Unnecessary in The Devil Beneath My Feet

Man, I haven’t written in here in years and now I’ve got an entry every day and none of them are pleasant. I sure am a barrel of fun.

Today sucked, plain and simple. Started out great, my new little membership card/certificate from
The Satanic Temple came in the mail along with the new hoodie I ordered from them. Riding that little high I took a shower, went to town. Bought some miscellaneous nonsense including a little sign for my desk at work that says “creep it real” with a little ghost on it.

My cousin Teddy was in town for the Garlic Festival, and had mentioned he planned on swinging by my aunt’s house afterwards. I owed her some money anyway so I figured id go by and give her that, and then hang around and wait for Ted. Ted’s a cool dude so I was looking forward to seeing him, im seeing him again on the 18th for an Iron Maiden concert.

However thats when shit took a nosedive because as I pulled around the corner to my aunt’s house I saw a white Acura in the driveway. To be honest, I physically slumped in the driver’s seat. Too late now, they’d definitely notice my car driving by. What I get for driving an easily identifiable car. Sigh.

I never got a phone call saying, “hey, The Queen is here, come on over!” Or “hey can you stop by? Her Majesty is here!” “Your rich golden child of a cousin is here come play nice!” So i don’t really know what other way to take that, than the obvious one.

But fuck her, these are my fucking people, broken and annoying as they are. She only stops by once or twice a year to fuckin keep up appearances despite the fact she only lives an hour away, like she actually gives half a rat’s ass about anyone there. Everyone falls at her Prada clad feet because shes without question the most successful member of the family, and when I was a kid I fucking idolized her. Desperately leapt at any opportunity to be around her, begging the universe for the big sister I so desperately wanted. Till she made her own POV clear anyway, and I licked my wounds and said never again. Again. At 14.

So I walked in, to the clamor of people eating and my dad yelling my name, followed by my sister and aunts yelling my name, and her exclaiming “oh we were just talking about you!”

And conveniently left it at that.

Hmmmmyes I’m sure you were fawning over my ocean of accomplishments and glittering personality, yes.

So I smiled politely. Because theres no other option. And then the conversation picked up again. I listened to her talk about her son’s recent ex girlfriend like she was a pile of shit for literally no fuckin reason. Her son is a senior in college, as is his now ex girlfriend. Apparently the girlfriend got a dog, and as such didnt really have the time or want to go out partying with friends damn near every night - instead opting to go home to her dog and take care of him. What’s so bad about that?

Well I wish I could tell you, because she sounds like a normal fucking person to me, but the way she was described was with a sneer, like what the hell kind of college senior doesn’t want to go out and be social every minute of their lives? Which, I mean fair enough - if thats what you want then thats fine, theres nothing wrong with that. But thats all she had to say, was that they broke up because they were on different pages. They just didn’t mesh, no big deal. No one present for this conversation had ever met this girl, never knew her, there was absolutely no reason to go any further than that.

But instead of that, this grown woman chose to dog walk a college kid, talking about what a stupid decision it was for this girl to get a dog (while also unintentionally admitting this dog is well taken care of), made fun of the way she dressed (no makeup and described her clothes as “like an old lady”) and generally just talked shit about her for no fuckin reason.

Oh did I mention that I also have a dog that I love more than anything on this fucking mud ball? Did I mention that I often dress comfortably? Did I mention that I’m not much of a social butterfly?

Hmmmmm.

She does this a lot, talks shit about people and very specifically points out things about them with a sneer and an eye roll that she knows goddamn well I do myself. I’ve never called her out on her obvious bullshit so I’m sure she thinks im too stupid to notice. Or at the very least she thinks that I think shes too stupid to have connected the dots. Shes not. She knows what shes doing.

The first time I really noticed what she was doing was about my decision to remain child free. Of course she didn’t outright try to chastise me for it, where’s the class in that? No instead she chose to bring up a friend of her daughter’s, 18 and getting her first tattoo.

“I mean shes 18 shes gonna hate it in a year!”

I got my first tattoos on my 18th birthday, I still love them. I remember feeling my mind crinkle when she said that, but let it go. What else was I supposed to do?

“Shes getting it right under her bellybutton! Pah, if she doesn’t regret it in a year she’ll regret it once she starts having kids! Except oh thats right shes ‘never having kids’ pfft” rolling her eyes and scoffing like that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard in her fucking life.

Wasn’t exactly a secret, I had long since made known my decision to remain child free. Thats when it hit me she knew exactly what she was saying, and who she was saying it to. Shes wickedly intelligent, she can read a room, and she had, and this was some weird little intentional mind game.

Back to today, she mentioned something - again about the ex girlfriend - that this girl was talking about marriage or something and that her son wasn’t interested in anything like that yet, “he’s only 21!”

Before I could stop myself I replied, “Well, I’m 33, been in a relationship for 20 years, I’m still not into it.”

That got me a slow little condescending smile and a chuckle.

Eventually the cosmos took pity on me and Teddy showed up, we quickly got lost in a conversation about what we’d watched recently, the upcoming concert, music, video games, the plethora of things we have in common. After a while, they left, as did I.

Realized pulling into my driveway I had completely forgotten to give my aunt the money I owed her. Ill give it to her tomorrow.