K. Venomous
It's All About the Hannibals
K. VENOMOUS
It’s all about the Hannibals
Otherwise known as: How to ruin friendships and cause all kinds of havoc for fun and profit . . .
. . . that is, if you are my mom, Hannibal, and believe me this story is quintessentially all about the Hannibals.
The Big and the Small
In the smaller way, this is a story about friendships, specifically about my best friend -- K. Venomous -- when I was just a little (and adorable!) girl.
In the bigger way, though, this is a story of the damage psychopaths will do to everything you enjoy and love. It is about how they will divide you from your friends and supporters.
Today’s story starts out in 1985, when I was just a little (and adorable!) kid, involves the Statue of Liberty and a July 4th parade down Main St. of our little town of 900 people located in Hansford county.
Image: Paavo Tynell Torchiere
Source: PFFK#7 for The Exchange Int
We pick up a few years later as we are about to move to Amarillo, and bookends with Rush at my Sorority -- which I ran, very successfully, the best Rush ever, everybody says so.
I wasn’t even allowed a pet[i]
The Story of a Girl
We were the same in many ways -- K. Venomous and I. Our families had similar agricultural and mineral interests. We were the same age and went to the same school.
We spent so much time together, at her house, at my house, at school. Several sleepovers, like girls do with their besties. We used to joke and laugh out loud at just about everything. K. Venomous would repeat things she heard from the radio DJs. Her favorite was “Shut up about chicken on a stick”. I didn’t even know what that meant and, by itself, it is not really funny.
However, when K. Venomous said it, she would try to imitate the DJs voices, so it became riotously funny. Sometimes, even to this day, I repeat that phrase and laugh quietly to myself. For no reason.
We were also different in a few ways. Her family lived further out of town, down a dirt (i.e., caliche) road closer to the Oklahoma border. I was blonde haired and blue-eyed, like pretty much everyone in my family as well as many of the town folks.
K. Venomous and her family had dark hair and brown eyes. As far as I was concerned, though, we were the same.
K. Venomous had an Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary was a grown up and had a learning disability or something. I’m not sure. It might have been autism. I liked Aunt Mary, though. She had a way of tossing out truth grenades every so often, out of nowhere. She would typically begin with “Oh K.” -- then say something like “you got that darkness in the eyes”. I didn’t know if Aunt Mary was referring to K. Venomous and her brown eyes, or whether it was something more sinister.
Like in this song:
Marcy Playground, St. Joe on the School Bus
Anyway, we should have been life long friends -- K. Venomous and I.
The Rest of the Story of a Girl
K. Venomous and I should have been friends forever. But Hannibal saw to it that we were not, as I found out later.
Instead, K. Venomous turned into an adversary years later. Strangely enough, though, that adversarialization prompted me to exceed. That then led to a job in Dallas I really wanted fresh out of college, which then led to two other bigger jobs in NYC. So, I suppose I should thank K. Venomous. Or really I should thank Hannibal, because, Hannibal caused my friend to become my enemy. Thanks Hannibal!
Psychopaths excel at isolating and dividing you from your friends, your siblings or other family members, anyone who might take your side, or buck you up when you need it, or anyone who might come from real actual normal family and can show you the light at the end of the rainbow.
Why do they isolate? Part is to gain control, and they cannot control you if you have a bigger better influence in the outside.
Another reason is because they enjoy it. They get to breathe in your pain. It’s a sport to them. They are good at it, and it is one of their greatest talents.
The Story of a Lady
Lady Liberty, that is.
It is 1985.
I’m watching television at my Grandparent’s house. A commercial appears and totally captivates me. It’s the voice of the Statue of Liberty and how she is in need of funds to undergo restoration and replace her deteriorating cool green copper skin and restore her torch with a 24-karat gold-plated flame. Any contribution, big or small, would be welcome. Every little bit helps!
Just mail it in to the following address . . . P.O. Box 1986, New York, NY 10018 . . . that address again is . . . P.O. Box 1986, New York, NY 10018!
