Control

I recently returned home from a two week visit with my mother. My father passed away in April 2009, and I have spent as much time as possible with my mother since then. I have been supportive in every way possible and I now feel like all that love and support has just been flushed down the toilet.

I suppose I have myself to blame for this recent turn of events. My mother is a very controlling, manipulative, selfish and jealous person. As a child, my every move was scrutinized, insulted and controlled. The fact that I moved thousands of miles away from home is no accident. The only way it was possible for me to become my own person was to move away from the influences and scrutiny of my parents. My husband and I have made a nice life for ourselves and have even managed to find a level of contentment after the death of our son.

After my father’s death, I felt that my mother needed my love and support, so I began spending more time with her both on the phone and in person than I have since leaving PA 16 years ago. I called her almost every week for the past year; I spent two weeks at her house in April 2009 after my father’s funeral; she spent Christmas 2009 in AZ with me and my husband; and I just returned home from another two week visit. This last visit was very different than the previous visits.

The worst example of her behavior is this:

Two days before I left, we went to visit my grandfather. Mom doesn’t like other people driving her car, so I knew she would be driving that day. Before we left the house, I told her I wanted to stop at a store and buy some flowers for grandpop’s birthday. My grandfather will be 90 in June, and since I wouldn’t be around for his party I thought it would be nice to wish him a happy birthday before I left. I told her I wasn’t picky about the type of store; a grocery store or a flower shop would certainly have something appropriate. She made a face and said it was a nice thought, but Grandpop wouldn’t appreciate it. I said, “Well, it’s something I would like to do anyway.” There are two grocery stores and a flower shop within three or four miles of Mom’s house. We got in the car, and we did not head in the direction of those stores. While mom drove she pointed out the location of a flower shop that had been closed for many years, and several small corner grocery stores that, according to her “certainly wouldn’t sell flowers”. I hoped there was a shop along the way that did actually sell flowers. (I moved away 16 years ago and am unfamiliar with the city my grandfather moved to recently.) When we pulled into the parking lot, Mom parked and removed her seat belt. I said, “I am very disappointed that we didn’t stop anywhere to buy flowers.” She sniped, “Grandpop wouldn’t appreciate the gesture anyway.” I calmly replied, “That wasn’t your decision to make. I wanted to give my grandfather flowers for his 90th birthday.” My tone was firm and although I was angry I didn’t yell. She yelled, “Well, there was nothing on the way!” She then slammed the car door and stomped toward the building.

When we returned home from the visit, I asked for the car keys. Mom demanded, “Where are you going?” I said I was going to the mall to buy a gift for my niece. “But you already gave her a present!” I replied that since I don’t get to see her very often I was going to get something for her from her favorite local store. Mom glared at me but surrendered the keys. Free at last! After a quick stop at the store, I drove to the cemetery and sat at my son’s grave. It was the only peace and quiet I had the entire visit.

My main purpose for returning home was to help my mother clean out the attic. The house I grew up in has a three room attic and it was stuffed to the ceiling with junk. My father never threw anything away; he hoarded junk like it was treasure. Last spring I hired a hauling company to clean out the back yard and tool shed. They filled three pick up trucks and a dump truck full of junk: broken air conditioners, broken tools, broken lawn mowers, buckets filled with rusty nails, piles of wood, etc. It was like the television shows on hoarding. It broke my heart.

This spring, I labored for 10 days carrying boxes and bags of trash down two flights of stairs and out to the alley behind the house. I hauled away broken window fans, lawn furniture that needed to be repaired in the 1970’s, empty shirt boxes from stores that closed decades ago, more rusty tools, and boxes filled with magazine article clippings. Dad wasn’t the only person filling the attic. My mother saved every Christmas decoration she ever purchased or received as a gift. As she opened the boxes, she told story after story about the items. “I got this from your Grandmother the first year we were married.” Other items made her exclaim, “I wondered what happened to this!” We sorted items into three piles: keep, yard sale, and trash. Luckily the keep pile was only about a third of what was in the attic originally. She admitted that it was time to get rid of some of the things she has been holding on to, yet seemed to resent my ability to throw things away so easily. (I am not a hoarder.) We filled several boxes with gifts she had received over the years from co-workers; things she didn’t want but also didn’t throw away. I was surprised by the amount of stuff in the attic that was hers; I knew my father hoarded, but I didn’t think mom did, too.

Day after day we discussed whether to keep, throw or sell items in the attic; and day after day she grew angrier and more resentful. I encouraged her to keep items that were of sentimental value, but to let go of the stuff that meant nothing to her. She yelled at me one afternoon; “This is my life!” Gently, I said “This is just stuff. Your life is in your memories and in the people who love you.” That seemed to make her even more angry, which I find baffling.

