Grumpy with "grown-ups"
I have no idea how or why it happened, but for some reason, ever since my boyfriend's stepmom got her first paycheck on Friday, she and his dad have sequestered themselves from us in an offensively obvious manner. Granted, they'd talked of wanting to go to the DMV this weekend to get their Nevada licenses, but I'd also been talking for weeks about the upcoming baby shower for my cousin's fiancee. So when I asked them on Friday night if they wanted to either get up really early to get a ride to the DMV from me or take the bus down there, and they said they'd just take the bus, I figured, no big deal. When I took his stepmom to cash her paycheck at Wal-Mart on Friday, I thought there might be at least a "Thank you," and when I saw that she got paid for two weeks of work rather than the one she was anticipating, I was naively hoping that she'd take the initiative to toss some of that our way. The only expenses they have right now are their cell phones (which I got to near-current with a $481 payment the week before to get the phones turned back on, so their only remaining balance was something like $217), their cigarettes, her work clothes (which, considering she's a Wal-Mart fiend and already had plenty of "business casual" tops, wasn't too much), and whatever piddly shit they feel like blowing their money on. I hate to seem like a greedy bitch, but when she got $1200 instead of the $600 she was anticipating, and we've put forth over $4000 between moving them out to Vegas from Florida, paying for prescription medication, catching their phone bill up far enough to get the phones turned back on (they got to learn the hard way like so many others that cell phone bills are not like power bills and the Past Due game doesn't work), buying their cigarettes, buying her bus pass, and paying for their storage unit, it really crawls under my skin. Something about the two-facedness of their holding onto their pride strong enough to turn down my offers to take her shopping for work slacks and shoes that don't blister her feet before her first payday, and that they remain silent on needing to refill prescriptions or running low on cigarettes until they're out, and the fact that I had to point out the importance of his stepmom having her cell phone on and active (it's the only number her employer has to reach her, and if there's an imperfect circumstance of bus transfers, breakdowns, etc, that have her running late, she needs to be able to reach them) to have them accept the $481 payment to reactivate their phones has me rankling at the fact that, after their long speech about being able to get the phones back on after she got paid, they've done nothing to even try repaying that part of what we've put forth. If I were truly feeling cantankerous, I'd total up everything that I've spent on/for them and give them a broken-down bill itemizing everything we've spent on them. And if Payday Number Two comes and goes without any effort on their part to start repaying what we've spent, then I might just do that. jeffwallace and I had agreed to let the first check come and go without comment because of his stepmom's need to upgrade her wardrobe for her job and the fact that they still have to pay on their cell phones. We'd also agreed to level out what they owe to a round balance of $4k for everyone's peace of mind and allow them to just pay that down without pitching toward rent (to help them speed along saving for a car and to move the HELL out of our apartment!), but with the way they've been acting--especially after last night into today!--I'm having second thoughts.
Yesterday, I had to make a quick dash back home before heading out to the baby shower because I'd forgotten my camera. When I left that morning at about 8, his stepmom was up and talking about how she was going to be getting his dad up any minute so they could start heading out. When I ran back in at about 10:50, they were huddled up in their cave. No way in hell they had enough time to take a bus and a transfer, get to the DMV, wait their turn, and get back home by then. When my boyfriend got home at about 3, they were still here. When I came with my mom at about 6 in the evening to pick him up after the shower so we could go watch DVR'd shows at my parents, his dad was home and his stepmom had wandered off to Wal-Mart to do some shopping for clothes. Hmm. Funny. What were those comments made several times over he past two weeks about needing to make sure they got Nevada licenses with her first check so that his application for SSI could run more smoothly and she could more easily open an account with a local credit union and cash her check locally? Oh, yeah, a bunch of cockamamie bullshit spewed forth by "grown-ups" who want to give the impression that they're more mature than high school students milking the Mommy and Daddy cow.
