my mother wants to sell her house and move to a smaller place. and my brother and i aren't ready to move again. we don't live with her but we have barely recovered from last time.
nearly ten years ago, when we finally moved out of the norf philly ghetto to the beee-u-tiful suburbs of philadelphia, it was complicated.
my brother and i took care of everything. we packed, we arranged for buyers to do walkthrough, we worked with home inspectors. we protected the home inspectors when my mother refused to let one contractor leave when he gave her an unacceptable list of repairs. he wasn't bludgeoned to death or anything. the exchange went something like this:
her: "you ARE OUT OF YOUR FCUKIN' MIND if you think i'm fixing all that crap. get the fcuk out of my house.
[pause for thoughts to register with electrician. as electrician turns to go up basement steps, whirl around like tasmanian devil, split flying as you prepare to scream]
where the fcuk do you think you're going?"
him: "i'm leaving ma'am. i am not going to take your ab--"
her: "i thought i told you to get the fcuk out of here? get OUT!"
him: "i can't go out the front door?"
her: "no."
him: "but my car is out front..."
her: "i don't care. get out."
him: "but how am i supposed to ---"
her: "OUT. get out. i don't care. go out the basement door and walk around. i told you to get the fcuk out of my house. MY house." [contractor dodges the dragon's tale as he hightails it out the basement door.]
seriously, my brother and i listened to the exchange, ears pressed against the basement door for two reasons -- as witnesses, we could be made to testify or worse, be held as accomplices. maybe this was the time our mother snapped. we never before heard the f- bomb dropped from her lips in such a short time span. except for the time someone stole our downspout to sell for drugs but that's another story.
about the only thing we didn't do was write checks for the repairs. trust me, if either of us made enough money to cover any of the costs, we probably would have done it.
this time, she's downsizing. alone. once again, she's witnessing another a neighborhood decaying around her and this time, she vows not to stay put.
which leads us to her decision to want to move. honestly, she's wanted to move for the last 2 years, but when you've lived in a house for almost a decade without doing much in way of repairs, of course you're going to have to binge on the do-it-yourself workshops.
but she's not a diy-er. she's a stomp-her-hooves-until-one-of-her-children-does-it-for-her. (shhuoohcdifh doesn't sound as snappy as diy.)
if anyone ever wanted to know where i get my bitchiness from, seriously, one look in her seemingly mild-mannered demeanor would prove instantly where the chlorine in my gene pool came from. because, with one withering glance, she can put you in your place. silently and quickly, you WILL know you fcuked up.
whether or not you actually did something.
but now that she's got the itch to move, we need to drop everything and help her. before i cast me and my brother into the worst light, we would help her in a heartbeat if some of her requests weren't so incessant.
and like the friggin' energizer bunny, if you don't pick up the phone, she just keeps calling and calling and calling... seriously, if this were any person BUT mother, i would:
1) obtain a restraining order, and 2) confront the person and possibly invoke a fight to test the limits of said restraining order.
and now it's too late. the realtor posted the sign on her lawn on sunday.
by sunday night, my brother and i were over her house cleaning out the last of the basement flotsam.
local inspectors, you're on your own this time. may goddess have mercy on your soul.
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