Moscow Rule 1 - Assume Nothing

As in, assume nothing is too low a blow.

Mom apparently saw fit to drag our brother into her brier patch to support her agenda, knowing that he is on thin ice on the best of days and any further disturbance to his tenuous position on the tightrope above the boiling pit of familial swill would only weaken his chances of survival.

C'est la vie. C'est la guerre. Estelle has a war to win.

Mom spun her yarn about some gross injustice I am rumored to have visited upon my brother nearly 4 years ago.

Mom apparently observes no statutes of limitation on anything.

The story, in a moldy little nutshell, is this:

In 2007 when my louse husband Lars had finally seen fit to take his hideous little horror show on the road and leave our so-called Marital Residence, he took almost everything.

Every stick of furniture I did not expressly bargain for in court.
Every CD and DVD.
Every piece of audio visual or sound equipment.
Every camera or recording device.
Every computer or peripheral appliance.
Every photo and family film.
Any item that was a gift from his friends or family, even if it were to me.
Every roll of toilet paper.
Every drop of laundry detergent.
Every bar of soap, bottle of shampoo, tube of toothpaste.
Glasswear, linens, food, sporting equipment.
All in the name of making me pay for dumping him so unceremoniously.

Oddly, he felt compelled either by fear of the wrath of the dead or that of my family to leave the snow blower my father had given us as a house warming when we bought the corner property with the 300 feet of sidewalk.

Evidently, he felt no compunction about taking the lawnmower, even though he would be living in a rented house where the landlord did the mowing.

Like I said. Louse.

I managed to do a little homework and buy myself a reasonably priced, decent lawnmower with enough gadgetry to get the job done. My sidewalk is huge, but the portion of the property requiring mowing is pretty reasonable. Much of the property is lushly planted and treed and it is a quick and easy job to mow it all.

An easy job, provided that you are not afraid of your lawnmower.

And to be truthful, I was afraid of my lawnmower. And my snow blower and my gas grill and my sump pump for that matter. These were not my areas of concentration as a married person. Wallpaper? That's me! Light fixtures? Let me at 'em! Decorative do-hickeys for cabinets and drawers? Right in my sweet spot! Large gas powered appliances whose purpose is to cut, char or remove by force? No thank you!

So, life gave me lemons. I got a little Jack Daniels and made some lemonade. And served it up to myself and others. A real treat.

Joe at the time was unemployed. And you can imagine how well that was going over with his shrew wife and her diabolical lack of patience and good will toward others. And while the kid up the street, whose mother made him do it, told me he'd mow my lawn for $25 any time I needed it done, I called Joe, or rather, Joe's answering machine, and told him/it if he'd like something to do, he could cut my lawn, with my mower and my gas and I'd pay him $40 to do it.

And seconds later, when he listened to the whole message he'd screened for reasons that still escape me, and called me back, he said he would do it.

Part of me felt pretty good. I was getting something and giving something too.

And part of me was filled with a sense of doom. No good deed goes unpunished in our family. I desperately wanted to call him back and tell him to forget it.