The Queen's Rambles

My mom just called and it about gave me a heart attack. It’s only 8 am over in Oregon so I thought she was calling to say my dad or sister was in the hospital or dead. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.

She had an amazingly bizarre conversation with my old best friend and she had to report it immediately.

Growing up, there were very few children in our neighborhood. Once I entered first grade I met Ron, a boy who lived seven houses down. Through the years we went through phases of being best friends and not speaking to each other. His next youngest sister was my sister’s age, so they also become best friends. Our families were linked together through and through and we all knew each other’s business. Our parents still live down the street from each other, though all the children have scattered.

Apparently my friend, Ron, and his wife are back! My mom is not sure of the story, but they seem to be living with his parents while they sort out the paperwork to move to Germany.

Ron has always been an attention whore. He wants to shock people. He wants to be different. He wants everything focused on him and he is willing to tell any tale to make that happen. In school he was the first ever male mascot for our high school. We were Vikings and we’d always have some popular girl dressed up like a Viking as our elected mascot. I don’t know how he ever won that election, but it suited him perfectly. Lots of attention!

He did all kinds of weird things like drink almond extract and pretend he was drunk, tattoo his whole lower part of his leg, pretend he had split personalities. You get the idea. Strange, yet pretty typical of an adolescent seeking attention. Nothing harmful.

Being a Mormon, he went on his mission and came home ready to be married. Those boys are promised they’ll be married six months after returning home and they usually are. As far as I can tell the church basically arranges a marriage if there isn’t already a girl waiting at home. That seems to be the case with him. He and his wife have been married 15 years, which is fairly shocking since they didn’t even seem to like each other. They don’t have any children, though they both say they want kids.

A few years back they moved to Hawaii to pursue his dream of living in Hawaii. As far as anyone could tell he never got a job and his wife supported them by working as a nurse in a PICU. They don’t communicate with anyone very often and when he does communicate it’s hard to know what’s really going on.

So now they’re back in Oregon just waiting to move to Germany.

All my friends who have moved to another country are probably scratching their heads going “whaaaa?” I don’t know about Germany, but I assume it is like most countries. You don’t just decide one day that you’re going to move to a new country. You have to get approval. That approval is generally not given unless you have a very, very good reason for moving. I don’t know the German laws but I have a feeling they may be in for a long wait.

Why did my mom call? Because the story he told her was so amazing she couldn’t contain herself.

They’re moving to Germany because they don’t want their son drafted into the military. In his words “you know how it is, wink wink.” Ummmm. . what son? “The son we’re getting.” Ooooookkkkk. Now, it wouldn’t be crazy to think they might be adopting, except that doesn’t seem to be the case. I guess this son is just going to drop out of the sky? Fifteen years of marriage and no children leads on to suspect someone may be infertile. With a registered nurse for a wife, one also suspects they are either not interested in pursuing treatments or treatments have been unsuccessful.

Next up, the service dog. He now has a service dog (the reason he was out so early–he was walking the dog and my mom was out doing who-knows-what). He needs the service dog because he has tumors. Tumors that float. Like. . . float around his body. They go from his brain to his stomach and cause him to lose weight and have convulsions.

So what will he be doing in Germany? His new profession, of course! He’s going to write novels! And with that, my friends list gets a big chuckle. A very promising career, eh? I remember in high school the boy couldn’t put two words together, but thought he was an awesome writer. He is the reason I basically refuse to proof or critique anyone’s work.

My head is reeling and I’m still going “whhhaaaaaa?” My mom promises to fill me in on the details as they become available. I feel sorry for him. He obviously needs serious medical treatment. I wonder if that is why his wife agreed to move in with his parents? Maybe she plans to dump him off there so she is no longer responsible for him? I don’t know. The whole situation sounds pretty crazy. I always thought he would grow out of his la-la-land dreams, but apparently they’ve reached whole new levels of crazy. I really shouldn’t be making light of it. Someone needs to get him some serious meds and therapy. It’s all just so bizarre, though. How can I not share? Probably if I was there and seeing this first hand I would be horrified about how this former best friend has turned into someone who is obviously mentally ill. In fact, I am sort of horrified. I don’t know. I should shut up now.