Queen of Rambles

(An aside before we start: why did Erik refuse to eat a single bite of our dinner, including foods he normally loves, but is now chowing down on a cardboard box from a yard sale?)

If you’ve been reading my rambles for any length of time, you know I come from a less than pristine background. Blue collar is the best description of our financial status, though most people in construction actually do better than average. My family could have also done better than average if all the cash didn’t go into beer, attorney’s fees and rehab costs (for both my sister and my dad). My mom has always had big plans for her house, but has to beg and borrow everything from light bulbs to labor. My dad will agree to something and allow her to take out a loan to do some construction, but then refuse to carry through and let her hire a skilled worker to complete her vision. Instead, she has to deal with my dad’s drunken friends who don’t always do things right or hire a half-assed handyman who doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.

My parents added a room on to our old pre-WWII house when I was in high school. There’s a small bit on top that still doesn’t have siding. My mom put in new laminate flooring a couple of years ago. My sister’s dumbass husband put it in and left too many spaces. Mom bought new curtains from Big Lots before I arrived. There are no tie-backs.

Some of the things are small, piddly things that don’t really matter all that much. Some of the things are BIG and should be taken care of. Cumulatively, the effect drives me up a freakin’ wall and I can’t hardly stand it. Everything, absolutely everything, in that house is half-assed.

My mom, with her typical humor/denial coping strategy, blames the ghost.

I’ve never seen a ghost and don’t believe in them, though I will admit there are things out in the world that I have never experienced. I’m pretty damned sure a ghost didn’t forget the curtain tie-backs or refuse to hang the siding properly.

I’ve long referred to the house as a black hole, because if you take something in there’s no guarantee you’ll ever find it again even if you are careful. I blame my mom. She’s an obsessive de-clutterer even though it never seems to do any good. If you have something nice, it will get broken. Nothing can remain intact in that house. Nothing. You can never have anything nice if you live there.

I was there two weeks. Here’s the count of things that went wrong:

Erik’s best pair of nice dress sweatpants–totally gone
Erik’s new Croc shoes–totally gone
My favorite pair of pants–giant hole in the butt, not even the seam but the seat
One of my not-so-favorite shirts–giant bleach spot
My beautiful, beautiful bag–lost it’s button twice but at least I can fix that
My dad’s water cup–mysteriously appeared in middle of his bed after he threw a fit
A little water glass–broke in my hand while I was drinking milk from it
VCR–totally ate a tape
Erik’s favorite number puzzle–missing over half it’s pieces before we even got it out of the car
New computer desk I put together–doors won’t close, shelf is crooked, printer drawer fell off
New lamp my mom bought at Big Lots–shorted out the electricity in the old part of the house. Despite going through three electricians their power is still out as of last night
Telephones–so echoey you can’t even talk on them for more than five minutes without wanting to scream

Do you think it all boils down to Native American artifacts my dad collects? Or is it really a ghost? Or is everyone just really clumsy and irresponsible? My first set of car keys have been missing since I was 16 years old. My mom has tore the house apart several times in the last 17 years and they’ve never turned up. I was 16 in the early 1990’s. It was popular to collect key chains. There must have been at least 20 different key chains on that bad boy. It wouldn’t even fit in my pocket! Yet still, it is gone. I know it has to be in the house somewhere because I drove home from school but couldn’t find the keys to go to the basketball game that evening.

Maybe my mom is on to something. Maybe the house really is cursed.

I know my grandma’s house is cursed, or at least my mom, sister and I are all cursed when dealing with her stuff.

If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. I refuse to drive her car because I know something screwy will break. I’ve had her door handle fall off in my hands, the muffler fall off as I’m driving, and the car just suddenly stop in middle of the road for no apparent reason. Someone wants my grandma to yell at me.

This trip was no different.

It started with a stupid wedding video. One of our long time family friends was remarried in February and wanted us to watch the tape of the wedding. My grandma was beyond excited because she wanted to see the families shake hands. (Don’t ask me, I don’t know why).

My grandma buys VCRs then never uses them because she can’t sit still for a movie. My mom ended up with one of her VCRs and her other one was stored in a back room.

The woman called us at least six times over the course of 24 hours to tell us it would be so nice if she could just pop in the video and watch it. We arranged a time to go over and help hook up the VCR, even though both my mom and I knew it would be useless. It always is useless. Something always goes wrong.

Sure enough, we get over there, hook up the first VCR and get nothing but fuzz. Tracking? We tried and tried. Another video? More fuzz.

We hooked up the second VCR and had the same results. We got out a manual and saw that maybe it just needed to be cleaned. We bought a video head cleaner. Still no dice.

I decided it had to be the TV since that was the only thing staying the same each time, but my grandma wouldn’t believe me and just kept yelling and giving me useless suggestions (like turning up the volume).

We went to lunch (another fiasco–Granny is a perfectionist so she did Erik’s puzzle for him, then put it away when lunch arrived so he had nothing to play with), then dropped her off at home. I had the video in my purse, so decided to see if it would work on a different TV.

My mom had an old VCR, so I stuck the tape in it, pressed play, and waited anxiously for something to happen. When nothing did, I pressed eject and saw the long strand of the tape sucked into the maw of the VCR.

Dandy.

We’d just eaten some one’s wedding video!

I managed to get it out with a little patience, and wound back up, but I was not sure if it was ruined or what. Grandma called yet again to lament that she couldn’t watch the tape, so I told her to bring over one of her VCRs and we’d try it on a different TV.

Finally, finally, finally we were able to watch the thing!

It started with the bride, wearing a black dress, standing at the podium telling the pastor how to run the ceremony. Obviously this had to be the wedding rehearsal, so Granny had me fast forward to get to the real ceremony. We watched the rehearsal in fast forward mode, just waiting for something to happen. We never got to see the groom’s face, nor did we see anyone sitting in the sanctuary. When the rehearsal was over, the tape cut to fuzz and despite fast forwarding for a couple of minutes. Granny doesn’t have any patience to just sit and wait, so even though I told her it was probably just shoddy video editing, she grabbed the tape and left in a huff because it was boring and she was looking for excitement.

The next day she talked to the bride. It wasn’t the rehearsal. It was the wedding.

My jaw about hit the floor. I know older, widowed brides don’t always wear white, but her telling the pastor what to do threw me for a loop. My grandma was totally pissed. She couldn’t believe they wanted her to watch something so boring. What did she think a wedding video would be like? Of course it was going to be boring! I don’t even want to watch my wedding video because I know it will be boring!

So you see, nothing can ever, ever, ever go right. Maybe it’s the entire town. Maybe it’s way Klamath Falls is full of meth heads and black tar heroin.

I’m so glad I live far away in an apartment with nice things that aren’t always falling apart. I’m so glad I have a husband who helps me find all the things I lose and helps me put things together correctly. I’m so glad I escaped.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.