groomsman, and my dad all open mouth starred at me - some in amazement, others in disgust. However, it was my mom that snapped them all out of it with a fast and hard crack of her hand hitting across the back of my head while disgustedly saying my full name, "STEPHANIE LEE!"

Deep down, I think my dad was proud that I had one upped him at his own stupid game. However, my mother was so embarrassed that he and I acted like this in front of guests that she just got up from the table and retreated to the kitchen to do the dinner dishes. My dad retreated to his sanctuary - the bathroom - with his pack of Marlboro Reds, the newspaper and a cup of coffee with Cavalier Whiskey and my eldest sister's guests and my guests sat at the dinner table swapping details of what would become known as the best "Dinner with a Show" that any of them had ever attended. My future brother-in-law would receive many phone calls from his groomsman to verify details of exactly what was said at that dinner and if what he saw that day really did happen and if all of our family meals were like that.

I never did wear those suede buckskin pants

Final Will and Testament

I know I haven't posted yet this week, but it's with just cause. I am busy. Also, I'm going under the knife in less than 24 hours. This entry won't be following my prior pattern of recalling past times, but this is a must. After TWO pre-op discussions with both the hospital and my surgeon's office, I have the distinct need to post this somewhere - what better place than here? In the event that I don't wake up at all, I do wake up but succumb to alcohol/alcohol mixed with pain drugs poisoning post-op or my body rejects the upgrade and what should've gone down in the books as my biggest victory to date becomes my coup de gras, I would like to memorialize herein the following:

to my Mom: the Steelers season tickets (that I still owe her money for), my 401k and life insurance policy and all other investments (more than likely it will take the majority of this to pay off my school loans - but whatever is left needs to be split evenly between my six minions, I mean nieces)

to my eldest sister: my wardrobe (minus specifics that are laid out below), the password to my blog and Facebook account to ghost post (like 2-Pac) for years after I'm gone, 2 equal splits of whatever money mom has left from my life insurance/401k

to my first brother-in-law: my electronics collection (cause honestly, who else is going to know how to use them?), including both of my big screen tvs (put one in your bathroom - you know you want to)

to my eldest sister's eldest daughter: my Uggs (despite the fact they will never fit your feet, ever) and my Honda Accord (it needs an oil change and has for like 3,000 miles - oh and the tags expired yesterday, so it also needs inspected)

to my eldest sister's youngest daughter: my denim, pants, skirt and dress collection (when you are 5'9" at 13, you will thank me) and my jewelry collection minus specifics mentioned below (including prior engagement rings - yes, plural you read that right)

to my older sister: my shoe and hand bag collection, a giant bag of tic-tacs in my closet, 4 equal splits of whatever money mom has left from my life insurance/401k

to my older sister's oldest daughter: my keyboard

to my older sister's second oldest daughter: my camera and my phone (after your mom deletes all the contents on both)

to my older sister's third oldest daughter: my pink sapphire and diamond ring and my blue sapphire and diamond ring

to my older sister's baby daughter: my sports equipment (I'm going out on a limb here and hoping you'll be the athlete)

to my "cousin" SM: my cat, Oreo and all of my knitting supplies (you're welcome)

to my exes that I no longer speak to: eternal damnation for being selfish, manipulative pigs

to the Pennsylvania State University and University of Houston: all my debt for a bullshit degree and the biggest FUCK YOU, ever

to the world: my everlasting legacy, bitches

I Was Set Up For Failure By Disney...

Every girl grows up envisioning her first real kiss as this magical moment where the first love of their life whisks them off their feet and they fall madly in love, get married, have a baby and grow old together with the very same passion from the first day they met. I blame Disney and almost every 80's love flick made. Prince Charming pursues Princess, Princess falls madly for Prince, they are dancing and singing about their love for one another, there is some arbitrary problem they have to overcome and once they do - insert fireworks and a panoramic, 360 degree shot - the Prince leans in and plants the most perfect, heart melting, soft kiss on his future Princess bride. I have news for all of you... in the words of Maroon 5, "all those fairytales are full of shit".