While I previously did not know that Mrs. Liberty could talk, this made complete sense to me. Who wouldn’t need a 24-karat gold-plated flame, I thought. Wait. Gold-plated? OK, well, I would have wanted a solid gold 24-karat flame, that actually lights up, but who am I to dictate terms.
I knew exactly how much money I had saved up. When I next returned to my Grandparent’s house, I brought every cent I had. I asked my Grandmother if she could mail in my donation (to P.O. Box 1986, New York, NY 10018). She replied that she would write a check for an amount and mail the check. She had me write out the address, put the check in the envelope and then had me seal it. What fun!
At this point, you are probably wondering why I did not ask either of my alleged parents to help me with this particular project. Truth is, it never crossed my mind. In fact, it never crossed my mind that it didn’t ever cross my mind.
In fact, I never even told them about it.
Plus, they would have probably (i.e., certainly) kiboshed it, and would have done so by lobbing out a few doubts or criticisms in my general direction -- thereby making me think it was my own actual idea.
Oh yeah, Lee Iaccoca was running the fundraising campaign. I remembered him from all those Chrysler commercials: “if you can find a better automobile, buy it.” Turns out, pretty much every other automobile was better.
For the longest time, though, I thought Lee Iacocca was an American hero. Recently, someone who has become a good friend, and who knew Mr. Iacocca from the 1960s when he was at Ford, disabused me of that notion. There goes my hero.
1986
My Granddad passed away suddenly, shockingly at the age of 60 on March 20, 1986, just after lunch, on parcel 211, tending his cattle.
I recall exactly what Hannibal was wearing when I found out, a Coca-Cola rugby shirt in red and white . . . for some reason. I was standing in the Gopher’s parking lot. I saw my dad, Fredo, looking down. I saw Hannibal approach Fredo and give him a hug. She looked happy.
I was wearing a red and white t-shirt that my Grandparents brought me from Dallas. When I found out what happened, I broke down. I don’t remember how I got home or what happened when I did.
Then my memory flashes to the packed funeral, in the church he had helped rebuild from the fire in January 1979. It was so packed, I remember they had set up a remote room with a TV so everyone could be there.
My Grandfather, one of my enduring heroes, died on a Thursday afternoon, and the services were on Saturday morning, less that 48 hours later. There was not even an autopsy. I will tell you why in a future Episode, for which I do not yet have a title. All these 40 years later, I don’t like to think about it. I will say, and have said, I do not believe it was an accident or heart failure as they claimed. I will also tell you how Hannibal intentionally inserted mistakes in the public announcement, which got printed in the newspaper, e.g., my Grandfather’s birth date, among others. Who does that? Well, I guess we know.]
At the services, everyone was crying, many of the grown men even had tears. Hannibal was not crying. It seemed she felt happy. I was so distraught but her emotions registered with me. I can see her face as I write this, clearly. I remember my Grandmother walking out of the church and then my memory goes blank.
[Later that day, close family and friends gathered at my Grandparent’s house after the services. I went back to their bedroom and cried for hours. My Aunt JuJu, one of my teachers, and some of the older ladies, came to comfort me one-by-one and ask me to come out. I couldn’t move and didn’t want to. I was unconsolable. I still am. And that is part of the reason for writing these stories.]
The Killer of All Buzz
No Doubt, I’m Just a Girl
Shortly after the funeral, my parents received a phone call from the school principal.
I received a letter from the aforementioned Lee Iacocca thanking me for my donation. Well, at the time I actually thought it was from Lee Iacocca personally.
Hannibal seemed extra miffed when she hung up with the principal. It was not unusual for Hannibal to be miffed about something, at any given time, especially after phone calls from my school or anyone else. In this case, however, I knew that I had done anything wrong. I was a good kid.
Hannibal turned to my dad, Fredo, and said “well guess what our little darling has done now”. I couldn’t come up with anything, but was sure dying to find out.
