I Wonder If Sam and Dean Can Come By to Remove a Most Stubborn Pestilence

I was woken up this morning by the sound of our garage door opening. My mother had just decided to come to the house and drop off a large dining set that she planned to sell during the mythical garage sale that she's always planning but never stages. Apparently, our garage, which, by the by, she's ever complaining is full of junk that she stored there, would make the perfect repository for all the items she plans to sell. Why she can't store them in the utterly empty, two-thousand square feet of basement space in her own house, I don't know. Apparently, she doesn't want her opulent abode soiled with the clutter of junky crap, but it's perfectly suitable for it to take up space in my tiny trailer garage, and it's certainly okay to sell the junky crap to unsuspecting rubes and weekend bargain hunters. Provided she actually gets around to selling it, of course. Most likely, it will gather dust in the garage for years before she remembers it, and then, she'll harangue me about holding on to crap I don't use and cluttering up her property.

I have no idea when she's planning to hold this garage sale two years in the planning, but since her latest grandiose plan is to quit her job and move back to Florida by June, it will have to be soon. I'm afraid that she plans to have it while I'm away so that she can let herself in and raid my belongings for anything she deems superfluous or salable. She's been hawking me about my old computers and video game consoles since I got here, and I wouldn't put it past her to help herself to them while I'm unable to stop her. Who cares if that old computer still has story fragments and financial information on it? It's not like the person desperate or poor enough to buy a twelve-year-old desktop would ever snoop to see what might be on it, and it's not like they might be skeeved by snippets of sex scenes, murder, and one hundred pages of SPN Gordon Walker gen with disturbing incestuous undertones. Nope, that would never cause problems in a hysterically-conservative Southern town where they nail Bible verses and admonitions to pray on the utility poles. Who cares if I don't want to give up my meager belongings to line her already-stuffed pockets? What's hers is hers, and what I have is only mine because she lets me have it. I'm tempted to take the computer tower with me to Vegas just so she doesn't get any bright ideas, but it's not feasible.

I'd be lying if I said I weren't tempted to pack the car and never come back from my roadtrip. Just get into the car and drive until it felt like home, and screw the guilt trips and one-way obligations to decency and family. I can't, of course; whereas most folks can hit the road and crash in cheap motels until they find a starter apartment and a job, I've got to consider accessibility, access to doctors, and potential changes to my benefits. It's a nice fantasy, though, and it keeps me from hoping that my mother will suffer a catastrophic injury and be unable to torment, bully, and micromanage me any longer.

On a more positive note, I've finally started my next missive to my penpal. I was quite voluble this time around. I hope he's not put off by pages of palaver about weather, the incompetence of the current American government, and my exuberant travel plans. Perhaps it will atone for the shameful fact that I've not written in three weeks because I've been so busily doing nothing.

I Wonder If Sam and Dean Can Come By to Remove a Most Stubborn Pestilence

I was woken up this morning by the sound of our garage door opening. My mother had just decided to come to the house and drop off a large dining set that she planned to sell during the mythical garage sale that she's always planning but never stages. Apparently, our garage, which, by the by, she's ever complaining is full of junk that she stored there, would make the perfect repository for all the items she plans to sell. Why she can't store them in the utterly empty, two-thousand square feet of basement space in her own house, I don't know. Apparently, she doesn't want her opulent abode soiled with the clutter of junky crap, but it's perfectly suitable for it to take up space in my tiny trailer garage, and it's certainly okay to sell the junky crap to unsuspecting rubes and weekend bargain hunters. Provided she actually gets around to selling it, of course. Most likely, it will gather dust in the garage for years before she remembers it, and then, she'll harangue me about holding on to crap I don't use and cluttering up her property.

I have no idea when she's planning to hold this garage sale two years in the planning, but since her latest grandiose plan is to quit her job and move back to Florida by June, it will have to be soon. I'm afraid that she plans to have it while I'm away so that she can let herself in and raid my belongings for anything she deems superfluous or salable. She's been hawking me about my old computers and video game consoles since I got here, and I wouldn't put it past her to help herself to them while I'm unable to stop her. Who cares if that old computer still has story fragments and financial information on it? It's not like the person desperate or poor enough to buy a twelve-year-old desktop would ever snoop to see what might be on it, and it's not like they might be skeeved by snippets of sex scenes, murder, and one hundred pages of SPN Gordon Walker gen with disturbing incestuous undertones. Nope, that would never cause problems in a hysterically-conservative Southern town where they nail Bible verses and admonitions to pray on the utility poles. Who cares if I don't want to give up my meager belongings to line her already-stuffed pockets? What's hers is hers, and what I have is only mine because she lets me have it. I'm tempted to take the computer tower with me to Vegas just so she doesn't get any bright ideas, but it's not feasible.

I'd be lying if I said I weren't tempted to pack the car and never come back from my roadtrip. Just get into the car and drive until it felt like home, and screw the guilt trips and one-way obligations to decency and family. I can't, of course; whereas most folks can hit the road and crash in cheap motels until they find a starter apartment and a job, I've got to consider accessibility, access to doctors, and potential changes to my benefits. It's a nice fantasy, though, and it keeps me from hoping that my mother will suffer a catastrophic injury and be unable to torment, bully, and micromanage me any longer.

On a more positive note, I've finally started my next missive to my penpal. I was quite voluble this time around. I hope he's not put off by pages of palaver about weather, the incompetence of the current American government, and my exuberant travel plans. Perhaps it will atone for the shameful fact that I've not written in three weeks because I've been so busily doing nothing.