Look. Ever since I got my car, I’ve secretly hated the fact that I have to drive you to and from the bus station so you can go to your fucking anime conventions, because you have no car, because you have no license, because you couldn’t be fucking bothered about it. And I was humiliated as hell when I had to go get your bike from the laundromat where you work, because you hurt your finger (finger!) and went to the hospital. But you’ve done it, you bastard. You’ve fucking done it this time.
You knew I was at the laundromat. You could have called. You could have done something, but you didn’t. You sat and watched tv and waited. Even when I got home from the laundromat, you waited, as I cheerily putzed around preparing for my shower. You waited until I was out of the shower to tell me that Grandma was in the hospital, and someone needed to call Mom.
It’s not like this was a ten-minute delay, fuckwad. It was at least two hours between the time that Heidi called to let us know and the time that you finally chose to inform me that my grandmother was in the fucking hospital. In that time, you did nothing. You did not call me, you did not call Mom, you did nothing. If she had been dying, she would have been dead by the time I got to the hospital. Mom would have missed her chance to say goodbye, because you did nothing. And though this did not happen, and Grandma is (though not healthy), reasonably okay, it doesn’t excuse what you did. You found out that Grandma was in the hospital and you did nothing to let any of the rest of us know.
So fuck you. I’ll be nice to you if it keeps Mom happy, but you’re not really my brother. I don’t fucking know you. As far as I’m concerned, I have one sibling, and you’re not him, you selfish piece of shit. Go fuck yourself.
My brother was visiting overnight at my house. He intercepted a call to me late one night and neglected to mention it in the morning. It took a while to find out from him that our grandfather had died.
I immediately drove him to our mother’s house and had to physically restrain myself from booting him out of the moving car when we got there. That was in 1983 and he’s still living with my mother.
Do you think he and I ever go out for beers and shoot the breeze?
I haven’t talked to him in years. Asshole siblings that can’t be bothered to conduct themselves in a civil fashion are the same use as tits on a boar.
Um. Zenster, while I sympathize and all, having had asshole sibs in the past, may I just hijack this whole deservedly pissed-off thread to say that this is simply beautiful. May I use this as a sig for a while?
And MAN, I thought I had jerks for relatives. But these two just…just…damn. I’m glad I’m not related to EITHER of your brothers.
Damn… when my Grandfather died my brother was the only one who thought to call me and let me know. And I lived with my grandparents at the time!
I was going to school and working, but that day I was relaxing before I was supposed to go to work. If my brother hadn’t called me I wouldn’t have found out until I got home, at 9/10 at night long after everyone else was told. That’s why I had a cell phone! If anything happened people could get ahold of me! (He was terminally ill.)
So yeah I’m still a little bitter at my family about that, I can sorta understand, but still bitter.
Something else that bothers me is that my brother’s behavior is eerily similar in many ways to one of my aunts. Once, when Grandma had a bed-wetting accident (She’s 89. It happens.), my aunt (who still lives at home), hung the sheets on the line to dry without washing them. I’m not exactly sure what prevented my mother from strangling her for that one - probably the same thing that keeps me from killing my brother.
With this in mind, it’s possible that there’s something wrong with him, and he can’t help the way he acts. So I don’t slap the shit out of him. But I want to sometimes.
I’ll field this, since I personally know her brother. The laundromat he works in has dry-cleaning services, as well as services in which they do your laundry for you. All you have to do is drop it off, and pick it up. Also, he’s 28. The whole thing is very sad.
look!ninjas, I feel ya man. I’ve got a 37 yr old brother with a wife and three kids and he still expects mom to buy him clothes, shoes, food, etc., whenever she comes to visit.
Do you think that you (and maybe your family) have been doing a bit too much for this (grown) man? You don’t HAVE to drive him anywhere. You don’t HAVE to do errand for him. Methinks that maybe he didn’t just arrive this way, he was created (out of love and support certainly, but…)
I speak from experience. I’ll never forget when I flew 1000 km to help my mother in law just a few months after she’d lost her husband. We had a “working bee” with neighbors where we did major yardwork, house repairs that had been put off, and painted the entire house. Bear in mind that I had taken HOLIDAYS to do this. While I was outside painting with a 70 year old neighbor’s help, 28 year old Brother-in-Law manages to drag himself out of bed at 11:00 am, and what does he do? Comes outside to critisize our choice of paint, technique, etc. etc. Goes back inside. This behaviour was totally typical for him. what does MIL do? “oh that’s just Bobby! He’s so fussy about paint! I’ll go in and make him lunch now!” The woman raised this self-indulgent momma’s boy…
I’m not saying that’s what is happening here. I’m just sayin’
Lyllyan: That’s really and truly horrifying. I’m very sorry to hear that.
InTheField: I understand where you’re coming from. Part of the problem is, though, that if no one steps up to take care of problems for him, he will not take care of the problems himself. He spent a year away at college after high school - this was probably eight years ago now. My mother said she wasn’t going to pay for it. She couldn’t afford to. So he got loans. He still has yet to repay them. Sometimes they garnish his wages for a little while, but other than that, his collections agencies haven’t seen a penny of that money.
Left to his own devices, I think my brother would probably wind up starving in the street. And Mom isn’t willing for that to happen.
As far as the rides and that go - No, I don’t have to drive him anywhere. But I know that if I don’t, Mom will. Mom’s got enough to worry about. So I put up with it.
God, have you never had to do it? It’s awful. You have to walk out into the street with a bike, and open the trunk in full view of everyone. Then put the damn thing in the back of the car, and drive off, and you just know that everyone’s giggling behind their hands and saying “look - that person’s got a bike in their car”. And the reputation stays with you. You walk into stores or bars, and it all goes quiet. Occasionally you might here the words “car” and “bike” being whispered. When you leave, your ears burn because you just know that people are slapping their thighs and saying “there’s that person who carried a bike in their car!”
In seriousness, Look!Ninjas, does your bro have a marijuana habit? I’m not saying that everyone who smokes regularly is like that, but when I was a regular toker, I acted like a lazy, responsibility-avoiding dick, too, and so did most of my friends.
You guys are making the assumption that I can actually fit a bicycle in my car. I’ve tried it before. We had to take the front tire of to make it fit. So I walked to the laundromat and walked the bike back. To be fair, though, the bike humiliation was not so bad. It was worse that he went to the ER with a hurt finger, and came back with a Band-aid on said finger. No jutting bones, no dangling tips. He cut his finger and went to the ER just for a Band-aid.
And as far as I know, he’s tried pot once, but he doesn’t seem to be a stoner. Certainly, smoke has never been smelled in the house. I suppose he could be smoking up at work, but it just seems unlikely somehow.
