Mom Always Liked You Best! (Dumb Friggin' Biatch)- I Pit My Sister

The BBQ Pit
1

So, for months now, my sister has not only been asking my mother to consider moving down to the coast where she lives but she’s asking my help in asking my mother to move down to the coast. It’s a logical and good idea I think: my sister’s got plenty of money, plenty of time (she’s retired), plenty of houses, yadda yadda, and Mama’s entering the Romper Room 2: Return of the Diaper stage (not there yet, but she’s driving leisurely to it) and needs to be closer to one of her children. It’s a logical move and so my mother refused to consider it, and you’re not going to convince my mother to do a damned thing she doesn’t particularly want to do, but I worked with her for the past few weeks and without ever once saying “I really think you ought to move down to where Kathy lives” I basically maneuvered a few conversations into things that would show the advantages of it and things that showed the disadvantages of not doing it and sort of sweetened the idea to her a bit.

My mother’s great concern she said, very truthfully, is that a house down there (even one that’s not walking distance from the beach) would cost at least 150% as much as her house now. Well, I approached my sister with this quite valid concern, and HER EXACT WORDS were “that’s the least of her worries. I’m sittin’ on a big ol’ pile of money and we’re always lookin’ for investment opportunities, she can sell her house and pay what she can and I can take care of the rest with cash, then she can leave me that share in her will, all set.” Easy peasy Portugesy.

Well, I haven’t been to my mother’s house in well over a month (a record I think) and my mother’s been very lonely and she really has no close friends in the place and so she finally said “There’s really nothing for me here in Montgomery” and she actually started considering moving down to the coast. She even went online to a site my sister gave her and found a couple of houses she liked (both of them $50-60 K more than her own, but then my sister had said [see above]). She even plans to go down to the coast to look at places over spring break when I can go with her.

I am all for the idea. It’s not because I want her to live a lot further away from me (though I’ve no huge problem with it either) but because I really do think she needs to be close to one of her kids geographically. She’s old, she’s in so-so health, and currently if she had one of her major health crises (which she’s way overdue for) there’d be no one around.

So last night I talked to my sister (who called during the Oscars) and told her “I think Mama’s about made up her mind to take you up on your offer, I think she’s even excited about moving”.

Kathy (after a pause): “Hmm. I wonder why… I’ve been thinking, what she really should do since she likes you the best of her children is just keep her house in Montgomery and go to visit you a while then come and visit me a while. Hell, you’re the one she likes, she oughtta just move in with you. She’d have somebody to talk with and could take care of Ollie” (my dog) “for you and you’d have balanced homecooked meals, and then she could come down here and visit me ajdfkj adj a fjo aojhi faioj a fjaoj a foajf a…”

And even with nobody here to witness it my jaw was dropping. BITCH I KNOW YOU DIDN’T! IT’S not just the “why wouldn’t a 39 year old single guy just LOVE the idea of his 71 year old mother moving in!” factor but the

YOU.SPECIFICALLY.SAID.THAT.YOU.THINK.SHE.SHOULD.MOVE.DOWN.THERE…

And I mentioned the whole house situation and her promise (which she made SEVERAL times) to help Mama buy a house down there equivalent to the one she has in Montgomery. To which my sister said “I’ve been thinking, I own all this property and land already, what I’d probably do instead is build like an A-frame between my river house and the river, sorta like a guest house… she could stay in there.”

“Uh… Mama wants her own place, not somebody’s guest house… and I think that’s totally reasonable.”

“Well I can’t imagine it making any difference to her one way or the other and this would be cheaper for her, just sell her house and keep the equity…”

Goddamn it Kathy! Why not just shave your peroxided mulleted head, put on silk pajamas and an earring and say “House! What house? It pleases me you should live in royal palace, etcetera etcetera…”

“That wasn’t what you… Are you having money problems?”

“No, not at all. In fact it’s been a really good year. But I was just thinking what Mama likes is you and you aren’t ever gonna get married and need somebody to take care of your house, and…”

Me: “Oops, my phone is about to go out because the charge is almost gone.” Click. (The phone was fully charged of course but I didn’t want to attack.)

