I honestly believes Ns up the N-sanity during this time of year.
N-Sanity!
Ain't that the truth!
Well, things have been quiet for a while.....except she didn't leave town on my birthday this year and took me out for fondue instead, then bitched teh whole time and tried really hard to spoil the evening for me.
But she didn't. The food was just too delicious.
I've seen her maybe 4 or 5 times since Christmas. She has informed me that she has a girl who comes in once or twice a week to help her with things and do the dreaded grocery shopping. Wow! That's a relief. I think SIL set it up for her. When I tried to arrange similar, I was accused of not wanting her, trying to pawn her off on strangers, blah, blah, blah. Well, whatever. She has reliable help and and I have peace of mind. Who cares how it was done?
Oh, and the horrible crippling mortgage? Almost gone! We got the HAMP adjustment in March. Our trial period ends in May. Hallelujah!
So now I still need money, but more in a "catching up and keeping things even" way, not in a desperate "IF I don't make $300 by the end of this week we will miss a house payment" kind of way.
I haven't heard form Mom much lately, and she has not been terribly demanding, and life has been good.
Up til this weekend.
Hubs and kiddo and I had plans to go see the horse races at a nearby track Saturday night, for St. Patrick's day. Hubs had to work both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday afternoon she called up and started whining about wanting to see me. Since I had been working at the computer and the phone in here does not have Caller ID, I picked it up, hoping it would be Hubs. If I had known it would be her, I would not have answered it.
She wants to see us. I told her we had plans. She whined and I gave in and the long and short of it is, she got hubs to drive all the way to her house to pick her up to go to the race track where I spent the first 7 races running around and getting things for her. This is a harness racing track, and the races go from 7 pm to after 11 at night, so by the time I got to sit down at the start of the 8th race, I was exhausted. Then it took me 2 or 3 races to figure out what I was looking at, and I didn't get to see the warm-ups of any horse that ran before the 10th or 11th race (there were 13 all together. Which is to say, by the time I got settled in, it was almost over. )
So Ted took her home and just planned to sleep there and then go to work (rather than coming past the race track to come home from her house, then driving right back past that same track a few hours later. There is a complicated issue with a broken alarm clock and he winds up getting almost no sleep on Saturday night.
At this point I should mention that Hubs has to be at work at 4:45 each morning. If you are late, you get suspended. This company does not play. Ted worked All day Sunday and then finally we got to spend some time (like 5 hours) together as a family. We went fo ra bike ride, ate dinner, and he went to bed. He got to sleep about 4 or 5 hours (He is one of those guys who can sleep like Rip Van Winkel. Four hours does not cut it for him.) GOt up Monday and went to work tired.
Monday night, she calls Ted with some story about how her furnace is blowing cold air and she is going to freeze to death in her house. IT was like 65 degrees that night.
The winning line this time is "I'll pay you!" Broke as we are, of course Ted a a sucker for a bribe...and she usually tosses money around like water.
So poor Ted, unable to reach me (I blew off paying my cell phone bill because I took my Kid to the the Museum of Science and Industry Thursday) gets sucked into going over to her house for pretty much nothing. He spends the evening an half the night driving to see her, messing around with her furnace, and (as always) going out to dinner (He didn't have time to eat at home and she ALWAYS wants to go out to eat, lazy bitch won't cook for herself) and driving home. What does he get for his trouble?
TWENTY FLIPPING DOLLARS! That's not even enough to fill his tank. It costs almost that much to drive all the way over there and back! Oh, and not to mention that he got home an got in bed about an hour before he was supposed to leave for work again!
OMG was I pissed! I got home just after he did at 1:30 in the morning and found out about it. I called and screamed at her answering machine. I begged Ted to call in and not go to work because I had a horrible premonition that he would fall asleep driving and get killed (he already had one accident that way).
This morning I called the local HVAC company in her town and found out how much they charge for an emergency call. Then I figured out how much Ted lost by not going to work today. Then I called her and told her that I was damn near never talking to her again and she had better make with all the money she owed my husband. My God, was I mad! No tact, no holding back, I just let fly with all the anger and frustration I had. I mean, really? Twenty bucks for his time? If I had a customer who monopolized my time all evening an then tossed me $20, I would have slapped him! I told her that. I told he it was rude and insulting for her to expect Ted to drag a kid all the way up there and then toss him almost nothing! I told her a lot more than that, about how I am sick of the way she manipulates me and Ted, how she is always waving money around and expecting us to jump at her back and call, and how it WILL NOT BE HAPPENING ANY MORE.
She go tin a snit and said to have Ted come and pick up the money that "HE THINKS I OWE HIM."
Then we hung up on each other.
She called me back in the afternoon (again, I picked up the phone without a Caller ID, but this time I was reasonably sure it was her. I can just tell!) and tried ALL her best tricks on me.
First, she asked if I was "feeling calmer" now. As if I had had a bout of ingestion or something. I said, "Hell no, I'm still mad at you!"
She
Pretended ignorance. "I didn't know Ted had to work" Bullshit! He mentioned it to her several items. Besides, she certainly did know he would have a 10 year old kid with him!
She
reframed the situation in her favor : Well, I DID pay him!/ I took him out for dinner/
More
pretended ignorence/ false innocence: What did I do wrong? I dont understand why you are so angry at me? And, What do you mean I've done this before? When have I done it before? (OOOOHHHH, don't get me started on the number of fake emergencies I've been dragged into!) What do you mean I don't respect you? What do you mean, I have no regard for your time?
She
blamed the victim (Ted) by saiyng he should have said NO if he did nt want to come. (Sure. It is near impossible to say no to that woman!)
She tried several varieties of
guilt and hyperbole (All I've done for you/ I just want to be a family / don't you want your poor old mother in your life/ I thought I was doing the right thing/ well fine I won't call you for help any more....)
More
bait-and-switch tactics: Well, Just have Ted come and pick up the money he thinks I owe him...
ANd her signature move---
using my kid as a pawn: I want to buy Kiddo a birthday present/help with is party/ take him on vacation....
It's a good thing I was so and...and I'm
sooooo done. Lucky for her, my son still wants her in his life. Because if he hadn't asked me to figure out a way he could see her, while still keeping my distance, I would have told her never to call me again.
As it is, she started asking me what she could do to get back in my good graces (what she would have said if she was talking about how to manipulate someone else). SO I told her.
First, she can make with a check. ANd no I am not going to drive out there and pick it up. I don't have time. She can put it in the mail. If she cannot remember to put the check in the mail box, I can have a courrier go to her house and get it.
THEN we can talk about my son and his birthday. I really do not need her money to throw him a decent party this year.
Furthermore, there will be NO MORE weeknight visits. Emergencies will be handled by the appropriate professionals. There will be no more changing of plans or last minute calls. All answers to any such requests will be NO.
Of course I had my list of rules before, but it is hard for me to stick to them sometimes. It felt good to get it all out there and now I know I HAVE to stick by them, because I have SAID them. Having drawn my line in the sand, I cannot back down. IF I do it once, I will be doomed to do it again and again.
When I hung up the phone, I wept. I was drained and shaking. I lost myself in a hot bath and a book and "forgot" to go to work.