I don't know that I ever really had those types of visions. I didn't exactly fall into the "Princess" category. I was more of a child renegade that would rather play football, baseball, dodge ball, kickball, soccer or any other sport with the boys than kiss them. I preferred a pair of cleats to a pair of dress shoes, a pair of jean shorts to a skirt or a pair of sweats to a dress. I don't think I really even noticed a boy for the first time until I was in sixth grade. I attribute this to the fact that it wasn't until that time frame that any of the boys actually passed me in height and had the audacity to speak to me regarding anything other than picking me first for their dodge ball team in gym class - not to mention that despite their growth spurts, boys probably didn't notice me until long after this as I was every carpenter's dream and you couldn't tell if I was coming or going. Don't get me wrong. I had my childhood crushes on A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), Joey MacIntyre (New Kids On The Block), Prince William (when he still had a full head of hair), Daniel Larusso - The Karate Kid (Ralph Macchio), and Eddie Furlong (Terminator 2 and Pet Cemetery 2). However, those boys were just media-hyped fantasies that I shared with every other girl that subscribed to Teen and Tiger Beat.

My older sister, however, was the opposite of me. She had the boys turning their heads long before me. While she was good at sports, she didn't make them her life. She was a social butterfly that both boys and girls flocked to. It didn't matter what she was wearing (because let's face it, the eighties was a tragic time for fashion), she always looked like she had just stepped off of a page from Teen Cosmopolitan - even when she went through her "grunge" phase, it was the "in" thing to do and she could make a pair of black combat boots and a flight jacket look damn good. I would never admit it back then, but I definitely envied the way she could control a room in any social setting. I desperately looked up to my older sister, especially during my most awkward years, but I'd die before I let her know it.

Remember, my older sister and I are only 19 months apart in age. This minimal gap resulted in us only be one year apart in school. This meant that I always felt like I was in a constant competition that I could never win. Boys, friends, clothes, parties, grades... anything that could prove that we were on equal playing fields, we competed for. Only problem was, the only things that I excelled in, she excelled in more (except for soccer). If I only knew back then what I know now, I would have dropped the competition and befriended my sister because I would come to find that I would never "beat" her. Alas, my "Eye of the Tiger" mentality resulted in nothing but a lot of pain and suffrage - mostly for me. Until one day in Junior High School (seventh grade), one of my older sister's friends, JG, asked me to go out with him. (On a side note: What does that even mean? Go out. Where are we going to go when neither one of the parties involved is even old enough to drive, drink, or stay out past 8:00 p.m.? I guess back then, "going out" was equivalent to today's "talking". I don't know.) JG happened to hang with my older sister's crew of friends and also happened to be good friends with my older sister's boyfriend at the time, which meant for the first time in my life, I had found an "in". My "in" was short lived, but I went out with a bang.

Junior High dances were attended in groups, not in couples. I had partaken in my fair share of "couple skates only" at Norwin Skateland, but all that entailed was holding hands while rollerskating and trying not to fall or trip your partner while skating to Boys II Men. I had even had a boyfriend in the sixth grade that sat next to me at lunch and held my hand on the school bus during field trips. However, I had never been asked to "go out" with a boy, let alone one of my older sister's friends.

Apparently, "going out" translated into JG meeting me at my locker every morning and then him holding my hand while walking me to my home room. Then at the end of the day, I'd meet him at his locker and we'd walk hand in hand to his bus. Aside from that, my lackluster Junior High lifestyle didn't skip a beat. The only difference was that for the first time ever, my older sister and her friends acknowledged my presence in the hallways of the school. The tragic end happened one evening after JG, my older sister and the rest of her crew actually came to watch my basketball game - which was a rarity all in itself and I should have sensed my own demise. After my game, JG met me by the locker room and began walking me towards my house (my entire school career, I lived within walking distance of my elementary, junior high and high schools). At the corner of the school, JG abruptly stopped me, turned me by my shoulders so I was facing him, grabbed my face and began to jam his tongue in my mouth. I had just played a full game of basketball, I know I had B.O. and worse than any of that I had no idea how to kiss back because I had no idea that kissing involved your tongue. My immediate reaction was to forcibly push him off of me to the point where he fell down and then what came out of my mouth next would haunt me for the rest of my junior high and high school career.

