Last night, Corran and I were both downstairs at the computers - that's right, the new one finally came. Well, Corran had left his essay to the last minute, and was only just finishing it at around 1:30 in the morning. Oh, and for word processing, he tied up the new computer too . . . jerk. Well, after he finished (after hocking every troublesome sentence at me), he packed up and left, leaving the new comp' for me. I told him to just turn it off, since I was still doing work on the other one. After turning the thing off, do you want to know what the last thing he said to me was? No, now good night or anything: "Ern, before you go to sleep, mom wants you to unplug the Christmas lights and take out the garbage."
It was 1:30 in the morning. It was one-effing-thirty in the morning and he was willing to dump that on me. Me, the one who had taken out the garbage AND sorted the recycling for the past month single-handedly! And what about the lights? Would pulling a goddamn plug be THAT much of a stretch for him? And no, I don't give a damn that he had to work until 1:30 in the morning to do that essay ? he deserves that for having SO many damn extra-curricular things like work, hockey, track (incidentally, guess who has to drive him to these things?), and STILL finding "time" to spend an hour in the day to play Counter-Strike!
Really, I shouldn't dump ALL the troubles on that guy (though he does get a large chunk of it). No, Dan is just as bad - he's never around the house to do any of this stuff either. He's always out at work, or seeing about this girl or that . . . all the while, he's still the one who comes home to see me on the computer so he can reprimand me for not studying for my finals. Honestly? He can go to hell too. Oh yeah, you recall that he's the one that's the cause for me to have to bear the morning wind-chill? Yeah, Dan can go to hell . . .
Ya know what? Even my mother is guilty to a degree. Granted, it may all be due to circumstance (she was in two car accidents within six months of each other), and it may simply be her getting the closest one to do stuff (and guess who's the only one in the house at ALL these times?). The thing I hate about the thing with her is that no matter how much I want to, I'm still not allowed to lash at her very much at all. Really, it's just that most household chores do come from her mouth . . . . . you know what? I have a great reason to dislike her grasp of things: she wasn't able to tell that I was bearing the brunt of all of this.
You know what else? I kinda feel like my whole family isn't all that good at detecting emotion. I mean they're all great at showing it (the brothers get extra credit for always being able to do that huffy "
what?!" thing), but honestly, shouldn't someone be able to catch ANYTHING when the same person is always letting out huge, exasperated sighs before every task put before himself?
I don't know, I myself have accepted that yes, I don't have a job, so perhaps it's fair that I do a little extra around the house. Still, even with that in mind, I can't help but feel as though I'm used a little more than I should be. I know, perhaps they don't intend for this to happen; I still can't help but feel that that has kinda become sort of an implication to me, though. Oh, and all the while, NO ONE cares that I'm also going through my own troubles, be it personal life or medical conditions . . . that's right, I'm currently also subject to one of those medical conditions that no one wants to talk about until they're done with. Still, does anyone care that I have to sleep off of my backside for a few weeks? Apparently not . . .
Likewise, all of these little lines keep grinding at me too . . .
"Does the old computer have internet yet? Why haven't you done that yet?"
"Ernie, have you put up the Christmas lights yet?"
"Ernie, I have stuff in the trunk I need you to get."
"Ern', my sentence sucks. How should I say this?"
"Ernest, I need you to read his handwriting for me."
"What did you do to the computer, Ern'?"
"Why the hell weren't you home?"
"Take out the garbage . . ."
"Change the light bulb . . ."
"Do this for me . . ."
"Do that for me . . ."
It was about 10:15 when all this stuff burned through my head. It was also about the same time a curl of wind took away all feeling in my left hand. And yeah, that was it for me. I kept walking down that sidewalk, but I couldn't help but notice that my eyelids were getting a little moist and my breathing was getting a little sporadic. You know what the worst was, though? As a line of trucks drove by, I couldn't help but think about how easy it would be to just
slip and fall to the side a bit . . . . . the trucks drove by, and I just kept forcing myself to continue to step forward.
On the final stretch towards Dan's place, I faced high school kids walking back to school from lunch. I saw Robyn's sister, actually, and smiled - yeah, she totally snubbed me. Whatever . . . . . rest of the way, I kept asking myself, "Why did you say yes? Why?"
Finally, I entered the mall. At the escalator there were a couple old people and a Salvation Army person, half-assedly shaking his bells - I just went up the mechanized stairs as the guy continued to attain eye contact with me - frankly, he caught me at a bad time. Finally, I saw the office on the second floor, and slowly entered the small lobby.
The secretary saw me and seemed to know who I was, either through a past meeting or a hereditary distinction, but whatever.
"Hi, I'm here to see my damn brother," I told her. She told me that he was around - about that same time I saw him come through a door.
"Hey look, my brother's here," Dan said as he walked towards the secretary's desk.
"Yes, he
is here," I replied while getting the tape out of my bag. During the next bit of exchanging, the secretary commented something about how we were exactly the same in speech and stuff . . . not that that really matters now - believe me, I don't care how similar we are; we are equally just as diverse - very diverse.
After thanking me for bringing the tape, Dan asked with that goofyish social smile of his on his face, "So what are you doing now?" I answered him.
"Well, I WAS going to go to Metro, but then I slept right until the time we were going to meet." Dan tried to interject with a small shot to my sleeping in, but I cut him off. "So yeah, after missing a phone call and realising that I wouldn't be able to make that, I tried to read my book. I THEN had to bookmark my page in the MIDDLE of the chapter, not at the beginning of it, which I HATE to do, so I could get ANOTHER phone call! During that phone call, I was told, not asked, told, by my brother to WALK a Survivor tape that I guess he just happened to forget in his busy morning, so I then had to walk half and hour through the GODDAMN cold where I lost all feeling in my ears, nose, cheeks, and half my ass! But thanks for asking, and how are you today?"
Though he didn't really show too much (like I said, these guys suck at emotion), Dan stood a little stunned.
"Well . . . I appreciate you doing that. I really do." I just nodded a little . . . the moistness daring to come back to my eyes. "So what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I think I'll just go home and read my book."
"You want a ride?"
"Sure . . . . ."
Just as we left, someone whistled at Dan. He turned around and headed back into the office to see about an aforementioned girl. I just propped my arms on the railing along the hall and looked down at the "Christmasy" stuff down below. And yeah, that moistness finally got to me . . .
