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mallorys_cameraSo, the visit was good.
But I was glad when it was over.
Plus RTT gave me his cold. I've been coughing, sneezing and generally feeling as though I'm drowning in my own natural secretions. All I want to do is sleep and chatter on the phone with my new telephony BFFs Stephano and Clark.
Also this weekend I was reminded once again why I should never have anything to do with my mother's family, not even phone calls, not even emails, unless I'm wearing lead underwear and a poison gas mask.
You know those families you read about every once in a while in the National Enquirer?
Atticus Finch marries June Cleaver. They have three lovely children. The three lovely children have 4.0 GPAs, are captains – respectively – of the basketball, football and cheering squad teams, are voted Most Likely to Succeed in a three-way tie, blah blah blah.
But, wait! Turns out there's a fourth child that the high school doesn't know about. And that fourth child is chained in a dungeon where she is beaten, burned with cigarette butts and pissed on regularly, kept alive on a diet of maggots and rotting meat. Tortured unceasingly --
Yep. That's me!
###
So, anyhoo, I think I've written here before about Robin and my mother's will. She left him a few thousand dollars. Rick was/is the executor.
Ben counted that money into RTT's budget for the coming year, which I told Ben at the time I thought was a mistake. Even before he was diagnosed with non-Alzheimer's dementia, Rick was difficult to deal with. My mother had granted the executor a good deal of discretion, and it seemed very likely to me that Rick would make RTT jump through hoops – just because he could.
Ben bristled. "I thought the terms of the will said the money was to be used for Robin's education –"
"I don't know why you would think that," I said.
"Because the will said –"
"Did you read the will?"
"No. But it's only logical that –"
"Well, I did. That's not what the will said. Max, you will recall, did not use his bequest for education. He used it to drive cross country and party, and Rick didn't release the money till Max was 21."
"It's only logical –" Ben repeated in that calm voice one uses with particularly obtuse child.
This do-loop could go to infinity.
Ben is gonna believe what Ben wants to believe.
Meanwhile, RTT had borrowed a not huge, but shall we say significant sum of cash from his big brother to put down as a deposit on a house he wants to rent next year. Again, with the expectation that he would pay it back out of the bequest.
So I keep writing to RTT: Robin, you need to contact Rick. Robin, you need to contact Rick. And RTT keeps ignoring me. This was long before the Justin situation came down.
Of course, he doesn't just ignore me, he ignores everyone he's related to by blood. It is very annoying and one of these days I'm going to stop trying to communicate with him altogether. I don't flatter myself that he'll notice.
Meanwhile, Max is in communication with Rick because Max was the person Janet and Alicia called when they had to get Rick to the hospital and Rick was being combative. Since then, Max and Liza have been going over to their house every now and then, just to be friendly.
Max would like to get his money back. Janet has been added to the trustees since Rick is officially Demented. The procedure, Max informed me, was that Janet and Rick would tell Nevin, the finance guy, to deposit it in Robin's account so Nevin he finance guy and also Rick's son-in-law through marriage to my cousin Alicia would need Robin's bank account information.
So I sent Nevin Robin's bank account information.
And was immediately met by this onslaught of emails: ONLY RICK CAN CONTACT NEVIN!!!! BAD DOG!!!! BAAAAAAD DOG!
Rick writes this incredibly vituperative series of emails to Max. Max forwards them to me. In the emails, Rick insinuates that I am trying to steal Robin's bequest! I mean, if I hadn't been conditioned all my life to cringe when Those People make Those Sorts of Accusations, I would actually think this was pretty funny. Rick. Rick. If I was trying to steal Robin's money, wouldn't I send you my bank information instead of Robin's?
For about an hour I sit there and grind my teeth and feel this hideous weight around my chest – body memory of those psychic chains in the dungeon.
And then I think, Why am I giving these people any power over me? Who cares what they fucking think of me?
Rick was up at 5am writing furious emails, rotating on that stick up his ass like it was a rotisserie and he was a moist succulent chicken: By contacting Nevin and Alicia you instead of me you may have caused me to consider postponing this for another year,
Like I give a flying fuck, Rick, I thought, reading the email. Right. I'm supposed to get all teary and remorseful because once again, I've fucked up everything!!! I'm supposed to beg him, Oh, please – please release the money to Robin –
Only you know what?
Fuck that shit.
And fuck Rick.
If Robin had just gotten off his entitled ass and sent the information to Rick, I wouldn't have felt the need to try and do the stuff he wasn't taking care of.
Max and I usually chat for about an hour on Sunday evenings. When he calls tonight, we talk about This Situation. I'm chattering away, describing how awful Rick's forwarded emails made me feel.
I can practically hear the clink of Max's eyeballs hitting his skull as he rolls his eyes.
"Mom," he interrupts, "Mom. You didn't do anything wrong. Those people are nuts."
"I didn't" I ask doubtfully. "They are?" I ask even more doubtfully.
"Yeah! Don't tell me the thought's never occurred to you before?"
"Well. Kind of," I said.
"You've got to develop a thicker skin when you deal with them. If you don't, you're gonna be nuts. And frankly, this thing with Robin never returning phone calls – because he does it to me too – is jerk behavior. Don't try to save him anymore. Let him deal with the consequences of his jerk behavior."
But I was glad when it was over.
Plus RTT gave me his cold. I've been coughing, sneezing and generally feeling as though I'm drowning in my own natural secretions. All I want to do is sleep and chatter on the phone with my new telephony BFFs Stephano and Clark.
