Mickey and Minnie, The OGS

Mickey and Minnie (The adoptive parents) were mostly cool as the original gangsters of life while I was playing catch-up to fit in their world. It is said that parents are like a little gang when they go up against their children.

Mickey and Minnie are no different. As young and as sprite as I thought I was they often managed to figure out my shenanigans before they could make breaking news.

Mickey was the good cop, while Minnie was the bad cop. Mickey would be heard saying, “I’m your pal, I’m your friend but here’s the deal.” While Minnie would say, “Missy I am on to your antics. I know you only too well.”

What was a teenager to do? Surrender and find a new modus operandi. In the beginning, I thought Mickey and Minnie were weird. Minnie loved her platform heels; fur coats, and she had a thing for plaid and fleece.

She could have been a member of the original mod squad or a model for that fact. She was tall, lanky and had great legs. She loved wearing halter tops and tailored jean shorts. I was the exact opposite as I wore my clothes baggy, and my style was preppy bordering Victorian.

I loved playing with Minnie’s cosmetics because they were imported from Paris, and they just glided on like magic markers. Mickey on the other hand, made beanie hats popular before they were a thing. He was the poster person for the fisherman jacket and leather bomber jackets.

Then there was his obsession with Florsheim shoes and Stacy Adams. Mickey much preferred to send Minnie and I on shopping sprees for his clothes but when it came to his shoes, it was a family affair.

We would spend Sundays walking through the malls going from Florsheim to Florsheim in Flushing, Queens, or Long Island. We would try to find purveyors of Stacy Adams shoes. Some days it would take hours to find him the right pair of shoes no matter the cost. Next to going to temple and church it was a religious experience.

They were often invited to parties since Mickey loved to play Mr. DJ and of course, Minnie was his wing woman. I got the pleasure of staying behind with Granny or the tenants of the house would look in on me.

Mickey is funny in the sense that he always has goals and dreams. He would be constantly presenting Minnie with ideas to make extra money. Or, how to enhance their real estate portfolio. She was Safety Sasha in the sense that she liked to play it conservative when it came to money and even when they were doing well, she did not want to rock the boat.

They argued fiercely and constantly but if one person as so much as said a bad word about the other it was hell’s bells and bacchanal. This is how it has been from ever since I can remember.

She would go rogue with money at times, and he would also make hefty bills causing each to get upset. Mickey usually lived up to his name “Mr. Loverman” as he would use music to sweeten Minnie up and then call her by his pet name for her which is “Bugaloo” or “Poonks”.

It would take him several days to bring her around and the sweetening usually culminated into a present which was an expensive piece of jewelry. I must say that Mickey does have exquisite taste when it comes to high end Jewels.

In the early days, they would both gift me jewelry but since I was a Tom boy back then I put them up telling myself I would grow into them. I eventually did, but I would experience a strange phenomenon when I wore the jewelry, they gave me. The pieces would magically disappear and so I developed a dislike for jewelry simply because I hated losing precious, meaningful items.

Even back then the evil eyes and jealous spirits followed me relentlessly. Despite their unconventional ways, one thing I learned from them was diligence and steadfastness. No matter how mad Minnie was at Mickey she got up every morning at daybreak and made him a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.

She was also not one to go cavorting with girlfriends for “girls’ weekend” or any of that nonsense. Except for playing poker on Friday nights, he was at home when it counted. I remembered they once had a fight and she told him she was leaving him. She got as far as the living room and camped out there for days.

Mickey would say, “Where you leaving me and going? To the living room?” Then he would laugh, and she would say, “Well at least it’s a start.”

That’s the thing with Minnie, no matter how in charge Mickey was she never took any of his crap or anyone else’s for that matter. Even if she only had a farthing to her name, she knew that was her farthing and she was quite confident in doing her own thing.

Mickey is not the sort of father-figure who talks to you a whole lot unless he is concerned about a matter. But one thing that is funny about him is that he understood the struggles I encountered with my hair.

So, when I refused to go to the beauty parlor to get my hair done because of my claustrophobia, while Minnie was mortified and embarrassed by my tirades, he would say, “I like that style where you brush it up so and twist it this way. It looks nice like that. Forget about the beauty parlor and do it your way.”

This is basically Mickey’s stance on everything when it came to me being upset because people were getting on my nerves. He would hear the details and then say. “If they don’t want to hang with you, no big deal just let them be. Right?”

As I got older, he would further expound, “People should want to know who you are not the other way around.”

I would be tough as nails and settle my dramas vocally and loudly. Mickey would want to know, “Why all the theatrics?” It was like me being a cowboy shooting my way out of a saloon and then going to him and saying “Was I so wrong for being a nudge?”

Mickey often tutored me on how to handle situations in a more rational manner. My first instincts are to upchuck the apple cart. Time and wisdom have taught me that sometimes you have to eat your rice when it is cold. This is the lesson he has been trying to teach me for years.

Mickey knows how gnarly people can be firsthand. He also knew that I faced many challenges because I was an “eyesore” for individuals inside and outside of the family. Therefore, as I whined as a result of my growing pains, Minnie was on one side saying, “That’s life, you live you learn, get on with it.”

He on the other hand, would say, “Think about what you know and feel about the matter and go with that….” In other words, “Steady yourself, think rationally and work with what you know and believe.”

Mickey, Minnie and I have history and some of it is infamous. One thing I now know is that they are tough cookies. They would rather err on the side of caution, than throw caution to the wind and have their lives implode because they were too permissive. This is the main reason why our relationship has been a task and a half.