Hasta La Vista, Buddy!

Are we all comfortable now? Good!


Lately, I’ve been holding my breath because someone important to me has been feeling less than comfortable. I’ve mentioned before that I am separated from the one I love and also that Buddy has been living with us. It was an arrangement my husband and I made with him prior to Husband’s trek across the planet.

My husband has made it clear that he is no longer comfortable with Buddy’s presence. What took him this long, I’m not sure. Husband also brought to my attention that the thought of me drinking with Buddy wasn’t something he felt keen about either. So, I haven’t had a drink in over a month.

Back story…

My husband got Buddy a job working for his company and offered for him to rent our front room. Shortly after, my husband got a better contract working out of Afghanistan leaving Buddy in the company of the kids and myself. Understand, coming from an uber jealous person, I would have NEVER allowed this to happen…EVER! My husband on the other hand has never had the need to be jealous. Lucky him, right?

I informed my dear that never again will I agree to allow anyone to move in with us. He feels that Buddy has outstayed his welcome. I reminded him of the original agreement…it would take roughly 6 to 7 months for Buddy to get his shit together. Later, he told Buddy he had until the end of January to move out. When Buddy asked me to ask Husband about storing his bike in our garage, I did and Husband lost his mind.

Thankfully, Buddy is officially moved out and my conversations with the husband no longer need to consist of me playing the mediator of this craziness. Oh, happy day! I’m getting sippy tonight and I probably should have written this before I started downing the Bacardi.

These Are The People In My Neighborhood

These are the people in my neighborhood. These are the people that I meet when I’m walking down the street…they’re people that I meet each day!  Lucky me!

Ever since we left Texas my husband and I swore that we would avoid our neighbors other then the typical wave and head nod from time to time. Trust me things are simpler that way. We both recognize that I possess some sort of CRAZY magnet where every loony within a 10 to 20 mile radius gravitates towards me only to spew their psycho drama into my lap. I'm serious!  They follow me like a horde of zombies.  Our roomy, Buddy, does not quite understand the detrimental ramifications that a mere short conversation can have on ones future.

A good place to start would probably be the beginning, right?

When we moved to Oklahoma back in March, my next door neighbor introduced herself to me. For the sake of anonymity, we will call this neighbor “Holly”. Holly told me that she had a few dogs and a few roommates. It wasn’t hard to tell that many adults lived in the house. It always seemed like a used car lot out there.

The longer we lived in our house, the more other neighbors around us would slowly divulge bits and pieces of information to us about our immediate neighbors. We were told that Holly at one time lived in the house with her husband and two children. After the divorce, the husband moved back to where ever it is he was from and the children went with him. Now I know it isn’t unheard of but it is always unusual to me when a father gets full custody of the children. Most judges, unless there is a specific reason, usually award custody to the mother. I don’t believe it to be necessarily fair. I’m just stating my take on things.

Months pass. My husband and I would discuss the comings and goings that took place from the home. One time in particular, a lady pulled up and went inside. I heard a little voice say, “Hi.” When I glanced over to the direction of the greeting, I saw a little girl no older than four in the front passenger seat with the window rolled down just steady waving to me. A few minutes later, mom came back out, hopped in the car and drove off. This seemed to be a common occurrence over there. Seemed like a “drive-thru” to me.

Within the past few weeks, I noticed that I hadn’t heard the dogs in awhile and then it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen anyone around the house either. One night while Buddy and I were having a cigarette in the backyard we heard people talking on the other side of the fence. Buddy, being the sort of friendly goob that he is, went to the fence `a la Wilson from the show Home Improvement and struck up a conversation with a fellow we will call “Chance”. Apparently, Chance is the maintenance man for the house. He told Buddy that Holly and friends basically just packed up their shit and left. They seriously must have done it in the middle of the night. It’s not like I ever saw a moving van.

After Wilson, err-- I mean Buddy, ended his fence chat we go back inside and he proceeds to tell me about Chance’s rotting teeth which only added to my suspicion of the house next door being a sort of drug haven.

A few days later, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! There’s a man at the door thrusting a badge in my face asking questions about some guy named “Holt” that apparently lived next door. I had never met this Holt person and I wasn’t about to offer up my speculation to a special agent for the simple fact that it was just that…ONLY speculation. That evening I told Buddy about my visitor and he jumped on the first chance he got to have another fence convo with Mr. Rotten Teeth.

Another few days later and I saw a moving van in front of the house with new faces and Chance. Once again, Buddy chitty-chatted with the new neighbors, a man named “Ray” and a woman named “Tina”. Later he reveals to me that they too have a serious tooth decay problem.

Today I met Tina for myself and a friend of hers. I must say the tooth issue both ladies seemed to suffer from was entirely noticeable from a distance. It’s both sad and horrible all at the same time. It was very distracting in that it’s hard not to take glances at thier rotting teeth as they speak.

Who the hell would want to put this shit in their bodies?!?!

Honestly, after first meeting Chance I wanted to believe maybe he just had dental issues but what is the likeliness of that many people at the same residence needing to see a dentist that bad?? I understand that other issues cause tooth decay but I cannot shake the thought of meth and/or crack users from my mind or the fact that I believe they are residing next to me. It scares me to think that all the coming and going could be the result of drug deals and what’s worse is the fear that if they are “cooking” next door it makes things even worse and extremely dangerous and deadly.



Worse still is the new family has a little girl. She must be about three and is just as cute as cute can be. I feel sad and afraid for her.

