Great... Now before any of you start to think the envelope contained a hand-written letter all full of sentimental what-nots, thanking me for taking care of her son and her dogs for the last two months or apologizing for threatening me with arrest--a topic I'll get to later--let me tell you a little about my sister. She's not a nice person. She's not even close. The day someone confuses her with Marcia Brady, Mother Teresa, or Little Suzy Sunshine is the day hell freezes over, unthaws, and freezes over again...twice. She's also not the type of person that I would ever associate myself with in real life. In fact, if we weren't related, our paths would probably never cross, except for maybe in lockup, where I would be handing her my business card, offering to represent her in court. Then again, maybe not. Even a lawyer has standards, especially this lawyer.
Why can't I stand her? Oh, where do I begin? Here's the quick version. She's 28 years old, but she acts like she's about 8, and that's probably giving her too much credit. She's never had a real job in her life, unless you count the few weeks she worked for her best friend one summer wiping down tanning beds. She's also not looking for one any time soon. After all, it's hard to look for work when you sleep to 3 p.m. every day. Ditto on the degree. Even night school is too early for her.
Sleeping, by the way, is pretty much all she knows how to do, except for tanning, partying, smoking, and cussing. Too bad colleges don't have degrees in those fields. If they did, Tina would be well on her way to a Ph.D. by now. But seriously, that's all she does, day in and day out. She sleeps to 3 p.m. every day, gets up, goes to the tanning bed, comes home, changes into whatever the newest fad is in skankwear--remember my post from a few months ago about the cut-off black slacks--leaves again to go drink the night away at parts unknown, has someone drop her off at my mother's house around 3 a.m., throws up all over the front porch, and then passes out on the couch. That's her life.
I thought that my mother's death would be a wake up call for her, a big, fat reminder that she needs to grow up, join the land of the living, and start taking responsibility for her life and for her son's. It wasn't. In fact, if anything, my mother's death has just given her an excuse to continue on her path to nothingness. Now if anyone asks, she can just claim that she's sleeping late and drinking all night because she's depressed. Uh-huh.
In case you think I'm exaggerating, here are a couple of pics that prove my point, pics that I stole off of her MySpace page. They were all taken AFTER my mother died, just last week in fact. Here is drunk Tina:
She's the one on the right with the four beers in front of her and her head in the pitcher, and yes, I'm pretty sure that they're her beers, not the girl's next to her. I know this because I went to bed one night with no drinks being by the pool and woke up the next morning to find seven empty bottles of beer next to it. Unless there's a drunk ghost in the house, they all belonged to her.
Here is pissed off, I'm-such-a-bad-ass Tina:
She's the one in the middle with the three chins. Yes, I know that description is mean , but after the two months I've had, I've earned the right to be that mean.
And finally here is the Tina that the rest of the family gets to see on a regular basis:
Okay, that one didn't exactly come off of MySpace, but it's still an accurate depiction of Little Sister Dearest.
Now guess where her 9-year-old son was when all of these were taken. That's right, with me, the only adult left in the family. While she was out partying every night, I was taking care of her child. I was making sure he got fed, bathed, and went to bed at a halfway reasonable hour. I was the one taking his mind off the fact that he found my mother's dead body. I was the one making sure he was okay now that the only stable influence in his life is gone. Me, not her. In other words, I was doing what my mother did for the last nine years, being the mother my sister refuses to grow up and become.
I didn't just watch him at night. I watched him all day long as well. With the exception of the one week that I spent in Atlanta last month, bringing back a truckload of my mom's things, Chandler spent nearly every waking hour with me. If he ate, it was because I took him to a restaurant to feed him or bought and cooked him groceries. If he got dressed, brushed his teeth, or bathed, it was because I told him to. If he picked up his report card or went to the library to get books to read, it was because I drove him there. Once again, me, not her.
Do I get a single thank you for that? Not even close. What I get is my sister throwing a temper tantrum because she thinks I'm responsible for half of her utility bills until the sheriff shows up and kicks her out of my mother's house.