Also this weekend I was reminded once again why I should never have anything to do with my mother's family, not even phone calls, not even emails, unless I'm wearing lead underwear and a poison gas mask.
You know those families you read about every once in a while in the National Enquirer?
Atticus Finch marries June Cleaver. They have three lovely children. The three lovely children have 4.0 GPAs, are captains – respectively – of the basketball, football and cheering squad teams, are voted Most Likely to Succeed in a three-way tie, blah blah blah.
But, wait! Turns out there's a fourth child that the high school doesn't know about. And that fourth child is chained in a dungeon where she is beaten, burned with cigarette butts and pissed on regularly, kept alive on a diet of maggots and rotting meat. Tortured unceasingly --
Yep. That's me!
So, anyhoo, I think I've written here before about Robin and my mother's will. She left him a few thousand dollars. Rick was/is the executor.
Ben counted that money into RTT's budget for the coming year, which I told Ben at the time I thought was a mistake. Even before he was diagnosed with non-Alzheimer's dementia, Rick was difficult to deal with. My mother had granted the executor a good deal of discretion, and it seemed very likely to me that Rick would make RTT jump through hoops – just because he could.
Ben bristled. "I thought the terms of the will said the money was to be used for Robin's education –"
"I don't know why you would think that," I said.
"Because the will said –"
"Did you read the will?"
"No. But it's only logical that –"
"Well, I did. That's not what the will said. Max, you will recall, did not use his bequest for education. He used it to drive cross country and party, and Rick didn't release the money till Max was 21."
"It's only logical –" Ben repeated in that calm voice one uses with particularly obtuse child.
This do-loop could go to infinity.
Ben is gonna believe what Ben wants to believe.
Meanwhile, RTT had borrowed a not huge, but shall we say significant sum of cash from his big brother to put down as a deposit on a house he wants to rent next year. Again, with the expectation that he would pay it back out of the bequest.
So I keep writing to RTT: Robin, you need to contact Rick. Robin, you need to contact Rick. And RTT keeps ignoring me. This was long before the Justin situation came down.
Of course, he doesn't just ignore me, he ignores everyone he's related to by blood. It is very annoying and one of these days I'm going to stop trying to communicate with him altogether. I don't flatter myself that he'll notice.
Meanwhile, Max is in communication with Rick because Max was the person Janet and Alicia called when they had to get Rick to the hospital and Rick was being combative. Since then, Max and Liza have been going over to their house every now and then, just to be friendly.
Max would like to get his money back. Janet has been added to the trustees since Rick is officially Demented. The procedure, Max informed me, was that Janet and Rick would tell Nevin, the finance guy, to deposit it in Robin's account so Nevin he finance guy and also Rick's son-in-law through marriage to my cousin Alicia would need Robin's bank account information.
So I sent Nevin Robin's bank account information.
And was immediately met by this onslaught of emails: ONLY RICK CAN CONTACT NEVIN!!!! BAD DOG!!!! BAAAAAAD DOG!
Rick writes this incredibly vituperative series of emails to Max. Max forwards them to me. In the emails, Rick insinuates that I am trying to steal Robin's bequest! I mean, if I hadn't been conditioned all my life to cringe when Those People make Those Sorts of Accusations, I would actually think this was pretty funny. Rick. Rick. If I was trying to steal Robin's money, wouldn't I send you my bank information instead of Robin's?
For about an hour I sit there and grind my teeth and feel this hideous weight around my chest – body memory of those psychic chains in the dungeon.
And then I think, Why am I giving these people any power over me? Who cares what they fucking think of me?
Rick was up at 5am writing furious emails, rotating on that stick up his ass like it was a rotisserie and he was a moist succulent chicken: By contacting Nevin and Alicia you instead of me you may have caused me to consider postponing this for another year,
Like I give a flying fuck, Rick, I thought, reading the email. Right. I'm supposed to get all teary and remorseful because once again, I've fucked up everything!!! I'm supposed to beg him, Oh, please – please release the money to Robin –
Only you know what?
Fuck that shit.
And fuck Rick.
If Robin had just gotten off his entitled ass and sent the information to Rick, I wouldn't have felt the need to try and do the stuff he wasn't taking care of.
Max and I usually chat for about an hour on Sunday evenings. When he calls tonight, we talk about This Situation. I'm chattering away, describing how awful Rick's forwarded emails made me feel.
I can practically hear the clink of Max's eyeballs hitting his skull as he rolls his eyes.
"Mom," he interrupts, "Mom. You didn't do anything wrong. Those people are nuts."
"I didn't" I ask doubtfully. "They are?" I ask even more doubtfully.
"Yeah! Don't tell me the thought's never occurred to you before?"
"Well. Kind of," I said.
"You've got to develop a thicker skin when you deal with them. If you don't, you're gonna be nuts. And frankly, this thing with Robin never returning phone calls – because he does it to me too – is jerk behavior. Don't try to save him anymore. Let him deal with the consequences of his jerk behavior."
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 01:56 pm (UTC)Ask me how I know this.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 07:30 pm (UTC)Re: Robin. As someone who has tried to run interference in similar situations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. If someone isn't asking for your assistance, then they probably don't want it and won't be grateful for it.
If he asks for help, then help if you can/want to but don't try to anticipate and head off the problem. He's smart, he'll figure it out. If nothing else, he'll learn from the experience.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-14 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-15 12:33 am (UTC)not like i have kids, but people are gonna be jerks if they want to. just dont enable them to be jerks.