OFV #3

OFV: Get me outta here!
OFV #1: When you gotta go...
OFV #2: Delusion

I don't like to see anyone needlessly suffer. I'm a helper and a giver. I'm a doer and a problem-solver, though I do know when to propose a Plan of Action...and when to listen, when to offer no more than a shoulder and tissues, and when to keep my mouth shut.

I struggle with the mouth-shutting part, but the very good Lord practically pries open my jaws and applies a generous amount of superglue whenever I am around my immediate family. And when I do speak, the tone miraculously comes out perpetually light, even, and calm.

The day after Chistmas, my father arranged to have my brother's tire and car looked at by a mechanic friend. All we had to do was remove the flat tire, put on a temporary donut, and get it to the mechanic's - a 15 minute drive - within 4 hours before he closed shop for the weekend.

Returning from a morning walk with Jack, I found my father running around the house in a mad panic, looking for a missing car jack. "Why not just call AAA?" I cheerfully asked as I filled a water bowl. He gave me such a pained, miserable Look that clearly said, "making a 2 minute phone call is infinitely more stressful than doing this myself." The Look was 0% "I'm a man; AAA is for pansies" and 100% "making life more difficult keeps my heart beating." I let it go. My mother suggested that my brother should help look, as it was his car. A string of expletives followed and my mother returned to her breakfast. I waited until my brother went outside to smoke, did an unsuccessful search of the basement, and asked my mother where else I should look.

Again, I'm a helpful sort of person. And, in any case, I'm pretty sure that helping someone look for a lost item is sorta kinda what family members ought to do.

She gave me an identical pained, miserable look and launched into a 5 minute lecure on how none of this was going to work, the mechanic was closing in 4 hours, and there was no decent solution in sight.

I waited until she was done, giggled and said, "Mom, I understand, but all I want to know is where I should look." Another 5 minute lecture that failed to produce an answer. I again made the wholly unreasonable suggestion of AAA and was promptly told to shut my mouth as I was stressing everyone even more.

Eventually, the jack was found and my father ordered everyone but my mother outside to help. Now, the car is a small Civic...but it was pointed nose-down on a steep driveway. We three childdren tried several times to lift up the front a few inches so my father could put up the jack, and the car barely moved. I said, "hey, Dad, if we can't lift it we can always call AAA." No response save for the kind of patronizing look you give a toddler who gifts you his favorite toy car when your real one gets totalled. My mother came out to help lift too, and though I kept myself calm and composed on the outside, I just about burst out laughing inside. Yeah, the strength of an 80lb woman is clearly going to make a difference.

Finally, finally, finally, and with a pained, miserable look my father decided that maybe AAA isn't so entirely unreasonable after all. A tow truck arrived within 20 minutes. I ventured that as we didn't know that there wasn't damage to, say, the car's steering or suspension, perhaps we ought to have to car towed to the mechanic. I was thinking along the lines of safety, but my mother's snappish response made it crystal clear she thought I was thinking more along the lines of fouling up...something. I let it go.

Once the donut was on, my father went outside to start his car. The plan was to have my father and brother drive to the mechanic in separate cars just in case my brother's car had to stay at the mechanic's until the next week. My brother informed my mother that he simply had to get back to Boston and would get a new tire put on at another time. Now, the general rule with donuts is that they should not be driven more than 50 miles or over 50 mph or with anything heavy in the vehicle. They are designed to be get you to a mechanic, and that's it. Yes, we all know someone who drove for months on a donut, but that is really more of a very fortunate exception than the rule. My brother's plan was to drive about 200 miles on the highway with several hundred pounds of music equipment in the backseat and trunk. In the snow. I calmly noted that I wasn't entirely sure that was a safe idea. He blew up, my mother started screeching, and all but screeched to me, "see what you did now?"

In my head I retorted, "As much as I want his miserable, ungrateful self out of the house, I'd rather he not die." What came out was a calm, even "Ok."

Jack had been following all this insanity as one would a tennis match, by the way. I sighed and grabbed him for a quick bathroom break where I explained to him that I knew his ears hurt because mine did, too.

My brother and father had been gone no more than 2 minutes when my mother got a frantic phone call. Less than 1/2 mile from the driveway, my brother's car suddenly lurched to the side of the road. He was in a ditch and unable to get the car out. My father was ahead of him and hadn't noticed. My mother was panicking OMG OMG OMG and looked ready to faint or vomit, so I grabbed the phone from her. This conversation follows:

Me: Are you hurt?
Brother: None of your fucking business.
Me: How badly is the car damaged?
Brother: FUCK. YOU.
Me: Can you give me an idea of what position the car is in? Face down?
Brother: NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
Me: Let's try again. How deep is the ditch?
Brother: FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU.
Me: Where exactly are you?
Brother: FU-
Me: Click.

My mother asked me all the same questions I had asked him. I told her I had hung up on him but that he had to be somewhere on the long private road connecting the neighborhood to the town street. I rounded up some kitty litter, two shovels, and put them in her car. I also told her that if his car suddenly lurched and pulled that there was something wrong with the car beyond the tire, and that I was getting AAA back on the phone. At no point did I ever think of saying "I told y'all so!" but, looking back, it would have been justified. She told me to just stay in the house as I was already causing more problems.

Fortunately, I figured out looooong ago that none of this should be taken personally. I find it all amusing. If I thought about it too much, I would find it capital-S Sad - the kind of Sad that hurts your heart more than a breakfast of butter washed down with bacon grease - which is why I avoid that kind of thinking. I curled up with Jack, giggled, called a friend who has actually witnessed my family in action several times, giggled, and eyed the liqour cabinet.

After a while, my father returned. My brother and mother were parked and waiting for AAA. At this point he mentioned that he doubted the tire blow-out story and said that whatever he hit must have done some damage to the steering and suspension as the"ditch" was a half-inch difference between the paved road and the dirt shoulder. Eventually, AAA came back and towed the car to the mechanic, who said there was some significant non-tire damage and he would give it a better look the following week. By now, it was late afternoon and my parents were exhausted.

I would be, too.

Sometimes, stress can't be avoided. Heck, life is stressful. My theory is that if life is already so serious and so stressful, why not try to make decisions that are reasonably calculated to minimize stress?

Allow me to illustrate.

This is me. Or, rather, these are the kind of decisions I strive to make:

And this is what my parents do. I try to go A-B, they go A'-B:

Again, I hate to see needless suffering. But I've come to the sad conclusion that some people thrive on chaos and stress and misery. They claim to hate it, but, subconsciously, it is all they know. And letting go of all you know - even if it is slowly killing you - is scary. Terrifying.

I proffer orange mocha frappucino. They see this:

It's insane. It's sad. But, at the end of day, as much as I want to solve problems, force-feed them Ativan, or shriek, "you people are crazy and you make everything ten times harder than it should be!" I've learned that people rarely change. It is usually not the case that they don't know how to change or that they don't know that change will benefit them, but rather that, deep down, they fear it.

Fear sucks.