So, was anyone's Christmas more disgusting than mine?

[Litoris]

DiosaBellissima – yeh, it’s something everyone should do, but not enough actually do. Thanks for volunteering. As for the woman, I just wanted to reassure you with one thought – when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was not on meth, I was quite healthy and yet 3 days before I gave birth to her (admittedly a little over a month early), a woman flat-out called me a liar when I told her I was 8 months’ pregnant. I was tiny, and wearing a bikini – and the woman told me to stop lying there was “no way in hell” I was pregnant, let alone about to give birth. My daughter was perfectly healthy, some women don’t weigh 900lbs when they’re about to give birth, maybe she was one of the lucky few I will hope so for the sake of the baby.

As for the OP, while I can understand what has (very likely) happened to cause your post, I think perhaps this would have been more suited to MPSIMS, as it is human nature to judge based on what is known. The only thing you made known was that you were repulsed and disgusted by your mother’s living conditions. It is tough to accept that you could feel that way, and still do nothing. Sadly, I know from whence you come – there is a reason I never ate at my Dad’s house – but there is this amazing stuff that is very, very cheap and works. I sneaked into my Dad’s house about once a quarter the last year he was with us and put it out. The roaches were all gone within a week, and the stuff is easy to put out without being noticed – send me a PM and I will tell you more if you want.

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

I rubbed lotion on my Dad’s rapidly necrotizing feet!

[Pushkin]

To answer the OP, no, definitely not. I had to change a few nappies but now my daughter is off formula milk her soiled nappies aren’t what they used to be.

[Ruby]

Yes, this is the Pit where you don’t have to play nice, but damn, Misnomer, take a breath.

You’re quick to bounce on anyone who thinks your OP was a more than just a little vague. I’ve never known anyone who is a hoarder. How in the Sam Hell am I supposed to know what you mean? And how is asking you to give more details rude? If I KNEW more, then maybe you’d get the response you were looking for?

After looking at the links upthread, I can’t imagine the complete feeling of helplessness that you must feel every time you walk into your mother’s home. I’m guessing that mental health experts are out of the question because she doesn’t see that there’s a problem. That’s very sad, indeed.

Smeghead, I also can’t know the pain and loss that you and your wife are going through right now.

Godspeed to you both.

[slaphead]

@Misnomer

I got to eat dinner in a cluttered, filthy house while watching roaches scurry all over my mother’s kitchen.

Sorry, you win. Roaches are not that common in the UK, and after my other half and I spent two hours decontaminating mum’s kitchen it wasn’t too bad. Picking dog hair off the Chipolatas is an interesting experience though.

Do you also do the ‘sneaky throwing away of the super-expired food when she isn’t looking’ thing?

[Misnomer]

I’m done with this thread. It was a quick OP, it did what I wanted it to do (allowed me to vent), and I got some good responses – it even spawned two other threads, which I don’t think has ever happened with one of my threads before. The presumptive, judgmental replies weren’t completely unforseen, so I’ve been addressing them, but with this post I’m just starting to repeat myself and now I’m tired of it. So I won’t be posting in this thread again. (And before you think “yeah, right, no one ever really walks away,” I’ve done it before.)

@lisacurl

I will do my best, but could use some support from the other kids of squalor.

I’ll pop in over there a little later, but probably won’t be trying to explain my whole story. If just one sentence in the Pit can be attacked, I can’t imagine how the vultures would react to attempts to explain something that really can’t be explained unless you’ve experienced it. I respect any attempts you make to do so.

@Litoris

As for the OP, while I can understand what has (very likely) happened to cause your post, I think perhaps this would have been more suited to MPSIMS, as it is human nature to judge based on what is known.

What, so, people only judge in the Pit and not in MPSIMS? Also, it might be human nature to judge, but only the arrogant or immature actually express those judgments – especially when so little information was provided.

The only thing you made known was that you were repulsed and disgusted by your mother’s living conditions. It is tough to accept that you could feel that way, and still do nothing.

How/why would you possibly assume that I “do nothing” when you admit that all I made known where my thoughts on the living conditions? This is exactly the kind of ignorant assumption that so many others in this thread have made. I am allowed to simply express frustration with her living conditions, which have absolutely nothing to do with any attempts on my part to improve them.

@Ruby

Yes, this is the Pit where you don’t have to play nice, but damn, Misnomer, take a breath.

“Take a breath?” I’m not even sure what that means. Am I not supposed to respond to posts in my thread?

You’re quick to bounce on anyone who thinks your OP was a more than just a little vague.

Damn straight, because calling that sentence vague is a stupid thing to say.

I’ve never known anyone who is a hoarder. How in the Sam Hell am I supposed to know what you mean?

