Chaos Attraction

The Price You Pay

2003-03-24, 5:36 p.m.

Another weekend with my parents, and I feel like crap again.

Friday night: Get home and find out that my room is filled like an avalanche of Mom's closet. I could not get into the room any farther than the doorway. Crashing on the couch the whole weekend, c'est moi. Fortunately this didn't turn out to be too bad until the end of my time there (see Sunday).

Saturday: Go to the eye doctor's, where he says my prescription has hardly changed at all, but he's going to send in the insurance lady and leaves. Insurance lady comes in, wanting to know if I want new glasses or not. Huh? Why, if they haven't changed? I'm insured, but that does mean I still have to cough up some money and come back to the eye doctor's a few times to get the new glasses adjusted to my face (it usually takes about 2 visits and 2 months for my new glasses to stop irritating some part of my head. Dang asymmetrical ears). I say no- and then IMMEDIATELY feel guilty for turning down glasses while I'm still insured, etc.

Mom and Dad go in for theirs after me, and Mom asks him while she's in there why he put me down for new glasses when my prescription hadn't changed. "They're scratched up." "Oh. Um, I guess I'll get new ones, then." And no, I truly haven't noticed this at all. My glasses are usually filthy dirty from some odd smear or other even after I've just washed them (no, at my age I still can't wash my own glasses, I am the QUEEN OF PATHETIC), so I'm used to weird films and the like being across my vision. (Later I mentioned this story to Dave, and before I even got to the part past the "no" he's all "Oh, yours are hella scratched up." Damn, he noticed and I didn't.)

So I'm getting silver ones in a few weeks, which means that I get to come back home! Hooray! Mom's all happy and excited.

After that, the day went well, as we did a big shopping trip. Mom has apparently decided, "Screw it with the surprises, or waiting for your actual birthday to come, I'm buying your presents right now! Go pick some clothes out." So I ended up with a few new outfits and tons of jewelry. Go me. Though all I really wanted was the Buffy Season 3 DVD and eventually got up the nerve to tell her so, and now Mom doesn't want to get that because she's already spent so much money. She actually asked me to give her a dollar amount to spend on me for the birthday. Uh, what?


Sunday: Head to Costco to pick up some stuff in bulk for me, then get yelled at by Dad to pay my share of it, which leads into a "Are you REALLY THAT BROKE that you can't pay for (X, Y and Z things)?" discussion. The rest of the weekend kinda had a "At your age, I was totally independent and had my own house" flavor to it. Another reason to not be looking forward to another year older- it's another year to add on to my patheticness tally.

Sunday was also frustrating- Mom realized THAT DAY that she had some big project due at work Monday morning, and spent all night up till 2 a.m. working on it. Her computer is in the same room as the couch I was crashing on, so I was also up till 2 a.m. waiting for her to go to bed.

Naturally, given the big panic over the project, taxes were Not Discussed. Also, their file cabinet was thoroughly locked. I have given up on the issue, since the parents are paying for the new glasses and "might" help me out on the incoming enormous dental bills to come. Then we'll probably be even anyway.


Monday actually started out okay, despite the dentist visit- I was in for 20 minutes, about the best time I've been in there ever. Unfortunately it does look like I get no choice in the matter on the wisdom teeth thing :( He said he actually could not fill the cavity even if he wanted to and I have to get them out. Argh. I'd better do it before I get canned, if it happens, so some fun to look forward to in the spring :(

As usual, when I'm at their house for longer than two days, things got ugly.

It was another one of those weekends where I was being bitched out for not being womanly enough. She made me do the lettuce leaves and then I got bitched out for tearing lettuce leaves too big. Why? Because if I'm eating out in public and I've torn the lettuce leaves too big, I will embarrass Mother. Uh, if I'm eating out in public, chances are really high that I DIDN'T tear the lettuce leaves! Uh, the hell? This then went into how I am not a "gracious hostess" and don't cook for other people at my home. Hasn't she figured out why I always want to avoid working in the kitchen when she's there? Or why I have no enjoyment of the domestic arts whatsoever because I have it permanently associated with screaming and misery?

Whenever I'm home and she's not, I get yelled at for what I've done or haven't done throughout the day. If I didn't do the chores for her without asking, she's royally pissed off. If I do do the chores, I inevitably do them incorrectly and force her to redo them again and she's royally pissed off. Then she wants to know WHY I didn't do the chores, and after awhile she doesn't like the (honest) answers I come out with. So I give up and start saying "I deliberately didn't do the chores because I WANTED to hurt you, Mother, and because I am an evil selfish bitch who TRULY DOES NOT CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE."

This very well may be the truth, though, as you'll see below.

I don't much like being left home alone with Dad all day while Mom is at work. Which I know is downright evil of me because I should want to be absorbing every second I can with him before it's Too Late, but... well... I just don't like being around him very much since he got this disease and it screwed him up mentally. He's (naturally) incredibly cranky, doesn't understand much of anything at all, and is virtually incomprehensible to the point where I want to scream from frustration every time he tries to talk to me about anything. Most of the time we just drive each other nuts with the lack of understanding. Plus, I suck royal ass at nurturing, loving caretaking.

I got into big enormous trouble once Mom got home on Monday, not just because of my usual chore failures. Why was I in trouble? Because I hadn't checked on Dad while he was in the bathroom. Because I didn't go check on him, I obviously don't care about him At All. And I was just all "Um, is it so very wrong of me to NOT want to see my father's penis?" She didn't get it. (Seriously, it honestly feels like Mom is TRYING to expose me to my father's every bathroom and urinal foible whenever I'm home. She's always telling me to go into the bathroom with him to show him something or other, and then laughs at me when I (a) don't want to, and then (b) when I am dragged in, close my eyes. I really don't want THAT much open bathroom honesty here!)

I seriously worry that someday I'm going to treat Dave the way I do my dad, if he ever gets that sick. If I'm just generally an asshole to anyone who isn't rampantly healthy like myself. That I can't nurture and be kind and patient and self-sacrificing enough if need be.


Anyway, between all of that, I felt like the biggest, most evil, heinous, nasty person by the time I got home. I always feel like that whenever I come back from a weekend. Dave said it was the price I had to pay. Certainly makes sense, that.

And then, I promptly proceeded to REALLY piss Hill off when I got home, adding to the feelings of my personal crappiness tenfold.

You see, I walked in the door and found this package delivery attempt slip dangling by the door. One of those "you weren't here when we were, if you want us to just leave it at the door sign here" slips. Since (a) there was no name on the slip or indication for what it was for whatsoever, and (b) Hill had obviously been home before I this weekend and had placed it in said spot, I assumed that this must be for me or something, even though I hadn't ordered a package. (Birthday, maybe?) I couldn't figure out why she'd stick that slip there if it was hers, so I read it. Again, found no identifying details on it. Since I am never here when the package guys are (and at this point, who knows with Hill), I signed the thing to drop it off and put it on the door handle because otherwise I'd never get the thing, whatever it was.

Hill came home a half hour later, found it, and FREAKED THE HELL OUT.

Apparently it was hers, and it was for some new computer cable, and she was freaked out to hell that someone might deliver that when no one was home and it would get stolen. I don't know why the hell she would keep this slip if she wasn't going to use it, and I certainly don't know why she would HANG IT BY THE DOOR, still... but whatever. Oh well, at least it hadn't hung there very long (not during package delivery hours, certainly).

I need to move into a cave and avoid people forevermore.

God, you'd think after so many years of my suckiness, that I'd finally be immune to it and stop feeling hurt when people tell me how awful I am.


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