 If you see him. Will you tell him that I'm coming for him? To abandon a child is an act so cold, so careless, forgiveness is bound to be refused. This nuclear revenge story is about a young girl who was abandoned. But when she became grown, life turned the tables and mercy was in her hands to give. Unfortunately, she had none, and was so cosmically livid that she didn't bow out, she didn't double down. She tenaciously tripled dog down, leaving only scorched earth and devastation in its wake. If you like true revenge stories, you found the best place for your vengeful needs. I create them with fleaky visuals, dipped in artificial love. Before we start, put a note on the like button's truck, that says, sorry for the damage, when you didn't actually hit or damage it. Naturally, viewer discretion is advised. This revenge act, might be disturbing to absent fathers. This story is told from the female perspective. It started 31 years ago, but the revenge part was pure serendipity that began two years ago. I learned a fuckload on this journey, and part of the reason for this write-up is to share that with others. In 1990, when I was just out of middle school and my sister was still in elementary, my dad met his third wife at the only gas station in our town. They soon moved in together, and my dad abandoned us in our basement apartment to live on a shanty houseboat, that didn't run, to live with her. He would show up every other week and give me $40 for groceries. Eventually, someone figured out the situation and called my mom. We went to live with her which was, believe it or not, worse. My dad and his shanty wife got married in 1991. Not long after, she called me and told me my dad's brain tumor had returned, it hadn't, and that he couldn't handle the stress of being around us. That the only people he could bear to be around was her, and her son and Shorty, who was my age. When I called my dad to ask if this was true, he said it wasn't, and he couldn't believe that she would say such a thing. That was one of our last conversations until two years ago. In the middle of this story, there wasn't much specifics to add. I worked my way through college, living in my car from time to time. My dad and I were not in contact, but I heard from family that he bought a house and put his son through some vocational classes. When my grandmother died, Shorty and Shanty wife showed up in a truck and took all the furniture and anything else that wasn't tied down or already gone. Eventually, I went no contact with my dad's side of the family. I struggled for years, decades really, but I made it. And I have a great job and a good family now. The best revenge is living well, right? Two years ago from when I'm writing this, October 2019, I got a call from my dad's brother, Alan. He told me my dad was in a nursing home in another state and I needed to go see him because he needed my help. All I could think was, what the fuck? It appeared that Shorty had ghosted him. The nursing home, coincidentally, was about 20 minutes from my house. I saw an opportunity and I went. The reunion was underwhelming. I didn't want to make amends, but I did want to hear how he wound up dumped all alone in another state. And it was a really, really good story. Shanty wife got lung cancer and put my dad in a nursing home before she died in 2017. She suffered and I was happy to hear it, but said it wasn't worse. Don't judge me. Shorty became his power of attorney when she died and had been visiting my dad, living in my dad's house with his two children and taking care of my dad's affairs since his mom died. But now he was MIA, my dad was worried about him. He asked me to drive the hour and a half to his house to check on everything. That's all he wanted. He never even asked me how I had been. I agreed to go, I think out of morbid curiosity. I'd never even been to my dad's house. I did want to see where he lived with his real family for 30 years. I wanted to see what could have been my life. Don't get your hopes up. It was 50 shades of fucking awful. The grass hadn't been cut all summer. You couldn't get to the front door due to overgrowth. There were three pickup trucks in the yard. Two were full of trash. Camsa and beds and back seats, just trash. Mail, clothes, paper, shoes, garbage bags. I couldn't understand it. My dad's handicapped modified SUV was on four flats and full of garbage, too. I didn't have a key, so I just walked around. From what windows I could look through, the inside was in shambles and hoarded to hell. On the front end, carport doors were dozens of notices from the city, notifying that they were going to condemn the place. The carport was also hoarded. Boxes and boxes stacked on each other, most rotting from the rain. The yard was full of garbage. Broken Christmas ornaments, more shoes, rusted tools, old toys. There was a letter in the mailbox notifying him that since the house was abandoned, mail would not be delivered anymore. That night, I Googled powers of attorney and how to use them. I went back the next day and showed my bedbound dad the pictures on my phone. He vowed to beat Shorty's ass, then asked me to help more. I told him I would, but he'd have to sign power of attorney over to me. All of it, durable financial and medical. If he didn't, he could figure this shit out by himself. He agreed, so I set about finding a lawyer who would drive to another state and do the paperwork in the nursing home. Bless that lawyer for being so good at his job, because all I did was tell him what I knew, and he put together a beautifully