You really don’t have to know about hoarding to know what I mean by cluttered, filthy, and roach-infested.

And how is asking you to give more details rude?

When did I ever say that it was?

If I KNEW more, then maybe you’d get the response you were looking for?

As I said upthread, this is not the Compulsory Participation Message Board. I was never looking for a response from you, Ruby, personally. If you don’t understand or don’t like the OP, just ignore it. Why is that such an impossible concept for some folks?

@slaphead

Do you also do the ‘sneaky throwing away of the super-expired food when she isn’t looking’ thing?

Totally! Ha!

[Pazu]

@DoctorJ

Man, back in residency we used to love it when those idiots would come in. (Not surprisingly, they ended up in the hospital a lot.) Of course, we provided them with the same care we would provide anyone, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t go out of our way to make sure it was provided by every minority doctor, nurse, and tech we could round up, the bigger and meaner-looking the better.

One ER doc–a black guy who played college football–would stay late on his shift to see folks with white pride-type tattoos, just because he loved watching them try to keep them covered up. He would pointedly stare straight at the tattoo as much as he could, but he would be completely professional and courteous without saying a word about it.

The sad thing is that they probably don’t learn a thing from it–once they’re back home, it’s probably all about “had to go to the hospital an’ get sewed up by some damn nigger.”

I have to give you a lot of credit for keeping your cool on that score, though, because those incidents made me very uncomfortable when I was a medical student. I remember one sweet old lady who came to clinic with some kind of rash on both her legs, who first explained that it started when some construction folks were doing sandblasting on her street, and then leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered “It was the Jews. They did it to me.” :dubious:

One incident did make me laugh out loud, though–I was on ER call with the surgery team up in one of the north Chicago suburbs, and they brought in some lady who’d fallen down (drunk) on the front steps of her favorite bar. So the intern, the resident and I all go in to see what we need to do for her, and she looks at us blearily and starts screaming, “Bring me an American doctor! Aren’t there any American doctors here? I want a goddamn American doctor!”

And I did a quick double-take and started laughing, because the team was me (Taiwanese-American), the (Chinese-American) intern, and the (Indian-American) resident.

[sishoch]

My wife and I have been married for a year and a half and she is pregnant with our first child. The pregnancy has been hard on her, constant nausea, general exhaustion, etc which has been further complicated by the pug puppy she is bottle-feeding from day one. The puppy has a cleft palate and can’t nurse off its mother.

Christmas morning, she is mixing the formula when the puppy is able to pull itself out of the bassinet and falls to the floor on its head. A few minutes of crying and it seemed ok.

Later in the afternoon (after a bout of nausea), she was feeding it balls of canned food. The puppy got a bit of food wedged in the cleft and was getting upset. I called my brother the vet and got instructions on how to clear the cleft with a water pik. I explained it to my wife as she was dissolving into tears, thinking the puppy was aspirating the food and would certainly die of pneumonia. She couldn’t bring herself to do the deed, so she had to hold the puppy upside down while I did pried open his little mouth and did my best to clean out the cleft. We had to do it twice and then watch his sneeze the water out his nose. We put him on antibiotics and threw away the canned food. My wife developed a migraine that stayed with her for two days, with constant nausea and heartburn.

Now, the puppy is fine, got his first shot yesterday and just as feisty as ever. My wife is much better and sleeping in this morning. I’m just glad its all over.

[even_sven]

I just got over malaria, and for some reason I suddenly turned blue. Our hospital is ran by Chinese people who can’t speak French (or anything else I can speak) so I had a lot of trouble explaining to them that I wasn’t in a motorcycle accident. Eventually they figured it out, and tried to assure me I’d be okay (a few days later, thankfully, I’m a normal color.)

Anyway, I had some friends over and we made pizza. I have to travel three hours to buy cheese (at eight bucks a half a pound) so this was quite a treat.

I dropped the pizza as it came out of the oven.

My floor is not too clean. It’s dusty cement. Things live in my kitchen I’d rather not talk about.

We ate it.

Not the worst day possible, but pretty disgusting.

[Stillwell_Angel]

Until this thread I had spent the holiday feeling sorry for myself because I had all my wisdom teeth removed a few days before, causing me lots of pain and not being able to enjoy all the delicious holiday food around me.

Smeghead and Misnomer, thank you for putting my petty problems into perspective.

[Steve_MB]

@DoctorJ

One ER doc–a black guy who played college football–would stay late on his shift to see folks with white pride-type tattoos, just because he loved watching them try to keep them covered up. He would pointedly stare straight at the tattoo as much as he could, but he would be completely professional and courteous without saying a word about it.

LOL. Like these “White Pride” jokers would know how to remove a splinter or lance a boil (restoring a brain to them is, of course, beyond any known or future medical science).