And I quote myself, "Ewwwww! What are you doing? GET OFF ME!" Follow this quote up with me wiping my mouth off in disgust.

It wasn't until the words rolled off my tongue and I had removed JG's DNA from my lower lip and cheek that I heard the raging, gut-busting laughter beside us. My older sister and ALL of her and JG's friends were sitting there on the steps outside of the gym and had witnessed my most embarrassing moment to date. While JG was still shell shocked and on the ground, I quickly took off running in the direction of my house and I didn't stop until I got there. The taunting snickers and the words "get off me" resounding in my head the entire way. When I got home I quickly ran to my sanctuary - the air conditioned bathroom - and locked the door. Later that night, my mom asked me what happened. I relived every torturous detail and I could tell she was holding back laughter. My father happened to be in the room while I was reliving my most humilating moment but he didn't hold back his laughter. He did, however, add in an "atta girl, daughter!".

The next morning, JG was not at my locker. Nor was he there ever again. Throughout the rest of the school year, the only time any of JG or my older sister's friends acknowledged me in the hall ways was to shout "GET OFF ME". In hindsight, I'm pretty sure that the only reason JG even went out with me in Junior High was because I was the consolation prize to my older sister. I should have realized it then, but that wouldn't be the first time.

While my older sister never talked to me about it back then, we laugh uncontrollably about it now. I still blame Disney for false advertisement and misinforming the youth about how a first kiss really goes down. They never show Prince Charming jamming his tongue down said Princess' throat. Perhaps if I had the right material to base my expectations on, I wouldn't have failed as bad. Regardless, that was my first "real" kiss and honestly, it never got much better... 

"Suck It Up, Stephanie! Get Your Head Back In the Game!" - my mother

The title of this post might as well have been my mantra for my pre-teen and teenage years. Those awkward years of an already outcasted kid due to being at least a good six inches taller than everyone (including prepubescent boys) in your class, makes your peers some of the worst people you've ever met in your life; but when words that trump anything they've ever said come from your own mother's mouth it really extends early year complexes into your young adult life.

I began playing soccer when I was very young - Norwin Tiny Kickers. I guess it was my mother's means of exhausting some of the pent up energy I stored as a kid and to catch a break from having to hear me talk to anyone that would listen. Ultimately, it was a win-win for my mother and an added bonus that I actually excelled in sports - specifically, soccer. The only problem was that much like everywhere else I went as a child, I was freakishly taller than the majority of my teammates on the field. It was on a soccer field, at the age of 10, that I was called a bitch for the first time in my life (while it was the first, it definitely would not be the last). Not only was it the first time I had been coined that term of endearment, but even better than that, it is was by a father of a girl that also happened to be the coach of the opposing team. Due to the fact that I was abnormally tall, I was immediately singled out to play as a goalie. In the net, my abnormality became a commodity.  However, before I was banished to the goalie box for the remainder of my soccer career, I was allowed out on the field from time to time (mostly because in the younger age groups it was an unspoken rule that the positions should be rotated so that everyone could learn each position and how to play it). During those early years, one of my favorite soccer coaches to this day (we'll call him Ace), coined me with my first sporting nickname - The Unguided Missile. I took pride in my new found name and embraced it with everything I had, including my giant feet and my gargantuan height. While I was still too young to really understand and embrace the art of "playing dirty", my gangliness and lack of coordination, coupled with my size made me an instant target to the referees. I'm pretty sure that I was every opposing teams MVP for the number of fouls that got called on me simply because a girl on the other team would run into me and immediately fall over like they'd ran into a brick wall. Which is exactly what happened the first time I was called a bitch.

