A little more notice would have been nice. And no, I am not waking up early!

The BBQ Pit
1

My sister*, whom I love, is a wack job.

She recently moved back to town to finish her degree. Why did she have to move back to town? Because she met a guy, dated him for a couple months (maybe 9) and moved to Cali with him. Well that didn’t work out. Suprising huh?

So she has to move back. I get a call from her asking if I can take her dogs. No, say I, because my cats and her dogs don’t get along and my roommate is alergic to them. So I get a call from my Dad. He asks if I can put up the dogs in the garage while my sister finds an apartment The dogs can’t stay my parents house. (My Dad is concerned that if anything interferes with my sisters plans she would not finish school. …which is probably true. He just wants her to finish and get a job. He’s been helping her with money and I think he is just about done. He wants to help but she isn’t getting it done. Like 5 years to get her masters which should have taken ~2) I say ok, but they have to stay in the garage OR they could go to this kennel for 20 bucks a day. The kennel is highly rated by a dog trainer I know.

That will not work according to my sister. Too much money. So in the garage they go but my sister has to BUY AN AIR CONDITIONER for the garage because it is really hot in Vegas. So I end up with two unhappy dogs in my garage, which I have to walk. It costs more than putting them in a kennel that a)would be alot cooler and b) has in-door outdoor runs for the dogs and c) provides play time for the pups. But I can’t really say no because my sister would use that as an excuse for…something. All I know is that I’d get the blame. From her at least.

So I take the dogs. My sister goes and gets an apartment. She’s going to move in and take the dogs. But wait, she calls me at work at 10:30 PM last Thursday asking for $400. She wants me to transfer it into her account. She promises that I will get it back from her first paycheck. Ok, I say, but I’ll have to call in the morning because I don’t know my pin to my online account. It’s stored in Money and I don’t know it.

That isn’t good enough because she already wrote the check and the money will probably get pulled from her account first thing in the morning. So she calls my Dad, who is on vacation in Alaska, at 11:00 PM and gets him to transfer the money.

So guess who calls tonight a 10:30 PM? My sister. What does she want? $500 dollars transfered into her account because she wrote another check for her apartment but she doesn’t have the money to cover it. And once again the money will probably be pulled first thing in the morning. Not wanting to bother my Dad, I went to an ATM and tried to transfer the money. The ATMs here won’t do that for my bank so I call her back and tell her I’ll do it in the morning. At which point she bitches at me because I should have called the bank to get a new pin last week so I can transfer the money tonight. Never mind the fact that a) I really don’t need a new pin, I’ve got everything set up already b) I didn’t know she was going to run out of money again c) it would take ~2 weeks to get here anyway and d) it is a pain in the ass because the bank automatically disables the old pin when a new one is sent.

So I call her and tell her I’ll transfer the money tomorrow. Now she wants me to wake up at 7 AM to call the bank to transfer her money. I work a midnight shift. 7 AM is in middle of my fucking night and I have to work tomorrow. I usually go to sleep about 3 AM. No fucking way in hell am I getting up because she couldn’t fucking call me in middle of the day. She could have called earlier today and asked. She knows its my day off. The bank would have been open and it would have taken all of 3 minutes. But no, she has to wait until 10 PM and turn a simple situation into a fucking emergency.

To top that off, she is bitching about her apartment and staying at my parents house. The apartment won’t let her put in her FUCKING WATER SOFTENER so she won’t stay there. Yes, she won’t stay at the apartment because there is no water softener. UN-FUCKING BELIEVABLE. She says the dogs are in the apartment. I certainly hope so because if they are at my parents house my Dad is going to go nuts.

Slee

*She’s my half sister on my Dads side.

2

Geeze, what a prize pain-in-the-ass. Were it me, I’d let her cheque bounce as a lesson to ask people first instead of expecting them to pull $500 out of the air at her whim.

3

It sounds rather like she’s taking you for granted, and she’ll keep pushing you until you finally say enough is enough.

4

While I’ll agree that your sister sounds like a pain in the ass, and it certainly seems like she makes some bad choices, I don’t really think that 9 months of dating is too short a time to consider moving to another city with someone (especially since we’re talking Nevada to California, and not, like, Prague to California). Hell, within 9 months of dating SkipMagic, I was damn near married to him. :slight_smile:

So in and of itself (and lacking any knowledge about the dude in question or their relationship), that particular choice doesn’t seem too off-the-wall to me. Within the array of–ahem–choices your sister seems to make, however, I get how it could seem really irresponsible.

5

You need to get those poor dogs out of the garage, like…now. All it will take is one power outage while you’re away from home and they will be dead dogs.

Your sister is an ass.

6

Agreed. Then again, she has people who allow her to be a wack job. If my sister tried any thing near to what your sister has done, I would laugh and hang up the phone. If she needed a kidney, I’d give it to her. But adults need to handle the small shit themselves, IMHO. She is lucky (?maybe) to have you.

7

Why the hell do you people keep enabling her selfish and irresponsible behavior? I’ll give you one piece of advice…

learn how to say NO!

That you took her dogs in and did all that running around with your bank is ENTIRELY your own damn fault, not your sister’s.

You did not want her dogs in your house or garage?

SAY NO!

You did not want to be woken up in the middle of the night to lend her money?

SAY NO!

