Excursions in Family Drama

There was once a time when my Dad asked me why I didn't write about our family. He was of the opinion that we have enough fodder for me to write a soap opera. My reply was that I write to escape all that shit. It was true then and it is still true today, except, once again I need to vent. 

Pretty much everyone knows that my mother's twin is my 'psycho aunt'. Cousin Shi-Can and I used to joke that her mother was the Wicked Witch of the West and sometimes that my mom was the Wicked Witch of the East (sans the house falling on her). Fitting since we were born and raised in Kansas. Anyway, Aunt Laura has been know to been known to be an abusive, vicious, vindictive, melodramatic person. She's lied, stolen, worn people wet tissue-paper thin, and so on. But, despite all the crap we've put up with over the years, she's still part of the family and she does have some good moments. I know part of why she is the way she is part mental issues, the abuses she suffered as growing up, and the physical maladies she's living with now. No, that doesn't give her an excuse to be bitch, but it does give some insight into the bigger picture- when you can remember that as she's tearing into one of your cousins or your Mom.

Back to her "good moments". My Aunt Laura can be, at times, kind, loving, and somewhat generous. She's helped each of her kids financially when she is able. Despite all of the shortcomings, she does love all three of her children and wants the best for them. She loves my parents, me, and even her in-laws. Its easier to see all of this not being in such close proximity to her. 

Well, I called my Mom the other day to vent and cry over a recent problem. Mom let me vent and we talked about options and so on. Then, it was her turn to vent and since she's been pretty much the one to really take care her twin and deal with her over the years, she has tons of frustration. (Dad and I keep telling her not to answer the phone or open the door, but they are twins and Aunt Laura NEVER takes 'no' for an answer.) 

The recent influx of family drama centers around my Aunt and my cousins. Her eldest, the alcoholic since 16 and once again druggie, needed a place to live along with his equally as substance abusing new girlfriend- who I might add is older than our Moms- not that I have an issue with age-gap love, but in this instance, is it really love or opportunistic sex mixed with illegal substances until something better comes along? To each his own, I guess. Anyway, since Aunt Laura came into some money she helped said cousin and his girl friend get an apartment. 

I haven't heard how she's helped Shi-chan, but I'm hazarding a guess that its with bills. She's the middle child.

But the youngest takes the cake. She is the baby, the pretty one- I think she looks like a fucking rat, but maybe that's because I know her personality, no insult to rats- and she gets everything she wants. If no one gives it to her, or she can't win it with her looks, or use her kid as leverage, she takes what she wants and that is exactly what she did, AGAIN, recently.  To make a semi short story shorter, my aunt was bullied my her late husband's parents to out the youngest kid's name on the car title of the car my Aunt bought. That is a horrendously terrible idea! At the time of the call with my mother, my Aunt had only driven her car a total of 4 times. She also had my Aunt's debit card. Now why anyone would, in their right mind, give that girl free access to their bank account is beyond me, but maybe my Aunt was trying to help. Oh boy did she help! My cousin with drew 800$ from the account and got an apartment for herself. But, it gets worse, she didn't ask, and certainly didn't tell her mother  until she was physically moving her things out of my Aunt's house. And then she wouldn't return the debit card. Aunt Laura told my Mom and my Mom went over to help her get her car and debit card back. For her efforts, Cousin Shi-chan, the middle of my aunt's children, got particularly vicious and said something nasty and wholly untrue to my Mom, landing her smack dab on the top of my shit list.

*long heavy sigh* Thankfully, in the few days since then, the youngest cousin returned the car, empty of gas of course, and returned the debit card. It had 4 dollars left on it and my Aunt hasn't paid bills yet this month. Yes, it is on my Aunt for letting her use these things. But she's essentially dying and perhaps trying to make up for her mistakes. Still that doesn't give my cousins the right to take advantage of her. What they should be doing is spending time with her and I don't know, helping my Mom take care of her when she gets bad. Unfortunately, they are all too self centered and opportunistic to do that and eventually, she's going to die and they will have missed out on time. I mean the woman thinks a friend of Shi-chan's deserves AIDS because he is gay, which is completely unacceptable and horrible and I will always be disappointed, hurt, and angry over that opinion, but she is my Aunt, I do remember good moments, despite that and a whole string of other crap, if I were in Kansas, I would be rolling my sleeves up and helping my Mom to take care of her. I wouldn't need to be asked. I would do it for my Mom. 

As I wrote that last sentence, I realize that if my Mom or Dad needed help or were dying, my cousins wouldn't lift a finger unless they knew they could get something out of it. Unless there were pills or items to steal. Or unless they were getting paid. Or maybe I knew it all along. 

Lastly, there is something diabolical in the way my youngest cousin has her elder sister wrapped around her finger. Shi-chan, as always, defends and protects her sister, despite all the horrible things said and done. The lies, theft, or down right abuse her younger sister has done to her, she will always be on her side. I get sisterly devotion, but for fuck's sake, I haven't done any of that crap to her, nor has my mom, and yet, every time we are upset with her sister or get into it with her sister, she chooses her over everyone else. It's sickening. 

Never Again! Why does everyone think they need to talk to me today?

