At any rate, Fran was the one in my class, was the neighbor of my childhood best friend, and I was stuck with her. Sometimes she was fun - hell, get a few drinks in her and she was a riot, but she was a Jekyll and Hyde. I didn't really find this out until a couple years after graduation when we were hanging out more. You'll notice in most of the pictures I have of us together, we're drunk. In fact, I think in all of the pictures I have of Fran, she's wasted. You'll have to excuse the '80s hair; it died a slow death in the midwest, what can I say?

I think it was around 1990 when we started having the Winnie Parties. These were weekly Saturday night drinking binges in the Winnebago that sat in Fran's parents' driveway. Five of us met up downtown every Saturday night, made a liquor run, and then spent the remainder of the night alternating between drinking games and drunk Pictionary until we got bored of that and made Shari drive us downtown. Shari was Sober Cab and Liquor Purchaser, since the rest of us were still only 20.

Often times we'd go down to Hardee's or Randy's for eats, then cruise the Loop a few times to see who was out. We always yelled out the windows, and usually sang. We preferred to sing Christmas carols, regardless what time of year it was. It was good times.

One night we met some people downtown and invited them back to the Winnie. They were shaking the trailer and I was getting nauseated, and I think we all started making too much noise. Her parents then kicked us out and we were thereby banned from partying in the Winnie anymore. We had a few meet-ups at my house, in our enclosed back porch, and then we ended up moving to a house with a basement so parties were to resume down there, but I think we only had one before the whole thing fell apart.

Fran got knocked up. She and her 'baby daddy' - a guy from our high school class - were going to move in together and have a kid. No more partying for Fran. Since she and I had been the key alcoholics of our group (Maureen drank like we did, she just usually didn't make the Winnie parties because she favored babysitting gigs to gettin' her drunk on with her buds) that left me with the Sober Cab and another friend who gave up her drinking career after her first hangover. So the house parties broke up, but things picked right back up socially as soon as the baby was born.

In the meantime, as mentioned in another story, Maureen and I tried sharing an apartment, and when that hit the fan I just moved to another place almost right across the street from it, alone, because I was officially "out of the house" now and didn't want to have to go back "home". I couldn't afford the joint, and eventually all my utilities got shut off, and Fran invited me to come stay with them if I could watch the kid for them sometimes. Sounded like a great arrangement - living with friends, no rent, a little babysitting for a pretty well-behaved 9-month old... Boy, was I in for a rude awakening!

So Fran and Mike decided to get married. One night Fran and I started addressing wedding invitations in the bedroom I was sleeping in. I had to get up and go to work in the morning, so at whatever time it was I said, "Ok, I think I'm gonna hit it," or something to imply I wanted to get to bed. She was like, "Ok, well I'm just gonna stay here and do this for a little longer." So I told her I was going to have to shut off the light in order to sleep, so maybe she could go work on it out in the kitchen. She said, no, that was ok, she'd just sit there, then.

*blank stare*

I'm speechless. I told her I could not sleep with someone just sitting there in a chair in my room, watching me. And it's just weird! And she wouldn't give me a reason why she wanted to stay there. It was so creepy! Finally I just said fine, sit there, and went off to sleep on the couch. I think I had just started to drift off when she called out to ask me would I take her to the hospital to see Mike?!!! (He was a nurses' aid on the night shift there.)

I lost it. I told her no I would not take her anywhere, and that I needed to get to sleep if I was going to make it to work tomorrow so that I could earn a paycheck to pay off the bills I owed! I can't remember what happened after that, but I think she let me back into my room and I slept the couple hours that remained of the night.

There's more, and I'll try to summarize, but it's endless.

They offered to pay for the dress I was going to wear in their wedding, because I was a good friend, I was going to be Fran's maid of honor, and because the whole reason I was living there rent-free was because I needed to pay these bills off. THEN, the Warrant concert came up. I had been harboring a huuuge crush on the lead singer for months, and they both knew it. There was no way I was missing that concert, and the tickets were only fifteen bucks. And I had my own car to get there. First, they decided it was a good idea, and were planning to go also. In fact, Mike attempted to take over the whole endeavor and wanted to make a day of it tubing down the river and then catching the concert.

I was planning on getting to the concert the minute the grounds opened (it was an outdoor venue) to make sure I was in the front row when Warrant came on. Nowhere in my plans of high-heel-wearing, slutty-dress-donning, pouffy-haired groupie-ism was there room for tubing down a river. So I would have driven separately anyway.

BUT... for reasons I can no longer remember, if they ever existed at all, the two of them not only backed out of the concert, but decided that I shouldn't go anymore now either. Oh, I think maybe Mike had to work it, and Fran didn't want to go without him or he'd be pissed, or some such shit. So they freaked the hell out - all of the sudden - about my plans to go to that concert. They kept referring to it as "concerts", plural, as if I were going to one every night. Said that if I could "afford to be going to concerts" then I could afford to buy my own dress for the wedding. Fine. Did and done.