I have a bad, bad habit of jumping to conclusions. Just ask my husband. I really want to give these people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe…just maybe, they are recovering junkies and/or just bad dental hygiene habits. I hope so. I really do but trust me I will not be going out of my way to befriend them so that I can find out. Believe that!  

 

Off To a Rocky Start

Normally, I try to be on the teacher’s “side” when it comes to my children only because I believe that for the best interest of any child, teachers and parents need to be a united front. Sometimes teacher do things so foolish that makes me wonder how I even begin to support it.


My son came home on Friday and informed me that I would be getting a call from his teacher. “God damn it!” I responded, “What did you do now, boy?” Of course, he said nothing. The word “dumb ass” must be written across my forehead in some sort of ink that only children under 12 can see. “Ok.” I say, “I suppose Mrs. T is just calling to chit chat, right? She wants to know how my day went. Is that it?” Then the tale begins…

My son says during class the teacher told him she was going to call me to tell me to bring him to the doctor because he needs to be put on medication to calm down. In my head, I heard screeching tires! What the fuck?!?! Not only did she say these words to my son BUT she had the audacity to say them in front of a class full of other students. I have never in all my life had anyone say that about my kid…either of them. In ten years, my son has seen six different pediatricians, not to mention ones he saw when his regular doctor was not in. None of them have ever even hinted that my child needed medication to “calm him down”. Not to mention when he was younger, we went a few times to see a therapist during one of my husband’s deployments. I’m sure the therapist would have picked up on a problem.

Don’t get me wrong. My child is perfectly capable of being annoying and obnoxious but you tell me what kid isn’t. He’s a ten year old boy for crying out loud. If his teacher wants a zombie, she’s going to have to come up with a plausible argument for me to even consider making him a doctor’s appointment.

On the other side of the spectrum, part of me wonders if Mrs. T even said what he claims. She never called me which could mean he’s full of shit. Of course, if my teacher had already called my mom on two separate occasions the last thing I would want to do is make up a lie that she was going to call once again.

The boy does lie and he is so bad at it. For instance, yesterday he took a ride with Buddy to the store. While in the car Buddy told him to call me ask if I needed anything from Wal-Mart. I told him no. However, when he hung up with me he told Buddy I wanted watermelon. I don’t even like watermelon. Buddy ended up calling me because my son couldn’t wipe the goofy ass look off of his face. See? The boy lies and he sucks at it.

In a way I’m glad that he told me about what his teacher said on a Friday evening. At least I had the weekend to cool off. I was ready to smack a bitch on Friday. Now I am more capable of calling school tomorrow morning to talk to Mrs. T in a cool and collected manner. I have to call her. I have to know if this happened or not. Either way someone is going to get chewed out no matter if it’s the teacher or my son.

I look at this way. If Mrs. T said that for whatever reason she should not be teaching. You just don’t say things like that to kids. There is protocol to follow when it comes to carrying out discipline and she should be following that. Basically telling my child that there is something wrong with him in front of his peers is NOT the correct way to handle it under any circumstances. I will report her to the principal and the school board if I find out that she did say those things to him.

If on the other hand my son is lying about this, he will be loosing his Xbox and computer privileges for an undetermined amount of time and he will be grounded for an entire week maybe two.

Today he’s sick. He’s been running fever on and off all day and he threw up this morning. I knew he was sick as soon as I laid eyes on him. How convenient for him if he’s sick tomorrow. Regardless, I’m calling school.

In lighter news…

You ever notice that kids can be easily occupied with boxes. It makes me wonder how the toy industry makes so much damn money. My daughter and her friend played for hours with two empty 12-pack beer boxes on their heads yesterday. Too bad I didn’t have wrapping paper tubes to with it! They could have jousted. My daughter stashed the boxes in her closet and today when her friend came back they played with them again.

Kids…you can’t live with and you can’t send them to outer space.  Oh, and you can't skip parent teacher conferences either.

Coming to a Convenience Store Near You

Right before my husband got his new job, he managed to get an army buddy of his a job working with him.  We told this friend (we'll call him Buddy) he was welcome to stay in the front room of our home.  It's a closed in formal living room that we had yet to put any furniture into.  When my husband and I discussed it, I told my him that I had no problem with Buddy coming to stay with us for a few months until he could save up some cash to get his own place.  After all, when we lived in Fort Hood Buddy basically lived at our house on the weekends anyway. 

Shortly before Buddy moved here (ironically from Alabama), my husband was offered a job with a different company that would send him to Alabama for training followed by two years in Afghanistan separated by two weeks of R&R every six months or so.  We didn't want to be assholes so we told Buddy he could still stay with me and the kids as long as he was okay with that.  So now we have this surrogate male role model at our house.  Sometimes it feel like he actually should have been a character in the movie Role Models.

Recently we went to Cracker Barrel.  While waiting for our food, Buddy started looking through one of the kid menus.  He came across an activity that involved designing your own candy, naming it, and picking out a flavor for it.  He came up with Baby Babes.  I suggested Maybe Babies. Buddy said Maybe Babies should be flavor of dead babies (salted).  Sounds delicious right?  Then he drew a picture of an embryo.  I suggested they'd be gummy-like.  Later Buddy came up with a catchy jingle.  I mean, seriously, every great product needs a catchy jingle, right?

"Maybe Babies!
It tastes like a fetus.
You just can't beat us.
Maybe Babies!
C'mon and eat us."

LMAO!  I think Buddy and I found the kids menu more entertaining than the children did.  Something tells me the people at the tables around us didn't find our fetus humor very, well, humorous.  Oh well, screw them.