Flash

The Purveyor of Mayhem

Do you have a drama queen in your family? A black sheep? A tyrant with a Messiah complex? Someone you love to hate, or hate to love? A perpetually irritating gadfly to gossip about over coffee?  Do you spend endless hours devising definitive solutions, only to lose each and every round in the battle?

Well, you're lucky. Whether you realize it or not, that individual is the crazy glue that holds the family together. This is The Person You Hate to Love, and Love to Hate. You are firmly bonded with each other because it requires all your collective strength and ingenuity to keep from being vaporized by the antics of the family purveyor of mayhem.

Our family had no such centre. We all made enough money to afford endless therapy, and acquired impressive tool kits for managing our lives. We circulated in our predictable orbits like independent nations with nuclear weapons, with clear boundaries made of electrified razor wire. We exuded competence, self-awareness and healthy self-nurturing. We were invited to sit on steering committees because it was obvious that we were equipped with a built-in GPS to show the way.

There's only one drawback to relentless self-improvement. Once you have reached the pinnacle of perfection, there is no way to go but down.

We were outstanding poster children, epitomizing the pot of gold at the end of the therapeutic rainbow, but our smiles masked profound existential angst. We appeared to be floating in the clouds of ultimate self-fulfilment, but even as we chirped our happy affirmations, we were gazing into the abyss that awaited us if our foot slipped even one or two millimeters.

So we had a meeting. After four hours of deliberation, we decided to draw straws and choose a Black Sheep/Judas Goat/Tyrannical Autocrat/Purveyor of Drama to disrupt the family's static equilibrium by providing dysfunctional mayhem to look down on, lecture, and attempt to change.

I drew the short straw. Is that karma, or what?

At first, I thought this was just one more instance of my legendary bad luck. No matter how hard I had worked to capture the shining brass ring of glorious superstardom, something always happened at the last minute to keep me in the supporting cast of my family drama. During the drive home, I seriously considered packing my bags and disappearing for parts unknown, no forwarding address.

Then I started thinking outside the box. What if this was the golden opportunity that had always eluded me? I could really excel at this.

As soon as I got home, I started making a list of all the things I had wanted to do and never dared.

Use sarcasm instead of empowering encouragement. 

Insist on my own way in any situation. 

Adopt companion animals who pee on the shoes of unwelcome visitors. 

Incur debts, ask family members for money, and never pay it back. 

Stop hiding my use of mind-altering substances. 

Quit my high-status administrative job (which I never really understood) and become a Roto-Rooter person. 

Tell inappropriate jokes and laugh uproariously even if no one else does. 

Drive a noisy, decrepit vehicle which will never be adversely affected by accidentally ramming others. 

Wear whatever I feel like and answer the door in my pyjamas. 

Delete reproachful messages without reading them.

That was just the first brainstorming session. I have 47 items to choose from now. And I have never been happier. No more soul-searching or therapeutic quests. I mean what I say and say what I mean, except when I'm lying. Unless I am at work, I do exactly what I want. I eat when and what I want. I don't go to the gym any more, but that's not a problem because my two recently-acquired dogs have taken on the chore of being my personal trainers by insisting on at least two walks a day.

I used to be a well-oiled, superfluous cog in the family machine. Now I am the center of attention. Everyone wants to rescue me, re-make me, manoeuvre me into following the prescribed route to personal fulfilment.

Yesterday, my mother reached her exasperation threshold and yelled, "Would the real Jessie please stand up? Is it the hyper-responsible marvel we were so proud of, or is it this disreputable roto-rooter wrangler with noisome canines?"

I smiled. "We can explore that together. All I know is that I love the game so far."

"I see that," she said. "I want to hit you over the head with my cast-iron frying pan until you come to your senses. But even more, I want the freedom that you have."

So our family is doubly rich today, blessed with the services of two Purveyors of Mayhem.