Fran and Mike kept a disgusting house. Once a week (maybe it was longer) they went hog wild and cleaned the whole place, topping it off with potpourri-scented CarpetFresh or whatever it's called. But in between, the place looked like a dump, and was littered with things that could have done serious damage to their child, including but not limited to: half-empty soda cans used as ashtrays strewn throughout the house, many in reach of a toddler; empty plastic bags that diapers come in, all within reach of the baby; his milk bottle. My GODS. I don't know how that woman could not smell sour milk when she took off the nipple. She never EVER washed it, just refilled it and gave it back to her son.

The thing of it is, there were actually few occasions where they really needed me to be there to watch him, because for the most part either one or the other of them was always home. And Mike's parents watched him a lot too. So on the rare occasions I was left there with him, I took the opportunity to right the wrongs, of course, but while they were home there was little I could do about the way they conducted their disgusting lives. If I saw stuff, I threw it away, but I worked too, and their bedroom was part of the problem - and he slept in there with that crap.

The strange incidents between the two of them and me just kept getting more and more frequent. They had a whole thing about me having a key. I was living there, but they didn't want to give me a key. They locked me out once or twice. Somehow, I had ahold of a key one day and made a copy, and didn't let them know I had it.

I invited Fran to come out with me and a couple other friends for my 21st birthday in July. She had been planning to come up until a day or two beforehand, and then she got all weird on me. Before I left that night, she promised to come out later and meet up with us... and then she slipped into Mr. Hyde.

She never showed up, never came out... I was piss drunk and my friends helped me up to the door. I had been promised it would be left open for me - they thought I was without a key, remember - and it was locked. And trust me, honeys, this was on-purpose locked. Sooo, I fished out my key and let myself in, and then I crawled into my room and scribbled out a four-page bitch note for the two of them and left it out for them before crashing into bed.

As soon as I woke up, I packed up my shit and had it ready to go. All I had to do was pull my car up to the building from the lower visitors' parking lot. While I was out doing that, you guessed it - they locked me out again. I called the cops. Yeah, I don't think they thought I'd do that. I guess Mike was "really pissed" but too bad. They tried to say the door "sticks" a little, but the cops knew better. Anyway, they stood guard at the door while I hauled my shit down to my car. I ended up going back to live at home, after that.

At some point down the road, as mentioned in the other story, we made up. In January I lost my license. I had three jobs, and needed rides. I had the car, just needed someone to drive it. Since Fran & Mike were sharing a car, I offered her mine to use provided she would take me and pick me up from work. She agreed, then failed the first night to pick me up. Another friend had just gotten her license, and I called her for a ride. We went to Fran's to confront her but she wouldn't come to the door, even though I hid around the corner and my friend knocked. The kid was crying and the TV was on, and they were home; just weren't going to acknowledge the door (or the kid, for that matter). So I used my spare key to start the car and drive it, still full of her stuff, back to my house.

The next day, I drove myself to work, but by the time I got off I suppose Fran had been hot on the wire to the police department telling them where to find my car, and no sooner did I pull out onto the highway than I was pulled over and ticketed. I had to be driven to work in a police car, and made him drop me aways from the place. Then later that night, Fran and Mike came in, sat in my section, stiffed me, and then had the cajones to come up and talk to me like everything was just tits, between us.

I told them, "Funniest thing happened today! Someone called and reported me to the cops for driving home from work!" and they were just like, "Hmm, really?" All oblivious and shit, like they truly had no clue about it at all. Mike asked me, "Do you know who it was?" I said, "Yes, I know exactly who it was. And don't worry, they'll get theirs," or something of that nature. Wow, this is a long story. But there's a lot to tell, see?

I need to mention at this point that just before this whole failing-to-pick-me-up and then cop-calling incident, I had been vying to get Fran hired at the bar. We needed another waitress, and she needed a job. I found out, on the same day this happened, that she'd been hired. Since I'd already been working there for like, a year, I made it a point to fill everyone in on Psycho Fran, and they were all on my side.

She started getting along really well with one of the main waitresses, and then she caught her (Fran) pilfering tips out of people's cups (which were just plastic beer glasses with our names on them). I think at that point there was some doubt about whether it had really happened or something, and so my friends actually put into motion a plan, one night. It was a Fish Fry Friday, and I wasn't working it because I'd told them not to schedule us together if at all possible. Story goes, Fran screwed up somebody's order, someone yelled at her, she yelled back, my friends all ganged up on her simultaneously and caused her Hyde reflex to kick in, and she tossed a fit in front of all the customers. The owners asked her to never come back, and that was the end of Fran.

I don't think I ever saw her again after that. I've heard a few rumors... her kid didn't talk until well past his second birthday... she popped out a daughter a year or so after I moved to New York... I believe a third devil's spawn has made his way into the world, by the time I tell this tale. It's a scary thought. The "baby" (the one they had when I lived there) would now be fourteen. I hope he's causing his parents a lot of grief. Fran wouldn't even come to our 10-year high school class reunion when she found out I was coming. Probably a wise choice. I looked damn good at that reunion (check the photos section, there's probably pictures there somewhere) and I've never known her to be anything other than an obese spandex-wearing, oversized t-shirt gal. Straight out of Jerry Springer, I tell you what.

I know someday I'm going to remember more weird things she did, but I think I've painted a pretty clear picture here.