Little sins, huge consequences, but not for me.

My parents and my sister loved to go visit my uncle and his wife, in Mason City, Ia. They had 3 kids and the oldest, Sandy, was my age. The two boys were a tad bit younger than I was.

My uncle and his wife had gotten married when her youngest son, Mike, was just a few months old. Sandy and Frank were still pretty small too. Fact is they didn't know that my Uncle wasn't really their father. Sandy and Frank had figured it out eventually but Mike still didn't know.

My uncle also had a son from his first marriage. I don't know that he ever saw him after he divorced his first wife.

I hated to go there. My uncle and his wife were also alcoholics so for them and my parents it was just an excuse to get drunk and party. More drunken and abusive adults for me to deal with. Separated from my parents my uncle and his wife weren't to bad but together they all sucked.

They had a room, at the top of the steps that they put whoever had been bad, in. Nothing in it but a blanket and pillow. Their idea was that if there was nothing in there you would think about what you did wrong and reflect on what to do right next time.

Now that was a nice theory but what went along with it was a lot of yelling and with my parents there also a lot of hitting before you ever got to the room. Naturally I ended up there, once.

I don't remember what I supposedly did but I do remember my sister lied about whatever it was to get me into trouble. Heh, that was pretty much normal for her. So I ended up in the room, quite unjustly in my opinion. It wasn't fair and I was pissed.

Oops, forgot, no food in the room and no water. You had to ask to even go to the bathroom. I laid in there for a few hours and then came up with a plan to get out. I was pissed to the max so the plan I came up with was quite nasty.

Information used to be power and I had lots of information adults didn't know I had. They'd talk about all kinds of things they didn't want known, while I was in the room. I may have looked preoccupied with something but I was always listening. No matter where we were I was always paying attention to what the adults were doing.

Nothing new there and most abused kids do it. I'd say it's a safety mechanism or an early warning system so you can know what's likely to be coming and how to stay out of the way of it. Heh, by age 4 abused kids can read eyes, voice tones and body language quite well.

I finally decided to put my plan into action. I called my uncles wife upstairs to the room and told her flat out if I wasn't let out I was going to tell Mike that he was adopted and that my uncle wasn't really his father. That they had 10 minutes to let me out or I was going to do it.

Results were as expected. First my mother and step father came up and tried to talk to me. Didn't work as I was prepared to accept the consequences of my ultimatum. Whatever they did to me wasn't going to matter. So they got angry and beat me.

While they were leaving I told them I was still going to tell Mike unless I got out, now. Then up comes my uncle and he tried to talk to me. Yeah, well, I listened to him about as well as he'd listened to me when I told him my perfect little sister was lying.

So he hit me a few times and left cussing an swearing. Lol, I could hear them all arguing downstairs about what to do. They didn't seem to understand that they only had two choices. Kill me or let me out. Anything else and I was going to tell.

They didn't let me out so at the first opportunity I got, which was the next day, I told Mike the truth about his family. I got beat by all four of them for telling him and they didn't let me out. Lol, I ended up staying in that room until we left.

Funny, when we went there after that I was left alone by the adults and was never put into that room again. I may have lost the battle but I sure as hell won the war.

I've lost a few battles in my life. A lot fewer than you might think, but still, I have lost a few. I've never minded losing a battle or two because in the end I know I am going to win the war. That's just how it is. If you don't kill me during the battle I am going to win eventually.

Now that I'm older and physically unable to fight for more than 30 seconds I pick my battles a little more carefully.

Bottom line is I have never conformed to what the world thinks I should be or do, but, have instead, made the world conform to my reality most of the time. It's not all that hard to do, at least for me.

If you should have the luck to make it into my reality, or bad luck, you'll discover that most of the world bends to my way. Hey, it's my reality and my choice as to what happens in it. My reality works for me. It won't work for anyone else.

Lol, the last thing I said to one chick was "You are no longer relevant to my reality". From that point on she ceased to exist, for me. Altho we still saw each other at other places I never acknowledged that she even existed after I told her she was irrelevant.

My reality, my battles, my wars and I get to decide what's relevant and what isn't.