$1800 bail

They caught the bastard[^] last night!

The bastard is of course the man who may or may not be Ryans father. TBFH (Morgan) has no idea if he is or not though a non legally binding DNA test was run a month or so ago that indicates he probably is. How curious that neither side wanted to do a legally binding test!

My sympathies to Ryan. Of course, my sympathies with Ryan extend to the identity of his mother. I reckon I'd cry if Morgan was my mother too!

Anyway, last night (Saturday night), a motorcycle was stolen by the bastard. Through whatever magic the Phoenix Police effected an arrest and he found himself in gaol.

It's at about this point that you'll start to understand just how ill-equipped I am to cope with TBFH. You see, I reckon that if I was involved, romantically or not, with a woman who was a known drug dealer and small time fence and who had just stolen a motorcycle I'd think it was time to cut my losses and walk away. I'm just not mentally prepared for life in prison and being Bubbas bitch.

But it seems I'm out of tune; when Morgan found out early this afternoon it was all tears and flapdoodle[^] and nothing would do but she had to have the car. She lied of course; the car was needed so she could go buy some textbooks for the post-high school course she'll never complete and Mom bought the story hook line and sinker. Ryan was left with us.

Half an hour passes during which Mom preens herself, secure in the knowledge (remember we didn't know he'd been arrested) that the little princess is 'doing the right thing!'.

Then the phone rang. 'Mom, I have no idea where I am'. A little questioning and it seems she was trying to find the gaol on (I'm a little vague here because I really don't know the exact address of the gaol) Jefferson. Mom lets this go. I, hearing the word Jail (and spelling it in my head and here as gaol) don't let it go. 'She's looking for what????'. It's about this time that the sordid story of a stolen motorcycle comes out...

A little later the phone rings again. This time TBFH is down at I10 and Elliot. This is maybe 5 miles from the gaol on the other side from here (and damn close to the office I work in). I drive through there everyday. So she's lost. She's lived here three times longer than I have but she's lost? So Mom tells her to get onto I10 West and take the I17 North exit. Go to loop 101 East and she'll be back here. Uh huh.

The phone rings *again*. This time she's at the junction of I10 and loop 101 which is about as far to the west as you can get and still be on that part of the world map that is dotted as Phoenix. Oh and she ran out of petrol. And she's locked the car but the keys are inside!!!

It was at about this time that I exploded. Mom is no longer in any doubt whatsoever about how I feel about TBFH. Not that she was before!

What happened in the next hour is something I can't accurately relate; something about the bastards mother picking up a spare set of keys from here though I certainly didn't see her, so she could drive to the other side of the valley and release the car.

Then followed another hour or two punctuated by phone calls as TBFH got more and more lost in a city that is laid out on a grid and has freeways that are logically laid out. Somehow or other she found herself back at I10 and Elliot.

It was about this time that Sonya tried to hand the phone to me since I know the route from there back to here much better than Sonya does. I wouldn't touch that phone for less than a million dollars! I relayed the directions; I10 West to the SR143, go to MacDowell, left to 44th street and follow it north. Eventually you'll hit Tatum and get back here!

So eventually TBFH got back to here. I'd have been much happier if she'd got back to 2 miles east of here; where Dad lives but I'm stuck with Mom's insane belief that TBFH can be saved by praising the rare moments when she shows commonsense.

Thus to dinner. I did the underpants on the head thing given that it's Sunday. Dinner over it was sanity time; I stuck my headphones on, selected a symphony (Bruckners 2nd) and went for my nightly walk.

Returned just in time to find Sonya preparing to drive TBFH and Ryan to the courthouse! TBFH just *had* to be there when the bastard was arraigned! He was granted bail in the amount of $1800.

The last I heard the bastards mother was rallying for the bail money. I made it very clear that we will not donate one cent!