Fredo looked at her with wide eyes. I looked at her with lightly squinted eyes, arms crossed, ready for a stare-down.
Hannibal pointed to adorable 9 year old me and said “I guess she donated to the Statue of Liberty restoration and now her name is on a plaque on Ellis Island. The school wants to recognize her for her philanthropic efforts.”
Cool!
I was happy. Then confused. Hannibal declined the recognition stating that it was too soon after my Granddad’s passing. I simply did not need recognition for my first philanthropic naming gift, she said. I did not get a vote. I was also confused how my name and hometown was on a plaque in NY. After all, my donation of all my savings wasn’t that much.
I came to the conclusion that my Grandparents chipped in a bunch extra without telling me. The letter from the aforementioned Lee Iacocca of course, “went missing”.
It’s probably in a trinket box -- along with my cheerleading bloomers and a myriad of other items.
I first went to NYC in 2002, headed for Ellis Island and, yes, the plaque is there. I sent a picture to Hannibal and there was no response.
We Love a Parade
It was July 3, 1986. We are at my home.
I had been working for some time on our costumes for the July 4th parade. The kids would drive their bikes or pedal tractors down Main St. at the end. It was fun and the town folks loved it.
I was thrilled to be dressing up as the Statue of Liberty. I made a torch, crown and draped robe. On July 3rd, Hannibal decided my best friend -- K. Venemous -- needed to come over for a sleepover. Awww, how nice!
This was an override of Hannibal’s rule of no summer sleepovers, for whatever reason, so I was happy about that at least. Then I realized that I had not been planning for
K. Venomous’ costume. As I walked through the entry atrium on the morning of July 4th, I see Hannibal dressing K. Venomous in my Statue of Liberty costume. My heart dropped. Hannibal placed a red, white and blue top hat on my head. She then explained that I would be driving the John Deere with my brother(?), Myron, on my lap. The many times I had to carry Myron, figuratively at least (you’ll see, there’s a lot of stuff to tell).
This particular July 4th parade was the most photographed by Hannibal. I can hear her yelling my name and instructing me to smile. Yes, the smile that she took along with my costume, and instead had me focused on driving the John Deere while holding Myron; he wasn’t even two years old. Hannibal seemed happy.
So did K. Venomous.
K. Venomous and I were best friends throughout middle school. We cheered, played basketball and ran track together. We would often do sleep overs at her place in the country. Great place with an old carved out boulder that they said was the seat of an Indian Chief. You could feel the energy when you sat in it. K. Venomous’s own Granddad and my Granddad were close friends and aligned in the belief that cattle should be pasture fed, not feed lot fed. Her other favorite saying along with chicken on a stick was “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em”. I didn’t know what that meant either.
End of Summer 1990
It was the closing day of the local pool. The very pool where I was tasked with my first lobbying effort to rally the town in funding the build out and the opening of the pool. I got to be in a TV commercial. Wearing a little bathing suit. But no where to go swimming. Please help! It was also my 1st television appearance.
With it being the closing day, end of Summer 1990, there were a lot of kids in the pool. Suddenly I look up and K. Venomous is at the end of the pool with her hands on her hips, akimbo. I swam over and asked where her swim suit was. She was mad.
K. Venomous asked “why did you not invite me to your going away party?” I replied “this is closing day and it’s not my going away party. I would have invited you. You know that, don’t you?”
She explained one of other friends called her and asked if she was coming to the going away party. I tracked that friend down in the pool. She confirmed that Hannibal had, in fact, called her earlier that morning and invited her to my going away party. She looked at me like “are you an idiot?” I looked back, astounded and sad. I felt like I had crushed my best friend’s soul.
I tracked Hannibal down; she was also the manager of the pool. I asked her if she had arranged a going away party, and she said yes. I found K. Venomous and told her that I did not know about this going away party. She remained mad and stated that I had purposely left her out. This was not the case. As much as Hannibal was thinking I would be upset by K. Venomous being upset, I now had a duty to thank every kid for coming. K. Venomous left and the party ended right around the time I finished thanking everyone.
