Passive-aggressiveness

Tolstoy wrote, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I don't know how long it took him to go from that line to the rest of Anna Karenina, but that's a pretty goddamn impressive first line for a novel. What is brilliant about it is that its truthfulness and universality. Happiness is obtainable when a few simple criteria are met: financial stability, good health, and good humor of all involved. Unhappiness, on the other hand, is an infinite combination of the unfulfilled void in the lives of all involved. The precision of the unhappiness in families is what makes it unique in every situation.

I hate to write about my family problems, but this is the only safe place I can vent. I have written ad nauseam about the financial problems, the delinquency problems, and so on and so forth. However, all these is compounded by the fact that my mother, like so many other sensitive and proud kinds, takes everything so personally and have no allowance for random lapse of filial piety from us to her. Let me illustrate by what happened last night, and how our entire family is still suffering the consequences:

Yesterday, she decided to get to the bottom of her visa bill, which showed a $218 item for Fido cellphone. Obviously, it would be my brother's cellphone, because he is the only one that uses Fido. The question is, how did Fido get paid, as she did not authorize the payment. Therefore, I spent an hour talking to Visa, then talking to Fido, then relaying the bad news to her. No, Fido did not just take the money, someone took her card to Fido and made payment on it. I can figure out with my big toe that that someone is my brother. So she confronted him when he came home late (12am) and started a screaming match. I will spare the nauseating details (seriously, both me and my sister wanted to puke), but the fight consisted of: my mother yelling at my brother, my brother screaming back, my mother forbade my brother cellphone usage, my brother taking out his sim card and throwing it at his desk, my mother yelling at me, I spoke loudly at her. Then she cried a little and decided to sleep on the floors in the living room because us kids are "all the same" (she sleeps in the same room as my sister and I, we have very tight quarters).

Now she is giving us the silent treatment, which I really could not give a damn about. First of all, she has pulled this before, and I was so terrified then. It was over something minuscule, too; she got mad at me because I told her flat out that I don't tell her how much I am making because I don't want to. That lasted for about 3 days. She gave all three of us kids attitude then, refusing to get into the car when we go pick her up at work, refusing to talk to us. Then finally she bought a bathroom rack and we installed it together, that's when she talked. So now, I really don't care anymore. She is the adult here, and she is still pulling this silent treatment stunt. My sister is still scared as hell, my brother just don't care, like he usually does. I know I am supposed to be more thoughtful and sensitive, but I am just not that kind of person. I don't snuggle up to my mom and ask her how her day is.

Now for the second night in a row she is sleeping on the floor. Yes, we should all be so horrified at such treatment of my own mother. But she is the one who made the decision, and she is going to live with it, not me. We even changed her bed sheets and made it all nice, she just said,"Put that bed in the other room, I won't be sleeping here anymore." To that I say fine, be that way. Why should I be dealing with this anyway?

-geez, always something to rant about. my life is one big rant.