(There I am, biggest bitch you've ever seen, right? Please note that impressive wingspan.)

What ensued after that though, was not something I could have ever anticipated or even dreamt. As I was helping the puddle of a girl up in front of me, with her coach/father hovering over both of us, red-faced and screaming at the referee to "get that GIANT BITCH off of the field before she hurts someone" in reference to me; my mother swooped in from the sidelines like a ninja and placed herself between myself and the coach/father. Now, anyone who knows my mother can vouch that she is a generally, well dispositioned individual and at times probably too nice - even to people that aren't deserving of this type of treatment. Moreso, anyone who has watched the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet and has seen footage of a mother of any type (human, animal, etc.) protect her young knows how this scenario played out. The verbal beat down of a grown man that happened right in front of my bewildered eyes was one of the most powerful forms of verbal diarrhea I have ever experienced! It was absolutely beautiful. My mother, a woman who at one time was sent to bed without dessert for using the word "fart" at the dinner table as a young girl, had sewn together the most beautiful tapestry of four-letter words that single-handedly made a grown man wish that instead of coming to the soccer fields that Sunday morning he had headed straight to church - because by the time she was through chewing him up and spitting him out, only Jesus could've saved him. It was from that moment forward I learned to never call either of my sisters a bitch (because I never wanted to have that type of wrath turned on me). Not only that, I made it my personal vow in life to take on this vulgar style of verbal punishment when anyone or anything tried to hurt anyone that I valued - friend or family. It was also at that moment that my mother decided (whether it was in my best interest, or her best interest can still be contested) I would be playing up one age group in soccer and my coaches decided that the goalie box was the best position for me.

After moving up one age group, being confined to the goalie box and being renamed Aminal (I know it looks like a typo, but trust that indeed that reads A-M-I-N-A-L. Teen girls, thinking it was cute - what can I say?), I more or less embraced being a goalie. If I'm honest, I had a love/hate relationship with being a goalie. I loved the credit given for a shut-out or a win, but I hated the stress, self loathing and shame that accompanied a loss. Therefore, it was very typical, in my early years of being more or less forced into the goalie position, to find me crying like I had just witnessed my puppy being shot before every game when my coach would inform me that I'd be starting in goal. This became a regular Sunday ritual. I think it drove both my mother and my coaches absolutely crazy. In hindsight, it had to have been worthy of a good chuckle, at the bare minimum, to see a freakishly tall "athlete" with ape like arms and hands, over-dramatically crying about playing in goal. Nonetheless, it wasn't until I finally realized the power that came with being a goalie that I really came to as a true Keystone State Cup Games invited goalie. As a goalie, my height was praised. The size of my hands and my impressive wingspan were admired. The fact that I feared nothing that came at me - both people and shots on goal - was worshipped. Compromising my own body's well being to refrain from letting a goal be scored was exactly what the crowd loved to watch. Coaches, parents, teammates and even opposing teams put my skills on a pedestal. When a teen is faced with that level of deity-like praise, it tends to inflate your head. Not only did it do that, but it also created a new level of competitiveness that my mother didn't know how to control.

It was actually in one of those Hercules-like moments, during a championship game at a tournament in Plum that I had one of the only serious soccer-induced injuries of my career.  We had snaked our way into the finals through a shoot-out in semi-finals - where, once again, my skills had proven worthy of my status. However, I did cry before the shoot out because I knew that if we didn't make finals it would sit on no one else's shoulders but mine. I mean, honestly, it's me and the 5 girls selected from the opposing team to take me on. One by one they come at you, just me and my goalie gloves in a net that didn't seem so big 10 minutes ago but now seems like an abyss. In my defense, that's a lot for a teen to have to come to terms with. Nonetheless, my mom and my coaches were not entertained with this setback - considering I hadn't pulled the cry before a game in quite some time, let alone in the semi-finals. Despite my tears of fear and anxiety, I pulled it together and managed to block 4 of the 5 shots which advanced us to finals.

