Damned if I do, damned if I don’t….

Most of you know I bitch about the neighbour kid across the street all the time. Well, I bitch about children mostly. Especially other people’s children.

Most of you also know by now that I live in hickville U.S.A. There are no homeowners’ association, there’s nothing to prevent anyone from becoming your neighbour by buying a plot of land next to yours and hitch a double wide or a mansion or anything in between. Not a thing.

With most things, this type of looseness can be a boon. Or not.

The neighbour across the street have lived there for at least 17 years (according to someone we know). They live in “a shack” as my husband put it. Nothing wrong with it. We cannot all be able to afford a house made out of bricks and whatnot.

Child of the Corn II goes to the same school as this kid. The kid is a year older and I would like to smack her sometimes. OK, a lot of times.

Of late, she has been coming over to “play” with Child of the Corn II (making a big mess in her bedroom in the process)  Apparently, her mum does not care if her house is tidy or not. One day, I told CoTC II to tidy her room and she said, “K doesn’t have to clean her room. Her room is messy!” I stared at her and said, as calmly as I could, “Pack your things. You are leaving this house. You are moving in with your friend and you are not coming back to live here with us.” She screamed and slammed the door, picking up her toys and did not come out of her bedroom for an hour.

I related to my husband what happened that afternoon and he nodded his head, laughing.

I caught her in Child of the Corn I’s room a few times, sitting on the bed as if it was hers, with CoTC I’s laptop on her lap. I thought, oh, no, you have a computer at home. Why are you sucking up MY bandwith? Where was CoTC I? she was sorting her CDs on the floor. I did not yell, scream or said a word. I unplugged the modem.

10 minutes later, I took the vacuumn cleaner and started asking the children to pick up their stuff because “we are cleaning the house.” The kid left.

Yes, I did that a few times and she still came, she still sat on the bed, she still sucked up my bandwith. I did the same thing every time. Sometimes, I even herded the kids into the car and we left the house.

Last week, the kid came and asked to borrow CoTC I’s speakers. They are cheap speakers I picked up at Wal-Mart but that is not the point. The 8 year old dutifully got the speakers and proceeded to give it to her friend. I asked what was she doing with it and she said K wanted to borrow it. I said, “It is not yours.” The kid left. A few days later, she came back and my nice 13 year old lent her the speakers. Today, I found out K’s 15 year old brother has the speakers in his room. K, his 9 year old sister is forbidden to go into his bedroom for any reason. So she could not retrieve it to return them when I sent CoTC I over there. Let me tell you, those are PINK speakers. What 15 year old boy would use PINK speakers?

Here is my dilemma. They live in a shack. We do not. They don’t go anywhere even at the weekends and we always do. Do you get where I am going? I don’t want to appear a snob. Not letting my children lend things to their friends but I cannot become their internet, speaker, DVD etc, provider.

Otherwise, the hicks here are no trouble. Those who socialise with my family because we have children the same age as theirs are problematic. See why children are bad for you?

Why the fuck? Why?

Every year right before summer school holidays roll in, we have to either 1) fill out forms, bring proof of residency and devote at least an hour to re-register the kids for the following school year OR 2) we bring “necessary” proofs etc and spend over two hours filling up the forms at school. At a time when we could be sitting down at the dinner table at home.

If you have never registered a kid for school because they are too young or you don’t have any (yet) oh I envy you!

For proof of residency, you need MORTGAGE/LEASE statement (original), a current (but of course) UTILITY BILL, driving license/state identification card.

In addition, you also need child’s birth certificate and social security number. In this particular district, you CANNOT provide a passport although you have to provide social security number AND birth certificate AND driving license of parents to obtain this document. Not only that, there is a photo of said child on the passport!

Well of course they photocopy these SAME DOCUMENTS you provide them EACH AND EVERY YEAR. Not only that, they KEEP these documents in the child’s folder. These folders GROW each year.

So what, you say? Not like they are storing these folders in my house, right? Can you think of all the unnecessary time, effort and money that are WASTED EACH YEAR? Don’t the teachers and school administrators have anything better to do? WE parents have better things to do. Come on!

Why can’t the school district just issue a reminder to everyone who have moved to update their addresses each year?

