oneupsmanship

At ten o’ clock yesterday morning the office was devoid of doctor and patients so –as they often do– words poured out into the air between me and Tessa. There is lots of nutbaggery in her extended family as of late, so I was doing my share of listening and nodding and scandalized ‘nuh-UHHH’ing.

“Yes, girl!” she would say before stacking up more words, prefacing them with phrases like, “And you know what else?”

After about twenty minutes, she dove into some complex family history and then waited expectantly for my affirmation of that being, like, The Most Fucked-Up Shit Ever.

“My mom accidentally married a polygamist when I was thirteen-ish,” I deadpanned, reminding her of the incredible and nearly unfathomable bit of my own history; I told her the complete tale a couple of years ago via a journal project she and I were doing.

“You win, asshole,” she said.