Taking the Good wth the Bad

So after spending a pleasant Tuesday working at home, writing the scripts necessary to pull my documentation into an HTMLhelp-style format, I thought it would be good to knock off at 10:30p.m. (for a change) and go to bed. So I’m halfway undressed… and here comes The Boy.

“Hey, can I take a car down to exit 8? A friend of [his friend]’s says he’ll pay us $200 each to hold a place in line so he can get a PlayStation3 on Thursday night.”

They actually go on sale Friday at midnight (I thought they went on sale last week, and they did — in Japan), but whatever. We weren’t having it, since he promised us up & down that last time he borrowed The Barge, he’d have it back in time for Mrs. Fetched to go to the chicken houses the next morning — and he showed up late in the afternoon with some cock-and-bull story about how the keys went missing in the couch. So when we told him no, he told his friend (on the phone) that we were being dickheads. Mrs. Fetched let that sink in for a moment (I didn’t hear it, I don’t much pay attention to anything he says anymore), then stormed in (he was in what used to be M.A.E.’s room, using the old G3 in there and playing his music ’way too loud), smacked him, grabbed the phone, and hung it up.

The Boy, being much like his mother, responded in kind. He flew into a tantrum, screaming about how he NEEDS this money for his probation (but work he was offered earlier in the week was beneath him, duhhh), we don’t ever stop to think about the good things he does (how can we see them if he’s never home? duhhh), on and on and on. He cranked up the music on the G3, then slammed the keyboard shelf (knocking the keyboard to the floor) when I told him to either turn the sound down or I’d cut off the breaker. Then he stormed down the hall screaming about how he was going to show us tantrum and break everything, until Mrs. Fetched told him that she’d call the cops and have him hauled off to jail.

This went on, deteriorating into a discussion punctuated by occasional shouting matches, until midnight. I was reminded in another way how he and Mrs. Fetched are much alike: neither one of them has any regard for anything I try to say. Either one of them would interrupt me when I was trying to explain something, until I was ready to start screaming myself. If it hadn’t been pouring down rain at this point, I may well have simply gone to the outbuilding to sleep.

The upshot: Mrs. Fetched was curious about whether this was real, or some cockamamie cover story that The Boy and his friend made up to use as an excuse to disappear for a couple of days. While The Boy only lies when his lips move (he’s kind of like GW without the family money thing in some ways, especially the lying and sense of entitlement), I felt like this one was actually plausible. She agreed to take him and his friend down to the mall herself, and meet up with the person actually paying the tab for this job. (Not a bad racket, really: $600 for the PS3, $800 for four bodies to hold the place in line, he can probably get $2400 for it on eBay and make $1000 profit.) The Boy had his horrified look, exceeded only when I suggested earlier that he might have to do things our way to get his life in order, but talked to his friend and agreed. He really didn’t want her around when they met up with the “employer,” but she insisted and he dealt with it.

So things were finally winding down, I got my clothes off and got in bed, and he comes in again. “I need you to take me to the store.” At midnight? After your episode? So you can get cigarettes? The gall is incredible sometimes. I said no, he sighed and left.

So I dragged myself out of bed at 7 to take Daughter Dearest to school and myself to work. She was upstairs, trying to sleep when the balloon went up, but couldn’t hear what it was about. I explained, and the youngest was the wisest: “I don’t see what the big deal is. You know they’re going to recall them over some bug.” (She may be right: bugs delayed the original ship date, and there are rumors that Sony is cutting back on shipments. How better to reduce your recall exposure than to not ship so many?)

Since the indie coffee shop is on the way to work, I stopped by. I hadn’t had time to make coffee this morning, and I needed something stronger anyway. So in I went, to find that they were giving free espresso shots! Hooray, I’m saved! The funny part was, a non-coffee person in front of me didn’t realize was espresso is, and downed a shot. I bet she was vviibbrraattiinngg all day long… me, I got a cappuccino to go (plus the free shot) and got through the day OK.

At least I was inside, with the rain pouring down outside, until I played Submarine Pilot and drove home. The Boy’s place-holding team seemed to have gotten a spot inside the 24-hour Wal-Mart, so maybe they won’t drown. Getting arrested for loitering, however, is another possibility.

These days, I like it better when The Boy doesn’t come home.