5th grade. Mom's boyfriend got a stupid letter saying he was a finalist in some competition he didn't even enter. Said he could win a Suburban. All we had to do was go listen to some people talk about a timeshare for an hour.

I didn't want to go. Sounded like a bad situation I did not want to be a part of. I was use to things going sour real quick at this point in my life and I told my mom to leave me at home and have fun. I had even had a premonition about the event that freaked me out. I was sitting on the couch about an hour before we were supposed to leave. I remember because I closed my eyes and thought "What is going to go wrong this time?"

In my mind I could see from the middle of the backseat. It was dark and there was a storm outside. Lightning filled the sky outside and I could see two heads in the driver's side and passenger side seats. There was an impact and the heads rocked forward. Strangest f*****g thing is, I swear to God I saw Charles Manson's face in the upper left corner of the windshield.

I tell that part of the story because this was one of the weirdest and worst days ever.

So I'm like, "No. Not going. Not doin it. Have fun." Naturally, mom wasn't having it. I was going to enjoy this day with her... I guess misery really does love company.

So we start driving. Mom's boyfriend in the driver's seat, mom in the passenger side seat. One "step-brother" on one side, and another "step-brother" on the other. I'm in the middle with my feet on the hump thinking, "This can't be happening."

We're on the road for maybe 30 minutes. My step-brothers start messing with me, then start hitting eachother, their dad tells them to shut the f*** up or he's going to beat the sh** out... BAM!

Mom's boyfriend rear-ends the car in front of us. The boyfriend's head rocks forward, mom rocks forward and hits her head on the dash. I immediately look for Ol' Chuck in the upper left corner of the windshield. There, I see a billboard.

It's the goddamn marlboro man. A close up of his head bowed down under that cowboy hat sparkin a smoke. I'm officially freaked out.

But, I'm thinking, "Hey, we're alive. Let's go home before lightning starts striking us one by one." Oh... oh no. The cops come, take a report. The lady that was hit by mom's boyfriend's car is grabbing her neck acting like she's going to sue us till she sees we have nothing to sue for. Mom has a huge bump on her head from the dashboard. We all pile into the car and mom says, "Let's keep going."

"F**K!" I think quietly to myself.

Apparently she wanted to keep this locomotion of crazy runnin on down the line. So we keep pushing forward, because clearly this was a sign of good luck.

We get to the place. The guys keep us in a van driving around this timeshare neighborhood for like 4 hours. Mom has a headache; hitting a dashboard at 30 mph will do that. Mom's boyfriend has completely seperated from reality and is not even acknowledging that people are talking to him. I'm just sitting there looking out the window for lightning.

When the boyfriend finally snaps out of his trance he says "We're leaving". Mom is now pissed because she really thinks we're going to get a suburban for all this crap. Low and behold... we didn't win the suburban. We disqualified ourselves by leaving before the 6th hour of them trying to push a timeshare on us.

We start driving home and mom is pissed. "One more hour!" She yells. "We could have won a suburban."

"No! No we would not have! Why don't you stop taking crazy pills and join here in the real world!" I thought quietly to myself.

The boyfriend gets pissed. Now, in the years I had known this guy, I was well aware that when he gets pissed, he starts driving like a madman. And he did. He started swerving all over the road reapeatedly telling my mom to shut up. He finally snapped. He whipped the car over to the side of the road and started beating her. She escapes the car, the boyfriend gets out, and I scramble out after him. He tackles mom in a ditch and starts wailing on her. I jump on his back and put him in a 5th grade sleeper hold, but he just kinda brushes me off and down to the ground. He makes like he is going to come at me next but mom kicks him in the nuts. We get up and run for the cornerstore that we were fighting in front of.

We get in and the guy inside locks the door for us. The boyfriend comes and starts banging at the door trying to get at us. Actually stays till the police come. He gets dragged off to jail and we don't see him for a few days. When he finally gets out of jail he comes home, packs his crap, says some parting words to me and mom, and leaves our lives for a few years. The next time I see him will be in about 2 years, after he wraps a car around a tree while driving drunk, killing his wife at the time.