bulletproof POA. It was full of stuff I didn't even know I would need. He also filed the paperwork to revoke Shorty's POA. And now, I'm unstoppable. We're from a small, rural town, and it's the kind of creepy, landlocked place that, no matter how long you've been gone or how far away you've been, when you go back, you'll see someone you know, even if you don't know you know them. It's like playing seven degrees of everybody, all the time. It's suffocating, but it can also be helpful. Now we're at the beginning of the end. I got to work the next morning. I didn't know how scorched the earth would be when I finished, and I didn't want Shorty or anyone from his prolific, inbred family trying to find me, so I made sure nothing I did had my name on it. I opened a Google account for my dad and got a Google number. I opened a PO box for him in his town. I put in a mail forwarding notice. I pulled his credit report. I took the POA to my dad's small town bank, changed the address on his accounts and got new account numbers. I requested copies of every transaction back to the day Shanti wife had died, about 13 months worth. I had to go to the main branch, two hours from my house, the next day to pick the records up. I sat in the lobby all afternoon, going through the account. I cornered a service rep and got a crash course in his debits and deposits. This is when I figured out the extent of Shorty's staggering stupidity. My dad got about $5,000 a month in disability and social security every month. Twice a week, Shorty was going into a branch and withdrawing cash. All of the cash for 13 months. And every time he did it, as the POA, he had to sign a form stating that he was acting on behalf of my dad and that form was notarized by the bank. I went through every withdrawal and got the bank to confirm that every one of them was made by Shorty. Then I went to the house and called a locksmith. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea what was waiting for me there. He got the first door open and the stench rolled out like a fog bank. We both gagged. Two locks later, I was so embarrassed by what he had to see and smell, I gave him a $60 tip. And with shiny new keys in hand, I called the cops. I told them I was the POA for my dad. I was checking on his house and there were three vehicles there that didn't belong to him. He asked me if I knew who they belonged to. I told him I didn't and I wanted them towed. He told me to call a tow company and he would meet them there. They showed up with two wreckers. The tow truck guy got out and asked me for a signature. I only signed my first name. As I was signing, he asked, do you know Shorty? Running on pure hatred at this point, I surprised myself and countered with, do you? He said he did and that he's an asshole. I responded, he might be. Hey, can you do me a favor? If you see him, will you tell him that I'm coming for him? His bravado evaporated. He knows a crazy bitch when he sees one. They towed the trucks. When everyone was gone, I opened the door in the carport to peek in. The sun was going down and it was dark in the house. I heard something faint and after some seconds realized it was the roaches and rats doing their roach and rat stuff. I could smell it all in my hair. I sat on the carport steps and watched the sun go down. I was mad. Just so fucking cosmically livid that 72 hours was all it took to dissolve three decades. And here I was, stinking and listening to the rats and cleaning everyone else's shit up. Taking time away from my family and for what? I had a coming to Jesus with myself. I could either bow out now or double down. And the thing is, I'm tenacious to a goddamn fault. I had to be to survive and this was a bone I couldn't put down. The thought of Shorty's life being upended probably his only source of income disappearing literally overnight and my dad having to hear second hand from me that he's broken alone made me absolutely giddy. I desperately wanted them both to lose what they had left. So, I decided I was going to triple dog down. That night, I Googled restraining orders and it was surprisingly easy to get one. I went to the courthouse in my hometown, went to the clerk's office and told her I needed a restraining order. I filled the form in at a rickety little table while I was there. I wasn't prepared to see a judge that day but she took the form and said, okay, I'll see if the judge is still here. That kind of scared me. She took me to his chambers and as I was waiting, I looked around and saw he had certificates of appreciation hanging up from various veterans groups. Then I wiped my palms and thought, fish in a fucking barrel. He asked about my dad's stint in the Marines and about the DOD office logo on my sweater. I'm a contractor. He read my form and granted the temporary order. I would have to go back for the permanent one where Shorty would be able to argue against it. Then I went home and Googled biohazard companies and elder abuse statutes in my state. I hired a biohazard company to shovel all shit out of the house for $7,000. I would have paid double. They found my dad's mummified dog under some pizza boxes in the master bedroom. They sent me pictures and salvaged some papers. Shorty was served during this time and a hearing was set. I got to work collecting and documenting crap. I made pictures, spreadsheets and timelines with cross references because fuck it. Now they had my full attention. The paid versions of Truthfinder and Trello seriously got me through all this. In my spare time, I went to the nursing home and gave