TheBanyanTree: What did you do? (The True Unfettered Story Continues)

[Monique]

	I just realized, yesterday, that going through a bad business cycle
is not my fault. Get this: I just realized that it happens to at least most
of us who are in business, at one time or another, and that it's common, and
that it isn't necessarily my fault.
	Already I'm qualifying it. "Necessarily." 
	Stew told me, when I revealed this to him that I'd just realized it
wasn't my fault, that I really didn't have as much influence as I think,
that of course it wasn't my fault, it's the nature of being in business.
Sometimes things go downhill and it's not because I'm a bad person.
	Silly me. I thought it was. I assumed that because business has been
slow, that it was something I'd done, that it was because I am bad. 
	For some reason, I think everything bad that happens is my fault.
The good stuff? That's just luck. 
	I had a car accident a few years ago. Run into by an underaged,
unlicensed driver who ran a stop sign onto a busy street. Sometime
afterwards I spoke to my mother on the phone and told her I'd been in a car
accident. First words out of her mouth: "What did you do?"
	What did I do? Of course it had to be something I did. Me being who
I am, causing trouble wherever I go.
	I once had the misfortune of being violently assaulted. The people
who were tasked with looking after me, the US military, or at least the
people in my direct chain of command, let me know that it was my fault, that
there was no one to blame but me. "What did you DO?" (The doctor at the
hospital was a bit more understanding at least.) My stepmother expressed her
displeasure that I'd managed to disgrace the family, even being so far away
from home. 
	"What did you do?" 
	The story of my upbringing. 
	Stepmother's screaming at Dad, there's open warfare, and everyone
looks at me: "What did you do?" (Of course, this is reinforced by
stepmother's screaming that I'm a sneaky, lying bitch, which was giving a 10
year old great credit, now that I think about it.)
	Younger but large stepbrother, the one with the psychopathic
tendencies, takes to beating me up at irregular intervals because I'm an
easy target. Rest of family watches, and says, "What did you do to him?"
	The DAMN DOG attacks me when I'm alone in the yard with it. (Not my
dog, the dog of my brothers.) As I'm bleeding, everyone looks at me and
says, "What did you do?" I wasn't doing ANYTHING. The dog just knew, from
watching everyone else, that he could do anything he wanted when no one was
looking, and no one would think to ask me . . . they'd just assume I'd done
something.
	"What did you do?" 
	"I didn't do anything!" See? That's how I became known as a liar. 
	But it isn't my fault. I'm not that powerful, after all. 

Monique