To say that the finals game against Plum was difficult, would be an understatement. It was in the middle of summer and about 100 degrees, plus we had already played 2 other games that day. There were about 12 minutes left in the second 30-minute half and we were up by 1 point. I don't know what happened to my typically stellar defense, but somehow an offensive forward powered through and was on a break away. These were the moments I waited for and usually shined in. One-on-one and she was trying to break into MY HOUSE. Bad idea. By this point, I was 13 years old and not only had I learned and embraced how to "play dirty", but I had mastered it to the point where it looked like they had played me dirty. As she was breaking away, I started to analyze her dribble (which was not nearly as close as it should have been to maintain control and screamed of anxious nerves and fear) and then I started to close the gap between her and myself. Like a predator analyzes every move of it's prey, that was how I played in goal. I began to rush her - minding the gap as well as the confinements of my goalie box - and at the last minute I full-out laid out on her sloppy dribbling. When my hands made contact with the ball, my thumbs were extended and right behind the main face of the ball. It was at that very moment, I saw her foot make contact with the ball that was already in my hands. Then I heard it - CRACK. Tears instantly welled up in my eyes and a sheen of sweat popped up on my forhead. The referee blew the whistle and made some call about roughing/charging the goalie and I got up from the ground. I called my sweeper back to take the kick so that I could gather myself, but I refused to look down. As tears continued to roll down my cheeks, I could hear my mother on the sidelines sreaming at the top of her lungs, "SUCK IT UP, STEPHANIE! STOP CRYING LIKE A BABY! THEY DIDN'T SCORE! THE GAME IS STILL GOING ON! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR BUTT AND GET IT TOGETHER! GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN THE GAME!" Nothing like your mother basically screaming that you're a pansy from the sideline to motivate you.

Nonetheless, I guess what they say about the "boy who cried wolf is true". I knew without ever looking down that my thumb was broke, but I didn't take a knee. My mother thought I was being some kind of drama queen because I cried the remainder of the game. I heard her say a few more unpleasantries in my direction, but I played out the last 10 minutes of that game and when the referee blew his whistle to indicate that the game was over, while the rest of my teammates rushed to the sideline to celebrate a championship I fell to my knees and finally looked down. There was blood coming out of my goalie glove and my hand was so swollen I couldn't get my glove off. I felt like I was going to pass out and still, no one had come over to me. Finally, my coach realized I was kneeling on the ground and ran out to me. At that point, my NURSE mother came running over and had to cut my glove off of my hand. My thumb looked like it was compound fractured and my skin was ripped to the bone at my first knuckle. After a trip the ER, it ended up being merely a few clean breaks, that needed a butterfly stitch and a splint (and years of emotional therapy).

In my mother's defense, she felt awful once she realized why I was crying and that my thumb was actually broken. However, she then also yelled at me for not taking a knee and being so stupid and finishing the game. Fair trade-off, I suppose.  If only I could have recalled my mother's words of encouragement during my first kiss...

Flushing It Out... The Early Years

I received my first swirly (noun: The process of sticking someones head in the toilet and flushing) at the ripe age of 10 months.  It didn't take much to entertain or amuse me as a child and that still stands true today.  I use to beat the heat of the brutal Eastern Pennsylvania summers by killing time in the only air conditioned room of our humble abode - the bathroom. Looking back, I suppose my father's placement of the only AC window unit was rather strategic on his part, considering he spent the majority of his spare time in that room.  Nonetheless, so did I because I had a wild fascination with watching the water in the toilet spiral away to what I could only assume was the world's best water park for all of my dead goldfish. Flush. Watch. Clap. Repeat. Flush. Watch. Clap. Repeat.  This was how my afternoons were spent because my mother couldn't close the door to the only room that circulated the stagnant air in our house.