Not that long ago when we were having trouble with our Kia, we called a mechanic friend of ours, who helped us out once before and who also helped our friend Chris. Well, Chris, who had also come out to help us- because we'd thought we'd just needed a jump- gave him gas money. As it turned out we had an issue with our battery that was easily solved but the guy who came out, ended up getting some battery acid on a pair of gloves. We told him we would give him money to replace them. He said, at the time, that they were only 8 dollars. Since then, he has gone and bought gloves that were 18 dollars. 

Well, he's been asking for the last couple of days if we had the money. We do, we were going to give it to him yesterday but Amanda wasn't home in time and his wife went to work. Then, Amanda forgot to leave the money behind with me today and has it with her at work. So this guy decided that he would just go up to her work and get it. This is after he's been calling and messaging me all morning. Now, he is sitting up at Amanda's work, waiting and freaking out because she isn't outside. I told him that she is probably still on a call that she can't get out of and just be patient, she will be there. I have e-mailed her, I have called her direct line at work. I can't get a hold of her so she is either in a meeting, on a call, or helping a fellow employee. She is a lead after all. Sometimes breaks don't come when they are supposed to. 

Oh thank the gods, Amanda just e-mailed me and said that she got him the money. Geeze, with the way he acted, it was nigh life or death. I mean, honestly, we had it for him, we just needed to work out suitable logistics to get it to him. I also don't mind replacing things or reimbursing someone for work or gas money, but harassing me with bizarre desperation for two days straight is not helpful.

I have also learned that he really ticked off our friend Chris today.

***UPDATE EDIT- I just got a message from this guy stating that he wasn't sure what the miscommunication was, he was expecting 20 dollars. The gloves were 18 dollars. He said 18 dollars. Then he added that he went out of his way to help us. He got gas money that day, I don't see the problem. If he wanted 20 dollars then he should have asked for 20 dollars not 18. OMG THIS THIS is why I never ask anyone for help. 

Needless to say, if I ever have car trouble again, I will just call someone else. This is kind of ridiculous and I just don't want to have to deal with this crap again. 

Lastly, this guy aside, my phone has been ringing like crazy today. My college adviser has called, my doctor's office has called not to tell me about any referrals, but to see if I would come in earlier tomorrow morning, and there were several other calls from numbers I don't recognize. Most of the time no one calls me and now all of a sudden every one has to talk to me. Nope. 

Putting off homework one more night.

I was supposed to have picked up a friend today. She was going to come and visit for a few days. However we are so utterly broke at the moment that we couldn't drive to Spokane to get her. I felt bad but on some level not so bad. She didn't offer to help pay for gas and hasn't for the last several times we've picked her up on the way to some event. She also invited herself to come and stay. Usually I don't mind. I am pretty relaxed about people coming to stay and I try not to have them pay for gas or food (as they are guests), but we are hurting so bad financially, we just can't drive people around all the time, especially when they don't live in town. And we really don't have a lot of food.

This situation would have been much different had Skoora not had such an awful paycheck and nearly all of our bills come due.

Thankfully, as far as I know. This friend didn't seem upset when I told her. But then again, I don't know her very well and she is extremely difficult to read. Another friend of mine, who has met her, said she was creepy. Well, I don't find her creepy. I would like to get to know her better.

Skoora and I, a friend from Kellogg, and this new friend are all going to the Litha camp out with the Inland Empire Pagan Guild this weekend. We all decided since we are riding in the same car and will set up our tents together, that we would all pitch in for food for the weekend and share. I thought that was the plan anyway. Until this new friend made a strange comment. She said "I'll get this stuff on my costco card and you can pay me back". I was dealing with half a dozen other things and I was sick, so it kind of threw me, so I didn't clarify what the hell was going on. So now we have an issue that needs to be dealt with. I am really unsure how to handle it because she is so damned hard to read.

She was the one who wanted to split the food up between all of us (as in we each buy or bring a little food) and share. Generally that means that no one has to pay anyone else back. So, I have spoken to my friend from Kellogg and she said that she would not only pitch in for gas but she would help us pay this other girl back if she needed to. Honestly, this other girl isn't getting anything too expensive or that much so I don't know what her problem is. I know she's not going to pay for gas. I also think it's really unfair that my friend from Kellogg should have to pitch in more. With that said, when I get my first pay check from this new job, I will be paying my friend from Kellogg back whatever she pitches in.

I think I have also decided that if we do have to pay this new friend back for food. I may have to have a talk with her about our friendship. I would like to be friends with her, to get to know her, but I will not be taken advantage of. Especially when Skoora and I are trying to dig ourselves out of a hole and get back on our feet. I really don't want to have such a talk with anyone. It is uncomfortable and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But, like I said, I'm not going to let someone walk all over me or Skoora. 

Vehicular Woes

No, this is not my car, my car is white, and currently sitting in a local repair shop. The mechanic will call me and let me know if I will have to pay $300 or over $1,000 to get my car fixed. If it is the latter, you know what he told me? He said that I might as well sell it because they would have to tear out the whole front end.

SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

I can't afford to fix it and I can't afford to sell it. Mainly because I can't afford to get another car and Skoora's is still out of commission since we couldn't afford to get it fixed either.

I really don't want to be down to using Amanda's parent's car. That will make things very difficult. At least there is a free bus in town if I ever need to get to the library.

And I suppose I should get signed up at the Plasma place near Hayden. I could make 50 bucks a week selling myself off like a little blood whore. UGH!

I'll be okay and less angry tomorrow after I know something for sure and when I don't have a screaming headache.