Today has been annoying. Between my mother and my brother (two peas in a pod, personality-wise, coincidentally), I'm about to beat someone.
My brother was here when I woke up today. In fact, he was the reason I woke up today, as he saw fit to go around the house screaming this message or that to my father without any consideration for the fact that it was still early morning and both my mom and I were asleep. Immediately he set in on how I should take the train to New York instead of drive, because trains are so great. And it'll cost dad $125 to drive us, and don't I feel ashamed? Blah, blah. It was highly irritating because, first of all, my father offered to drive me. I never would've looked for flights outside of Cleveland or Columbus had my dad not explicitly told me to check Airports A, B and C for flights, since they're usually cheaper. I do not feel ashamed, since I'm accepting an offer that the old man was under no pressure to give. The truth is, the brother, who just so happens to be obsessed with trains, has decided that it's very important for me to take the train because he wants to take the train. Blah, blah, blah Horseshoe Curve, blah, blah, blah Penn Station. While trains are indeed mildly interesting, I'll have a railpass in Europe and will be riding on trains every other day, so a train from Sandusky to NYC in no way impresses me. But you can't explain these things to the brother because once he gets excited about something, he's unreasonable.
Then the mother woke up. She came out and started screaming about how the house is "filthy." Well, the house isn't any more "filthy" than usual. She was upset because the Sunday paper was sprawled across the coffee table. This is typical for a Sunday, since every single person in my family reads the paper and generally fights over who gets what section when, and the general method for getting a section is grabbing whatever's on the table and bartering with it for whatever it is somebody else has that you want. This has been protocol at least since I've been paying attention to papers, or about ten years or so, that is. So it wasn't that she was surprised. She was looking for a fight.
Ahh, well, she found one. Immediately after insisting that the house jump to clean up all of the "filth," she demanded that I go clean my room so she can make dad sweep. Well, it seems that, if she wanted to demand that I clean my room, she should've done so flat out. But instead, she wanted to piss off two of us in one foul swoop. She succeeded in this. So we're both annoyed. Now, mind you, for someone swearing about their filthy house, she isn't doing one iota's worth of work herself. She's taking a nap, or saying that she is, except that, every few minutes she pops out of her room to make certain we're not slacking off behind her back.
So, screw this. I won't be bullied. I won't snap to just because she's in a foul mood. I'm not a soldier, and drill sergeant-like though she might be, she's no right to scream at me mindlessly and expect no retalliation. So I'm settling in. Not one whit's more work without a kind word, and a well-reasoned line of thought. Civility, I say, though the sky itself may be falling. Battle there'll be if battle we must. Lazy Sunday Afternoon be praised, I'll carry your banner forever.
posted by Sarie @
3:55 PM
>Comments: 0