GODDAM THIS PISSES ME OFF! It’s not just that she wants to pawn Mama off on me (when I spent 30 YEARS living either WITH or VERY NEAR the woman! I’ve been paroled! I’ve served my time! I spent my teen years keeping her spirits up to just a little above suicidal (when frankly I couldn’t think of a logical reasons she shouldn’t have at the time, but she persevered) and I spent my 20s living with her for several years in a 1 BR apartment sleeping on a sofa that’s a foot too short for me (and that I still have back and neck problems from) because I hated the thoughts of her living in a bad part of town on her own, and when I finally did move to another city (after she was doing much better financially and the like) to go to Grad School I still came home to check on her at least two or three times a month, and even when I was living 250 miles away from her in Georgia I saw many times as often as her other kids did even though they were a helluva lot closer and had better vehicles and more money… SHIT! WHY WOULDN’T SHE LIKE ME BEST? I LIKE ME BEST OF HER CHILDREN AND IT’S NOT EGOTISM! You’re a Bible thumping millionaire who goes into hysterics if you’re overcharged $.09 for the Big Lots Store Brand Handy Wrap (probably called Han Dee Rapp or something) and who seems to have some odd ambition stylistically to be Billy Ray Cyrus’s stunt double, while our brother is a crashing boring self absorbed aging yuppie who makes Kahn Souphanousinphone look like Dr. Livingstone… Crap!

And I don’t mind my mother visiting, I even enjoy her visits, she can come see me anytime she wants and stay for as long as she wants [within reason], BUT… we both need our own space to return to when we stop visiting. When we do have arguments (my mother and I) they’re epic- they start with a bow and then we both draw swords and go at and along the way we lose furniture, vital organs and have to clean up a collaterally damaged elk and endtable when we’re finished. Kathy knows this- I love my mother, I respect my mother, I often like my mother, but she can be absolutely impossible and I wouldn’t wish living with her on anybody. That’s why the private house near but not with my sister seemed a good idea.

Of course this shit goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. When I was 20 and dead broke (I mean Ramen noodles and “pickin’ up Coke cans puttin’ 'em in a basket” broke) Kathy would tell me that I really needed to be in college. “Ya think?” and I’d explain “I couldn’t buy a textbook, let alone pay tuition”. "I’ll pay your tuition, just register and let me know how much it is and I’ll write you a check, and I did and she never sent the check and when I asked about it she responded “Well, you should have asked for it sooner, we put it into the stock market and won’t be liquid again for about two months”. That’s the story of how I had to drop out of school mortally embarassed a month-and-a-half into the semester.

But she’s also done other things- she paid off a huge credit card debt of mine without even being asked, she just did it (we’re talking “You could buy a really nice used car with this debt” size) and she’s always giving my mother gifts of cash ($100 here, a thousand dollars there) but then she’ll pull this shit. Drives me the fuck crazy— my mother was actually beginning to get excited on the issue and now she’s done the whole “Nah… I don’t know what I was thinkin’” thing. (I think the turnabout is from considering that my mother drives her nuts at times and can be one of the most negative people on Earth, and that is true, but just how the hell depressed are you gonna get when you live on the beach, have plenty of money, your health, and you can always get away from her by going home, plus how depressed are you gonna get when your mother’s dead and you think of all the things you could have done to have made her happier and your kid brother reminds you of this everytime you argue and wishes you the enjoyment of your money and may you fucking choke on it you selfish stingy bitch, because rest assured, he will.

Sorry, no structure to this and totally off track, but the point is my sister is pissing me off. She is totally going to be the one to renege on my mother, I will not help her and frankly if fanning the flames to make her madder will stop my mother from being depressed over it I’ll bring the bellows and reverse flow on the Hoover.

2

Oh, my. This is the sister your mother travels with all the time, yes? The one with money? And now that it’s actually getting close to mama needing to move and being a bit more “real”, she’s trying to back out?
EEE.
Run. Run away. Far away. No, New York is not far enough, come out to California and fast.

3

I’m sorry, sampiro, all funniness aside, I think there’s a special place in hell with your sister’s name on it.
You need to just say to her–I am not taking Mama. Period, end of discussion.

What is it with people with Money? Seems to me sometimes that the more $ you get, the nastier you become…

4

Yikes, sorry,Sampiro, that’s allkinds of nasty frustrating crazymaking. Perhaps, though, Kathy was Kingfishing for you to say that Mom really wants to be near her, and her “She likes you best” schtick was asking for some ego massage?

At any rate, you should let her know how much you worked at her request for help in persuading Mom. And how Mom deserves a nice retirement sojourn on the coast.

5

Sorry, Sampiro, not to hijack your thread, but if your family is a source of such perpetual frustration, why don’t you remove yourself from any involvement with them?

6

You know, I dearly love Sampiro stories.

And I know you do too.

And yet, I get this sense that most of the Dope, while realizing what an extraordinary taleteller he is, and while realizing his prose is golden and his metaphors platinum, think he is somehow exaggerating some of this.