Do I owe her money? Um, let's see. In May, I paid half of the utility bill for April's electricity, even though I didn't live there. I then had to turn around and pay all of MY utilities as well. Subsequently, I used all of my blogging money to either buy supplies to clean the house she trashed or put food in her child's and dogs' stomaches. When that money ran out, I used my half of the measly $200 we were able to get out of my mom's account before the bank froze it to, once again, feed her child and drive him around, which included driving him to the last day of school because she was too hung over to do it herself. Wait, let me rephrase that. I used my fourth of the money. The other $50 magically disappeared out of my mother's wallet one day, about the same time that my sister supposedly went to Steak-n-Shake one night in Valdosta and only bought a milkshake. Yeah, I've seen the MySpace photos of the night in question. She bought a hell of a lot more than milkshakes, and it wasn't just at Steak-n-Shake, if you catch my drift. Meanwhile, we only had $5 left to eat on for the next week. Oh, and since we got the check from the insurance company, I've probably spent close to $2000 on her child, buying him the computer that I knew my mother wanted to get him for Christmas and that I knew my sister never would (hasn't stopped her from using it on a daily basis, however); the printer, wireless router, and software to go with it; food (both groceries and restaurant food); clothes (all of his clothes were either stained, too small, long-sleeved, or ill-fitting hand-me-downs and I knew, for a fact, that my mother, the person who usually bought his clothes, never wanted him to look like a throwaway); gas; toys; toiletries; dog, rabbit, and newt food; supplies for camp; and general household items. If it wasn't for me, my sister wouldn't even have had toilet paper to wipe her butt with because I have bought every last roll in that house since April 29.
What has she bought with her half of the inheritance? Beer. A bag of dog food that caused my mom's 15-year-old Cockapoo to bloat up three sizes before I threw it away. A bag of cotton candy for Chandler, and a week at Mexico Beach. That's about it.
So do I owe her money? No. If anything, she owes me, but try telling her that, which brings me to that little topic of a threatened arrest that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Right before I drove back to Atlanta, my sister and I had a huge fight over a storage unit. After my mom died, I rented a unit to put her things in. The deal at the time was that we were supposed to half the unit, but as usual, my sister couldn't bother to get up during daylight hours to go with me to the storage place. Consequently, the only name on the contract was mine, and I was legally responsible for the entire bill.
Back in June, after another sisterly blowup, I rented a Ryder truck, emptied out my half of the unit, and had my father drive that half up here and put it in my garage. When I drove back down, I had every intention of helping my sister finish emptying my mom's house and paying for half of the storage bill, even though I no longer had anything in the unit. Well, those intentions went out the window after about the hundredth time Tina pitched a fit about the electricity bill. I got so sick and tired of hearing how much I owed her and how much electricity I used up--who cares that she did the same to Mama for years or that I only used that electricity in the course of caring for HER son--I finally said screw it. I told her that she had to either put the unit in her name or tell me where she wanted her stuff dumped, because I wasn't paying to store it. Her free ride--the one that our mother gave her for the last 28 years--was officially over. I couldn't pay my bills and hers, too, not unless I wanted to lose everything I owned in the process. I don't.
As you can imagine, that went over well. After two days of battling it out, she finally agreed to go by the storage place and put the contract in her name. The caveat? She refused to do so until I gave her the keys to the unit.
Well, if it's one thing that I know, it's how malicious my sister can be. Hence, the Godzilla pic above. I wasn't handing over those keys until she showed me proof that the unit was now hers. Otherwise, I knew what would happen. She would take the keys and refuse to transfer the contract, and I would be stuck paying the $115/month rental fee on the unit until I had a locksmith come out and cut the lock off. She would assume that it was her due right, given that I owed her on electricity.
After a few hours of Chandler going back and forth on the phone and from the driveway as our intermediary, Tina finally went and put the building in her name. Five minutes later she came by my grandmother's and had Chandler inform me that, if I didn't turn over the keys right then and there, she was calling the police. I told Chandler to tell her, fine, I would give her the keys, but first she was going to show me a signed contract. I didn't and still don't trust her as far as I can throw her. Trust me when I say that's not very far. Once Chandler was out of earshot, I also said, "Let her call the police. I'm sure they and DFACS would be real interested to know about the kind of mother she's been for the last nine years. If that's the kind of game she wants to play, let's play it."
She gave Chandler the contract. I gave Chandler the keys. We haven't spoken since. So do I think that envelope my father found is full of heartfelt goodness? Not even close. At the least, it's a letter in which my sister, in her sloppy, drunken penmanship, cusses me out and tells me that I'm dead to her. At the most, it's a temporary restraining order or a demand letter informing me of her intent to sue, should I not turn over the $200 plus dollars for the electricity bill every month. Either way, that envelope is about as far away from a Hallmark store as you can get.
I know that my mother is just SO proud right now (cue the big eye roll), but you know what? She created that monster. She was the one who enabled my sister's behavior for decades. Now Chandler and I are the ones who have to live with it. If my sister wants to go down some legal path, like to sue me over an electricity bill or to lie to a judge and tell him that I'm a danger Chandler in order to get a TRO, when I'm the only parent the kid has had for the last two months (even my wicked stepmother said he might as well be mine), then I say this. Bring it on, little sister. Bring it on. Only one of us went to law school, and it was so not you.
