b]Chapter Bester: Any Girl Gets Bester[/b]

Chapter Bester:

Any Girl Gets Bester

A few days after meeting Rina, my phone rang in the evening. It was Rina calling to invite me to come over for dinner and meet her mom. She invited me for that Friday night. Fridays are my son’s football nights. Can we make it another day? She didn’t know how to respond and had to ask her mom. We settled on Thursday.

I arrived with the customary flowers and a box of after dinner mints as hostess gifts for Rina and her mom. The community we all lived in was pretty tightly knit and her mom had obviously done some asking around about me. Hmmm…. She questioned me and asked my intentions. I simply replied that I had been invited to dinner and had no intentions other than to make new friends and enjoy their hospitality. After dinner, Rina had to walk her little teacup dog. I went with her as we walked the dog and we talked.

Rina’s story is that she had been married years prior (a future chapter), ending in divorce, no children. They got divorced after nearly 7 years of marriage when Rina suddenly went nuts. Like, off the wall hallucinations and such. Her husband and parents slapped her in the psyche ward at the local hospital where she underwent numerous diagnostic tests. She was ultimately diagnosed with Bi-Polar disease, manic variety.

After putting her on the then available heavy metal drugs (lithium and a whole host of other pills) she responded slowly, making little progress getting back to being “normal.” So, the doctors recommended the current state of the art “temple shock the brain” procedure. Just like what was shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Jack Nicholson. Her parents objected, but her husband’s vote was the deciding one. He agreed and they basically fried her brain.

I didn’t know her until years after all that but it all explains why Rina turned out as she did.