Well, he might well be.

But, speaking as a son of the south, whose two sisters aren’t talking because of an imagined slight in the delivery of the eulogy of my father by one–

His tales are wonderfully gripping, funny, and, are, erm, just like people I know. JUST like people I know.

Including most of my extended family.

You just THINK these are colorful tales. These are people I have to LIVE with 8-0. I’ve never met the folks in Sampiro’s stories, but, Og, I know them. Before I moved to Alabama, I would have placed tales of Sheriff’s Deputies having to come to a funeral to try to discourage a fight between family factions as a colorful bit of artistic license. Yet, I have seen the funereal fistfights 8-0.

This country is increasingly homogenized, it is true. But don’t dismiss things that sound bizarre as patently untrue. There are still large pockets of citizenry whose behavior is not dominated by the mores of the mass media.

You might think Sampiro’s stories are outliers of human societal norms, but I can tell you, they are not in parts of the south 8-0.

7

Fair question. Answer: because warts and all I love them, and really at the end of the day family is all we have. (Friends come and go, sad as it may be, and while I hope that my closest friends now will be in my life in 20 years I wouldn’t swear to it, but when I’m 104 and crapping in a diet and calling the Espresso machine Mama, Kathy will still be my sister (and probably still in that dreadful blonde mullet).

And my mother I especially feel an allegiance to. It’s not just the “Honor thy faddah and thy mother” injunction but because, frankly, I’ve been through hell with the woman and while she can drive me battier than Mammoth Cave in three well worded seconds I also know that she’d move heaven, earth, sky and Osmonds if I ever needed her to and she’d do it completely out of love with absolutely no sense of reward or using it for leverage later- she’s 71 and shakier and coughier and beginning to get just a tad more forgetful than I’m comfortable with, but while the fangs are storebought they’re still sharp and a lioness in winter is still a lioness. She’s a wonderful, fabulous, incredible person, except for when she’s not. And even then you can see pockets of it.

Although that said, my sister can screw herself if she follows through with this. I’ve earned the right to call my mother a crazy bitch but her two other children HAVE NOT. I hate to alienate the richest (and childless) member of the family but principal may demand it.

8

Yeachhh-k.

I feel for you, Sampiro. My mom’s a bit the same, although on a less monumental scale. Experience has taught my mom that money is perhaps not her only, but definetely her most certain means of leverage in getting people to do what she’d like them to do. And yet, at the same time, she feels that people ought to do what she wants because of…well, out of love for her, or because she Just Knows Best, or because she deserves to have things her way just this once. Just this once, mom? Selective memory, much? :rolleyes:

So she’ll offer money and resources to the people close around her. And if spending makes her feel good, most often when she isn’t asked and just does it, fast, out of her own volition, she can be surprisingly generous.
But if she has had time to think, and if she’s the least bit angry or disappointed in people or in me…Then, when she’s taken up on her offer, her stingyness sets in. She realises that if she uses the leverage, she won’t have it left to use again. Money can be spent only once, after all. And I think deep down she realizes that even if people do what she wants, they still do it because…well, because she made them do it. Not out of love, not out of respect for her good ideas. So she’ll try to wiggle out from under her offer.

That in itself is damned annoying. But even more annoying are the damn *excuses * she makes up. Most often, she’ll just forget to pay me what she promised. If I relent and remind her, she’ll pull the “Oh? Is it that important to you? Sorry, I just forgot” one on me.
Excuses like the one your sis gave you, Sampiro, would be right up her ally. “Yes I know I promised, but, she’d be really better of if she just stayed with you cause you’re her favourite”.

Sigh… :frowning:

9

Your sister is being selfish and you both know it.

Sampiro, you’ve always been there for your mother, so you’ve always made your sister’s life easier. She likes it that way.

You don’t want your mother living with you, and frankly, if I was given the choice between living with my son in Alabama, or a nice condo of my own in Florida… I’d be picking out furniture for the condo.

So take that option off the table.
“Sis, I’ve lived with mama before and it’s not something I’m willing to do again, just like it’s not something you’re willing to do again- so you can forget that idea”.

OK, it’s not what she wants to hear, but it’s the truth, and you need to make realistic plans for your mother’s old age i.e. a home of her own near one of you, or some sort of (eurgh) retirement community with supports in place.

Taking away your mother’s independence (i.e. moving her in to your apartment or your sister’s “guest house”) isn’t an option until your mother is much more unwell than I gather she is at the moment.

I know your sister’s husband and his opinions don’t figure a lot in your stories, but is there any chance he heard that your mother was supposed to be moving in down the road and put his foot down- making a compromise with your sister on a guest house?