Why did Hannibal take on the job as pool manager? Here’s what I know. I found out recently that Hannibal’s SSN is listed as having been issued in the 1980s, even though she was born in 1951, and even though I would have been impossible even in the TX panhandle to do anything in the 1970s and earlier without a SSN. So, either she never had a SSN before -- unlikley -- or got a new number. Why would that be, I wonder? Anyway, I reckon she took on the pool manager job -- which is the only job in all of Hansford county that probably required no actual work -- in order to build up a history under the newly issued SSN.
After the pool non-party, my immediate family moved to Amarillo, after the Allsups Sushi incident, all to be described in a future Episode entitled “Allsups Sushi To Go“.
I went from a 1A school to a 5A school. While K. Venomous remained in the 1A school, I would continue to hear that she was having a hard time from the local bully and, as usual, it was my fault. Since I moved, and was out of range, the bully took aim at K. Venomous. Why K. Venomous did not blame the bully, I mean . . .
The Bookenders
Somehow K. Venomous and I both ended up at Texas Tech, in the same year, and were in the same sorority. It was a large chapter. I was over-joyed to see her. I started to get the feeling, however, that K. Venomous was avoiding me and had others avoiding me. Surely, she was not sore over not being invited to a going away party that never happened, in 1990, at the age of 13?
I had volunteered for several committees and my efforts were rewarded by the committee members letting me know K. Venomous had orchestrated a smear campaign. Why? The resounding reply is that she just did not like me and did not want anyone else to either. Thankfully an Alumna from the same chapter knew me from Amarillo. She called some of the local advisors and encouraged them to put me in a larger leadership roll. I’m tremendously thankful for her.
That is how I ended up chairing Rush decorations and this is one area I thrive.
I also thrive by not being around psychopaths.
Bookend #1
As the spring semester was winding down I spotted K. Venomous in a campus parking lot as I was driving in with my little black colored Toyota. This silent treatment and besmirching campaign had been going for more than a year now. Time to fess up and find out.
I drove my car right in front of her’s. She flew out of the car and was shouting at me, waiving her arms vigorously like she was waving off the fighter jet about to make a misaligned carrier landing. “Move your car,” she yelled, “you blocked me in!” I got out of my car and walked straight for her and said “I know I did. I did that on purpose. I’m not moving until you tell me what your problem is with me. Own it.”
She continued on repeat and her yelling got louder and louder. So did the crowd of students watching. I held my ground. If there is one thing I know, it is the cadence of an argument. I am the child of Hannibal after all, and I learned some lessons. So with the crowd, at what felt like a mass population locked into our stand off -- random F words flying about -- the situation was escalating.
I then reminded K. Venomous of a prior scrap -- also put up by Hannibal -- when I was in High School, which I won handily and got a few days of detention. Actually, some of the coolest kids were in detention with me. I made a few friends even. Thanks Hannibal.
Back to K. Venomous, as I politely informed her “there is zero way you are walking away with a win. Absolutely zero.” It was then I sensed a weakness. She was going to come out with it and in front of a lot of people.
At the top of her lungs and with a furious hissing she said “because your mom came into a store and told the owners that my dad cheated on my mom.”
“Ummmm, what?”, I thought.
To which I asked “what does that have to do with me?”
She paused and I could feel the many eyes and ears on the situation. She then said in a lower voice “because, for once in my life, I’m happy and I didn’t want you around to mess things up.” Yet again, and for the third time in this story, I had no idea what this meant.
I thought about this and I let the moment hang for a second. I said “K. Venomous you don’t want me around to mess things up? You are blaming me for something I had nothing to do with? For something I had no idea about? I’d say it looks like you have messed up your own life. Or maybe Hannibal did.”
With that I turned and as I was hitting stride a professor strode up hurriedly and fastidiously, made it to “the ring”, and asked if everything was OK. “It is now,” I said, then got in my car and drove off. I think K. Venomous was crying, like mad crying. She had been played by Hannibal AGAIN. So she should have been crying.