You teach this selfish twit that it’s ok to behave like this and the rest of the world has to put up with her bullshit. WE don’t deserve it. Her landlord doesn’t deserve it. Her creditors don’t deserve it. Her dogs don’t deserve it. Knock it off!

SAY NO!

8

What Shayna said.

For considerably less than $500, you can get an unlisted number.

9

Why, exactly, does she spend $900 when she knows she doesn’t have the money?

Oh, right. She does have the money, it just happens to be your money or your dad’s money.

Turn off the spigot. She will never learn responsibility if you keep enabling her.

10

First, the dogs are out of the garage, they have been since last Thursday.

Second, I agree that my sister needs to be cut off. She spends insane amounts of money on really stupid shit. The issue now is that my parents put her through school. She is almost done. One class left. My parents, especially my Dad, really want her to finish so they can stop assisting her. But its very likely that if anything at all interferes with anything, she’ll drop the class. She just needs an excuse. My Dad really doesn’t want her to have an excuse. Is that insane? Yep. Sure is. I’ve tried talking to him about it but, while my Dad is really smart about somethings, he can be clueless about people. He seems to think that when this class is done all this will stop. I also forgot to meantion that my sister started a new job. He is also concerned that if my sister encounters any problems she’ll quit her job, which is a real possiblity. He has a vested interest in having her work.

Third, I owe my parents a whole lot. I’m a recovering alcoholic and my parents helped me get my shit together, helped me with treatment, etc. My Dad asked that I do everything I can to help my sister. My parents are on vacation, if they were here my sister would be bugging them with this shit. Since they are gone I am the go to guy for this shit. So I am helping my sister as a favor to my Dad. If I didn’t help my Dad would more than likely take it personally. I just wrote him an email telling him that I’d like to talk to him when they get home. I am not going to start bugging them with this while they are on vacation if I can help it. At the same time, I am not going to do this for my sister anymore.

So, yes, my sister needs to be cut off. People need to stop bailing her out. Convincing my Dad that he is doing more harm than good will take a bit though. Untill my parents get back I am the one who has to deal with my sisters insanity.

Oh, auntie em, my sister is convinced that she has to get married. NOW. She thinks she is getting too old to not be married. So she is looking for someone to marry, not someone she loves. So she ends up finding real losers. This is like the 3rd time she has found THE GUY. All three turned out to be losers.

Slee

11

I agree. No more $$ for her.

12

How old is she? I’m guessing mid 20s. The sooner she learns about the harshness of the real world the better.

13

Do you’re parents really think that she’s going to try and support herself once she is done with school? She obviously has no idea how to handle money, hell she didn’t even ask you for any until she already wrote a check she knew would bounce. Sounds like she knows how to get money without working for it, and I doubt she’ll magically learn work ethics after one more semester of school.

14

Sounds like your sister’s got a pretty sweet deal going.

15

Sleestak,

Contrary to some posts that villainize you as an enabler, I would prefer to compliment you on your sense of family obligation…to your parents. That said, the sister needs to be cut off. She, unlike you, feels no obligation except to herself. Best of luck with this.

16

What Shayna said.

17

I think this is an important point, given your family dynamic. If your father doesn’t stand with you on cutting your sister off, you will always be guilted into bailing her out for his sake because of your own problems in the past.

I think this may need a bit more that just a sit-down with the parents. You may need some joint counseling to get some perspective on this whole thing, with or without your sister.

18

I understand family problems, having a couple myself. It sounds like you’ve reached your limit, and as soon as your father comes back, then you bail. Good plan. Unfortunately, your sister may not learn on her own, and it’s probably best if your father also pulls the plug, but that’s hard for parents to do.

19

Thanks for the advice IvyLass.

I’m going to talk with my parents when they get back.

My parents and I actually now have a really good relationship. He isn’t trying to guilt me into anything though I am guilting myself into it if that makes sense. When I went to treatment there was a ‘family week’ where I hashed out all the bad stuff with my parents. I’m going to tell my Dad that I am done helping my sister with certain things. No more money. No more dog sitting. I’m willing to help to a point (which I am going to define) but I’m not going to put up with this kinda crap anymore. Like I said in my first post, I did this because I owe my parents big time. At the same time my parents, especially my Dad, really need to stop bailing out my sister. I’m going to talk with them about this. My parents, especially my Dad, want things to be good for us kids so much that they end up enabling really stupid behavior. (My Mom is a little more sane about this stuff) They did it with me when I was an active alcoholic. Thankfully, out of 4 kids, only two of us turned out to be nuts (me and this sister) and I got my shit together. Which leaves this sister to get her shit together.

My sister has a problem with money. A serious problem that I believe is masking something else (I once went with her to buy a fax machine a couple years ago. She walked out of the store with ~1000 dollars worth of other shit she didn’t need. It was like watching Michael Jackson shop, except she is poor). I don’t know what the underlying problem is, though I have a guess, but she needs to see someone about it. I am going to suggest to my Dad the he stop helping with money except to help my sister set up a plan to payback what she owes. (I am assuming she is something like $20,000 in the hole. That asumption could be really low. I know she owes a large chunk of money to credit cards etc.) I am also going to suggest that my parents talk with the shrink they went to when they didn’t know what to do about me. That shrink, whom I love BTW, told my parents to cut me off totally (no money, no talking, no contact) if I kept drinking.

We’ll see what happens.

Slee