Monday, Nov. 08, 2004 8:52 a.m.

And of course, our email is down here at work. What else would happen on a Monday? At least I didn�t have anything pressing due today.

My mom, yet again, is driving me crazy. Last week, there was this whole kitchen table debacle. In my new apartment, I don�t have a kitchen table because I gave my last one to my evil stepsister. So, at first, she spent all this time talking about how I need to get a table. I, personally, don�t desperately need a kitchen table. Most of the time, B and I eat at the coffee table anyway. Plus, I have a breakfast bar, so I can just get a couple of high rise chairs and eat there. I never really used the kitchen table as anything other than mail and paperwork storage.

For awhile, she dropped it. Then last week, I was looking through the IKEA catalogue, and remarked that I saw a cheap table in there that I really liked. She must have taken that as a license to start bugging me again. Despite the fact that the IKEA table�s shipping made it completely not worth it, she kept asking me, every day, when I was going to go look. I told her, repeatedly, that I didn�t know and I didn�t really care. I don�t like spending my free time at furniture stores. It reminded me, quite a bit, of what happened last year. She bugged and bugged and bugged me to go. Then when we got to the store, she asked me to look around. When I told her that I had no intention of buying anything, just as I had told her before we had even left, she started yelling at me about how I would waste her time.

Waste her time? I never even wanted to go. She�s the one who made me.

Anyway, that was last year. Last Thursday, she called me at work to tell me that she had found a glass top table [I don�t want another glass top table] in the Macomb Daily and that she and I should go look at it right away. It�s $250.

�I don�t have that kind of money,� I immediately said. In actuality, I do have that kind of money, but I can�t justify spending that much on a table that I�ll probably only have for a year. I DON�T CARE IF IT MATCHES MY APARTMENT! I�LL LOOK AT A TABLE WHEN I WANT TO BUY A TABLE!

�I�ll loan it to you and you can pay me back.�

Very very bad idea.

�No, I don�t want to do that. I�ll buy a table when I want to buy a table. I don�t want to right now and I don�t have time to look at it.�

�Fine,� she said in her usual snotty tone which means that she�s going to hold it over my head, �I won�t help you at all then.�

That usually means more than what you expect. It means that not only will she no longer help me look for a table [thank god], but it means that she will probably no longer help me with the Christmas present that I contracted my stepfather to make for B. Whenever I disagree with her, it means that she�s going to be a snot and not help me with anything, because she has to be spiteful. If you hurt her, she has to make sure and go out of her way to really stick it to you.

After she had hung up on me [there�s a shocker], I thought about it for a few minutes and realized that there was no harm in humoring her for a little while. I called back and said, �Look, I�m not kidding, I�m busy for the next four days, and according to you, that�s too long to wait. So what do you expect me to do?�

�I don�t know. You tell me.�

Aha, okay, so we�re back to that. Talking nonsense certainly helps the situation. After telling her, about six times, not to yell at me, and her responding in turn that she has to yell at me because I�m not �listening� to her [yes, the logical response to someone disagreeing with you is to scream at them and call them names in her world]. She hung up on me yet again.

This is what I deal with whenever I talk to my mother. The sheer fact that it happened about five days ago and just writing it out makes me mad should say something.

As for today�.

Today, she emailed me to tell me about yet another version of the gift that I proposed that she found. See, it�s not good enough to do what I ask [and she�s the only one who can talk to my stepfather, apparently], she has to alter it to the way that she would do it. She saw a different take on it in someone�s office and spent days talking to me about it and how I would do it. It�s not smart to tell her that you�re not interested. That�ll only make her scream and refuse to help you. So I have to listen and listen and listen to her alter something that I want to remain exactly the same.

Then she calls me today to tell me that she already looked into the first option and that it�s too expensive. So she looked around and found another version that I could make if I do this and this and this�.

I told her, again, that I wasn�t interested. I only want what I originally proposed.

�No, John can�t do that.�

Why the HELL not?

Apparently, she never asked him about it because she was too busy altering what I originally wanted. Now, with the fact that he�s going hunting and to Texas, he �won�t have time� despite the fact that she hasn�t even asked [because she knows how he thinks].

So thanks a lot Mom. I asked you one thing. I asked if you could ask John if he could make something very specific and because you decided to screw around and ignore what I originally said, now I can�t have it and I�m STUCK with the options that you suggested. Thank you so much for ruining what I had planned because you�re such a control freak that you can�t let me have what I want. Thank you. Thank you.

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