On our final day of attic cleaning I was sitting on a folding chair tossing items towards the garbage bag at the top of the stairs; mom was sitting on another chair sorting the items I tossed. Suddenly, she started crying and yelled at me, “Don’t be mad at me for all this junk. Be mad at your father!” I calmly replied that I wasn’t mad and that we were almost done. After days of back-breaking work in temperatures that ranged from 50 to 90 degrees we were almost finished! And now she decides to have a fit.

After that, I couldn’t do anything right. She didn’t like the way I mixed powdered tea; she got upset over the amount of beverages I drank in a day; she disapproved of me changing clothes after I did yoga; when I asked to use the car she demanded to know where I was going; she complained about the amount of trash I placed in the bathroom trash can; she complained that I let my alarm clock ring too long in the morning. The complaints were endless!

I know she is still grieving the death of my father. I know she faces an uncertain future as a widow. I know she was upset about throwing away the items from the attic and was taking her frustrations out on me. What I don’t know is if I am willing to put myself in this position again. I don’t want to be her verbal punching bag—I had enough of that as a child. I wouldn’t put up with that type of behavior from anyone else, so why should I have to put up with my mother treating me that way?!

Maybe I should take a cue from my brother and only call mom a few times a year instead of nearly every week. Maybe I should only email her sporadically and not offer to help her with major projects. Maybe I should distance myself from her again.

My own mental health may require it.

Going Postal

While out shopping the other day, I happened upon a cool stuffed dinosaur on the clearance rack at Kohl’s. My four year-old nephew loves dinosaurs and I knew it would make a great addition to his small collection. So, being the cool aunt that I am, I happily took the dinosaur home.

I boxed up the present and went to the post office. The only labels I had at home were USPS Priority Shipping labels I had left over from Christmas. I wasn’t going to ship the gift priority so I simply planned to cut off the top part of the label which identified it as a postal product. When I stepped up to the counter (with label, pen and scissors in hand) I asked the clerk to weigh the package and tell me the parcel post rate. I was still filling out the label and the following conversation occurred:

Postal Clerk: You’re not allowed to do that.
Me: Do what?
PC: That’s a Priority Shipping label and you’re not allowed to use the label if you’re not shipping the package Priority.
Me: Well, I’m going to do it anyway. It’s a label, not a contract.
PC: I’m not going to ship that package parcel post with a Priority label on it.
Me: Fine, then don’t.

I took my package over to the automated postal machine in the lobby, paid for the parcel post stamp ($9) and dropped the package in the box. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Yesterday my nephew called to thank me for the gift. I was surprised it had arrived so soon; parcel post usually takes all week to travel across the country. I assumed it was a fluke, but then my bother got on the line and told me what really happened. The package arrived Priority Shipping postage due to the tune of $17. There was an official postal form attached to it explaining that the package had been re-routed from parcel post to Priority Shipping due to the fact that the address label was a Priority Shipping label. The mail man who delivered the box to my brother told him he could refuse the package or pay the postage due. So he paid the $17.

I don’t care about the money. What bothers me is the creepy clerk. He felt so strongly about enforcing the postal code that he actually left his counter position, looked for my package, and filled out the form to change the delivery method. I had my first stalker and didn’t even realize it!

Did he do this just for spite? Did he get some perverse pleasure from adhering to the strict letter of postal law? Was he trying to teach me a lesson?

The next time I go to the post office I will be sure to take home a stack of Priority Shipping labels to use as scrap paper at my desk. I have to make up the $17 some how.

You Just Can’t Take Me Anywhere!

I went out for lunch with my new friend Sara yesterday and proved to her that I don’t know how to behave in public.

I met Sara a few months ago through a hobby we both enjoy and we hit it off. As it turns out, she only lives a mile away so we’ve been hanging out every once in a while, in addition to seeing each other at our mutual hobby.

She picked me up at my house and we went to Olive Garden for lunch. We were seated at a small table for two in the corner. Half of the seating along the row of tables was bench seating (against the wall) and the other side of the table had chairs. The other tables were all tables for four and there was only about 18 inches of space separating each table. A little close, I thought, as I took the booth seat.

We ordered our food and were talking and laughing over our salads when a woman wearing way too much perfume sat on the bench seat next to me. She was at the next table but with only a few inches separating us, her scent was overwhelming. I tried whispering to Sara that the woman’s perfume was making me gag, but before I could choke out a word or two the hostess brought a highchair and deposited it in the 18 inches of space separating our table from the next. An older woman (grandmother?) stood there holding a toddler. Oh, great! Two annoyances for the price of one.

I looked up at the hostess and, in a firm voice, said, “Can we not do this.” Everyone froze! The two women with the baby finally gasped and the child’s mother said loudly, “What, you don’t want to eat near a child?!” I kept my eyes on the hostess and said, “If you need to seat them here, I’ll move.” The highchair was blocking my way out, so I made no move to get up and leave, but my tone said it all. I was not happy.

