Buzz-kills!

I was in a pretty good mood yesterday, right up til I talked to Bear's sister on the phone. And then I was pissed off and in a foul mood.

She's got a knack for putting Bear on the defensive and making him feel like a 12 year old but I didn't realize that she could do it to me, as well. Grrrrr! I found myself explaining our current tight finances rather than saying "None of your business!" and hanging up. Maddening.

And I really, really deeply resent and take offense to her outright saying, hinting, suggesting or even barely implying that she cares more about him than I do or that I'm forcing him to work too much to support my store and I'm hurting him in the process. I already feel plenty bad enough when the store needs assistance out of Bear's paycheque. I hate that he's working absurd overtime because money is in short supply around here. I loathe that he feels in any way like a failure because of all of this. I despise that I feel like a failure for the same reasons.

What we don't need is her lecturing us and giving us unwanted advice or second guessing our decisions because she thinks she's so much smarter than we are. Her manner is abrupt and rude at the best of times. I suspect that her husband was giving her grief over the money she loaned Bear and so she called and passed that grief on to me. Gee, thanks! Just what I wanted.

The absolute kicker? "I can't take worrying about my baby brother like this. I don't need that kind of stress right now." Excuse me? YOU can't take worrying about him? How the frig do you think I feel? "Oh, I know it's bad for you, living in it." (said in a condescending voice, minimizing it as much as possible) "But he's my baby brother and I love him to death."

Uh, no. No, he's not your baby brother. He's a grown man and my husband. No, you only think you love him to death. You love him when it's convenient and it won't cost you anything-time, effort or money, most importantly money-to do so. You think you love him because you think he's a screw up and a failure and it makes you feel better about yourself to point that out to him every chance you get. You tell him you'd do anything to help him and then belittle him for asking for your help in any way. You complain and bitch because we never come to see you but you can't even take a 10 minute detour from the highway to come and see us when you drive to Montreal.

So, in short, she can fuck off. Fuck right off. With bells on.

And when the kid told me her bio-mom wanted to talk to us about Christmas, my response was "Don't hand me the phone if she calls. Not tonight." Because I know what that's about. She wants us to meet her half way to her house-a 3 hour drive each way. The half way point is 3 hours, that is. Not. Going. To. Happen. I did that kind of driving for years and years-after she took the kid and moved hours away, knowing that he didn't have a driver's licence or any way to see his daughter. She promised before moving that she would bring the kid every other weekend because it was her idea to move. That lasted about a month.

First came the attempt to extort additional money-"I'll bring her if you pay my gas and for me to stay in a motel every other weekend.". Then came me agreeing to do half the driving. But visits became erratic, because it was "too much" or because some friend of hers was coming for the weekend and "wanted to see the kid". Tough shit! Her father had first claim on her, right?

What it really was was she didn't want to drive that far. Alone. Yup, that whole 2 hours round trip, with half of it alone is a killer. Never mind that our half of the drive was farther and we ended up going through Toronto on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoon. Her life was sooooooo rough. And so, she'd get other people to do it for her. Her mother. Her lover. A friend. Anyone, as long as she didn't have to do it.

And now, she sees her daughter face to face once a year, and it's "not fair" that she should have to come and pick the kid up to do so. We should meet her half way again. The train-oh, no! That's not fair to the kid, to be on the train like that (translate-we'd only have a 10 minute drive to drop the kid at the station, she'd have to drive an hour.). Uh, so it's better for the kid to be in a car for 6 or 7 hours than to be on the train for 3? Oh, you mean it's not fair that you should end up paying for gas or a train ticket while we don't have to!!

Tough shit. Can't close the store on a Saturday to do it, Bear works Sunday nights so he's not going to sit in a car for 7 hours instead of sleeping, the car is getting too old to risk it and I'm just not doing it any more. My days of bending over backwards to keep the exwife from being a bitch are done. Long done. Shouldn't seeing your kid be the most important thing, not being right, being "fair" or winning?

I think we should change our phone number.