And when we got home last night at about midnight-thirty? His stepmom was in the living room, watching TV and doing stuff on her laptop. That, we have no problem with--in fact, we'd told them several times that if we're not busy with the TV in the living room, they don't need to hide in their cave to watch their shows, and they're encouraged to spend time in the common living areas to make us feel like we do a good enough job keeping up on personal hygiene for them to not run away. I guess it was a lost statement, though. We opened the door to set stuff down, and she started shutting everything off and closing her laptop. By the time we stepped back in from having a cigarette, she'd already run off to their cave. She was in such a hurry to run, in fact, that she neglected to turn off the TV and the speakers, she just hurriedly turned off the VCR to kill the signal and get the duck out of fodge. (The way our TV set-up in the living room is arranged, we turn off only the TV and speakers, leaving the VCR on, because we have to jump the cable feed through the VCR and it occasionally gets really, really stupid and forgets that it's our cable tuner if we shut if off.)
But that wasn't all of it! Apparently she was in the middle of laundry when we came home earlier than anticipated (we usually get back from my parents' between 2-3AM on Saturday night/Sunday morning), and in her rush to get the hell away from us, she completely forgot that she had a load in the dryer (which wouldn't have bothered me, and in fact, still doesn't, because I've left laundry in the dryer before) and in the washer (which really pisses me off because it sat overnight and I have to rewash the fucking thing before I can do my own laundry).
Now, I understand that I am often very socially awkward--so much to the point that I sometimes wonder if I maybe have a really mild case of asperger's that I've managed to teach myself to work past, much like the mild dyslexia I know I have but I worked past because I wanted to read, damnit. I also know that my boyfriend, for however good a man he is, can sometimes be a bit annoying. But running off as soon as we come home? Hiding out in their room whenever we're home? (In-character, as annoying as it may be, for his dad, but not so much for his stepmom, who would usually spend a few hours in the living room chatting with us and watching TV and using her laptop in the evening, but Friday night and Saturday, she was like a goddamn ghost.)
I appreciate efforts to be as unobtrusive as possible when I'm trying to help. I do not, however, appreciate blatant efforts to be unobtrusive that are offensive by their very nature.
And, however much I appreciate having a Litter Box Fairy living with me who changes the cat boxes every couple days, I do not, not, not appreciate finding out that I need to pick up cat litter when we're out of fucking cat litter! Nor do I appreciate having to find out on my own using "their" bathroom because my boyfriend's in ours and I just really had to go that we'd gone through six rolls of potty paper and run completely out, save for the combined roll and a half on the spinners in our two bathrooms. I'm generally not a picky, finicky shopper. While I try to make sure I get a good bang for my buck, I also savor convenience. But, when it comes to my kitty litter, I like being able to pick up 40lb bags of the stuff at the feed store for less than $7 a bag, rather than having to pay over twice that for a 15lb bag. It's just sound economics. And remaining silent on when we're running low on stuff until we're completely out of stuff means that I may have to pay more for something than I'd like, or have to figure out how to get to the feed store after I get off work and before they close on Monday because I didn't see the note until last night (it wasn't even put up until sometime between my leaving for the shower and coming to pick up my boyfriend) and the feed store is closed Sundays.
At this rate, the only grandparents who'll get to have my children sleep over will be my parents, not my boyfriend's dad and stepmom. And if they keep this crappy passive-aggressive, offensively unobtrusive, pretextually-responsible attitude going on, I won't even let my children see them between the ages of 7 months and 12 years, because they don't need Grandpa "A" and Grandma "A" teaching them to throw a tantrum and be pissier and moodier and act more entitled and ungrateful than is already instinctive to a child!
...I think I'm-a put Quicken to good use. I'm going to total up every fucking withdrawal I've made for them since they moved in just so there is an accurate total to present them, for at this rate, that'll be the only way I'll be able to get any sort of fiscal responsibility out of them to recover the expenses we've had to put forth.
Thankfully, jeffwallace's Pell Grant reimbursement covered both of our books and my tuition and fees for this semester, so their presence hasn't had a financial impact on my present ability to go back to school, but they've sure as hell put a hold on any hopes of home ownership in the first half of this year.
...at least I get to go out for sushi with some friends today...