The two women with the child kept cackling, but my issue was with the restaurant employee who decided that the only place in the entire restaurant to seat a woman wearing half a bottle of perfume and her small child was right in my lap. She was scanning the room for another place to seat people when the smelly woman snatched her child out of the highchair. Seeing that the decision had been made, the hostess proceeded to escort the women, child and highchair to another section.

I turned to Sara and said, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, but I would have been uncomfortable with them sitting so close.” She had looked surprised at the beginning of my exchange with the hostess, but admitted that she saw my point. We were seated in the corner and my only way out was the small space in which the high chair had been placed. Add to that the overpowering odor and our meal would have been ruined.

I joked with her that she needed to make a mental note to never eat out with me again! I am a bit of an acquired taste, and I readily admit that. I’m not intentionally abrasive but I don’t put up with shit any more than absolutely necessary. I’d rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for an act that I put on for people.

The rest of our meal went smoothly and the table next to us was eventually occupied by two women who sat on the far side of their table for four. (And they didn’t stink or need a highchair.)

I guess I wasn’t so horrible after all, because Sara drove us to her favourite gelato place for dessert.

True friends love you, warts and all. Hopefully I’ve found a new true friend.

The Sting of Rejection

I have two MySpace accounts—one for my atheist forum friends to keep in touch with me and one for a hobby I do in “real life”. I don’t advertise my atheism in my daily life (nor do I hide it), so I choose to use one set of email and MySpace info for my atheist screen name and the other set for my given name. That way any email that comes into my MommaSquid account, I automatically know it’s from a forum contact. It simplifies things for me.

So this morning I logged into my “hobby” email account and saw that I had a friend request from Madelyn, someone I met during the course of my hobby. Right after we met, I looked up her MySpace page, intending to invite her to be a friend; but what I saw on her page disturbed me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Everywhere I looked! Under hobbies—serving the Lord, Jesus Christ. Musical interests—Christian music. About Me—"If you died today, are you certain that you will go to heaven? Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior today and spend eternity in heaven.” Her entire MySpace page was littered with references to church and Jesus. What the hell?

She seemed like a person of normal intelligence when I met her, and yet she has this layer that I was unaware of until now. So I decided not to invite her to be a MySpace buddy. But what does that say about me? Am I closed-minded towards believers? At that level of enthusiasm, the answer is yes.

I figure since I was raised Catholic and was able to use my mind for rational thought to ask questions, leave the church, abandon the dogma, and realize that the universe is not run by an invisible man in the sky, everyone else has the same opportunity. It’s not like I’m all that smart. I’ll never cure cancer, but at least my mind is capable of producing rational thought. I wonder about people who seem smart yet continue to swallow the mindless dogma of organized religion.

Anyway, getting back to today’s friend request from her: I logged on to the appropriate MySpace account, while pondering what to do. Do I reject her request? I thought that would be the right thing to do, since we obviously only have one thing in common—the hobby we both enjoy. But when I checked my recent friend requests, her request was no longer there—she must have deleted it. She rejected me as well.

Did she reject me because I am an atheist? The only part of my “hobby” MySpace account that mentions my propensity toward free thought is the little box I checked under the religion section. Although atheism is not a religion that is the box I checked because it best describes my views towards religion. Did Madelyn see that tiny bit of information and decide I wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to know? We certainly got along well enough during our hobby encounters for her to seek me out online and request to me a MySpace buddy—so why the retraction?

Unless I ask her the next time I see her, I’ll never know for sure. I find it very amusing that we both rejected each other (potentially) because of our views on god and religion.

How very human.

As I Was Going to St. Ives…

I was out for an afternoon stroll today, which is kind of unusual for me. When I do manage to get in some exercise, I usually walk closer to sun set; but the weather was absolutely beautiful today, so I headed out early.

I left my home at approximately ten minutes before three. By 3 p.m. I had reached a nearby community area, which includes a basketball court, volleyball sand pit, benches and the north end of the walking path that runs down the center of my subdivision. I noticed a vehicle parked illegally on the street and I recalled seeing the vehicle there numerous times before. Today I learned the reason for it being there so frequently. Seated behind the vehicle on the curb was a school crossing guard, replete in her orange safety vest and wielding her mini stop sign.

Me: Excuse me. Are you a volunteer or an employee of the school district?
CG: I’m an employee.
Me: Are you aware that you’re parked illegally?
CG: Well, there’s no place to park and I have to be here for work.
Me: Oh, okay.

How could I argue with such sound logic? Apparently the crossing guard felt herself exempt from the laws of our community. But there simply must be parking available somewhere, I thought.

