Hallway

It even started out badly.  It's not like it started out great and got worse because at least that would mean that at some point in the history of my life things were normal.  That if time randomly stopped, there would be a possibility that out of every second ever to pass it might stop on the one second in which my life was normal.  No, that wasn't the case.  It was always weird.  There wasn't even a "honeymoon" period.  My childhood was an immediate 7 year itch.

 I was born in Houston in June.  It was hot.  I know this because My parents brought me home from the hospital and already they were incompetent.  They lived in a one bedroom apartment and my crib was placed next to my mom's side of the bed where I was to be nursed, loved and nurtured.  The first night my parents decided I was to be wheeled out into the hallway outside of their closed door due to my mother and father not getting enough sleep.  I had the audacity to require feedings in the middle of the night.  I also may have needed to be burped and had my diaper changed, too.  So the obvious solution was to wheel me out into the hallway.  Soon it became evident that even though I was in the hallway I still required their attention so they hired Bertha.

Bertha was a hired baby nurse paid for by my grandmother to assist my parents in caring for their one perfect healthy newborn.  Bertha was paid to sleep on the couch, snore loudly and every few hours attend to me.  My parents then complained that Bertha's snoring was keeping them awake.  They were truly screwed.  Perhaps my mother had postpartum depression but I highly doubt it.  I think she was overwhelmed by the fact there was someone else in the world who might need something from her and  might require other people (my father) to pay attention to someone else.  I'm sure they were both thinking they made a terrible mistake and they should of just stuck with the cat.

There are no photos of Bertha, no evidence she really existed other than the fact that I'm still not sleeping in a hallway in an apartment in Houston.  Wherever you are, Bertha, thank you.  You were my first angel.  I wish you had stuck around for the next 18 years because things didn't improve all that much. Well, to be fair, I did eventually get upgraded to my own bedroom but that was about it.