Quick Notes:
1. Well, well, well. My first fanfiction. I'm probably doing this wrong. If so, then please feel free to slap me. Repeatedly. And then review this. I mean... er...

2. This won't all be in the form of essays by random members of the extended Bing family, worry ye not.

3. If you review this for me, then I'll love you forever, and we'll be destined to stay together ad infinitum. Just like Chandler and Monica.

4. The characters aren't mine. Yet. Although, negotiations are in progress...

My Family
by Jack Bing

A lot of people think that I have a strange family. Go on – say it. You know you want to. I don't mind.

Most people have got two parents, right? Not me. Technically, I've got four. Two mothers. Two fathers. But what I've learned from my family is that things often aren't as they seem when you first hear them. And, even though I've legally got four parents, I've only seen one of them in the last decade. That's my mom. Monica. But, technically (there's that word again), she isn't even related to me. That's because I'm adopted.

See, my mom and Chandler couldn't have their own kids. Please don't ask me why, because the explanation is horribly graphic and, when you take into consideration that you're talking about your mother, it makes you feel ill. Very ill. And my real mother and father (from here on referred to as Erica and The Guy) could have kids, but didn't want them. You can do the math – Monica and Chandler go to adoption agency, meet Erica (The Guy was out of the scene by then – once he'd made his – uh – donation, he wasn't a factor in the equation) and decide to take her kids. Easy.

And, as far as I know from my Aunt Rachel (Monica won't talk about it, however much I beg), it was easy. At first, anyway. Monica and Chandler took me home to a house out of the city (as my Uncle Ross puts it, "They wanted me to grow up in the 1950s"), and we played happy families. According to Rachel, they were like the big love story at that point. Until everything went wrong.

I don't know the details, because no one ever tells me anything. Aunt Rachel (who isn't really my aunt, because she says she'll never marry my Uncle Ross – Monica's elder brother – just in case he sleeps with another photocopier with her belly pierced. Don't ask, because I have no idea either...) got close once, but then she refused to talk any more, no matter how much I told her I liked her dress. And they say flattery gets you anywhere. But, anyway. Back to the Rocky Horror Show.

Up until my fourth birthday, I had a mom and a dad and a birth mother who came to see me at Christmas. I can't remember back then – my aunt says I've got a selective memory; I block out what I don't want to know and only remember the good stuff. She says I was right to block out that particular year, because that's the year that it all went wrong, and Chandler walked out on us and the world turned upside-down. In a bad way.

Even though I haven't seen my father for ten years – or maybe because I haven't seen my father for ten years – I hate every fibre of his body. I don't care what the circumstances were – all I know is that he left my mom to cope alone, and I can't forgive him for that. When I first found out that we weren't a normal family, and that it was probably all his fault, I wanted to get out there, hunt him down, and kick his ass. Seriously.

My Aunt Phoebe was the one who talked some sense into me. She's another testament to my weird family – she isn't related to me at all. She isn't even related to my non-related mother. She's just a friend, but she's always wanted me to call her 'Cool Aunt Phoebe'. So I do. Partly to please her, and partly because she is. Phoebe's a bit of an... individual. Well, that's an understatement, but I don't want to sound harsh. She's a masseuse. And she believes in all of these strange things that I can't even start to go into. But, for some inexplicable reason, she's the only person that understands me.

We hang out a lot, my fake-Aunt Phoebe and I. Anyway, she told me that I couldn't possibly begin to understand it – that she couldn't possibly begin to understand it (even though she had fully already told me just a few weeks beforehand that she knew all the secrets of the universe), but that Chandler didn't deserve getting his ass kicked. Much.

So I didn't go and chase him with a Glock or anything. Life went on, and gradually, my burning hatred dulled into a fact of life – something that was always there, but that no longer bothered me on a regular basis.

But, enough about Chandler. I don't think he's really worth the ink this is taking up. And I don't want to talk about Erica (the one that I lived in for nine months – remember?) or The Guy, because they're just supporting characters that disappear early on in the story of my life. When they gave me up, they also gave up the rights to a main part in my essay. It's as simple as that.