my dad eight by 10 copies of the pictures of his dead dog from every angle. Before court, I went to the police station nearby and told them I wanted to report an elder abuse crime. A white collar detective came out and told me it was a domestic matter and that since Shorty had been POA, everything he had done was legal. And this was the day I got to teach a small town detective about the fiduciary responsibilities of a POA. Thanks Google. I handed him a copy of the statute with the applicable sections highlighted. Then I handed him a thick folder with bank statements, pictures of the hoarded house and dead dog, a copy of my dad's credit report that showed he was tens and tens of thousands of dollars in debt and a spreadsheet listing every cash withdrawal with a running total of the stolen amounts. The grand total was just over $130,000 in cash. That's not the including the lost value of the house or the credit cards he opened and used. I told him he could keep that folder since it wasn't the only one I had. Then I told him I would wait for a case number and I sat down. He came back about 30 minutes later and apologized, said I had a case and gave me a case number. Then I hit it over to the courthouse. There were other people there and I had to wait my turn. And while I was waiting, that stupid lame brain booger face slept his sloppy ass into the courtroom by himself and obviously, literally, non metaphorically, dirty. His shoes were untied and the turn by Giggle box over. Then it was our turn and we stood up. The same judge asked me some questions, asked him some questions and asked me if I had any proof. I had a very thick folder of it. The judge asked me if I had gone to the police. Well, yes, sir, I have. Do you have a case number? It was a matter of fact. The order was granted permanently and for life, but not before the judge halted proceedings and told Shorty he needed a lawyer. Someone told me that the courthouse would have a copy of my dad's DD 214 discharge papers. So while I was there, I got a copy of those because why not? I also used my POA to take Shandy wife off the deed to the house. That way, if my dad died and it went into probate, Shorty had no immediate claim. I also went and got copies of my dad's birth certificate and Shandy wife's death certificate. Technically, stepchildren can't request that info, but the clerk who waited on me recognized my dad's name. She told me she lost her virginity to my uncle Allen in the 60s and went to my grandparents funeral. So I got all the forms I wanted. Shandy wife left my dad $50,000 in life insurance. About $35,000 of that was left since Shorty was spending my dad's money and not his mom's. So I opened an ally account and transferred every penny over. Then I set up recurring transfers for the monthly deposits. At any given time, there was no more than $100 in his account. I also found a house flipper that paid me enough for the house to pay off his mortgage. That's the thing about probate. There's nothing to fight over if there's nothing there. And I made sure there was nothing there. My dad passed away thinking he still don't a house. Speaking of which, this is about the time I found my dad's life insurance policies. They were up to date and Shandy wife was the beneficiary. My POA didn't allow me to change beneficiaries, but it allowed me to assign them. And since Shandy wife was dead, there was technically no beneficiary. This is where the death certificates came in handy. I assigned my sister and me as beneficiaries. Irrevocable too, which means that the only way to change that is for my dad and me and my sister to agree to it. I kept my dad in the dark about all this. The only thing he ever really knew about was the restraining order in his passed away dog. I found out that he had purchased the gravesite next to Shandy wife and wanted to be buried next to her. That was just never going to fucking happen. I Googled national cemeteries and found out he qualified to be in one since he was a disabled Vietnam era veteran. So I arranged for that instead. All the cherries on top, my dad died in June this year and I was there. He's buried in the national cemetery far away, where no one will ever go visit him. The only obituary I ran was on the Funeral Homes website, which was only done for insurance purposes. I wrote it as vague as possible. There was no service. His urn is purple, the color he hated most. I got a call in August from the prosecutor's office in my hometown. The lady on the other end is married to my first cousin because of course she is, that's how it works there. Shorty was arrested just after midnight on July 1st, was still in jail and had been arraigned on felony elder abuse charges. He's facing 10 years in a soap dropping prison. She told me not to expect the trial anytime soon, as it can take up to three years for that to happen. I told her that was awesome since the uncertainty will hopefully haunt him. And after all that, he still got prison to look forward to. He lost his kids. He lost his dad. I'm spending his mom's money. He lost his free house and trucks. He has no credit and will never be able to get any sort of decent job and will, hopefully for a long time, not be able to find a decent place to live. And I sleep like a fucking baby. Thank you for enjoying this episode, which was made with artificial love. Subscribe to receive future episodes and tickle the like button for good karma. Do you have any experiences surrounding this topic? Share yours below. I'll join the conversation and I'll be seeing you in the next one.