I suppose I should have realized back then that if this was what I looked forward to each day - mediocrity was something I would excel at. Alas, flushing, watching, clapping and honey dipping from time to time, were the highlights of my day.  That was until I ended up face first in a flushing, courtesy of my helpful older sister. She was so adamant in helping me obtain a closer look that she just flipped me right over the rim into the bowl, face first.  My eldest sister, the mother hen that she always was, informed my mother that I was, yet again, playing in the commode.  My mother had heard that her youngest daughter was reportedly playing in the toilet more times on a daily basis than any good mother would like to admit.  Therefore, when my eldest sister performed her sisterly due diligence in reporting my every move to my mother, she didn't exactly jump up to stop me.  To this day, I don't think I made it into the accelerated program in grade school nor did I learn to swim until I was 11 years old due to this childhood traumatizing event. By the time my mother realized that I was not merely playing in the toilet but was submerged, head first, in the damn bowl with water whirling around my head, I'd like to say that my lips were blue and she had to do a few rounds of baby CPR; but all she really had to do was pull my water logged head from the bowl (I also attribute my larger than average head size to this incident). I guess it was after this event that I was no longer allowed in the bathroom unsupervised (later in life, this rule would still apply due to inheriting epilepsy). Which I also attribute to my inability to have a regular BM (which from here on out will be referred to as corn, corning, etc.).  I mean, who wants to corn with the door wide open or even worse, with someone watching?  I mean, I'm sure that there is some creep on a Craigslist personal add right now looking for that exact person - the one who is aroused by watching someone else corn, but that kind of freakishness is just not for me.

I'm pretty sure the reason I learned to talk and walk so early was not, much to my dismay, due to me being some kind of child prodigy, but rather a true testament to the law of Survival of the Fittest.  In order to still be standing here today, I had to learn to protect myself from the elements that surrounded me - helpful sisters, toilets, a father who forgot me at daycare (twice). Since that swirly, my survival instincts perked up and I quickly learned that in this life I was going to need all the skills that MacGyver had in his tool box and more.  Unfortunately, my tool box didn't include common sense.  I guarantee that I was the most gullible child you'd ever meet.  Couple that gullible characteristic with my open and unharnessed willingness to trust just about anyone and I was doomed from the start. By the time I was just about to start grade school, I had been hung up in the closet with the lights turned out and told that if I let go of the bar, I'd plummet to my death, coaxed into the back of the linen closet once all the linens were removed, the linens were then replaced and the door closed (again left for dead), led to believe that one of my favorite uncles had hijacked the Easter Bunny and may or may not have killed him so that none of my friends would be getting delicious candy and would all blame me (which resulted in the first ever child under 5 years of age panic attack) and that my real name was Delphine Courtney (courtesy of my eldest sisters childhood best friend and our next door neighbor). 

The only thing that my tool box did include was an awkward amount of height (I blame this, too, on ingesting too much toilet water because both of my sisters are of normal height), the ability to eat an inhuman amount of food and a really sharp set of incisors. By the time I was 5, I was already as tall as my older sister.  This would also make for many years of pain and suffrage, that will be discussed in detail later. Regardless, I was a giant kid that had developed a trust complex by the age of 5. Oh, did I also mention that my grandpa's nickname for me was "Chubby Chunker"? Well, it was. I think sometimes my family would just let him feed me ridiculous things just to laugh while I devoured them. What child sits on their grandpa's knee while enjoying a jar of pickled herring heads? This girl. I was like a human garbage disposal. Beyond that, I was a closet eater. One time, I snuck to the basement in the middle of the night and ate an entire 2 pounds of imitation crab legs... raw. In retrospect, I guess it was a good thing that I was tall as a child as opposed to the alternative of resembling a child sumo wrestler. As a child, my best defense was my teeth. Anyone that got too close for comfort or was questionable in my mind was bit. The neighbor that coined my childhood nickname, my sisters, my dad... anyone. At first, I guess my parents thought it was funny or cute.  However, after I sank my teeth into my dad's ankle like a starving vampire at a fresh feed, it wasn't cute anymore. In fact, it was so not cute that my father swept me up off the floor, marched downstairs with me in tote, laid me out on his work table, opened my tiny, blood covered mouth and put a pair of bottle nose plyers on my incisor and threatened to pull each one if I ever bit again.