I'm going to write about Monica. Mom. Mommy when I was younger. She's beautiful – there's no denying that. When I was a small kid, I thought that everyone just had an attractive mother and nothing else. We'd got along fine like that – why would anyone else need any extras? Then I got to school and I found out that – hey, not all parents look like glamour models – and – bam, most people have a mom and a dad.

It didn't really bother me, though, because I had Monica, and she was better than any of my other three parents (I know I said I wouldn't mention them again, but it's just in passing, and we can pretend it never happened if you like...). What is Monica like? Well, the first thing that I can say is that my mom is something of a control freak. And she's a tiny bit overprotective (read: SUPER overprotective to the extent that she won't let you talk to someone at school before she's met their parents, had dinner with them and researched their family history on the internet just in case there might have been, I don't know, a mass murderer in the family three hundred years ago or something).

Slight over-exaggeration. But only slight.

Back to the controlling thing. She has every single tiny aspect of my life planned out, I swear. If I get home and tell her, I don't know, that I've got the lead in the school play (ha! Like that would ever happen!), then she'll congratulate me and everything, but she'll seem like she already knew... it's creepy. I think she has some sort of a sixth sense. Or is it seventh? I can never remember how many senses we have – Biology isn't my strong point.

Anyway. Now I come to think of it, there's only one part of me that my mom can't control, and it's something that it really annoys her not to be able to change. I'm fat. Not obese or anything – just comfortably chubby. I could blame it on bad genes, I guess – "No wonder Erica & The Guy didn't want me to stick around – they must have known I'd end up like this..." – but there's no point, because it's all to do with the amount of food I cram into my mouth. It's probably Monica's fault – being a chef, and all. When I was a kid, she used to delight in giving me hundreds of delicious (and highly calorific) snacks every day. That is, until she realised the consequences. By then, it was too late. Yep – that's right. I've never experimented with drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes (only the cool kids have the right to dabble in illegal substances), but I'm totally addicted to food.

Mom can't handle it. Once, in the middle of a screaming argument we had about it (and, trust me, we have a lot of those), she sat down suddenly and said, "Look, sweetie, I just don't want you to end up like me.". That one threw me, I have to admit. I replied, "What? A single mother?", and she smiled, and the argument just... stopped, which was something of a disappointment, because I live for the muffins she bakes when she's guilty for yelling at me. I mean, if I'm hungry, I'll just accuse her of something ("Mom! Did you steal the half-eaten corndog I left in the bottom of my school bag for emergencies again?"). Just for the muffins.

But all that particular argument left me with was curiosity about what she could have meant. To this day, I still haven't found out. But it's okay, because she started making muffins again straight after our next argument.

Now, muffins I can handle. Muffins I adore. Cookies are a different story. When Mom starts on cookies, you know it's bad. She never cries – when I asked Phoebe why that was, she said, "She was never like that before, Jackie." – (she calls me Jackie even though I keep telling her it's a girl's name) – "It only started when—"... and then she broke off, and started talking about the day her mother stuck her head in the oven again. Which would have been totally interesting at any other moment except that one.

Mom can't bottle everything up though, so instead of doing the normal thing, she bakes cookies. The more she bakes, the sadder she is. Pretty much all I can remember from right after Chandler left is the cookies. Hundreds of them every day, although my mind might be exaggerating a bit there.

I guess those must have been her worst days, and I know that she only kept going for me. Which is a really good thing, or I'd be stuck with four technical parents and no real ones – only two aunts that weren't really aunts and an equally useless uncle. Thank God that didn't happen – I'm messed up enough as it is.

So, to conclude, my point is, (bet you didn't think I had one of those...), I suppose, that you don't need four parents to survive. You don't need three. You don't even need two. All you need is one. Sometimes, I think that my mother is the strongest woman anywhere. But that scares me. Because even the strongest people break sometimes – and what happens when Monica breaks, and the weight of the world comes tumbling down to shatter on the floor? I don't know. I don't think I want to know.

By Jack Bing.

just for a moment
everything i treasured was gone
just for a moment
i faced my life alone

oh how i love you

just for a moment
the world was full of pain
just for a moment
my luck had finally run out

There is more. Lots more. But I'll only post it if you review, so press that little button and make my day. I mean... er... obviously I'm not sad enough to have my day made by someone reviewing this, but... yeah. Go review. Shoo.