By the way, in this whole imbroglio, I was inspired by a story my Grandfather told me when I was around 3 or 4. He had just gotten back to Texas after serving in the Marines in Okinawa. I’m a little hazy on the details, as I was around 3 or 4 when he told this to me.
I remember it as follows: He was at a cattle or feed auction, and someone he did not know was cussing at him and calling him names. Seemed angry. Now, my Grandfather did not know this person, or what his actual beef was. So, he walked up the agitator, calmly. As they were face face, my Grandfather laid his left hand, on his opponent’s right shoulder and said “Friend, I don’t know you, but you seem to know me. I got no beef with you, and I reckon we can be friends.” That was it. Then my Grandad said “do you know why I put my left hand on his right shoulder?” I did not, I answered. “Well, in case I needed to clock him, his right arm would have been occupied.” Pure genius, I thought.
Bookend #2
I would next see K. Venomous as I was coordinating each rush party’s decorations. And, if you know anything about sorority rushes, they are even bigger and more intricate than you can imagine. Take everything you know about Rush, especially in Texas, and multiply that by 10. There are numerous events over several days, hundreds of girls will come through, and every room of every event needs decorations. Bigger is always better!
It was a high budget, and I had rehearsed as much as I could ahead of time. There was a volunteer sheet for other members to sign up for helping assemble decorations, drinks, balloons, chairs, tables, drinks (oh, I said that already), everything that goes into an event with hundreds coming and going every day. There is very little time, none of which can be wasted. And, even though, it is meant to be put together by the entire Sorority, if anything went wrong, only I would be blamed. That’s fine. That’s how leadership works.
K. Venomous and her crew did not show up for the time slots they had committed to. It was an attempt to sabotage my efforts. She was willing to hurt our Sorority over her issues with me. That probably isn’t going to get K. Venomous far in life, I thought at the time.
Me on the other hand, I’m trained in being sabotaged. Happened all my life. Other members, advisors, friends and alums filled in where K. Venomous and her crew skipped out. A part of me felt sorry her. A big part. She had been Hanniballed and didn’t know it. Most people know that if you team with me, we are all going to be better off.
Better off is exactly what happened. Not just because of me and the themed decorations, but because of the entire chapter, we swept that year. After the last event was set up and pref (i.e., where the girls put down their preferences in order, for those not in the know) night was soon to be under way. The chapter president called everyone to attention. She said “can I get a round of applause for the decorations chair?” Everyone stood up and applauded, a standing ovation. I glanced at K. Venomous who stayed seated as long as possible. As she stood, she rolled her eyes. I couldn’t help but smile. I also teared up. You know, I often cry at movies, especially the sad ones. It was the best rush ever, everybody said so.
Anyway, if it weren’t for K. Venomous, and the nascent sabatoogee (as Bugs Bunny would call it), I would have never been so determined to make sure our chapter absolutely shined. To make it worse for K. Venomous, after she had so horribly bad mouthed me, I went on to work for our sorority’s Executive Office. It was a great job. I still thank K. Venomous for getting me a dream job. Or really, I should be thanking Hannibal for weaponizing K. Venomous. Thanks Hannibal!
The Epiloguer
It really did not have to be this way, so acrimonious. We could have been best friends. We should have been best friends. Our years at Texas Tech should have been warm and appropriately rambunctious.
In 2023, K. Venomous’ Dad passed away. He was a great guy. I had flowers delivered for the Catholic services. Later I received a nice thank you from K. Venomous’ mom.
Must watch ~
P.S. No, K. Venomous is not her real name. It is kind of an amalgamation of her first name and the venom that spreads out form Hannibal like it does from any psychopath.
P.P.S. It’s All About the Hannibals.
[i] My brother, Mryon, though, was allowed to have dogs -- which he abandoned -- and also some poison arrow frogs from Ecuador. I will write about that in a later Episode entitled The Frogs of War.