How we live.

So, I'm sure if we've talked at all in the last 8 or 9 months, you've heard me rant on about my aunt. This is a woman who lives in our home... and technically, she's my mother's sister. But this woman does not have a job. She lost her job at the end of this last October and has yet to find another one. It's not because of the horrible economy or anything... it's because she isn't looking. But this state of unemployment might be more acceptible (or easier to take) if she at least helped around the house. But she doesn't. Since October, she's cooked about three meals for the household, she hasn't done any cleaning around the house, hasn't raked any leaves in the front yard... doesn't do her own dishes. She seriously has a stack of about 11 dirty bowls and 4 or 5 plates in her room. She has glasses and cups on her dresser, and a few in the trunk of her car. And recently, when my mother and I went to get silverware to use with our dinner, we found very few. Yes, this woman has more silverware in her room than they have in the kitchen of the Olive Garden.

But she still thinks she has the right to complain and criticize. Our house is under a veil of poverty on account of her inability to get and hold a position. When given the choice of paying either the electricity and water bills or paying the cable and telephone, my mom had to go for the utilities. But my aunt still gets to complain about not being able to call her inbred friends while watching Showtime. But it isn't as bad for her... in my bedroom and the front room, the cable boxes have been disconnected, but because the cable is still technically connected to the house, she's able to plug the cablewires straight to her TV and get almost all the channels she got before... and that doesn't work in here. She thinks mostly of herself, while the rest of us (my mother and I) are left to think of Randy at Chase Visa and the miracle that is the fact that Brighthouse didn't disconnect my internet when they took the cable. So when I disappear for another extended period, don't worry (not that I fool myself into think anyone does). It just means the internet is gone too, and with it the only means I have of communicating with the few friends I have.

It's great when I can't sleep because I'm so hungry from not having eaten in a while (because groceries have become a luxury) and she's down the hall, belly full of food she ate at her rotten friends' houses, in the peaceful slumber of the unemployed. It's awesome when my mom, who works the night shift at a job she no longer enjoys, gets her pay check and has to give every cent of it away to bill collectors because she's now supporting nearly the whole household. And let me tell you... it's truly the highlight of my evening when my aunt returns home after a long, difficult day of loafing, and I get to bask in the glow of her happiness. Finally, at 50 years old, this woman has found her life's calling... she's meant to be a freeloader, and dammit, she's good at it.