Faking Cancer

Normally, I post about experiences that are a fair bit in the past, since I like to have things with some sort of chronological order.

The exception is when something really worth writing about happens, like now.

So, my dad has a "friend" who is probably even more nuts than he is, if such a thing is possible. He's been to jail, had his kid taken away, is almost always drunk, and is fond of leaving threatening voice mails. We hadn't heard from him in years, and we'd all sort of assumed he'd gotten himself killed. He's that type of person.

But then we get a frantic call from my dad about how his friend showed up on his doorstep, begging for money to help with getting custody of his kid, and insisting that dad owed him. He looked pretty wretched (more than usual) and was almost crying on dad's doorstep. Dad told him to wait, went inside, and called us asking for an excuse to not help his friend.

Now, the woman dad is suffering from breast cancer, so mom told dad to say that he was dealing with some medical issues. Mom said he didn't have to divulge any information, just to say that it was private and he really couldn't help right now.

So dad heads back to his friend, apologizes profusely, and says he's been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Because that's the sensible thing to do.