I walked west to the next cross-street a short distance away. There is a no parking sign on that street as well, so I kept looking. I turned south and walked toward the next east-west situated street, which I knew from previous walks would turn into a cul-de-sac if I headed east. I followed this short street until it ended. Sure enough, I was now overlooking the public area I had just left.

← ← ← ... **no parking** ... ← ← my walking route

↓
↓
↓
→ → → ((cul-de-sac))


I could clearly see the crossing guard and the no parking sign from this new vantage point. I then returned to the crossing guard.

“There is plenty of available legal parking at that cul-de-sac right there (pointed) less than 500 feet away. You look healthy enough to make that walk.”

She then gave me a very dirty look.

That’s all you got bitch?!

I took out my cell phone and proceeded to take a picture of her vehicle in front of the no parking sign.
My back was to her when she started yelling that I was harassing her, so I turned to her and calmly said, “I’m merely documenting illegal activity.” I smiled and then turned away to take a close-up shot of her car’s license plate.

She got out her cell phone and called someone, again yelling that she was being harassed. I’m not sure who she was speaking with, but I called the police non-emergency line and reported the afternoon’s activity thus far. While I was speaking to the officer, the crossing guard packed up her little vest and stormed off. Aaaaah, sweet victory! The officer promised to alert the beat patrol officer so that he can keep an eye on the situation in the future. I thanked him for his time, put my phone away and continued my walk.

Approximately 30 minutes later, I was heading for home when the crossing guard drove past me, stuck her head and left arm out of her vehicle and took a picture of me with her cell phone. When I returned home, I called the local elementary school and spoke with the principal. I expressed concern not only for the guard’s parking habits but for the tone she took with me. As a city employee, the crossing guard should show care and concern for the children in her charge and be able to deal with the general public in a polite and professional manner. The tone she used with me (and the fact that she may have waited for 30 minutes for me to walk through the area again) made me doubt her mental fitness to perform her job duties. Plus, I was feeling a bit bitchy about the whole situation, so I decided to see if I could get the guard in trouble with her boss.

The principal promised to pull her in for a little talk tomorrow. If the guard continues to park illegally, I will notify my community’s security supervisor and have the matter handled that way.

There’s nothing like an afternoon walk to get the blood pumping.

Tax Man?

I have a friend, who I'll call Dick. Dick recently read this book…



…and has decided to follow the author's examples and advice. What is this book about? Basically it's a tax scam in which you claim that your wages are not taxable and you are entitled to a full refund of all federal withholding.

Now, I hate paying taxes as much as the next person, but I'm not willing to risk the wrath of the IRS. But my friend Dick is under some kind of spell after having read this book. (It's reminds me of fundies!)

I've tried to talk him out of trying this scheme, but he is convinced that it is NOT a scheme…he believes the author of this book is interpreting the law correctly, and that the federal government has been defrauding voluntary tax payers for decades.

It’s been nice knowing you, Dick. Be sure to send me a postcard from the federal penitentiary.

House Hunting Blues

In the past week, I’ve been out with my real estate agent three times and have visited about a dozen homes. Add to that the home listings that I’ve waded through online to come up with just those twelve, and I’ve considered a shit load of houses this week.

There was one home that I could definitely see myself living in, so I decided to make an offer. My agent called the seller’s agent who said they had an offer on the property already. Her reply was to keep us in mind if the current offer didn’t work out. This is how civilized real estate negotiations are handled, but the seller’s agent wasn’t too keen on playing by the rules. He immediately said he would refuse the current offer if we could beat it by X amount. I said I could and my agent had a verbal acceptance of my offer within minutes. We began discussing the offer contract but the seller’s agent called back and said I needed to add another several thousand dollars to the price in order to get the house.

Wait a minute! He had just accepted my offer, and moments later wanted more money. Sorry, I’m not going to have my chain yanked. Either honor the offer you accepted a few minutes ago or go away. So, he went away.

First thing the next morning, the seller’s agent called and said the original offer I made was good enough, so I got together with my agent and put the offer in writing. We only gave the seller 24 hours to respond, thinking that the shorter the time-frame was the less time he and his agent had to try to find a higher bidder.

Twenty-four hours came and went and I still hadn’t heard from my agent. After 30 hours I broke down and called her. She had heard from the seller’s agent who said he needed until the next morning to finish his end of the paperwork, so we should expect an acceptance by morning. That turned out to be almost 48 hours, which was too long. This morning my agent called and said the seller had a higher offer on the table and it was almost 10 percent higher than my offer. Consider my chain yanked once again.

I know exactly how far I can stretch our budget to afford a home; my husband and I are not wealthy people but we live a nice, upper-middle class existence. To have some stranger tempt me with a home in my price range only to try to get me involved in a bidding war is infuriating! I steamed for a few minutes, brooded for an hour and then hit the MLS search again.

Better luck next week.