This really irks me because it is wasteful behaviour. Utterly unnecessary. Why are our tax dollars spent in this manner?

So much for saving resources.

Monkey see…

Yesterday was Earth Day. I must admit I am not an avid follower of various Days that people celebrate. Unless it has to do with my religion but that is another story.

Over the past few weeks, Child of the Corn II has been (sort of) stacking  discarded items. Actually, she was not stacking them, she just keeps them instead of putting them in the bin. She screamed each time I pick them up and head towards the refuse container. Turned out, she was collecting them for Earth Day. I asked her what she intended to do with these things and she mumbled something about recycling them for Earth Day. Apparently her class has been preparing for Earth Day and she was doing her part.

Don’t get me wrong, I like that children are being taught to respect the earth, recycle and so on. Sometimes, however, recycling discarded items are just not possible. We live in the country and there is no such thing as a recycling centre. I am sure there is one here somewhere – I just haven’t bothered to check. That said, we are not offered to have certain items sent to recycling section or not. EVERYTHING goes to the same place. The garbage people come once a week and we only use one type of container. That’s it.

I am not losing sleep over it, though.

We have a dishwasher but we only use it once or twice a year. Why? We are saving water and electricity. You may argue we use more water washing dishes by hand. (Hey, I am sure SOMEONE will come here and provide the appropriate links to substantiate their claim.) I just prefer to use as little electricity as possible. If I run the tap to wash my dishes by hand and rely on the sunshine coming into my kitchen window, I am saving electricity. Correct?

Many people who know me by now realise that I seldom (if ever) run the air-conditioner. I don’t even turn on the A/C while I am driving around in my car. The reason? Air-conditioners tend to keep you dry (as opposed to breezes and the fan) and being dry means you need to moisturise artificially. That is not to say I do not buy lotions and potions. Far from it. The thing is, not only am I using MORE lotions and potions, I am also spending more money on electricity to run the air-conditioner. If everyone within the grid turn on their air-conditioner all day and all night in the summertime, can you imagine what happens?

Yes, opening the windows invite dust into the house. Unless you are terribly allergic to a bit of dust, it isn’t going to kill you. You need the exercise dusting your furnitures anyway. Right?

I think recycling is great. Teaching kids about it is fantastic. However, can we also teach our kids to save everything in general? Such as eating last night’s leftovers for breakfast or lunch instead of throwing them away? (Unless you are composting them. In that case, carry on) We generally give babies baths simply because they cannot stand up. However, as soon as they are able to stand up straight and hold on to something, can we teach them to take short showers instead to save water?

Use and re-use envelopes that come in the mail instead of spending money to buy those cute notepads to scribble stupid notes that you will lose anyway? Obviously, you use the back of the envelope to jot down little notes for that one time use and when you are done with it, you shred it and send the shredded envelopes along with shredded documents etc to the local animal shelter. OR use the shredded papers to make an art project or something. Huh?

I just sometimes wonder if people “celebrate” Earth Day really understand that it is not a once year thing. It is a lifelong commitment. Much like celebrating Valentine’s Day and such like.

I mean, once a year, you get hyped about this special day or that special day and then the rest of the year, you don’t think about it. You don’t even care. What is the point, really?

Snob…?

I had been going back and forth different shops this past week. Some of the shops were necessary to visit while others not so much. In any case, I was on my mobile with my cousin as usual, after visiting 3 different shops 40 miles away from the house. I knew I had to visit Wal-Mart again but I could not recall why so I grabbed a shopping trolley and while gossiping about people, I grabbed items that were not really important but essential. Upon walking back to the car park, I realised that I went to Wal-Mart to return a Christmas gift for my in-laws. My husband grabbed the wrong thing the previous weekend and I was supposed to exchange it or at least return the blasted thing. I told my husband the previous week I was tired of staring at different things for his parents and that he needed to get them something because I gave up. With that declaration in mind, I went to my car, unloaded items from the shopping trolley into the boot of my car, grabbed the wrong item and went back into Wal-Mart to get my money back. On my way back into Wal-Mart, I ran into a person I met at school a few months ago. He said, “Hey, I was just thinking about you!” I thought, “Oh, fuck. That cannot be good.” However, I said, “Oh, well, everyone thinks about me. ” My cousin who was on the other end of the phone stopped talking, no doubt wondering what was happening.