10

But we only have them to the extent that they’re, you know, there for us. It sounds as though Kathy is very definitely sending the message that she wants to be given credit for her random spontaneous generosity (which she certainly deserves) as well as for her generous plans, but she’s not reliable about following through on her plans.

Your mother is probably smart not to want to move into a situation where her chief dependence is on Kathy, because Kathy just doesn’t sound very dependable. As Maastricht says, she’s doing it for leverage, and if her word were any good then she’d get less leverage out of it.

All you can do is stop letting her leverage you. Don’t waste any more of your own time trying to work out plans with her or talk your mother into those plans. If she tries to drag you into the planning, just say “mmmhmm, well, I guess you’ll have to talk to Mama about that”.

Think of your sister like the weather: it may be cooperative or it may be nasty, but you can’t really count on it. Enjoy the good spells but don’t assume it’ll stay that way.

11

Have you considered talking to Kathy’s pastor, Sampiro? The question does come up as to if you’d survive the experience, but it might be helpful in this matter.

12

I remember years ago a roomate showing me a little quotation on a piece of paper, one of many he got from some church camp that was plastered on his wall, saying “Good intentions pave the road to Hell.” At first I vehemently disagreed with it… and him… saying that was bullshit, that if you didn’t at least mean well that no good actions would follow.

Over the years though I’ve often though about that little piece of paper, mainly every time that someone meant well but failed to follow through and that failure ended up causing a great deal of strife in my life. Now I’m of a mind that yeah, that little saying is probably a good thing to keep in mind whenever you’re promising something to someone. If you say you’re going to do something you damn well better mean it and fully carry out anything you promise because people count on it and your failure to do so can really have an overwhelmingly negative effect on their lives.

People don’t want to hear false promises. Unfortunately many folks, friends of mine included, have never realized that, thinking instead that just a promise, a statement of good will would sufficiently suffice. Well, it fucking doesn’t.

13

“Sufficiently suffice”? What the fuck was that? I need my afternoon nap at 7:30 am? Lordy, this day’s gonna be a long one.

14

Hey, it made sense to me! As opposed to “barely suffice” or “fulsomely suffice” or…
Um, maybe I need that second cup of coffee…

15

Look at it this way – your mother doesn’t need permission to move even next door to your sister. It all hinges on whether your sister (or you) told your mother that you sister would pony up the difference in value between her house and one on the coast. You could pretend to your mother like everything is hunky-dory, full steam ahead, and just tell your sister in an offhand way, “Oh, Mama made up her mind and is moving down there.” I don’t know whether you’ve got 50 grand lying around, but maybe you could go in with your mother on the mortgage, and consider it a vacation home.

16

I dont’ consider sampiro’s family made up in the least. He has a colorful way of describing them, which is easy and pleasant (and damn funny) to read. I know examples of all of his “characters”–and almost none of them are Southern.

These are people who take risks, who have strong opinions, who make bad choices(and sometimes, good ones). I have no problem believing that Kathy is as selfish as portrayed–but then, I grew up around selfish, narcissistic people. Nice folks always have trouble actually believing that some folk will do you down in a NY minute-if it serves their purpose.

I wish you luck, sampiro. Actually, practically speaking, the guest house is NOT a bad idea for dear old Mum. The fact that she is against it is the strongest reason to not go that way. I cannot imagine at 71 wanting to get another house that needs to be cleaned, maintained etc. Seems a townhouse or similiar would be the way to go.

I do think it is time for you to set some boundaries with dear old sis, though. Afterall, she has set any number of them with you, no? Payback’s a bitch and all that. (I’m not saying to do so with malice and anger–I’m just pointing out that what goes around, comes around, eventually).

17

Hey, I’ve got stories like this and I don’t live in the south and am not from the south. I just can’t tell mine as entertainingly, and without the retelling rubbing me raw, so I don’t bring them up. I totally believe them.

18

kirkman, what does 8-0 mean?

19

It’s a smiley, like :eek:

I’m reminded of one of the signs of a cheapskate: somebody who always jumps to grab the check, so long as it’s a small one… grab three or four small ones, then when it’s time to pay for pizza & beer for twenty people, let that one slide by. Sounds like part of what your sister has going.

20

At 39, you’re still being surprised by your sister acting like your sister? What’s that old parable about the scorpion and the frog, with the scorpion stinging the frog because that’s its nature? Your stories are indeed entertaining, Sampiro, but I gotta say, someone who trusts someone they know to be untrustworthy isn’t getting a lot of my sympathy.