(*Please note all of the following: My height in comparison to my sister that is 19 months (to the day) older than me, the girth of that dress and the food stain on that dress. That is all.)

Needless to say, that is just a glimpse of my early years. You really need the background to understand the forefront. My five year old self was just the beginning of everything that would essentially be flushed....

Where It All Began...

Technically, I suppose it all began somewhere around mid December, 1981. I'd like to think my father, the chivalrous individual he was, told my mother to dress in her Sunday's best because he was taking her to a lovely matinee and then a fabulous, early dinner that would be accompanied by only the house's finest bottle of pinot grigio. Followed with a few glasses of wine, a few slow dances and my mother being swept off her feet by the best looking man in the house and whisked away to a night that would never be forgotten. Soft snow falling, glistening in the pale moonlight. Snuggled up by the fireplace... and then, BOOM... a legend was made. However, anyone who really knew my father coupled with the fact that they had a 4-year old and a newborn at home, leads me to believe it probably went down much, much differently. More along the lines of my mother coming home from a 12-hour work day as an RN and then slaving away in the kitchen to cater to my father's hunky dinner requirements - one meat, one starch, one vegetable... A glass of half white milk, half chocolate milk, of course, on ice.... All completed whilst he slept on the couch - Al Bundy-style with one hand over his head and the other hand in the waistline of his jeans, with "All In the Family" or "Star Trek" blaring in the background because he clearly wasn't sleeping, but "watching" TV. Once my mother had put the final touches on the meal, got both kids set-up at the table and ready to eat, she'd wake my father up and they'd eat the dinner that my mother made while juggling entertaining a 4-year old and soothing a newborn. After cleaning up the dinner dishes, bathing the babies and putting them to sleep, I can't imagine my father swooning my mother so I imagine it probably went down more like an injured antelope being attacked by a lion as opposed to the love story picture painted previously.

Regardless, what resulted from this primal dance was probably the best thing that ever happened to my parents - me. Not to dote on myself, but I'm a pretty fabulous person. Even from birth, my parents knew they had hit the jackpot with me. So much so, that even though my mother who told everyone she wanted seven boys, told my father they were done after me!  If that doesn't say that they knew a good thing when they had it, I don't know what does. I mean, I basically completed the trifecta of perfection that my parents were going for... I was the missing link, I completed the puzzle.

Realistically, I have been beating my parents up since birth. I was ready to go home from the hospital before my mother. Her pregnancy with me was not enjoyable in the slightest. Then when she actually went into labor, they found out that I was breach.... or so they thought, until they realized that what they had coming down the life canal was an arm and a leg - so I was not breach, I was sideways. Insert emergency C-section, an extreme loss of blood, a couple blood transfusions for my mother and one badly bruised infant... and that was my grand entrance into this life. I guess, it's really been a mutual beating since birth.  Oh, on a side note, the reason I am Stephanie is because I was suppose to be Stephen Witowski III, but I've also been pulling aces from my pocket and taking body shots on my dad since birth too - hence, Stephanie Lee Witowski the last. 

Since that glorious day in August of '82, my parents' and sisters' lives have never been the same... and not necessarily for the better. I began talking in full sentences at the ripe age of 11 months and I haven't shut up since.  Even before that, I started walking at 10 months and haven't stopped going since. I was out of diapers before my older sister and at the rate I'm going these days, I'll probably be back in them before her.

This is just the beginning of my own demise. My life has been one debacle after another since birth and I don't expect anything less as each day passes me by.  Nothing comes as a surprise to me anymore and should you choose to read along on this tumultuous journey, you'll soon realize why.  This lunacy that I call life is what has made me strive for mediocrity with passion. If you're ready, buckle up and join in on the ride and enjoy the nuances of what I've come to call my life...