The person suddenly asked if I was still married. I was rather surprised but recovered quickly and said, yes, of course. He then looked rather down and I remarked that he was also married. He said, “Yeah, kind of, sort of.” His wife is an active duty Navy personnel if I recall correctly. At this point, he almost whispered asking me out. I said, “Oh, yes, sure.” He asked me to call him. I said I would.

I saw a huge vacuum after he asked me out so I pointed to the rejected Christmas gift and said I had to go. I then told my cousin the person asked me out but I was already declining it because he was not attractive to me and he was also boring. My cousin was shocked of course but I was being honest and that is the basis of our 18-hour talks every day.

Now, close your mouths because if you read any of my previous posts, you would realise I do go out with a select few people and my flirting is not an issue with my husband.

In any case, this blog is about what my cousin said to me when I told her about that person who asked me out. I told her he is not attractive and he is boring. She said, “Oh, my god! That is so bad of you!” I told her I do not wish to be seen with an unattractive person in public. He dresses horribly and seriously, I can be fussy because I am not looking for a boyfriend.

Well, yes, enough about me. What about him, that poor person whose marriage seems to be on teeter brinks, or is that teeter hooks? In any case, I began to wonder today. I wondered why he seemed down – perhaps his wife is not around this holiday season or she has not been around emotionally of late and he was feeling lonely and needy. Oh, yes, if that is the case, no thank you. He is truly unattractive. I am not wrong in lying to him about ringing him and setting a date am I?

Yes, I was being honest to my cousin but deceitful to the person who asked me out. Bite me.

Honestly though, I was just a tad disturbed that he asked me out because this was not a case of casual asking out thing I could tell. He was looking for something more. Ugh. There is nothing less attractive than that. Ah well.

Why…?

The other day, my husband came home from work and said that he spoke to his mother. Apparently his eldest sister tried to get in touch with him. He could not get ahold of her so he contacted his mother to relay the message. 

His eldest sister’s eldest daughter is getting married. On 31st October. To the father of her children. 

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Inside, I was screaming, its HALLOW’S EVE!!! 

My husband took the opportunity of my silence to say, “Yes, it’s Hallow’s Eve. She is marrying the kids’ father.”

I finally found my voice and said, “Why bother? They will end up getting divorced anyway.”

My husband just shrugged his shoulders.

I repeated out loud this time, “It’s Hallow’s Eve for fuck’s sakes. There’s trick-a-treating.”

My husband started laughing at me and said, “Yeah, that too.”

I kept muttering, “What the fuck…?”

You would think I would have been pleased that woman-child is finally getting married to her man-child, the father of her children. I should have been pleased but I am not. They have 2 children together. The first child was born not too long after my youngest child was born. My youngest will be 8 on her next birthday – in a few months. We have never met the father of this bastard child of hers. The next thing we knew, she was pregnant again by the same person. My husband said, “At least they have the same father.” 

She got pregnant while she was in high school. On purpose. It was not an accident that she got pregnant. She was deliberately trying to have a child while still a teenager in school. She had no prospect of a job to support her unborn child. I was livid when I heard. I was pregnant with my youngest, carefully looking at my bank accounts every other day, staring at the monthly income tax with holding in my husband’s pay every month, trying to teach my eldest how to read, write, count, spell her name, speak properly…

You and me, taxpayers, have been and will be providing for these lot. Does that not make you a tad upset?

At the time, the man-child was in her life just to provide the semen to make the baby. Fast forward several years later, he once again performed and there was miracle of life number two. Fabulous.

He then moved in with her, all is well and everyone wanted them to get married.

She said she wasn’t planning to get married. Her mother, my sister-in-law is now married to husband number three. Well, they have been married for over a decade now but you see the pattern.

I just don’t see the need for the children to be married. Unless of course they are trying to pay less income taxes if they file jointly as married couple with children. 

Call me a cynic or whatever but really, some people don’t need to be married while some people don’t need to have children. It cause more problems down the line. 

No, we will not be attending the wedding. Will we be sending a gift? I doubt it very much.