January 10, 2006
Why Don't You Just Fucking Listen To Me?
I was having a pretty good day yesterday. Nice, busy day at work, relaxing evening, figured I’d sack out early because I was tired. After dicking around online a bit, I noticed my mom’s screenname pop up on AIM. I figured I’d beat her to the punch and IM her to tell her hi before I went to bed, and therein came the problem. Not a minute later, a response popped up that was the textual equivalent to a kick in the nuts.
“hi its tasha on your mom’s comp how r u”
I froze. My jaw dropped.
Let me refresh your memory. Tasha is the other half of the dynamic duo (composed of she and my ex-best friend) that lost their kid to CPS over their speed addiction. But they think it’s all hunky-dory because they got her back. Whatever. Then they decided to shack up with my parents under the guise of “being clean”, which was obviously bullshit once my stepdad gave them $20 for lawnmower gas with which they disappeared for six hours, then called my parents from bumfuck Egypt, 40 miles away, with no money and their truck devoid of gas. Gee, I wonder what happened there? So my parents kicked them to the curb, which of course I had told them to do from the very beginning, but again my input doesn’t mean a baker’s fuck to them.
So Shannon and Tasha went on to do their own thing, along with various odd misadventures recounted to me by my parents, who were supposedly not hanging around with them anymore. One day Shannon dropped dead, a few days shy of the birth of their second child. They swore up and down that it was a burst blood vessel in his brain which was caused by him being pistol-whipped by a guy who was angry over him owing rent money (read: a dope-crazed jackass angry over an unpaid drug bill), while I told them I’d bet money on an overdose.
And I should have bet money on it. The odds were stacked skyscraper-high in my favor. That theory sprang to life while on my Thanksgiving visit, my stepdad solemnly recounted to me in a conversation that the toxicologists found out that it WAS an overdose. I wanted to leap up from my chair all wild-eyed and red-faced and scream “BOO-YA! I FUCKING TOLD YOU!” complete with spittle flying everywhere, but that’s not my style. I just nodded and said, “I figured as much” and that was that. Then my mom goes on to recount that Tasha ran off with Shannon’s brother (who, she added, was on the verge of needing serious rehab) to Arizona, her newborn baby and her older daughter in tow.
Sounds like a stable upbringing to me. Yep, they’re clean. Spotless. And I’ve got oceanfront property in Arkansas that I’d be glad to sell to the first willing buyer.
So reading that sentence kicked open a trap door of emotions. Partly anger. Partly annoyance. Mostly frustration. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw shit. I wanted to breathe smoke and break bones.
I’ve finally come to the conclusion that no matter what I say to my mom, I’m inconsequential in her eyes. I could have documented proof that a plane was going to land on their house, complete with live video footage of the incoming plane and an exact time of when it was going to happen, along with several eyewitness accounts from pilots, passengers, air traffic controllers, along with the FAA, and she’d still say, “That’s nice, hon” five minutes before she screamed and the line cut out. I’ve been jumping up and down, screaming for them to listen to me for approximately four years now. I’ve purposefully stopped talking to her to get my point across, and even then I’m sure that was a colossal waste of time.
She throws a gauntlet of excuses at me. Relentlessly. The Spartans would have felt inadequate looking at the volley of bullshit that she loads into her own little emotional catapult and flings in my direction every time I try to get her to do something that might be beneficial for them. My favorite was: “They’ve got nowhere else to go, Jake.”
I want to say, “Yeah, there’s a few homeless guys down at the 7 -11, they’ve got nowhere else to go except the fucking dumpster. You wanna give them a hand, I’m sure they’d be nothing short of grateful. The thing you don’t realize is that they DO have somewhere to go, you just don’t have the sand to stick to your guns and tell them to go there. They can fuck off. They can do something for themselves for once. You don’t need to help them, because they’re definitely not going to help you. They’ve consistently used you, lied to you, walked all over you, and you’re still making excuses for them. And you’re still holding their hand. What in the fuck do you think you’re doing, do you think you’re doing a good thing? Because you’re not. You’re their crutch. When everyone else in their lives slams the door on them because they know that they’re losers who can only help themselves, and even that’s debatable, you let them in like a dog that won’t stop shitting on the carpet. No, the good thing to do would be to let them go.”
I’m disgusted. I’m at the point that I feel like I’m treading water. I’m wasting my time.
What do you do when your audience ends up being deaf, dumb, and blind?
Posted by Jake at January 10, 2006 08:48 AM
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