I often wish when I come across these lost kids like my ward that I either A) got to them sooner, or B) had some actual method of enforcement that wasn’t simply cruel. But I also freely admit that I am someone who will give you enough rope to hang yourself with. She did.
August was a fucked up month. Lots of things going on, not a lot of time to do them in, counting pennies along the way. My friend Kay was getting married in Tahoe at the start of the month, and as anyone who has been involved in a real wedding knows, things start to quickly unravel and go batshit crazy the week before hand. Getting Kay, who is a very girlie girl, to Tahoe was a trial, nevermind being forced into social interactions with strangers while trying to mitigate her crazy.
It’s in the throes of this that my ward pings me on my phone. Once again she wants to come home. She gives me the song and dance about how she’s too sick to go any where, do anything, implying that she’s waiting on me to send a car or something to fetch her from her drug stooper. I tell her to go to the ER, I’m out of town and we’ll talk when I get back on Monday.
I continue to manage the shit show and insanity that is this wedding, but Kay was very thankful and had a great day, and I didn’t kill anyone. After much herding of the bride after the reception was done, finally I was able to pass out around 2a. This foiled my plans for escape the next day. I woke up at noon, and then had to throw all my stuff into the rental car in under 30min and start the trek back home. 6.5 hours later I am so done with people and driving that I just shut myself up in my house.
Monday my ward calls me at 9a. She knows I get up at 915a. I get to work, she’s texted twice since I left the house, and then 3 more times before I even start my paper work for the day after my morning meeting. I finally reply that I am not getting off work early, figure out some place to be until then.
So she comes over to the house after I get off work. I sit her down and tell her, flat out, if you want to stay here you have to do these things, clean the kitchen, do all the dishes, keep the house, put things away, call and make appointments, and keep them. If any ONE of those things doesn’t get done, you can’t stay here. She agrees.
3 days later my roommate tells me about how his food is disappearing, things strewn around the house, dishes starting to pile up. I nod and say I’ll speak to her on it. She was out getting laid when we had this talk, so when my ward comes home I don’t hop on it right away. I give her a little bit to settle in, and then she proceeds to get “on the phone” which is what the kids call video calling/skyping these days, and then takes over the bathroom for 2-3 hours. Yes, video chatting in the bathroom, not even getting paid.
Finally she comes out of the bathroom, so I go in. As soon as I do I see that my really expensive body wash has been used, and she has been told NOT to use it, and was in fact bought body wash for her so she *WOULDN’T use mine. I pick up the bottle and whip around to go back to the living room, finding her video chatting with about 4 people. I proceed to yell at her in a very parental fashion, in front of her “friends”, and put her on final warning.
My ward was only 3 days clean when she came home this time, so shortly after her final warning real detox kicked in. For 5 days she proceeded to lay in the living room, either “on the phone” with the internet, or asleep.
Thursday is my mate’s night, and all day on Thursday he’s talking about looking forward to hitting our bong when he comes over. He comes over, my ward is just waking up from one of her detox stoopers, so he politely greets her and then goes into my room. We hang out for a little bit before I reach for the bong and find it’s stem missing.
I march out to the living room and bark, “where’s the stem.” She proceeds to start digging in the futon for it muttering to herself. “THE BONG STEM,” I bark more irritated and aggressively at her, to which she gives me Teenage Snot™.
“Fuck,” my ward rolls her eyes at me, “I heard you the first time.”
I then blew my top. “Is it yours? Have you done the dishes? Is the room picked up? Is the house kept? You know what?” I bite at her as she’s jumping up and starting to throw a 5 year old tantrum at me about how she’s been sick, and it’s not fair, and whaa whaa, “get your shit and get out of my house. You can’t even store your shit here. Just get your shit and get the fuck out of my house.”
“Now?!?” she wails back at me. “It’s dark and 930?!?! What am I suppose to do?!”
That’s when I picked up her iPad and threw it at her, “pack your shit and get out of my house.” Then I picked up her laptop after slamming it closed, and chucked it at her, “get your shit and get out of my house!! I’m going to teach you a lesson, this is what happens when you don’t do the things that are expected of you.”
It was about this point that I figured I would retreat to my room so I didn’t physically hurt her in some way, and then dug every little thing of hers I could find out of my room and threw it at her through my bedroom door. Even after all that, it still took her an hour and a half to leave.
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